A6 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER ·______________________________________ ? ----------------------------- Wednesday July 12,2000 T he Oakville Beaver Ian Oliver Publisher N el Oliver Associate Publisher Norman Alexander Editor Kelly Montague, Advertising Director Steve Crozier Circulation Director Ten Casas OfficeManager Mark Dills Production Manager Riziero Vertolli Director ofPhotography Me&oland Pnrrtng, Pudertng & Ostrtoutng Ud.. includes: A*ax/Pfckemg News Advertiser. Alfcaon HerafcVCouner. Arthur Enterprise News. Barrie Advance, Barry's Bay The Week. Bolton Enterprise. Brampton GuartSan. Burlington Post. Burlington Shopping News. City Parent. Co*n(^oaWi6saga Comectcn. East Vtxk Mnor. Enn Advocaia'Cantry Routes. Etobicoke Guardian. Flamborough Post. Georgetown mdeperdem/Adon Free Press. Hamston Review. Huone Busness Tries. Kingston This Week. Lindsay This Week. Markham Ecnomijt & Sun. Midland/Penetanguishme Mirror. Milton Canadian Champiop. Milton Shoppng News. Mssesauga Buaness Trees. 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JAthaia \JMmard '(y//e (Oakville oA m a cd s rod business excellence JiNqU Bell FtNd 467 Speers Rd., Oakville O n L L 6 K 3 S 4 (905) 846-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-2809 Circulation: 845-9742 f C N A VT id t Canadian Community Newspapers Association ^OTVt^ THE TV AUCTION S ^ J R O N H » U T T E R FLY ONTARI O oakville galleries | ' / iL SK .The <. nv o or r l looiiiim ui r ow w m t O f mm ttfaftrWIm f e ll# Editorials C la rk ' s day is done The victory o f Stockwell D ay over Preston M anning for the leadership o f the Canadian A lliance party, signifies a new chapter in Canadian poli tics. By soundly beating the form er leader of Even if C lark now calls the R efo rm Party, D ay has served n o tice for a u nite-the-right that A lliance is his party. A nd M anning, in asking that D ay 's leadership be m ade unan cam paign, his p a st w ill im ous, has positioned him self to be a part com e back to h au n t him. He is m ore than o f th e n e w p a rty . B u t p r a g m a tic a lly , M anning's political star is on the wane. y esterd ay ' s m an, h e ' s W ith defections from the federal Tory y esterd ay ' s m an w ithout cam p to A lliance, Progressive Conservative a party. leader Joe C lark m ust be w ondering w hat w ill becom e o f both him and his party. H e need look no further than Reform. T hat was a party with regional roots but national am bition...am bition that was rejected by eastern Canada. \ T he Progressive Conservatives, a party also bom o f western alienation, ; becam e a national alternative, som ething Reform couldn't achieve. Under ; previous leader Jean Charest, the Tories couldn't fire up the electorate and under Clark, the PCs are doom ed to repeat the exercise. If there was ever a tim e to look at the best-news scenario for Joe Clark, / it's now. T he trouble for this A lbertan is that there isn't a good-news sce1 nario. Even if Clark now calls for a unite-the-right campaign, his past will * com e back to haunt him. H e is m ore than yesterday's man, he's yester·_ day's m an w ithout a party. i Surely an increasing num ber o f Tories, tired o f being left out in the . political w ilderness again, want to win another federal election and that's * not going to happen w ith Clark. T he sam e m ight be said for Stockwell I * D ay but for som e PC s, it m ight be w orth supporting a different son of I A lberta next tim e around. · PRESTON, IF YOU WON'T BE NEEDING THIS PROP ANYMORE, I WAS WONDERING Letters to the Editor ·The Oakville Beaver welcomes your comments. All letters must be typed, signed -land include the writer's address and phone number. Send to: Letters to the Editor, 3 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, Ont. L6K 3S4 O a kP a rkn eig h b o u rs sh o u ldliv einh a rm o n y * Re: Oak Park Incident was a pne tim e event -- letters to the Editor Oakville Beaver, June 28th, 2000 I; I applaud Mr. Whittaker and his family for taking full responsibility for the incident that took place on the evening o f June 3rd in Oak fWk. However, I was disheartened th a t he felt it was necessary to itiake a vicious, vindictive, and S lan d ero u s p e rso n a l a tta c k on myself and my profession as a real estate agent. * To all residents, I believe my letter was completely misinterpret ed. I am educated enough to realize that I should not belittle my own Subdivision that I reside in. My Actions w ere b ased so lely on attempting to stop and prevent the incident that occurred from hap pening again. That is