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PAGE 6 THE CANADIAN STATESMAN, SEPTEMBER 27,2000 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, Christian-Ann Goulet Office - Junia Hodge, Nancy Pleasancc-Sturman Editorial - Brad Kelly, Jennifer Stone, Jacquie Mclnncs Ebe Canabian 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 Metroland 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. E-mail - judi.bobbitt@durhamnews.net Publications Mail Registration No. 07637 EDITORIAL As usual, it's all about money Olympic shortfall is an economic problem After all the stories about overcoming the odds, about those who cheated, about the surprises and disappointments, Canadians Canadians are left wondering why we don't do better. Why don't we win more medals, especially gold medals? To many the answer is simple: we don't spend enough money on our athletes to put them on the podium. Every Winter Games it surely rankles that Nordic nations, with smaller and certainly with no more economic stability, pound us in the medal counts. We have plenty of great ski hills in British Columbia so why can't we produce more winners. Heck, we even lost the bronze medal to Finland in men's hockey hockey last time around. In the Summer Games, it's worse if that's possible. Thanks to a massive upset in men's triathlon - thank you Simon Whitfield Whitfield - we have what could be our only gold medal of the Sydney Sydney Games. Nicholas Gill took home a silver in judo and the rest have been bronze, or worse, much worse. There have been Olympic Games, two of which we hosted at Montreal in 1976 and Calgary in 1988 where we were shut out of the gold. But should it matter? A CBC poll done during the Games • showed nearly 80 per cent of respondents would be willing to have more of their tax dollars spent on amateur athletics. Mind you, this is a survey taken during the Olympics and presumably presumably taken by those who care. What about the millions in Canada who don't care how we do at the Olympics? Who speaks for their tax dollars? Certainly the professional sport tax-break flip-flop by the federal government this past year is pause for thought. Yes, it involved subsidizing millionaire owners and athletes, but it also was a window on the Canadian heart. After all, Americans willingly (in county and state referenda) throw their tax dollars at stadiums and pro teams. Massive government subsidies for spoils aie routine in other countries. If we're truly keen on seeing our athletes win Olympic medals, it will take a lot more money and better coaching and facilities. Voters have shown a desire to receive federal and provincial tax cuts and what about the need to upgrade health care, pay for education and ensure our water is clean? Doesn't the requirement for $100 million to fund capital spending for our Durham hospitals surely rank above any Olympic athlete funding? The only logical answer is to create an Olympic athletes foundation which would be paid into by voluntary donations, tax deductible, from individuals and corporations. Such a fund would need an advertising boost from the feds but then it would be up to each of us. If we care, we'll share. We welcome your opinion. Please E-Mail your comments on our opinions to judi.bobbitt@durhamnews.net. Submissions which include a first and last name, as well as the community of residence, will be considered for publication. THE 75 YEARS AGO Sept. 24,1925 At one of the best attended, most enthusiastic and optimistic optimistic Liberal conventions in many years, Vincent Massey accepted the Liberal nomination. The convention was held in Orono, Thursday afternoon, Sept. 17. Delegates were present from every part of the riding. Ladies attended in goodly numbers and look a keen interest in the proceedings. 50 YEARS AGO Sept. 28,1950 The Solina Football Team wins the Breslin Trophy. After completing the regular league schedule in fourth place, the husky Solina soccer team trimmed Courtice 2-0 in semifinal semifinal play and after three close contests with Maple Grove in the finals emerged winner of the Darlington-Courtice Football League play-offs and the initial winner of the new Breslin Trophy. The previous trophy was kept by Courtice after it won it three years consecutively. 25 YEARS AGO Sept. 24,1975 An Official Plan for the Town of Newcastle was considered considered at a public meeting at Bowmanville High School Auditorium. Auditorium. Population distribution, commercial and industrial industrial development, agriculture and transportation were among the topics discussed. Councillor Ivan Hobbs stated a need for an extension of Mearns Road down to Hwy. 401 to handle handle traffic going to and from Mosport to eliminate the need to use Liberty. dolighan@home.com Contact minister, MPP for action To the editor: A great number of parents . who have children who are to attend Good Shepherd Catholic School in Courtice are upset the school is not yet "ready for students. At the present time students are spread among two other schools and a church basement. The Board of Education staff have been receiving complaints from parents who cannot understand understand why the school is not yet ready. I would respectfully suggest to these parents there is no point complaining to the board as it has no control over the situation. situation. If you want to complain to those ultimately responsible for the delay, contact the Minister of Education, your local conservative conservative MPP and the general contractor of the project. Your Minister of Education brought in a funding model which pre- 1 eludes your local Catholic board from building a new school when the board determines determines a requirement for one and also precludes the board from raising the money itself through Catholic ratepayers to finance and schedule the construction construction according to the board's requirements. Instead, all these issues are now dictated by 'bean counters' at Queen's Park. Your local MPP is part of the government that imposed this system. And finally, the general contractor is the entity which bid on, and won, the contract to build the school on schedule. By contrast, the last time the local Catholic board had complete complete (control over the funding ancrdtinstruction of an elementary elementary school in Courtice, Mother 'Teresa School, the board completed completed it on schedule. If you wish to complain please contact these people and leave the educators to educate your children. After all, this is the government that told you they knew best how to do things efficiently and on time. It is now painfully and inconveniently inconveniently obvious to the parents of Good Shepherd School that such is not the case. Bill Clark Courtice The doctor is in, or is he? Secretary blew whistle on $1-million in bad billings Could a doctor keep billing and collect nearly $1 million from Ontario's health insurance insurance plan for seven years for treatments he never gave before before being found out? Well, yes, he could, but the worst part is he was eventually eventually caught, not by any system