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editorial comments Regional government an election issue Now that the three parties have selected their candidates, the campaign in the Dyrham-York riding for the March 19 provincial election is underway. So far some of the "'local" issues that have been mentioned include highway construction, the preser- vation of farm-land, high interest rates, job security and the state of the economy in general. These issues are of importance during this campaign, but no doubt party hopefuls in just about every riding in the province are talking about much the same thing. If there is a single local issue in the Durham- York riding which might catch the fancy of voters it may turn out to be the question of regional govern- ment. ] ] Liberal candidate Gary Adamson told his nomination meeting last week that he intends to make regional government an issue in this riding, and it is about time that it became one. The subject of regional government in this province has been studied to death over the past ten years and there are any number of fat reports gathering dust on the shelves. - Nevertheless, as regional government in Durham approaches its first decade, there are some serious questions developing that need to be at least addressed, if not answered. The main question is the cost, and whether tax-payers, especially those in the rural areas where their money's worth. In 1978, the Region spent some $60 million; the following year, the figure went up to $68 million. This year the spending estimates suggest that the in- crease will be in the neighbourhood of $9 million, for a budget that regional councillors and officials are calling a strictly "'hold the line" affair. The theory behind regional government is not necessarily a bad one: the centralization of several essential services sych as sewer and water, police protection, overall planning, and welfare. But something seems tc be happening to the implementation and the administration. How much higher can the costs go, especially when develop- ment generally has ground to a halt in Durham? Why is it that Durham has spent literally millions to put sewer and water pipes in the ground for new housing and industry which just has not there are few services, are gettinganywhere near taken place? On whose projections and what basis were those massive capital projects undertaken, and why is it that Durham can't seem to attract new industry and housing? If the industry is not coming to Durham, and if fewer and fewer houses are being built to hook up to these pipes in the ground, how can taxpayers be expected to foot the bill over the next 10 or 20 years? No matter what the critics say, regional govern- ment does have its benefits. But it has its flaws as well to the point where most people in the rural areas don't like it and have little confidence in it. These kinds of questions need some answers, and maybe an election campaign is a good place to start. Vandalism to-day Those parents who have somehow managed to raise a family of responsible, well-balanced young people have a good deal for which to be thankful. The pitfalls which lie in wait for both parents and children are manifold and complex. ~ Success in the task of raising a decent family, however, is something more than a matter of good luck. Sensible parents are first and by far the most important ingredient in the process. It doesn't matter how much parents are able to spend on comforts for their children, nor what fine schools the youngsters attend. If the home atmosphere fails to instill a sense of responsibility and acceptable behaviour, right from day one of babyhood, all the goodies our society can provide will not produce worthwhile young adults. Judge Lucien Beaulieu of the provincial family court, who headed a task force to study the causes of, and possible remedies for vandalism, has come up wlth some obvious non-answers. The judge appar- ently doesn't believe that parents should be held responsible for the destructive acts of their children. It is his conclusion that if parents are required to pay the shot, the children of more affluent families would (Turn to page 6) am a school teacher. I retorted with a bit of tongue in cheek. In high dudgeon, he cancelled the column. Speaking of education, he says he atten- ded five different schools and doesn't think much of today's big schools. Of the new "Anti-social behaviour It's extremly difficult, as any columnist knows, to phease all of the people all of the time. In fact, if this column had done so, it would be extinct. Half my readers get so mad at me that they can't wait to read the next column, so they get madder. The other half sort of enjoys it, forgives my lapses and looks forward to what the silly twit is going to say next week. In the last couple of weeks, I've had some letters from both sides. A Manitoba editor is thinking of cancelling the column. Reason? "Too many columns dealing with letter: "While it is understandable that family members are dear to Bill Smiley.....I feel our readers might tire of too much wife name-calling and how the grandboys are behaving. Once or twice a year would be sufficient." Ishould be so lucky. You are quite right sir. Once or twice a year would be sufficient, for the grandboys' visit. But I have never called my wife a name, unless you consider The Old Battleaxe or The Old Lady to be pejorative. You should hear what some men call their wives. And from Vancouver, a young mother writes to say "Keep on writing about your family and grandboys. 1 love these personal matters." I quote bits from his ill smiley columns." The editor was fair. He added: "Columns, other than family-related are good and have received favourable com- ment from our readers." Thanks. I get letters from religious people who accuse me of being the right-hand man of the Devil, when I jestingly remark that God must have been out to lunch when he was drawing up the menu for this year's winter. I get letters from other religious people who send me dreary tracts and letters full of Biblical references, with the hope that I will + And I get letters from still other reli- gious people, mostly clergy, who enjoy quibbling with me over a point but urge me to continue writing as I do, to make people think. I get letters from Tories who accuse me of being a Liberal because I don't think Joe Clark is the Second Coming (there I go again). And I get letters from Liberals who swear that I'm a blatant Tory simply because I don't believe the Second Coming has already come, in the form of Petit Pierre. But on the whole, it is not exactly a dog's life. I remember receiving a fairly vicious editorial blow from a weekly editor who said I wrote too much about teenagers, because I It's still going. I wonder if he's still editor of that paper, deciding what his readers can read. (Had a number of letters from his subscribers supporting me, none supporting him.) I receive letters from places like Baker Lake, N.W.T., excoriating me for talking about the tough winters down here, which to them is almost the deep south. And I get a letter from my kid brother, retired and living in Florida, with pictures of the house, flowers, pool and an outline of his day: coffee and morning paper, walk down the beach with the dog, etc. The swine. Wait till the Florida flies get to him in July and he wants to come north and visit for a month. No room at the Smiley inn, little Smiley. On the whole, the letters I get are delightful. A typical example came in the other day from Bill Francis, Moncton, B.C. He says such nice things about the column that I blush even to read them, and would never put them in print. But more to the point, his letter is witty, informative, alive. He's no chicken, a W.W. 1 infantry private. I'll quote a bit. "Though obviously a man of sound common sense, I wonder how, in your youth, you got involved in flying a fighter plane, let alone risking combat in one. (Ed. note: me too!) I remember during those war years, watching a young fellow land his old Avro Anson like a wounded pelican in the middle of our frieght yard and walk away from the wreck looking a little sheepish. Soon after and nearby, another boy flew his Harvard trainer at full speed into a grove of trees one foggy morning. He didn't walk away from that one." 'permissiveness: today may be blamed on everything from sun spots to Grandpa's weakness for women and hard liquor, which all agree is a vast improvement on the old concept." A strapping at school and another at home for being strapped at school. - His last school was graded "superior", because it taught to Grade 11. Equipment .consisted of a tray of mineral specimens, the remains of a cheap chemistry set, and a leather strap, but managed to turn out a number of people who went into the profes- sions. Bill Francis says: '"The school's rather good record was due not only to excellent instruction, but also to drawing, from a radius of five miles around, those whose eyes were fixed on distant goals and whose legs were equal to hoofing it back and forth. There was nothing wrong with my legs and I lived nearby. "Just a little light upstairs, they said; a handicap I've learned to live with." "Now, some seventy years later and a little wiser, I have become just an old fellow round whom the wind blows in the laugh of the loon and the caw of the crows and the wind whistles by so dreary and cold, in chilling disdain of ways that are old. But this feckless old fellow just putters around and heeds not the wind nor its desolate sound. Cares not a whit for what the winds say; just listens for echoes of things far away." I think that is wise and honest and real. May I feel the same. I'll be in touch, Bill Francis. You're a literate man with some brains in your head. An unusual pheno-- - menon.