A6 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday June 30, 1999 Th e Oakville Beaver OPINION Ian Oliver Publisher Neil Oliver A ssociate Publisher Norman Alexander E ditor Kelly Montague, A dvertising D irector Martin Doherty Circulation D irector Ten Casas Office M anager Marie Dills Production M anager Riziero Vertolli D irector o f Photography M etroland P rrtin g . Pufcfchng & D etributng L id ., includes: A^ax/Pckemg News Advertiser. AJfcton HerafcVCouner. Bame Advance. Barry's Bay This Week. Bolton Enterprise. Brampton G uartfan. B irin g to n Post, B ulngton Shoppng News. C ity Parent. CotingwoodW asaga Connection. East York M rror. Erin Advocate'Country Routes. Etobicoke Guardan. Ramborougfi Post. Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press. H irona Business Times. K ingston This W eek. Lindsay This W eek. M arkham Ecnorm st & Sun. M tcfand/P enetanguishine M irror. M ilton Canadian Cham pion. M ilton Shopping News, Mssissauga Busness Tm es. M ssesauga News. Napanee G ude. 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We've just enjoyed a great Waterfront Festival that brought tens of thou sands of people to Oakville for an enjoyable three-day celebration of our waterfront and sum mer. The Festival was a hit with everyone with the only sour note being the goose droppings that covered C oronation Park, the hub of the Festival. The trouble with the geese began years ago when a group of them decided to call Oakville home for the winter at Gairloch Gardens in the town's east end. What followed were years of breeding and the ballooning of the geese population. Gairloch, an outstanding piece of public space on the waterfront that was used for walking, observing the plantings and site for numerous weddings, became almost unusable due to goose feces. Signs were erected at Gairloch and other shoreline areas begging visitors not to feed the geese. But the geese were fed and they prospered, moving down to Coronation Park, Bronte Harbour and to a lesser extent, Lakeside Park. Since that time, it has meant the elimination of Coronation Park as a place where families can picnic and enjoy a weekend afternoon. Even concerts at the new stage see the audience using chairs that are covered in feces along with their shoes. Bronte Harbour has likewise been inundated with geese, making walking treacherous in most lakeside areas thanks to the leavings of the geese. And so it's with much appreciation that we herald the efforts of the Town to rid Coronation Park of 425 geese. Of those geese, 125 will be held in a pen at Trafalgar Lawn Cemetery, while 300 others have ben relocated to Elgin County. The procedures show how a malodorous problem can be controlled. We eagerly await the results of the experiment and its impact on footwear. Letters to the Editor The Oakville Beaver welcomes your comments. All letters must be typed, signed and include the writer's address and phone number. Send to: Letters to the Editor, The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, Ont. L6K 3S4 Since th a t tim e, i t has I m ean t th e elim in ation o f C oronation P ark as a p lace w here fam ilies can p icn ic an d en joy a w eekend afternoon. Even con certs a t th e n ew stage see th e audience using chairs th a t are covered in feces along until th eir shoes. M a jo r ity s u p p o r t g a y m a r r ia g e s Well folks, 'Lesbian & Gay Pride' week has arrived and with it the third largest 'Pride Parade' in North America. Over the past few years, it has draw n crow ds between 500,000 to one-million, some curious onlookers, some there as a symbol of support for homosexual friends, relatives, or colleagues, and lastly, a few dirt digging critics on a tireless mis sion to capture any evidence of naughty behaviour by any reckless attention-craving exhibitionists who 'neglect to respect' that there will be ch ild ren w atching the colourful parade. Last year, a preacher and a cou ple of his sheep protested the rais ing of the 'Pride flag' at City Hall and denounced our independent- minded Mayor Mega-Mel for his decision to stroll down the parade route, with what they called 'the barbarian fringe,' in an expression of inclusion for all residents of the City of Toronto. This year, lesbians, gays, and b isexuals, w hile anything but impressed with a Reform Party motion that was ironically sup ported by loads of Liberals stipu lating that the definition of a mar riage was to be solely 'a union between a man and a woman,' can take com fort in the latest tide sw aying in their favour as a national Angus Reid poll indicated that a w hopping 53% of C anadians were in favour of 'Homosexual Marriages.' Unlike the brutal savage who murdered Mathew Shepard, those more likely to favour homosexual marriages are university educated. When a heterosexual drops into a gay bar (as many heterosexual female friends out to dance on weekends rather than hunting for the ideal male partner do), they see a bunch of masculine guys in