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PAGE 6THE CANADIAN STATESMAN, March 20,2002 # Editorial&Opinions FOR 146 YEARS, OUR FIRST CONCERN HAS BEEN OUR COMMUNITY Publisher - Tim Whittaker Editor-in-Chief - Joanne Burghardt Managing Editor - Chris Bovic Regional Editor - Judi Bobbitt Advertising Manager - Fred Eismonl Composing Manager - Barb Harrison Office Manager - Lillian Hook Elie Cattairian 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 CLAR1NGTON THIS WEEK P.O. Box 481, 865 Farewell St., Oshawa, Ontario L1H 7L5 TEL: 905-579-4400 FAX: 905-579-2238 E-mail: ncwsroom@durhamrcgion.com Publications Mail Registration No. 07637 DROP OFFICE: James Publishing, 66 King St. W„ Bowmanvillc, 8:30 p.m. - 5 p.m. weekdays EDITORIAL e-mail U tters tit neKsmom@ilurhamregion.eam Harris placed stamp on Ontario Legacy a tough act to follow for would-be premiers As the final few days of the leadership of Mike Harris come to a conclusion, it's worth evaluating the long-term legacy the man from North Bay has left Ontario. In his nearly seven years in power, Mr. Harris has defined political debate and set the guidelines for policy come election election time. He has tapped into a clear constituency - a vast middle-class silent majority - whose concerns about tax cuts, about smaller government and about attacking crime, he clearly heard. And he has forced his opponents to deal with the electorate on his terms. It was so very different a decade ago. At that time, Mr. Harris was a political voice in the wilderness, very much the leader of Ontario's third party, badly trailing the governing NDP and Opposition Liberals. He was little heard from in the media, his tax-fighting platform mocked at a time when NDP finance minister Floyd Laughren was jacking up the deficit to pay the Province's bills. Given virtually no chance of winning a few months before before the 1995 election, Mr. Harris ran a superb campaign, promising to slash taxes, cut welfare spending, reduce the size of government and fight crime. Mr. Rae's record ensured he would lose, but the surprise was Liberal leader Lyn McLeod, who could not produce policies that resonated with voters. Mr. Harris's Common Sense Revolution won the day, and it is that concise program which still determines policy today. Tories still promise (and deliver) tax cuts, and have held the line on welfare spending as the number of people on welfare dropped throughout their time in government. They have also continued to spend more on health care and education to meet the rising needs a growing province presents, despite criticisms to the contrary. No doubt there have been slip-ups during the seven-year reign. No government in power for any length of time survives survives without mistakes. The Walkerton water disaster deeply tarnished Mr. Harris, who was forced to testify during the inquiry inquiry and whose government was deemed partly to blame for the May-June 2000 deaths in tire town. Some feel the premier premier cut too many civil service jobs, and was too quick to slash welfare costs. But Mr. Harris came to power as a man on a mission, determined determined to carry out a program he presented to the voters and which saw him win two straight majority governments. He earned respect for his views, even among those who disagreed disagreed with him, because he stood by his beliefs. Those who follow as premier will have to be true to their promises and will have to follow through on their campaign pledges. Mr. Harris has made sure of that. The Courtice Area Ratepayers' Asssociation (CARA) would like to see a community police station in Courtice. Question: Do you think Courtice needs a police station? Gabriel Kozma "There's too many juveniles juveniles roaming the streets, we need more of a police presence on the streets. There are still too many teenage gangs roaming roaming around." Rick Brown "There's too much crime, the population's growing so fast, Courtice is getting as big as Oshawa now. I think there's more crime in Durham in the last five years, not just in Courtice. Courtice. The area has been built up so fast, we definitely definitely need it (a police station)." station)." Penny Lambert "The more visible police police are, the less crime there's going to be. Even just travelling back and forth from the police station, station, that's a deterrent right there." Frank Hardy "Where they're located right now, the response time is a little slower. We have a fire hall here, why not have a police station? The area has grown too. Everything grows including including crime: Oshawa's too big and Bowmanville's too far." LETTERS TO THE EDITOR e-mail letters to newsroom@durhamrcgion.com Don't sell off the LCBO To the editor: The image of Jim Flaherty placing a 'FOR SALE BY OWNER' sign in front of an LCBO store is a clear indication of the arrogant disregard held by this T man and his supporters for the rights of Ontario citizens. The