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( i PAGE 6 THE CANADIAN STATESMAN, JANUARY 26, 2000 ial &OPINIONS FOR 146 YEARS, OUR FIRST CONCERN HAS BEEN OUR COMMUNITY Publisher - Tim Whittaker Editor-in-Chief - Joanne Burghardt Managing Editor - Judi Bobbitt Advertising Manager - Brian G. Purdy Advertising - Laverne Morrison, Sharon Goodman Office - Junia Hodge, Nancy Pleasance-Sturman Editorial - Brad Kelly, Jennifer Stone, Jacquie Mclnncs ie Canadian Statesman Former Publishers and Partners Rev. John M. Climic and W.R. Climic 1854-1878 M.A. James 1878-1935 • Norman S.B. James 1919-1929 G. Elena James, 1929-1947 • Dr. George W. James 1919-1957 John M. James, 1957-1999 Produced by Mctroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd. Also Publishers of CLAR1NGTON THIS WEEK P.O. Box 190, 62 King St. W„ Bowmanville, Ontario L1C 3K9 TEL: 905-623-3303 - FAX: 905-623-6161 HOURS: Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.M. Internet - statcsinn@durham.net Publications Mail Registration No. 07637 EDITORIAL Report outlines l police'blueprint' But did the $60,000 consultant's report go far enough? '*•. The only major question with the $60,000 report prepared - for the Durham Regional Police Services is that it may not have gone far enough. The private consultant-commissioned report, delivered late 0 last week recommends the police service needs "broad structural structural change," In that vein, the report, prepared by the Hay- • i Group, is titled 'Organizational Renewal.' It speaks of a lack of communication between units, a lack of focus in defining the '!■ roles and duties of parts of the service and an imbalance between between operations (actual police work), and administration, n < There appears to be too much paper work and not enough chasing chasing the bad guys going on. Or Even with such pointed criticisms directed its way, Oshawa -, Councillor Bob Boychyn, who serves as Police Services chairman, chairman, says the recommendations are "relatively minor," and indicate indicate the department merely needs "some fine-tuning." That's one way of interpreting the report, but it speaks of a denial of the problems rather than a proactive approach to solving solving them. Police Chief Kevin McAlpine, who has said little about the report, did call it a "blueprint" for the future of the department. department. The chief must become the architect of that future and should sit down with his deputies and look at the overall operation of his force. He should also take into consideration the comments from Terry Ryan, president of the Durham Regional Regional Police Association, who said the report, "certainly doesn't doesn't address the problems we want addressed." In fact, the report follows nearly a year after an audit done by the Policing Services Division of the Ministry of the Solicitor Solicitor General found many of the same problems. That audit found missing firearms which could not be accounted for, a lack of standard operating procedures and sloppy record-keeping. The audit was made after numerous complaints were received at the ministry level by local rank-and-file officers. With two major reports outlining the problems at hand, local police brass now must take action. Efforts must be made to improve improve morale, to boost communication and to clearly delineate duties and. roles. The latest report suggests a project steering committee be established to check up on police command and to ensure changes are made. Clearly, with a disgruntled rank-and-file and two. separate reports crying out for change, moves must be made now. To meet police provincial adequacy standards which come into effect effect next year, improvements are desperately needed. We welcome your opinion. Please E-Mail your comments on our opinions to nnewsffdurham.net. Submissions which include a first and last name, as well as the community of residence, will be considered for publication. Durham nuclear study welcome news Clarington could be next for cancer rate research News of a cancer study to be conducted by the Atomic Energy Control Board and the Federal Ministry of Health is welcome news for Durham residents, especially those residing residing in Clarington and Pickering. The pilot study will initially be conducted in an as-yct undetermined area around the Pickering plant. Later, nuclear nuclear facilities across Canada, including Darlington, arc expected expected to follow suit. Clarington Regional Councillor John Mutton says he . feels comfortable with the decision to choose Pickering as the initial test site. That facility is 25 years old, as opposed : to the more youthful 10-year-old Darlington site. The Pick- j ering plant has been plagued with problems Darlington has I not experienced, adds Clarington Mayor Diane Hamre. ; At the same time, it is vital Clarington residents have a ! chance to receive the same information on their immediate | community in the near future. ! Hopefully, this latest study will provide peace of mind, | or at least, solid facts. 1 LOOKING BACK WITH : THE STATESMAN l ------ i I 25 YEARS AGO ! Jan. 22,1975 j Alex Carrulhcrs, a member of provincial parliament for j Durham Riding, announced lie will not seek re-election ; when the next provincial election is called. "Take it for j granted, I will be (retiring)," lie said in a story. Mr. Car- i ruthers had served the riding for 16 years ! 