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Good luck on bid Good luck to the Scugog Angels softball club in their bid to host the 1995 Women's National Fastball ionship in Port Perry. The Club last week filed its initial bid with the Ontario Softball Association and Softball Canada will make a decision this fall on whether to grant the 1995 championship tournament to Port Perry. Hosting the Womens Nationals in 1996 would be a major coup for the Angels organization but also for Port Perry and: Scugog Township. The week-long tournament would bring together the top 16 ladies fastball clubs from every province in the country, plus the, defending champions and the Angels who as host team would get an automatic berth. By 1995, the interest in Womens fastball at the national level will. be extremely high, leading up to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta where fastball will be a medal sport for the first time. Many of the competitors in the 1995 Nationals will be working towards a spot on the Canalifan Olympic team. The level of competition will be very high. a What a great showcase opportunity this would be for Port Perry and Scugog Township. The teams would come from every corner of |. the nation and the event would attract large numbers of spectators from all over Ontario. Hopefully, they would return home with many favourable thoughts and memories of the host community and some good-old-fashioned small town hospitality. Staging a week-long tournament like this i is a big under-taking. It would take ® great deal of in the ths leadi up to the tourndment and during the week itself. Softball Canada is expected to make a decision on the bid some time in November. If granted, it will take a co-ordinated effort by a large number of people to do all the preparations over the following 18 months. . Sbrvice clubs, sports or i the Chamber of C ce and the Township of Scugog will have to throw their support behind this project. As for the Angels bid to bring ghe Nationals to Port Perry in| 1995, we can only say go for it and best of luck. It would be a major feather in the community cap. The*Food Bank Just a few years ago, food banks were few and fat between in this country. They existed for the most part in the large cities, but not in the smaller towns and villages. But that has changed. These days, hardly a community anywhere is without this service which hands out groceries to those who can't afford to buy their own. This country is supposed to have one of the most extensive ui = help those in need by Ross Stevenson, 5 P, Durham Despite what you've been told elsewhere, neither the federal government nor I are attacking the unemployed. Nor do we want to. That charge has boen made by Various special interest groups in criticizing changes to the Unemployment. Insurance rules. While it's usually easier "to make such a claim than to answer it, there are very sound have reached $8 billion by the year end. * There are two ways of maintaining the program while keeping costs in line - either by raising premiums, or by capping spending. Higher premiums were rejected because of their adverse-impact on hiring. An independen study showed that an increase' of 20 in employee premiums - with a related increase in the which not just Unemployment Insurance but also much other federal government spending. These spending restraints were announced last December, in the Finance Minister's E ic Stat t. The; systems of social welfare of any in the world. Gover t {provinelal and fuletad) spat billions auch Yea? on program ghat are d to provid ities of life when times get tough. : There are many who wonder now if food banks should not be taken over by government, or if they should even exist. Obviously, there is a need. People are using them. Even in this community, the food bank run by Operation Scugog feeds about 26 |. families on a regular basis. In Toronto, more than 150,000 people ly on food banks each month. That is a staggering number for a hy of just over two million. y're very important to all of us and to Canada's future, + We want Unemployment to conti halni Pp ged to employers. - would result in 30,000 more unemployed this year! . So we chose to cap spending - by not paying benefits to those who quit their jobs for no good reason, and by freezing averagé Unemployment Insurdnce benefits. That's in line with a two-year salary freeze throughout the whole federal government, affecting public servants, and the people who need it. "The purpose ¢ of that program is to r for those who lose their } jobs, through no fault of their own, while they're looking for new The Easter Food:Drive here in Scugog fell short of exp i In fact, food donations were barely trickling in to the Port Perry Fire Hall on Saturday. One volunteer called it the worst year ever for the Food Drive. Just why this is so is anyone's guess, but perhaps it has something to do with the overall economic picture, But people will not go ge . £ Operation Scugog has funds to groceries to "This service in Bcugog is run Ee about a dozen dedicated volunteers who should be commended for giving their time and efforts to this cause. They are too busy to spend much time pondering the "philosophical" debate about food banks. It may be a sign of the times we are living in that a substantial number of Canadians are going hungry each week; or would go hungry were it not for the efforts of food bank volunteers. Operation Scugog will need donations of both food and money to re-stock the shelves in the coming weeks. ' than their skills, or train for new jobs - thie year $2.2 billion will be used that way. Cost is a major problem. Though the program is meant ~~ to be self-supporting, last year $4.5 billion more was paid out in Unemployment Insurance was collected = in premiums. This year the total cost will be almost $22 billion - making it the single most expensive federal government program. Something had to be done, orelse the deficit would MPs, even. the Governor General. To offset an expected 3 per cent average growth in public sector wages that would increase unemployment benefits, the rate for new claimants is being reduced from 60 to 57 percent of insurable earnings. That will help reduce the deficit by $1 billion this year. Even with the freeze, Canadians still will have more generous and fairer unemployment benefits that workers in Britain or the U.S. Benefits are eliminated for those who leave their jobs without "just cause" because, by its definition, the program wasn't designed to su such people. However that doesn't affect those who have a good reason for quitting - such as unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, relocatin with a spouse, obligation to ca! for a child, or taking voluntary layoff to preserve jobs for co- workers. About 40 such reasons have béen récognized by the courts as just cause for quitting. The Unemployment Insurance Act lists five broad areas, and. eight more are being added to reflect court rulings. While persons applying for benefits must show there was just cause for leaving, when there is conflicting evidence they'll be given the benefit of the doubt. The purpose of these changes is to keep the Unemployment healthy, 80 it:can continue hel those who are looking for or being retrained. Unettiployment Insurance is like the insurance on your car or your household. It's there for help in emergencies. The benefits come from premiums paid by workers and employers - not the government. It's not meant to support those who decide they don't want to work, and quit for no good reason. Other workers shouldn't be expected to subsidize In my view, the changes to Unemployment Insurance are as fair as possible. also ensure the program can continue helping those who need it. Although there certainly has been a lot of well-orchestrated criticism, I'm satisfied from the letters and calls I've received that there is a great deal of suppers for these changes. | publis ed by Scugog Citizen Publishing Ltd. The Scugog Citizen, an independant ovnul and opie 'weekly community newspaper, is distributed, oor 1010 hot ed as nd re 36 WATER ST. PORT PERRY, ONT. LIL1J2 4 Phone : (416) 985-6397 Fax : (416) 985-1410 "Proud Canadione, proud to call Scugog Tosemship home." % of charge, 0' Souls Pills