LCBO is not Mr. Flaherty's Flaherty's nor the Conservative Party's to sell. It is an asset of the province of Ontario and as such its rightful 'owners' are the citizens citizens of Ontario, who apparently are to have nothing to say as to whether and under what terms this sale is to take place. ■ When the Harris government was first elected in 1995 and, at the time, signalled its intention to privatize the LCBO, the public's response was a resounding 'No.' The citizens indicated general satisfaction with the product selection selection and service of the LCBO's retail operations, which generated hundreds of millions of dollars for the Ontario Treasury, Treasury, and with its quality control and safety inspection functions. Obviously unwilling to risk another public debate on the issue, Mr. Flaherty has now vowed, if elected, to "extricate" the government from the liquor business within 12 months as "there is no compelling economic economic reason for government to be in the retail business of selling alcohol." alcohol." However, it seems Mr. Flaherty's Flaherty's ideological "shrink" government, government, and his obvious pandering pandering to the constituencies from which he draws his support, must now take precedence over even the "common sense" of retaining ownership of the LCBO for the benefit of all Ontarians. Whether or not Mr. Flaherty is successful in his bid for leadership leadership there can be no doubt there is still a strong ideological commitment commitment within the Conservative Party to privatization and a need to liquidate public assets to compensate compensate for the implementation of tax cuts which have been endorsed endorsed by all Tory leadership candidates. Selling off the LCBO isn't just about being able to buy booze in comer stores. It raises issues about monitoring the safety safety of products introduced into the Ontario marketplace, about social social responsibility and consumption consumption issues, about handing over the province's most lucrative asset to private interests without consultation or regard for the opinions, concerns or welfare of the citizens of Ontario. Take down the signs, Mr. Flaherty! Flaherty! Milt Slaughter Oshawa Contenders don't walk the talk Promises on leadership trail are forgotten later Almost all the candidates to succeed Premier Mike Harris have promised to bring a new era of democracy to their party, but can anyone believe them? Ernie Eves said he wants to lead a Progressive Conservative 'team' that will include backbench backbench MPPs able to vote the way they think on most issues instead of how their government government directs them. Tony Clement said he would give his backbenchers a greater voice and make ministers accountable accountable to them. Elizabeth Witmer said she would involve 'all those who are on the front lines' in making decisions. Chris Stockwell, who has been Speaker and is particularly particularly informed on the trials of backbenchers, said he would allow them even to help develop develop his party's platforms in elections. elections. Some Tory MPPs may feel their party's hierarchy is on the verge of giving them a bigger say in governing, but in every race for premier in memory virtually virtually all the candidates promised to give backbenchers a larger role and the winners forgot their promises once the campaigns were over. The main concerns of backbenchers backbenchers are they are cither not consulted at all before their government announces policies or brings in legislation, or are informed only an hour before they are due to be made public, so they are not given a proper opportunity to scrutinize or propose changes. Mr. Harris promised when running in 1990, "I will include everyone in the party's decision-making decision-making and policy development. development. People are fed up with the politics of the past in backrooms backrooms and government." Mr. Harris even recalled that Eric Dowd At Queen s Park when he was a backbencher, premier William Davis "would come into our caucus and tell us what we had all decided." Mr. Harris implied this would not be his way, but he was soon running a government in which the major decisions were made by himself and a small clique, including unelected unelected advisers, and his backbench MPPs were given little or no chance to influence legislation. These included his decisions to privatize Hwy.' 407, amalgamate amalgamate Metropolitan Toronto, bring in a notorious omnibus bill that gave government unprecedented unprecedented wide powers, and give tax credits to parents who choose to send their children to private schools. Mr. Harris deterred MPPs from complaining by firing those who did from jobs as parliamentary parliamentary assistants. He got his announcements through quicker and neater, but never seemed to recognize at times he missed chances to get input from MPPs, who were closer to the public than theorists in his corner office