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an ne Yr Tea a =, 3 8 if } J a i 33 5 os + a Morn! Wt. TL J. PR ae Sy ST o Eo "Ty XS 5 Wook Dn ey WN we J 1S AC wh Le a TY Ma SEINE . RAS Lea, hn ey rs >. re iy Ga. "y an SSRIS UN TA AMA LL BEAN VIIA Rat TAA ao. NT te tA PN BORN EAR 30 2 LN RR Eh EATER TRS AER i re TH LRT AN SR I A CR EAN UAL Ra . = EL * a PRCA REM Ek 8 editoriol PTL AY FEE LRN & WR : Lio { IGE AAR SE SA WT VE Eh a i, 5 areSE Le AY 1 ce AS AY Se NLT es Y ae Ta tS RL RAEN A LOAN EN SG fs Ea NY ar ang ty Np 20 , ATES OF FEE Fa We BL EARS I TT FD NT AL SR Lau Library Decision The Right One Scugog Tpwnship council took the right course of action Monday evening when it voted to ask for a review of the Ontario Municipal Board "decision" on the proposed library site handed down on June 12. The Star agrees with this course of action for several reasons. First of all, the Star has supported the concept that this Township needs expanded library facilities. Second, the Star has supported the idea from the outset that the proposed site fronting on Water Street would make an excellent location for a new public library. It is an attractive physical setting. It is within easy walking distance of downtown Port Perry, and probably the most central location of any within the entir® Township, making it as accessible as possible for library users from Reach, Scugog Island and Cartwright. The land has been boughtand paid for by Scugog Township at a price of $150,000. While we agree with the objectors that waterfront property is a valuable commodity, we cannot agree that all of this piece of property simply be turned into parkland, which at best would get minimal use by thé residents and tax-payers of this Township. We have a library board that has put forward convincing arguments as to why the present building on Queen Street is no longer adequate enough to serve the needs of this growing Township of 13,000 people. The Board wants to build a new library. It has received a commitment from Wintario for a grant of $140,000. The Township council has agreed to pay $100,000 towards construction of a new library, ahd the library board will raise the remaining $100,000 through donations from the public, service groups, and charitable foundations. The re-zoning which was turned down by the Ontario Municipal Board last 'week would have provided for a library-site fronting on Water Street, while the lakeside half of the property would have been re-zoned to permanent open space parkland. We have said it before and we will say it again now. A new library is not for everyone. But expanded library services are essential to any progressive community; just as essential as any other forms of culture and recreation such as arenas, neighbourhood parks, community halls, baseball diamonds and tennis courts, all of which get their share of tax-payers money. The objectors to this particular site on Water Street say the Township needs more waterfront ht LEER Te. Apt STEAL NN edie IN eS, POOE ' $0MEBODY TURNED THE LiGHTs ovr I" parkland. We say that the Township has waterfront property stretching from the boat-launching area in the north, Birdseye Centre, Palmer Park, the new sand beach, two baseball diamonds and tennis courts in the south. Also, the Township is spending tax dollars to develop community parks and recreation facilities outside Port Perry in hamlets such as Greenbank and Seagrave, for example. The open space waterfront property that the Township does own along Lake -Scugog in Port Perry is under-utilized most of the time. There is municipal land that can be re-claimed to the north of Birdseye Centre. It is not inconceivable that in the next few years, both the Port Perry Marina and the Township Works garage which sit on the waterfront will be moved to other locations, thus opening up even more open space parkland on the waterfront. The construction of a new library building on the site proposed will not detract from the present Port Perry waterfront, nor would it hinder the develop- ment of further open space parkland some time in the future. But these reasons have all been cited before. We have supported the proposed library site, and will continue to support it, as the cheapest, most attractive and most accessible site in this Township. However, we also feel that the Township council took the right step on Monday evening because the Ontario Municipal Board "decision" handed down last week is such a monstrosity that it cries out for clarification, further action, and if need be a ruling by some higher court. No matter where one stands on the merits of a new library, whether it should be on Water Street, or wherever, the OMB decision is totally unacceptable. Aside from several errors in fact, grounds enough alone to challenge the decision, the OMB has _ refused to pass a zoning by-law and at the same time has said the whole issue should go back to the municipality for "further consideration.' But what does this mean? There are references by-law; there are references to a lack of financing details for the new library (yet at the OMB hearing last April, the commissioner said it would not be necessary when the library board was prepared to give evidence as to how the proposed library would be paid for.) What is even more perplexing is that the OMB accepts in its judgement that the proposed library site would be a good use of public lands, yet it would