set up to protect taxpayers, but when a jilted lover informed on him. Dr. Michael Bogart, a psychotherapist, psychotherapist, billed OHIP for treating many hundreds of patients patients he never saw from January January 1990 to December 1996. He routinely took Thursdays, Thursdays, Fridays and weekends off, but billed for seeing patients patients those days. He also billed for treatments while he was away on expensive vacations vacations in exotic parts of the world - funded by generous taxpayers. Dr. Bogart once was away for 32 consecutive days, but claimed he worked throughout and treated 600 patients and the Province trustingly paid his bill for $36,500, a year's salary for many, although he did not even take out his stethoscope. Dr. Bogart was found out only when his former lover and medical secretary tipped off the Province after their 10- ycar relationship soured. He has pleaded guilty to the biggest fraud on OHIP yet ruled on by the courts and will be sentenced Nov 28. He still has his physician's licence. The first thing that should be noted is most of the fraud did not take place under the Progressive Conservative government government of Premier Mike Harris. Harris. The New Democratic Party Eric Dowd At Queens Park under Bob Rae was in government government from 1990 until mid- 1995, when Mr. Harris took over, so most of the fraud took place under its supposed guardianship. The second is governments of either stripe seem to be particularly particularly deferential toward doctors and reluctant to put the same controls over them as they are ready to impose on other less powerful groups. Mr. Rae was quick to cut the pay of ordinary civil servants servants when his government piled up huge deficits in the recession of the early 1990s and force them to take unpaid time off, the famous Rae Days, but did not show the same enthusiasm for guarding against doctors who billed when they did not work. When Mr. Harris followed, his battle cry like no one before before him was there was too much waste in government and too many leeching on taxpayers taxpayers and lie would cut it to the bone and make sure government government paid people only what they deserved. Mr. Harris was quick off the mark dealing with some who receive public money - almost his first act as premier was to set up a welfare fraud snitch line. Residents were invited to phone in about any welfare recipients recipients they suspected were receiving benefits to which they were not entitled. They could notify for instance that a single male recipient was wrongly claiming the $520-a- month to which Mr. Harris cut benefits, which is what Dr. Bogart claimed for working h'alf-a-day, even while sunning sunning himself in Mexico. The Tories have been slower slower to protect against doctors. A few months after they took over government in 1995, then health minister Jim Wilson announced announced they would be 'aggressive' 'aggressive' in rooting out health care fraud and waste. In 1997 a consultant said OHIP was being defrauded by assorted groups of millions of dollars a year and dared to utter the heresy doctors probably probably are no more and no less honest than other highly educated educated professionals. He suggested to minimize abuse in billing, doctors should have to give each patient patient a bill showing what treatment treatment was rendered, how long it took and the fee claimed, but the Province still does not require this. Mr. Wilson said the government government has zero tolerance for fraud. But frauds have continued. continued. Last year a psychiatrist was found guilty of billing for treatment he never gave front 1993-96 and this time it was a former patient who blew the whistle. Another doctor earning $250,000-a-year pleaded guilty to billing OHIP for treatments he never gave between between 1998-99, well into Mr. Harris's watch, so some doctors doctors arc still not getting the message. Grab the 'p' iron and make your putt Judi Bobbitt Managing editor If you don't know a birdie from a bogey and can't tell a pitching wedge from a putter, you'd naturally want to avoid an 18-hole golf course, especially during daylight hours when there are witnesses. When your best drive on a good day is 100 yards and you realize die little dot of colour on the distant hori-, zon is actually the flag you're aiming for, you know you're more suited to mini-golf than the Newcastle Golf Course, where real golfers play. But last Friday, during the Bowmanville Bowmanville Hospital Foundation's fundraising fundraising golf tournament at Newcastle, any level of golfer (or non-golfer) could have fun on the greens and fairways (see how fast you pick up the lingo). As long as you could hit the ball some of die distance, distance, some of the time, the scramble format and the power carts allowed even the foursomes with awful players to zip through the course in respectable time, without holding up the players behind. My foursome had one awful player. The other three had obviously played golf more than once or twice in their lives. They could hit great drives off die tee. They knew which clubs to use for what. They knew the rules, the lingo, and how to drive the golf cart.' They owned their own golf clubs and shoes. And they were great sports in putting up with me and making sure I enjoyed my day, even when I grabbed the pitching wedge out of my (borrowed) bag to make my first putt. (Well, it had a 'p' on it, didn't it?). And, while it's a tad embarrassing teeing off in front of spectators when you don't know what you're doing, faking faking a heart attack comes to mind when those spectators include golf pro Bob Panasik and CFTO-TV sportscaster Joe Tilley. Thank you God, I managed to hit the ball that time, at least. In all, 125 golfers and one non-golfer helped raise $23,000 for the foundation. There were great prizes, the weather didn't turn cold until we were almost finished, and I think it would be fair to say a good time was had by all. Even by the non-golfer. (In fact, I had such a great time, I was out on the driving range the next day and joined some friends on an easier course Sunday. Sadly, this isn't a game at which you can excel after just a few afternoons. I'm still a non-golfer, and I still don't know what all those clubs are for, when I seem to need just three or four). If you were part of the tournament, or if you enjoy golf and might like to be part of it next year, you know it's a great way to get some fresh air, exercise and help the hospital foundation. This year's funds will help buy bedside monitors for the emergency department. And luckily, the worst player in our foursome didn't end up there, after all. E-Mall your comments to: judl.bobbltt@durhamnews.net THE CANADIAN STATESMAN is one of the Metroland Printing, Publishing Publishing and Distributing group of newspapers. The Statesman is a member of the Bowmanville Claring- ton Board of Trade, the Greater Os- liawa 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. The Canadian Statesman welcomes letters to die editor. 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