and could have pointed out flaws and saved him embarrassment. The New Democrats, before being elected to government, passed a resolution promising to "respect and strengthen the role of backbenchers," and seemed to ooze democracy. Virtually .all their policies were arrived at by mass votes of delegates delegates at conventions. But in government under premier Bob Rae they did not have money to fulfil some promises, including one to provide provide public auto insurance. Mr. Rae and a small group abandoned abandoned them over backbenchers' backbenchers' protests and similarly fired MPPs who spoke against them from jobs which paid extra. David Peterson became Liberal Liberal premier promising to give government backbenchers "a meaningful role" after four decades in which, as he said, Tory premiers ruled absolutely. But Mr. Peterson made many major decisions including including opposing free trade, facilitating facilitating Sunday shopping and embracing the Meech Lake constitutional accord, which helped him lose the 1990 election, election, without consulting his caucus. Mr. Davis, before becoming premier, said he would give MPPs a bigger voice, but made decisions, including investing $650 million in an oil company as a supposed window on that industry, and extending grants to the end of Roman Catholic high schools, which hurt his party, without consulting his caucus. Mr. Davis decided what to do over his cornflakes at breakfast breakfast meetings with an inner circle circle of senior ministers and unelected unelected advisers and as Durham-area MPP Sam Cure- atz, an independent-minded backbencher, put it, "then came to caucus and told us how it was all going to happen." Some Tories today may support support a candidate feeling this will give their rank-and-file MPPs more say in what their government docs, but history says they should not count on it. Jacquie Mclnnes Staff Writer jmcinncs@dttrhnntrcgion.com Fusion claim a hot potato Just as the excitement is rising to a plasma state (yes, that's really hot) about the proposed $ 12-billion, 18- building ITER fusion research facility Clarington is hoping to land, out comes a claim fusion can be produced in a beaker. In its March 8 edition, 'Science' magazine - a journal for those with more than a passing acquaintance with high-end brain functions - reported a US research team is claiming to have created a fusion reaction in a tabletop experiment. Understandably this is raising a lot of questions among some residents in Durham who happened to read (in other publications written for the rest of us) about a controversy surrounding the claim. How is this newest find going to affect Durham's chances at getting the fusion facility, some have asked. After all, if fusion can be created created in a beaker, is there a need for the traditional large fusion containment unit planned here, they wondered. The answer to that question is 'Yes.' The world's energy needs are not going to be provided by a beaker full of anything. anything. After all, you can create electricity electricity with a potato but you wouldn't expect expect it to heat and light your home. To produce a commercially viable fusion , energy plant is going to take a lot more-$ than something the size of a coffee'* mug. > The good news, if the claim proves | out, is it will make "fusion research more accessible and easier for more scientists to work with. But it won't replace replace a project like ITER, the last stage in research before a commercially-vi- able fusion demonstration plant is built. )* The problem for the science com- .* munity goes beyond that, however. Thé * questionable claim of tabletop iusion is> a reminder of another fusion experiment experiment gone awry. Proponents of cold fusion, fusion, in the late 1980s, claimed they could produce a fusion reaction without without the extreme heat of a plasma state (a temperature hotter than that reached on the sun) that is used in traditional fusion fusion research experiments. That claim, which turned out to be false - and was even suggested by some to be a hoax - cast a dark shadow on traditional fusion fusion research and may have resulted in research dollars going elsewhere as governments and funding agencies lost faith in anything related to fusion. This latest claim suggests you don't need a multi-million dollar complex» machine to create fusion. A little lab;| with the right dose of atomic materials F can create the magic. Maybe, maybe | not. But, until it's proven one way on> the other, it's natural this as-yet-unsub- _ stantiated claim is causing concern it ;£j could take away credibility from other'jg fusion research projects. Projects sci-,* enlists are counting on to solve the » world's energy needs. Projects like £ ITER. | THE CANADIAN STATESMAN is one of the Metroland Printing, Publishing Publishing and Distributing group of newspapers. 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