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PAGE 6THE CANADIAN STATESMAN, AUGUST 1,2001 & 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 - Laveme Morrison, Christian-Ann Goulet Office - Junia Hodge, Nancy Pleasance-Sturman Editorial - Brad Kelly, Jennifer Stone, Jacquie Mclnnes Efie Cattabtan Statesman Former Publishers and Partners Rev. John M. Climic and W.R. Climic 1S54-IS78 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.0. 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: ncwsroom@durhamrcgion.com Publications Mail Registration No. 07637 EDITORIAL e-mail letters to newsroom® (Uirhamregion.com What's the point of house arrests? Money is needed to ensure enforcement followed It probably shouldn't come as a surprise, but it should outrage law-abiding, tax-paying citizens: 25-33 per cent of criminals sentenced to conditional sentence house arrests were not home when police did a residence check in Durham recently. The officers did blitzes on two consecutive nights in the Ajax-Pickering area. When they knocked on 18 doors the first night, they found a whopping six offenders not home. A check of 20 dwellings the second evening found five convicts convicts not where they were legally supposed to be. They even discovered one offender had recently sold his house and moved away. The man apparently packed up, moved, and, ahem, did not leave a forwarding address. Talk about contempt for the law! Clearly, offenders don't have any motive to stay home. With residence checks few and far between, what are the odds they'll be caught? How much time can officers be expected expected to use checking up on those sentenced to house arrest, arrest, also known as conditional sentences? These are questions with no simple answers. Consider those sentenced to penitentiary time must live in an environment where they're under guard 24 hours a day, where they must be accountable for their actions at all times. Now, take the example of criminals provided with house arrest. There are no limits, save those the judge reads out at sentencing. Who is there to apply the punishment, to make the criminal serve his sentence? Nobody. "In our opinion there's little respect for the court orders," orders," said Durham Regional Police Sergeant Bruce Town- ley. "It's not a shock to be honest, but it is frustrating to us as police officers." Conditional sentences have been an option forjudges for the past five years and tens of thousands of offenders have received such terms. Judges are handing out more conditional sentences than the system can safely handle and properly police. With the cost of warehousing criminals increasing and jail space at a premium, the decision to hand out conditional sentences is largely based on economics; „, f ; As a result, some criminals convicted of sex offences, robbery, drug importing, trafficking 1 ,' hit-ancLrun and fraud are getting a virtual free ride. They've been sentenced to house arrest but with no teeth to the conditions of their sentence. sentence. If conditional sentences are to remain central to our justice justice system, the funds to monitor those under house arrest must be made available. The Province will have to decide how important respect for the law is and will have to pay for enforcement. The alternative is to give the criminals free rein. That's hardly just. LOOKING BACK WITH THE STATESMAN 75 YEARS AGO Aug. 5,1926 The Rotary Street Carnival was set for the next week, featuring featuring bands, a dance, and "a regular midway of booths will be bulging over with attractive and useful prizes that you'll not be able to resist competing for time and time again." 50 YEARS AGO Aug. 2,1951 Members of the Women's Hospital Auxiliary directed traffic traffic and served refreshments as the brand new Memorial Hospital in Bowmanville was officially opened. 25 YEARS AGO Aug. 4,1976 Newcastle Mayor Garnet Rickard recommended sidewalk repairs after making an informal inspection of the streets during a July sidewalk sale, Informal ion taken from the archives of The Canadian Statesman LETTERS TO THE EDITOR e-mail letters to newsroom® (htrliaiiiregioii.com Kindness of co-workers touches heart To the editor: I began working at the Kelseys in Bowmanville three weeks ago to earn money for school this fall. After training as a hostess, food expeditor and a buddy-server I was ready to try it on my own. My big night! I'll admit a secret to you here: I've always wanted to be a waitress. waitress. They always seem to have so much fun, laughing and chatting with all the customers (and it's rumoured the tips are pretty good). It was a Thursday evening and the place was packed. I had a great time and got everybody's everybody's order right (more or less) and didn't drop the soup. I was doing it. I was waitressing and I even noticed how all the tips were.piling up. So after an exhausting but enjoyable night I went to cash in my tables. This is where my night took a nosedive. I was out $20 in tips. I couldn't believe it. I searched the floors and side tables for that fallen $20.1 tell you, I felt so cheated and low. The manager manager tried to comfort me and said these things happen to everyone at one time or another. With my head hung low, I was about to leave when one of the girls told me to go and see the servers in the back. I went in, hoping not to cry in front of my co-workers. co-workers. Do you know what they had done? They had gone around to all the remaining servers and took up a collection to cover my lost tips. Here they are, mothers and students struggling struggling to support families and pay bills and they took it upon themselves to make my night end on a positive note by sharing sharing their own earnings. What they did touched me so deeply all the emotion of the night let go in a big, embarrassing embarrassing flood of tears. They all gave me a hug and said, "Listen girl, we've all been there and we are all in this together." I had only known these people for three weeks, some even less. Yet they cared enough for me as one of their own to do something like this. Now I know some of the cynics will read this article and mutter, "What's the big deal? They only gave you a couple of bucks." To them, I reply, you have sorely missed the point. I am now officially a server (I hear the term 'waitress' is becoming becoming out of date). I made it through my first night with a hard lesson learned. However I think the most important thing it taught me is the people around you care and watch out for you more than you realize. Heather Stuart Oshawa Government work reveals mistakes Cabinet documents aren't usually opened up Ontarians have been given a few rare glimpses of the inner workings of Premier Mike Harris's Harris's government and these cannot cannot have increased their respect for it The insights were provided because some with legal rights demanded them and not because the Progressive Conservatives