all! Based on tfie reaction, it seems to have suc ceeded. M y wife and I were one of the first buyers to purchase our home in Oak Park. Mr. W hittaker sug gested that we pack up and get out! Tam sorry to disappoint him, but ray fam ily loves our house and adores the Oak Park community. We are very proud to be associated with the fine people in this commu nity i.e. Cathy Mulvale and Wayne Hare to name a few. It is as they Say -- a great place to live, work and play! * I grew up in a very strict family. M y mother, a fellow real estate agent, and my father, who served in the Royal Navy in World War II and was also a police officer in New York C ity for m any years, tdld me many tim es to never be afraid to advocate law and order y^hich keeps us from becom ing unruly. I continue to live by this rule even today. I now realize why 6ther incidents do not get reported; rt appears that the backlash of the report can be worse than the inci dent itself. Mr. Whittaker stated in his letter that his daughter visited the surrounding neighbours the very next day, before m y letter was pub lished, and apologized for the inci dent. Considering that a great deal o f the violence occurred right in front of my house, it would have been very appreciated had she vis ited my family, In fact, if she had come and apologized to us, I would not have w ritten my first letter. However, since she did not come to our door as well, I guess we were not considered neighbours. My family is greatly relieved that the "gun shot" was "merely" a beer bottle thrown in anger against the rear windshield of a car sitting in front of our house which, in our opinion, is just as dangerous as a gun. Mr. Whittaker also insinuates that I was hiding under my bed when, in fact, my wife and I, after hearing the noise, ventured outside to investigate. We watched in dis b elief for several m inutes, and m ost o f the teens ap peared so intoxicated that they did not even notice us watching them. Was I afraid for the safety of my wife and 13-month-old son? Absolutely! Is Mr. W hittaker suggesting that I should have taken the law into my own hands and e x it my hom e swinging a baseball bat instead of calling the police? Last summer, I was forced to speak with several teens from Mr. Whittaker's house who were drink ing beer on my front lawn and dropping the beer bottles all over. I was polite and courteous to them, and asked them to refrain from lit tering on my property. In reference to Mr. Whittaker's suggestion that I am bitter because I don't have any listings in Oak Park, this is utterly ludicrous. My business is successful enough. My forte is new homes, and I have sold over 248 homes in Oakville alone. I truly care about the community that I live in. I donate thousands of dollars a year to worthy charities that support youth program s all over Oakville. I have had the plea sure of teaching new home real estate seminars to many teens over the years, and I am proud to say that they are all good people. Finally, should Mr. Whittaker or any other Oak Park resident feel that my family is the "bad guy," the "Oak Park ogre," or the "party poopers," then we gladly accept those titles if it means the preven tion of incidents such as this one. My family wishes not to encourage animosity between our neighbours; th erefo re, we extend an olive branch with a friendly hand-shake to Mr. Whittaker's family and any other resident who feels we did wrong at any time. We encourage mutual conversation that benefits all of us. Gord Brennan and family Letter of the Week L a st c h a n c e fo r p u b lic in p u t On behalf of Oakvillegreen, we would like to thank all who attended the exciting Council meeting on June 26th regarding the North Oakville development.issues. We would also like to acknowledge the support from those who were unable to attend but w ho helped the process through letters to the media, to our local politi cians, and to us. The key points of Oakvillegreen's presentation, for those of you who could not attend the Standing Room Only public meeting were: 1. The Natural Heritage SYSTEM (the CONNEC TION of greenlands recommended by the Town's envi ronmental consultants) is still not in the Final Report. 