not approve the by-law. wr There are so many loose threads, unanswered questions, and veiled references that any municipal council would be shirking its duty if it did not demand further action on this OMB judgement. For as it stands now, it is a sorry, no-win, non- decision for all parties involved, and quite unaccep- table from a board with as much power in this province as the OMB. RR GT bill OUI-0UI, NON-NON I'm writing this on the day of the Great Quebec Referendum or the Oui-Oui, Non- Non vote (sounds like a naughty game for kids). No results have come in yet, but I find myself viewing the evening news with a monumental calm bordering on boredom. Hundreds of thousands of column inches of newsprint have been wasted, hundreds of hours of television and radio time expended, exploring, explaining, and exploiting a ques- tion that, for true ambiguity, resembles that old-timer, "When did you stop beating your wife?" Bleeding hearts all over Anglophone Canada, whose connection with the Quebec fact consists of one weekend in Montreal and one encounter with one real, live French- Canadian, have been bleeding all over the upholstery in which the Great Question has been cushioned. I sincerely doubt that there has been much of this bleeding taking place west of Winnipeg. And I sincerely believe that even less of it has been done east of Fredericton. smiley In the great Liberal-less west, the vote has some curiosity value, but as far as I can sense, no wrenching anguish at the possible break-up of a great and beautiful country. In the Maritimes, there have been some valid economic qualms at the thought of a fractured Canada, but no panic, from what I can read. It stands to reason then, that my "bleed- ing hearts all over Anglophone Canada" are mostly in Ontario. And the only time hearts bleed in Ontario is when there is some chance that that province will come out on the short end of a deal. If the question had not been wrapped in cotton wool, I think there might have been some sense of a real potential tragedy in Canada, instead of the bloated, pumped-up phony issue created by pollsters and politi- cians, which has produced little but ennui outside Quebec. I'd like to have seen a ballot with two statements on it, one to be marked with the traditional X. The first would say, "Nous partirons" and the second, "Je reste au Canada." Loosely translated from my execrable French, they mean, respectively, "We quit!" and "I stay wid Canada." A straight question like this would test the validity of the Pequiste calim to self- determination and would settle, once and for all, the nightmare of a foreign country stuck like a thorn in the body of this sprawling country that exists only because of Sir John A MacDonald, the CPR, rye whiskey, maple syrup and the fact that Americans don't like a cold climate. These are what have held us together; not idealism, mutual respect, maple leaves, or a national culture. Whichever side wins today in Quebec, it's going to be a hollow victory. If the Oui vote takes it, a funny, little, passionate, rather endearing man is going to think he's the Second Coming, and will press on from one flounder to the next. If the Non vote takes it, the Oui's are going to scream bloody murder. Federal intervention, Anglo duplicity and faulty reading of the stars, among other things. It appears that it will be fairly even. This solves nothing whatever and serves only to make four million Quebecois mad at the other four million. And this is about average for any Canadian election or vote, so nothing is new. Pundits talk about lack of communica- tion, as though it had just been invented. Of course there is. But I'll bet there's more communication and a closer rapport bet- ween a French farmer and an Anglo farmer than there is between a Gaspe fisherman and a. Montreal banker, or between an Albertén construction worker, and a Toron- to stock broker. They talk about two different cultures. Of course there are. But that's no hang-up. There's a whale of a difference between an Oxford professor, and a Scottish highlander, but they manage to stagger along under the same crown and constitution. You can't tell me that a playboy in Nice has the same moral values as a shepherd in Breton, but they are both Frenchman. A resident of the Bronx in New York and one in Hayfork Centre, Mississippi, have less in common than a dog and a cat, but they are" both Americans. Personally, I have a certain affection for Quebec. I spent my first two years, and all my holidays into my teens, in that province. But am equally, or more fond of Edinburgh, London, Paris, North Wales. I don't, and I don't believe many Anglos do, want to take away the language, culture, religion of the Quebecois. They can all go around in their bare skin and smoke Cuban cheroots, as far as I care. At the same time, I don't want to be bullied into learning another language, at my age. I don't want some member of the family treated better than the others. I don't want to be told by some flaming-eyed radical that I represent a class and a nation that has no6 soul, that exists only to gouge others. Some gouging I've done from Quebec. When all the smoke settles, will there be any fire? Quite possibly. There is ignorance and fear on both sides. But I'm not envisioning civil war. Quebec politicians, like those of the rest of Canada, are happier when there is a marshmallow on the end of the rapier. TC as