The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

• - PAGE 6THE CANADIAN STATESMAN, SEPTEMBER 13,2000 Ü Editorial & Opinions ; » 1 Î1 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, Christian-Ann Goulet Oflice - Junia Hodge, Nancy Pleasancc-Sturman Editorial - Brad Kelly, Jennifer Stone, Jacquie Mclnnes Efie Canairian Statesman Former Publishers and Partners Rev. John M. Climic and W.R. Climie 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 CLARINGTON 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 - statesmn@durham.net Publications Mail Registration No. 07637 i j EDITORIAL | \ Who wants to be !| a $ 100-millionaire? Durham Region's health care sure could use the money So what would you like for Christmas, Durham Region hospitals? ■ How about a $ 100-million infusion for health care? Hot on the heels of Monday's health-care deal reached by ; the premiers and prime minister which jumps funding by almost almost $3 billion to $18.3 billion from $15.5 billion, comes a re- ! quest by Durham's hospitals for $100 million for the region's ; health-care needs. As with social spending, Durham's fast-growing needs j have not been properly met bÿ the Province or the feds. And ; now, after years and years of neglect, it will fall upon the Re- • gion to find the money to pay for badly needed repairs. ! Just how much money is needed: How about $409 million ; ' for bricks and mortar and equipment at six different hospital i ; sites in Durham. ! I The Province will pay about $216 million for the needed • t work, which will cover just over 50 per cent of the total. An- I j other $93 million is slated to come from the various hospital 1 ; foundations involved. But that leaves the hospitals $100 mil- ■ • lion short in their plans. While the Province funds operating hospital operating ex- . \ penses 100 per cent, it has traditionally funded capital pro- f ■ grams at 50 per cent. The remaining 50 per cent is expected to : i come from the community. It's not too much to ask Durham ; ■ Region taxpayers to pitch in over a five-year period to cotn- ]plete the hospital work. After years of no tax hikes, combined with few upgrades i ; being made to Durham hospitals, something has to give. What • : we have right now is not adequate and we're looking at a • health-care disaster down the road if we don't commit the ; ' - money necessary to get the projects going. • ■ All six local sites will benefit substantially from the $100- ! ? million provided. • r Massive expansion plans, some already in the works, at < J Lakeridge Health Oshawa include a brand new" cancer care \ '■ centre and huge emergency area. Additional improvements at ! I Lakeridge Health sites in Whitby, Bowmanville, Port Perry 1 5 and Uxbridge as well as a planned expansion at the Rouge Val- ', > ley site in Ajax could all be made possible with the signing of t a cheque. j j Region representatives will have to deal with the $100-mil- j * lion question as only politicians can. There will be bargaining, j ; horse-trading and compromise, but let's not forget the bottom ; j line: Durham's hospitals have been largely improved in the - « past on the backs of generous fund-raising initiatives. We'll all | ""have to pay a little now or pay an awful lot later. < j i > We welcome your opinion. Please E-Mail your comments on [ * our opinions to statesmn@durham.net. Submissions which i J include a first and last name, as well as the community of res- ! J idence, will be considered for publication. % W 0 is V /, W WITH : • LOOKING 75 YEARS AGO Thursday, Sept. 10 Marlyn Bros, new bowling alleys were open to a full ; house crowd on its opening night. Mayor T.S. Ilolgale rolled a ball down each alley and made a strike each time ! I before a world champion bowling team from Toronto de- ; " lealed J.B. Mitchell's team in three games. High scorers in- j : eluded Alex Elliot, J.B. Mitchell, C.A. Smith and the ! ; Williams Bros. (James, Frank and Russell). : i 50 YEARS AGO ; ' Thursday, Sept. 14 Record crowd attendance was reported at the Durham j Central Fair along with a large number of exhibits on Sat- J ; urday, Sept. 9. Thousands of people made it to Orono from i : as far away as Peterborough and New Toronto. The fair of- ! ; fered something for everyone including races at the track ' and a merry-go-round, orangeade, ice cream and try-your- ! : luck gallics. In the fair building there were fruits, flowers, ! 1 plants and home-cookin' while livestock events included 1 ; horses, swine, cattle and sheep competitions. Meanwhile, at ! ; the CNE, Danny Kaye took a ride on a Lincoln convertible | ; /bearing the licence plate "K". ! 25 YEARS AGO ; Wednesday, Sept. 1(1 1 ; A group of Lawrence Crescent, Bowmanville children ! "'"held a carnival including games, fortune telling and draws J-îjllfp raise $66 for Muscular Dystrophy, Many of the prizes UA'were donated by local merchants, Vf," * Bl IE6UT INTO TUE GDMM RÜûMENON,.. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Reduce use of road salt To the editor: Aii article in the Aug. 23, 2000 issue of The Canadian Statesman got my attention. I, too, would like to strongly encourage encourage less use of road salt. As the article pointed out, environmental environmental concerns are real and need to be seriously taken into consideration. From my humble perspective, perspective, I have also observed the significant increases in car rust, corrosion and deterioration of all aspects of motor vehicles. In my case, one of my vehicles had more rust on it after one Ontario winter than the previous previous 11 years in the Vancouver area of British Columbia - where road salt is used much more sparingly, where sand is used more often and where the salt water "spray" in the air from the Pacific Ocean is a greater concern for car deterioration deterioration than is road salt. My suggestions are simple. Reduce, reduce and reduce the use of road salt. Oh yes, car drivers may need to adjust their driving! Yet, using less salt on our roads can be accomplished. How? Let me offer a few sug gestions: 1. How many times have I noticed noticed the salt truck spreading a thick layer of salt on our roads when there is barely a snowflake in sight! Why? Is that really necessary? 2. Does every side street really need to be salted? Why not just plow it? Why is it that so often I've seen the salt truck "caking" the road with salt but no attempt to plow. Does this make sense? In winter salt may have a valued use, but why not use it much' more sparingly and more selectively! Dirk Zinner Gone but not forgotten Deceased politicians had their day in the sun The tendency not to speak ill of the dead and make them all saints has given Ontarians incomplete incomplete pictures of some of their most prominent politicians. Dr. Morton Shulman, who died last month and was the best- known backbencher of the legislature legislature in memory, was recalled mostly as a crusading coroner who fearlessly attacked the political political and medical establishments and went on to do the same as a New Democrat MPP from 1967- 75. But by the time he left elected politics Dr. Shulman had lost most of his credibility. While he made some criticisms that proved justified, lie quickly ran up a long list of accusations against ministers ministers and ministries in the Progressive Progressive Conservative government that proved unfounded. Dr. Shulrnan's technique was to make charges, get them into the media before opponents could reply and by the lime they were disproven, be off and running running with some new scare so the rebuttals went unnoticed. He finally lost most of his admirers admirers when he accused a Tory attorney general of visiting a suspected suspected criminal at his home and claimed he was given the information information by a private detective. The private detective denied it and Dr. Shulman eventually admitted admitted he made a mistake but his idea of rectifying it was to say he would resign and run again to find out if the public supported him. But he never did run again. He was disliked also for his stunts in which he did not care who he hurt. He took a rifle wrapped up into the legislature and complained complained security guards were lax and anyone could get in with a weapon. In fact, guards would not have Eric Dowd At Queen's Park allowed him in if they had not recognized him as an MPP and assumed reasonably he posed no danger. By the time he retired even the NDP, to which he had no philosophical ties to start with, was glad to get rid of him. Bob Welch, a Tory deputy premier who held half-a-dozen major portfolios while an MPP from 1963-85, was lauded for his reliability as a minister, smoothness smoothness as a negotiator' in minority government and occasional liell- fire-and-brinistone speeches - he was an Anglican lay preacher. But Mr. Welch also managed to reconcile his churchgoing with being the minister of culture and recreation who in 1975 brought in Ontario's first government lottery. lottery. Many religious leaders including including some in his own church opposed it, saying many would gamble money they could not afford afford and their families would be left without essentials. The Tory government to which Mr. Welch belonged had constantly preached the value of hard work and thrift to get ahead. But Mr. Welch argued other countries were benefiting from lottery tickets sold here and Ontario Ontario may as well benefit and gambling was immoral only if it was immoderate. The lay preacher with the elastic principles look the first step to establishing a government gambling empire that includes casinos and slot machines that are far more accessible than public public washrooms and separates Ontarians Ontarians from $2 billion a year that, as predicted, many can