volunteered to tell the public more intimate details of how they do their jobs. At least a couple emerged from a public inquiry into the cause of contaminated water at Walkerton suspected of killing seven people. The Tories may claim they set up the enquiiy because because they were happy to have their workings scrutinized, but pressure from the opposition parties and public made it inevitable. inevitable. The Harris government had cut spending on environmental protection drastically and one major issue is whether this caused or contributed to the deaths. Brenda Elliott, Mr. Harris's first environment minister, said to questions she submitted a confidential confidential plan to cabinet which stated her ministry could cut costs but warned its ability to monitor and assess environmental environmental change would diminish and risk to human health and the environment environment might increase. The government went ahead with the cuts, but made public a document that did not mention the risks because it wanted to build a positive image of its environmental environmental policy, not exactly the candor expected from Mr. Harris, Harris, who boasts he makes tough decisions and tells the truth even when it hurts. Eric Dowd At Queen's Park Ms. Elliott said also a $30 million cut in her ministry's budget budget was imposed on her by cabinet, cabinet, a highly unusual admission because ministers in normal circumstances circumstances do not reveal what goes on in cabinet without its approval, approval, take the position its decisions decisions are unanimous and made by a team and do not divulge anything that might show any minister dissented. Mr. Harris had more views he would have preferred kept secret exposed to public gaze because the family of Dudley George, an aboriginal shot dead by Ontario Provincial Police while occupying occupying Ipperwash provincial park in 1995, early in Mr. Harris's premiership, premiership, have launched a court action for compensation. The premier has denied repeatedly repeatedly he took any part in directing directing police to clear the park, but the court obtained notes made by a lawyer with the Province's Native affairs secretariat, secretariat, who chaired a government committee which held an emergency emergency meeting the day Mr. George died. The lawyer wrote that staff of the natural resources ministry, which operates parks, urged caution caution and pointed out the demonstrators demonstrators were merely occupying an empty park. But she noted a Harris aide said the premier was hawkish and felt the longer the Natives were allowed to occupy the park the more support they would get and he would like action to remove remove them as soon as possible. A civil servant added Mr. Harris viewed the occupation as a test of his government's will. Such government documents are difficult to obtain and outsiders outsiders often do not even know they exist. Records of cabinet meetings are seen even more rarely. The only time minutes of cabinet meetings were made public was after the Tory govern-' ment of premier William Davis took ownership of a northern tourist resort, Minaki Lodge, in the 1970s when it ran into financial financial problems, hoping to save jobs and keep votes in the area just before an election. The former owner sued the Province for compensation claiming it unfairly pressured him into handing it over and the Supreme Court of Canada ordered ordered the Province to hand over minutes and other records of cabinet meetings. The Tory government, which often boasted it was run by hard- headed businessmen who knew how to meet a bottom line, poured $40 million into renovating renovating and subsidizing the lodge before before it was sold to a hotel chain for a mere $4 million, The intriguing question for taxpayers was who among the ministers pushed to own such a drain on public money. They turned out to be Premier Davis, treasurer John White, industry minister Claude Bennett and natural natural resources minister Leo Bernier, Mr. Davis's chief lieutenant lieutenant in the north, anxious to preserve his domain. Jacquie Mclnnes Staff Writer jmeinnes (à ilurhamrcgion. com Get to know Clarington For commuters or just people with busy lives (sound familiar?), getting to know the community where you reside isn't always an easy task. Sure, one quickly figures out the nearest shopping haunts and, if you have kids or dogs, the nearest park. But sometimes years can slip into each other and before you know it, you've lived in a place a decade without without a true understanding of how the community works. Through that time you may have lost the chance to take advantage of all the facilities your tax dollars are paying for. Beautiful natural natural sites and annual events right in your own backyard get missed as you plan for vacations far away. First stop for information of course (and I admit I am biased on this one) is your front step. The community community newspaper you're reading now is delivered three times a week ' and provides local information you aren't going to get when you pick up the regional and national papers. Beyond the paper, modern technology technology with the advent of the Internet has given us an opportunity to have better access to up-to-date information information on community happenings than ever before. Ironically, the tool that has been vilified as the end to civilized civilized contact between humans, can in fact be used to the opposite effect. At www.durhamregion.com, the Metroland Durham portal, there is up-to-date news, 1 events, weather, sports, entertainment and movie listings listings as well as a chance to give your own opinion on recent events. You can share recipes, talk about school issues, ask your neighbours if they too saw the meteor that looked like it landed on Darlington's shores (but actually ended up in Pennsylvania) or announce a school reunion. Unlike talking over the back fence, you can do this at 2 a.m. if that happens to be when you have some free time. A t www.municipality.clarington.on.ca or www.region.durham.on.ca, information information about what's on the agenda at town hall or in the regional chambers, chambers, a calendar of local events, property property tax details and even beach postings postings are just a click away. If you've been meaning to take a visit to the local library but don't have time during business hours to peruse the shelves, try looking through the book and resource catalogue catalogue after the kids are in bed by going to www.clarington- library.on.ca. You can order the book on your time and pick it up in minutes. minutes. The site also offers links to other Durham libraries and to hundreds hundreds of excellent kid, teen and resource resource sites. The Internet can provide the introduction introduction to your community. Of course making time to enjoy it is still up to you. 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