2. Building over the Trafalgar moraine will prevent the infiltration of groundwater recharge which is neces sary to maintain baseflows o f local creeks whose head w a te rs o rig in a te in th e m o ra in e (F o u rte e n M ile , McCraney, Shannon's, Munn's, Morrison, and Joshua). Because of the huge number of people present at the m eeting, there w as not enough tim e for everyone to speak on the issue. For this reason, the mayor decided to continue the m eeting on Aug. 8th at 7:30 p.m . The names and addresses o f residents who still wanted to state their position were recorded by the Town Clerk as "delegations" for that meeting. If you were unable to attend the June 26th public meeting, and would like to share your thoughts with the mayor and your councillors, there's still time. You may sign up to speak by calling Kathy Patrick at Town Hall at 338-4235 before noon on Aug. 8th. So, please mark Aug. 8th on your calendars for the next North Oakville event and, if at all possible, please try to join us that evening. In the meantime, we encour age you to stay in touch with the process and keep it alive by such things as: 1. Contacting your local councillors and ask them where they stand on the issues. 2. C ontinuing to express your personal opinions through letters to the local media. 3. Discussing the issues with your friends and neigh bours (word-of-mouth can be amazing!). 4. And lastly and most importantly, get to know North Oakville better! Take a few drives through the area, take a bike ride on the back-roads, stop and walk down to the creek banks, perhaps take your councillor for a picnic. See all the lovely co u n try sid e up on the T rafalg ar Moraine. Mike La nsdow n , Iris M cG e e , Linda and Al Elgar, Renee Sandelow sky Oakvillegreen Too m uch talk about homosexuals I don't know what most ordinary families are thinking -- certainly not, I suspect, about homosexuals. I sometimes wonder how this segment of the population became so prominent that the busy world of families with two working parents are expected to worry about them; as well, who supports them and who does n't. I say who cares! To tell you the truth and the truth is not very palatable today, I am sick and tired of hearing the word homosexual. This continuous ban-age by the media is the worst form of brainwashing and to hear the media and the socalled intelligensia write and talk, one would think the only criteria needed to become prime minister is to kowtow to homosexuals. Can it be said that homosexuals run the country? And the so-called led gay parade crosses the line of decency. Would the police be so lenient with the general popula tion? I think not. This business has gone too far and from a private poll that I made, a lot of people agree with me. Betty A. Hansford M a k e e n v iro n m e n ta l c h o ic e s I often wondered what I could do for cleaner air. Doctors warn smog costs thousands of premature d eath s, asth m a, o ther illness. Experts blame sulphur in gasoline. Drive more slowly to pollute less? I already do. Drive less, walk more? I'm a senior. There are no moresmall grocery stores nearby. Public transit neither cheap nor convenient. I still must drive to go shopping, to the doctor, and to visit our two children and six grandchil dren. Waiting for governments to act? They don't enforce standards for fear of displeasing oil refiners and car-makers who help win elec tions. What can I do? My choice alone. I'll buy lowsulphur gasoline refined by Sunoco with 290 parts sulphur per one-mil lion parts fuel (ppm) in Ontario. I'll avoid Esso, Shell, Petro-Canada with 700 to 810 ppm. It costs the same. I would even pay a few cents more a litre for less polluting, less health-destroying gas if I have to, for everybody's and their children's cleaner air. H ubert Stehr They're smiling Our office would like to thank the residents of Oakville for mak ing our charity event `Smiles For Life' a huge success. T o g eth er w ith p a rtic ip a tin g dentists across North America, we were able to raise over $3 million. The money raised in Canada will be d o n ated to T he T rilliu m Foundation. Dr. David Brow n & staff Pud ,r= by Steve Nease R id left u s a n o t e . M EG ot A 5UMMER .T n B A K i n w n M '-r Financial markets need clarity These days, some of the articles in the newspapers dwell upon the subject of (stock) market manipulation. It is obvious that any practice which improperly corrects the m arket or deform s the true value o f stocks, brings extrem e consequences, therefore the voice o f the media should rise against this deficiency of solid ethics. It is a practice which should not receive and support. I will go a little further and say that even the language o f the traders when dealing with stocks should not aim at confu sion. The exaggerated use of words should be eliminated. The Baroque style, the pompous ornamentation has no place in the language of the financial industry, only the prac tical sincerity and reality of facts. G iuseppe Fava