ill afford. Frank Miller, Tory premier for five months in 1985, was remembered remembered particularly for his good humour and even opponents said he was the best-liked member of the legislature of his era. ■ But Mr. Miller temporarily lost some of his joviality when he lost his majority in an election and the opposition parties worked out a pact in which the New Democrats agreed to install the Liberals in government and support them for two years providing providing they brought in a written list of programs. Mr. Miller complained the Liberals had abandoned the few principles they ever had to gain the NDP's support and showed a 'lust for power' and should be ashamed of themselves (although Mr. Miller also had bargained privately to try to get the NDP's support, but claimed he would have had to give up loo much.) Mr. Miller said the New Democrats Democrats knuckled under to the Liberals because they had 'a blood-chilling fear of another election that dictates their every action and signed their party's death warrant.' Miller said the two parties had formed a no-name coalition that was morally, politically and economically economically wrong and would have a puppet Liberal premier with the NDP, although it won only one- quarter of the votes in the election, election, dictating all the policies. The furious premier also charged Ontario was 'being held hostage by a Liberal and NDP lynch mob' - even the friendliest politician can get mad at times, but we should know about it. Harry Potter is fiction - and kids should know it Jennifer Stone Staff Writer Imagine the books you couldn't have read when you were a student if all stories stories including witchcraft, sorcery or other worlds were scratched from the reading list. You wouldn't have been able to enjoy 'The Hobbit,' or 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.' 'Cinderella' and 'The Secret Garden' would clearly be expelled from the list. But now, the Durham District School Board is to some degree doing just that. According to a directive from school board staff, any teacher who wants to use books from the best-selling 'Hairy Potter' series in class is going to have to do so with permission from parents of each and every one of their' students. If so much as one parent vehemently objects objects on religious or moral grounds, the book will remain available in the library, but will not be used in the classroom. The good news is, both the public and separate school boards governing Clarington haven't put in place such a directive. So far, neither has received any complaints about the book. Nor does the Durham Catholic District School Board plan to fall the public board's policy. As of this past Monday, just one parent across the Durham Catholic board objected to the Potter books. That board would allow Potter books in class and would substitute an alternate title if a child's parent raised strong objections. From all accounts, British author J.K. Rowling has captured the imaginations of children worldwide with this magical Harry Potter chap. This past summer, when the fourth book in the series was released, children and parents across the globe camped out in hopes of getting a copy of the tome before it sold out. . And a tome it is. The fourth book is 600-and-some-odd pages. But those 600 pages didn't deter millions of children from reading about Harry's adventures as a boy in sorcerers' school. At a time when many have espoused a concern about children not reading in the traditional manner, but rather gamering gamering information via the Internet or on television, encouraging conventional book reading is probably not a bad idea. The age group of children the books appeal appeal to is such that reading this set of books may set them up as life-long readers. readers. People who have read the book say it's not a how-to guide for children hoping hoping to practise magic of any form. And, from all accounts, the books don't promote promote any particular lifestyle or religious belief. The books are fantasy, pure and simple. simple. Harry Potter is a fictitious character. And children reading the book are adept enough to recognize those facts. If they're not, it's up to the adults in their lives to point it out to them - not to simply simply lake the books away, E-Mail your comments to: jennifer.stone@durhamnews.net THE CANADIAN STATESMAN is one of the Mctroland Printing, Publishing Publishing and Distributing group of newspapers. The Statesman is a member of the Bowmanville Claring- ton 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, MM The Canadian Statesman welcomes letters to the editor. All letters should be typed or neatly hand-written, 150 words. Each letter must include the name, mailing address and 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. Fax letters to 623-6161 or emailed to sluiesmn@durhum.net uiMMO | ftvmAffrt.lt, A 0 ™ 13 cca