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a j t t c i 4 w p 4 weekender may 4 1996 stux mion legislation is first step to fairness the move to give homosexu als recognition in the human rights act has sparked con troversy among right wing canadians parliament passed a second reading of the bill this week after it goes to a committee for study it will return to the commons for final passage prime minister jean chre tien permitted liberal mps a free vote declaring it as a morality issue the prime minister is right it would be immoral to deny any canadians their rights based on their sexual orienta tion critics argue that the bill will offer homosexuals a back viewpoint paula crowell door into legal rights for gay marriages and adoption no one wants to see the deterioration of the family unit it is what makes our society what it is but there is no proof that by legally prohibiting discrimi nation against gays society as we know it will crumble when women fought for the vote after the turn of the cen tury their critics said it would lead to the downfall of society eighty years later canada continues to be a country which at its core represents family values canada has its imperfections but we are a nation of people which recog nizes the value of human beings of all ages and which celebrates family life to offer a measure of secu rity to a small part of the population will neither make nor break this country the passing of this legisla tion will not see all sorts of previouslyconsidered het erosexuals turning on the straight population to join the newly liberated ranks of the gays this law will not cause the corruption of children adopt ed by gay couples eager to teach them their ways nor will it make single men and women reconsider their decision to marry people who are gay didnt choose to be that way any more than women choose to be female or blacks choose to be darkskinned the first step toward end- ing discrimination toward any of these groups is legisla tion society will come around to accept this in due time the tribune weekender edition a me trolaod community newspaper patriciapappas publisher joann stevenson editorinchief andrew maffi general managereditor debraweller director of advertising barry goodyear director of distribution vtvianoneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager stqurtville all enquiries 905 6402100 fax 9056405477 6244 main st stouffville ont uxbbidge all enquiries 9058529741 fax 905 8524355 88 brock st w uxbridge ont the tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publish ing and distributing group of community newspa pers which includes ajax pickering news advertis er barrie advance brampton guardian burling ton post cityparent coliingwpodvwasaga connec tion east york mirror etobicoke guardian georgetown independentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week midland- penetanguishene mirror milton canadian champi on misgissauga news newmarketaurora era- banner northumberland news north york mirror oakville beaver orillia today oshawa-whitby- clarington this week peterborough this week richmond hillthornhillvaughan liberal scarbor ough mirror todays seniors contents not to be reproduced without written permission from the publisher permit 1247 the weekender is n member of the ontario press council where are the squid hid province shortsighted on schools dear editor the minister of edu cations recent assertion that the governments cut of 400 million only represents a 34 per cent in education expen ditures is a huge distor tion of the actual impact such a move has first the government on average only pro vides about 35 per cent of the costs of education yet their 34 per cent jigure is based upon total expenditures this means their reduction represents a much larger percentage of what they provide closer to 10 per cent second the ontario government has been decreasing its share of education funding for the past 25 years while i have yet to understand how laying off thousands of work ers can help the econo my local communities must begin to ask them selves what impact this will have upon their schools and the stu dents which attend them the argument that fewer teachers or less time for preparation of lessons and assessment will not affect program ming exhibits a pro found ignorance of how classroom education works governments argue we need to get our fiscal house in order for the sake of future genera tions but it would appear that it is the future generations in the form of current and future students that will have to pay the price considering that the governments destruc tion of the education system through mas sive transfer payment reductions has only just begun students will soon suffer from an impotent education sys tem and society will feel the negative repercus sions of these short sighted decisions for many years to come steve bull stouffville there is no new thing under the sun ecclesiastes 19 well perhaps not new but there are some uncommonly strange and unlikely critters out there that despite our scientific sophistication we still havent laid eyes on never mind the sasquatch and the abominable snowman forget about ufos and quirks and quarks how about architeuthis his common name is giant squid and the sim ple fact is even though marine biologists and fishermen know hes down there somewhere no one has ever seen a giant squid in his natural habitat oh weve seen squid alright all kinds of squid newfoundlanders jig for them i can go down to a favorite spanish restaurant and order up a dish of calamares any time i want but neither new foundlanders nor i will be tucking into a dish of giant squid squid of any size are never going to win a beau ty contest they are at least to the conventional human eye an apparition right out of your worst nightmare there is for starters those huge unblinking eyes and a corolla of undulating suck erpocked tentacles surrounding a parrotlike beak giant squid are something else again they spend their lives in the dark depths of the ocean they never get within a half mile of the surface unless theyre sick or dying and there big more than 2000 years ago the roman naturalist pliny described one with arms knotted like clubs with a head as big as a wine cask a medieval swedish observer wrote of mon strous fish of horrible forms with huge eyes several famous novelists have used the giant squid to great dramatic advantage in moby dick herman melville waxed apocalyptic about a vast pulpy mass furlongs in lengthlong arms radiat ing from its center and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas in 20000 leagues under the sea author jules verne invented a squid so huge it wrapped the submarine nautilus in its embrace even as i speak theres a movie making the rounds called beast the main character of which is a 100footlong architeuthis literary flights of imagination no doubt but there have been bits and pieces of giant squid washed up snagged in deep sea fishing nets and found in the guts of sperm whales to make it clear theres something mighty big swimming around down there the largest specimen ever measured was found basic black on a beach in new zealand in the late 1800s it weighed about a ton and was just slightly longer than your average greyhound bus so is there any chance that there are really really giant squid down there bigger than anything weve ever seen doctor clyde roper thinks so hes a marine biologist and curator of an exhibit called in search of giant squid currently on display at the smithsonian national museum of natural history in washington this fall dr roper hopes to head for the squid jigging grounds off new zealand fold himself into a deepdiv ing submersible and become the first human being in history to observe and film giant squid in its natur al habitat roper believes theres a very good chance hell find massive unbelievable animals up to 75 feet long fictional flights of fancy aside is dr roper likely to be in any danger down there surrounded by squid well there was that photographer taking shots of squid underwater off the cal ifornia coast a few years back who was attacked by a hive of swarming squid they actually began to pull him down until he had the presence of mind to use air bubbles from his reg ulator to hose them off his body the diver came out of it with what roper describes as giant hickeys all over his skin and those were just little squid no more than a hundredth the size of architeuthis good luck down there dr roper