50 YEARS AGO 1 Jan. 26,1950 ! At the Northumberland and Durham Counties council, | the hospital in Bowmanville received a grant of $10,000 to | be given to the new Memorial Hospital Building Fund. The grant was in addition to a $5,000 grant already given the new building fund. Deputy Reeve Jamieson based his argu- { ment on the fact that Campbcllford Hospital received an ad- I ditional grant of $5,000 for its 30-bcd hospital, thus Bow- { manville should have double the amount for double the ca- | pacity. The motion carried with little trouble. i £ 75 YEARS AGO ^January 22,1925 ►I; Norman A. Falkner, a one-legged skater, was scheduled vto give an exhibition of fancy skating at Taylor's Rink, Bowmanville. Three performances were scheduled - before ^skating, after fourth band and during intermission, Ailmis- " sion was 35 cents, children 25 cents, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Let's take real action to help smokers quit To the editor: Tie government could very easily rid the entire country of tobacco, tobacco, but the enormous amount of money it receives in taxes forbids forbids it to do so. If the health costs to taxpayers was so prohibitive when it comes to tobacco-related illnesses, then tobacco should be declared an illegal illegal substance or prescribed by a doctor instead of trying to make the public think the government would really like the people to quit! If they are so gung ho about this, why do they not offer any help to people who smoke and want to quit? Most people who do smoke are the ones who can least afford it, financially or otherwise! The Trillium drag plan, Ontario Drug Benefit Plan, none of these cover the costs of drugs or pills to help someone to quit. So my question once again is, if you really want the public to quit smoking, then help those who really want to quit. Cover the dmgs needed to help in stopping stopping this terrible habit! Do something. something. Ads do not work! Maybe the taxes are more important. Have a referendum. Ronald W. Horner Firing of newscaster was unfair To the editor: CTV newscaster Avery Haines was fired for being normal, normal, instead of politically correct. I came from Holland and have been joked about being Dutch and about my former country of origin. We fellow Canadians and colleagues from their countries of origin have a great laugh. It is good for people's health with healthy minds. Politically correct politicians like Heritage Minister Sheila Copps continue to praise and extol to the electorate the virtues of their failing and divisive divisive multicultural policies. Millions Millions of dollars are wasted every year - Liberal vote-buying? Her Canadian Heritage department department approved a grant to Montreal publisher Edimag last year. They churned out the French version of 500 of the -'Best Dumb Blond Jokes,' with busty blondes on the cover. Je me souviens! Sheila! Why this double double standard? Today people seem afraid to say or write anything, for fear of being called racist. Politically correct busy-bodies jump at every change, ostracizing those who do not meet their P.C. standards. standards. A bumper sticker with a sad face on my car reads, 'Politically 'Politically Correct means always having having to say you're sorry.' I say 'Get a life!' Herman van der Veen Former premiers pack a punch Davis, Peterson and Rae refuse to fade away No need to ask where they are now - the men who ran Ontario before Premier Mike Harris. Former premiers until recent times usually disappeared quickly quickly from public view or like old soldiers faded gradually away. Leslie Frost, a Progressive Conservative who stepped down in the early 1960s, for example, turned down offers from federal Tories including one to be ambassador ambassador to Washington, settled for chancellor of a small university university near home and wrote two books of local history he would have known could never be bestsellers. bestsellers. John Robarts, his Tory successor, successor, chaired one study on how best to restructure Metropolitan Toronto and co-chaired another on strengthening national unity, but otherwise was not much in the public eye. By contrast, recent premiers are almost constantly on the public public stage. Tory William Davis, who retired as premier as far back as 15 years ago and was a moderate, moderate, was hauled into last June's election to endorse Mr. Harris, who is much further to the right and help him win re-election, Mr. Davis was trotted out because because Liberal leader Dalton McGuinly was finding his name useful, claiming Mr. Harris was 'No Bill Davis,' implying he cared only about cutting taxes and asking those who recalled Mr. Davis fondly to vote Liberal. Mr. Davis did his best to counter by saying Mr. Harris has 'the interests of the people at heart "and the same values all of us share.' Mr. Davis also was seen first trying unsuccessfully to make former aide Hugh Segal leader of the federal Tory patty Eric Dowd At Queen's Park and later to unite it with Reform. Mr. Davis popped up as a pri- va'c citizen before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Telecommunications Commission asking it to renew the licence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Corporation and saying no organization has contributed more to building a sense of common identity and belonging, a view Mr. Harris would not share, Mr. Davis also went to a meeting meeting of academics and said teachers teachers arc competent, dedicated and eager to help students, while Mr. Harris has tended to disparage them, Frank Miller, while less in the news because he was Tory premier only a few months, made a prediction that may have hit a nail on the head when he said in a year-end interview younger workers may revolt at having to pay pension and health benefits for the elderly - the 72-year-old indicated lie has sympathy for youth, Former Liberal premier David Peterson is in the news particularly particularly because