their old 501 Levis cheering on their favourite hockey team , not a bunch of flamboyant drag queens watching ballet. Now, wouldn't it be a wonder ful world if folks, who abhor the Taws of the land' that permit the liberty of smoking, abortions, and gambling and that may soon rec ognize m a jo rity 's support for 'euthanasia and gay marriages,' could get on with their lives know ing that such legislation wouldn't adversely affect the freedom to live 'as they ch o o se ' or w ith 'whom they choose?' David C. Searle Ontario Works an opportunity for participants There has been much anxiety and confusion surrounding the soon-to-be-implemented Ontario Works program. What has been written and reported on to date has had ominous overtones and in gen eral has been negative, adding to the fears of many who feel the government is attempting to rob welfare recipients of something that has been considered 'rightfully theirs'. A question o f th e pub lic go od Thank you for printing Peter D. Pellier's letter entitled "Biting the Hand that you Need. " (Oakville Beaver, Wed., June 16th, 1999). He asserts "At the heart of a caring socie ty lies the public good" at w hich " the H arris G overnm ent has launched an assault." His letter sum m arizes quite accurately, the thinking o f the apparently good-intentioned peo ple who voted ag a in st M ike Harris in the last election. The main proponents o f this thinking just happen to include: union leaders, adm in istra to rs, government employees and oth ers, who have the most to gain from keeping a w ell-m anaged, tightly run and m ore effic ien t government operation from tak ing place. So m uch fo r the "p u b lic " good! I personally welcome the new 'Reform Party s ty le ' changes com ing our way and look for ward to many more years of the same. Ron Parry P.S. It may now be time to do something about the fed era l Liberals, who walked away with a 38% majority government. After attending an information seminar outlining the rights and responsibilities of the participants in order to continue receiving ben efits which are presently being paid by social assistance and fami ly benefits, I was both relieved and excited. The presentation outlined the numerous programs which will be offered to those o f us who are working towards being self-suffi cient. Under the new legislation, each participant who has children who are able to attend school full time, are required to log 140 hours a month which may consist of job search, enrollm ent in course to upgrade education, volunteer com munity work or paid employment. Care is taken in determining what is the best course of action for each individual according to their own specific needs. The O ntario Works program covers both child care and trans portation costs to and from com munity placements. For persons returning to the workforce after several years of being at home with young children, a $250 start up allowance for new clothes is available, another example of the practical element to this new pro gram. Ontario Works will open doors in the lives of many clients by offering opportunities which will allow them to make positive deci sions with the guidance and sup port of caseworkers. These work ers valiantly battle the mountains o f paperw ork and red tape involved in getting the system up and running and are sincere in their desire to improve the quality of life, one case at a time. It is my hope that the Halton community as well as the Province of Ontario put aside any personal prejudice fostered by media reports of Ontario Works and see this is instead as an opportunity of a life time. Sherri Fox-Edwards F estival expensive for children Re: 1999 Oakville Waterfront Festival This year's Waterfront Festival was very expensive for those of us with children who wanted to go on the midway. It cot me more to have two children ride on the midway for one hour ($40) than if I were to take them to the CNE for a full day. One problem was the rides were three minutes and for people who have more than one child, three minute rides, three tickets per ride gets pretty expensive. We pay because our children are entitled to have fun too. I inquired about a day pass and I was told the pass was only good for between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. (at $12 each). How is that considered a day? I was very disappointed this year. I had expected similar to last year where everyone could enjoy themselves without going broke. Prior years were not that expensive. What was different this year? Other than those rides for 2-6-year-olds, there wasn't as much entertainment for them. If next year it is the same, I would opt to take them to the CNE before I'd pay that price again. Although I would prefer not too. Let's give more for the little ones at the Festival, as it is for everyone. Lynne Choquette Community backing Wellspring centre What a shame that the main corporate donors to Wellspring received only a passing nod in one short paragraph , tucked away on Page 3 o f Howard M ozel's account of the press conference held on Wed., June 16th, 1999. Without the very generous donation by Mattamy H om es L td. and The M etro n ta rio G roup o f a $300,000 turn-key facility, Wellspring would be fundraising for a building long after the June, 2000 planned opening of the facility. Perhaps the headline on Page 3 -- "Community Support for Wellspring House" -- would have been more appropriate on Page 1, because that is what is so wonderful about the response from the communi ty toward this project. Pud by Steve Hease..,will return I attended the Wellspring dinner on the evening of June 16th, and left with the feeling that the corpo rate donors were not duly recognized, due to time constraints. This was not the fault of the organizing committee which, in my opinion, deserve to be com mended for arranging this very successful event. My sense, at the end of the evening, was that (here was a large segment of the attendees who were not fully aware that the Wellspring building is an outright gift, nor were they fully aware of the magnitude of the corporate response. Perhaps, the Beaver would help remedy this omission by running an in-depth article about the "Community Support for Wellspring House." Donna Jack Ed. note: A separate Wellspring section ran in the Fri. June 11, 1999 Oakville Beaver. Letter of the W eek C h i ld r e n s u f f e r m o s t i n K o s o v o What about Serbian children? It is admirable of R. Gatlenby (Wed., June 23rd, 1999 issue) and the rest o f the world to be helping Kosovar children, and they should be helped. But has anybody ever given a second thought to the children of Serbia? What did these children do to deserve to be ignored, for gotten, and even in some cases accused for this past senseless war between Serbia and NATO, or should I say between Clinton and Milosevic? Do you think that the Serbian children have done something to elect their irre sponsible leaders? Not much more than our children have done in electing our politicians in Ontario. The way things are right now, Serbian children could use some help, a lot more help than tennis balls. They spent most of these past three months in their dingy cel lars, not basements or bomb shelters as our illustrious reporters were telling us, because such "beasts" don't exist in Serbia. Cellars were their homes 24 hours a day, evety day for almost three months, together with rats, spiders and a pile of coal, which is usually kept in those wet musty underground spaces. Now the children suffer from impaired vision, shat tered nerves and God knows what degree of mental dis turbance. Their mothers couldn't turn their vacuum cleaners on even if they had electricity (which they don't) and a home (which they don't any more), because the children are having fits from any type of noise which reminds them of planes flying over their heads and hiss ing sounds of bombs falling around them. I'd like you to imagine the state your child would be in if he or she, God forbid, couldn't turn the TV on, did n 't have a light on in the fridge,.or couldn't use a microwave for his grilled cheese sandwich for just one day. That would be a disaster, wouldn't it! If we are so quick and so caring to organize some thing and advertise it on the first page of our local paper fo r one group o f ch ildren , v ictim s o f a senseless grownup's war, why aren't we so gracious to assist all children affected by it? Any type of assistance would help them -- clothing, blankets, soup, toilet paper, books, a note to see that somebody cares. Do you think Serbian children are proud of their grownups right now? Do you think they should be pay ing a price, now and for the rest of their lives, for having an irresponsible leader in a responsible place in govern ment? I think Canadian children would have a pretty good answer to this question. L. Si movie Real estate board helps housing need The Oakville, Milton and District Real Estate Board (OMREB) held its Annual Golf Tournament & Dinner at Richview Golf and Country Club, June 10th, 1999. The day was a lot of fun, and an unqualified success -- a culmination of the generous efforts of the Board's many dedicated volun teers and organizers. We, at Joyce Scott Non-Profit Homes Inc. (an organiza tion committed to Independent Living for adults with physi cal disabilities), are the very grateful beneficiaries of the Tournament & Dinner. We offer our sincere appreciation to participants, organizers, volunteers, and other contributors, all of whom helped make this event memorable. On behalf of Joyce Scott Non-Profit Homes Inc., I thank The OMREB for their kind support. Maria Sewell Community Relations Joyce Scott Non-Profit Homes Inc. Deborah's Home Attendant Outreach RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: ^CNA SK\ THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR¬ Editorials Fly birds David C. Searle Donna Jack Children suffer most in Kosovo L. Si movie Maria Sewell