the Ontario Securities Commission charged him with failing to disclose that a firm of which he was a director was suspected suspected of having links to foreign criminals - the first charge of any sort against a former premier - and lie has responded angrily he had no such information. Mr, Peterson is being criti cized because he is chairman of Chapters Inc., the giant book retailer retailer which is making life hard for small, independent bookstores. bookstores. Mr. Peterson also showed an ex-premier's words can mean something when the Liberals wanted Andy Brandt, chair of the Liquor Control Board and former " Tory leader, fired for conflict of interest, but Mr. Peterson was discovered saying nice things about him and it helped pull the rug from under his former colleagues. colleagues. Former New Democrat premier premier Bob Rae among many activities activities has written two books. He is chief negotiator for the Canadian Canadian Red Cross in trying to set up a better system for providing blood and handling claims for past deficiencies. deficiencies. Mr. Rae also has a regular regular column in a Toronto newspaper newspaper in which lie has sliowTi the dexterity with words lie had in the legislature: lie found Mr. Harris's Harris's Common Sense Revolution 'has a problem - too much revolution, revolution, not enough common sense.' Tirce of the former premiers premiers got together not long ago for a TV discussion in which Mr. Davis joked lie was 'around before before these two gentlemen were born' and Mr. Rae suggested this must have been before Confederation Confederation and when Mr. Peterson agreed, Mr. Davis said 'that's the briefest speech you ever made,' Mr. Rae mentioned he was born in and often returned to an Ottawa hospital in the news and Mr, Davis said he assumed Mr. Rae went back for psychiatric help and Mr. Rae expressed mock alarm Mr. Davis might hit him with his chair - these ex-premiers ex-premiers have life in them yet, Not everyone is happy with board's report card F^x ^ % . . . Jennifer Stone Staff Writer \ If a child received a report card like the local public school board did 10 days ago, the child's parents would most likely likely be happy. But at least one MPP seems to think the board is misleading the public by saying it came out on top, when compared compared to the other 71 boards in the province reviewed by the Education Improvement Improvement Commission. Dr. Doug Galt, MPP for Northumberland, Northumberland, one of the areas covered by the Kawartha Pine Ridge School Board which also has jurisdiction over Clarington, Clarington, issued a media release Friday, chastising the board's chairman, Catharine Tozer, for making statements that are "misleading to the public." Ms. Tozer, trustee for Port Hope, had said the board received the best report card in the province. That, she says, is based on the fact that KPR received 12 "check marks" for exemplary practices from the EIC. According to KPR director director of education Dick Malowney, "We did check the number of check marks other boards got and we do think we got the highest." If the "check mark" system is the basis for comparison, KPR did come out on top. No, the EIC does not release a list ranking school boards. But, all boards are reviewed using the same evaluation tools. That fact makes the board-to-board comparison legitimate. Certainly, the board isn't considered perfect by the EIC, nor has it determined it will rest on its laurels, 12 check marks or not. In fact, Clarington trustee Bob Willsher, the vice-chairman of the board, said when the review was issued Jan. 14, "The one fear I have is that we not sit back and say we're great and not do anything." To that end, board staff will put together an action plan to look toward implementing the four recommended recommended actions the EIC called for the board to work on. Dr. Galt refers to the recommended actions from the EIC as "serious management concerns." And, it would seem at this point, the board is taking the concerns seriously. In fact, one of the recommendations to the board was to work with coterminous boards, such as the Peterborough, Victoria, Victoria, Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board, on shared transportation. On Jan. 20, a Peterborough Peterborough trustee put forward a notice of motion saying she would be asking staff to look further into a transportation consortium. The EIC's review of KPR was indeed good news for local education. There has been plenty of bad news in recent years -- strikes, other labour actions, puiportcd funding shortfalls. Maybe when there is finally some good news, local politicians shouldn't go quite so far out of their way to point out the negative. negative. THE CANADIAN STATESMAN is one of the Mctroland Printing, Publishing Publishing and Distributing group of newspapers. The Statesman is a member of the Bowmanville Clarington Clarington Board of Trade, the Greater Oshawa Oshawa Chamber of Commerce, Ontario Ontario Community Newspaper Assoc., Canadian Community Newspaper Assoc., Canadian Circulations Audit Board 'and the Ontario Press Council. The publisher reserves the right to classify or refuse any advertisement. Credit for advertisement limited to space price error occupies. MW The Canadian Statesman welcomes letters to the editor. All letters should he typed or neatly hand-written, 150 words. Each letter must include the name, mailing address mid daytime telephone number of the writer. The editor reserves the right to edit copy for style, length and content. We regret regret that due to the volume of letters, not all will be printed. Pax letters to 623-616lor emailed to stntesnm@diirham.net