The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

6- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday May 12, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Guest Columnist Saying and paying prior to election day Ted Chudleigh Halton MPP In 2003 the McGuinty Liberals were willing to say anything to get elected. Now, as we approach this fall's provincial election it appears the Liberals are willing to pay anything to get Ted Chudleigh elected. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Mike Colle has been hammered by opposition members in Question Period regarding dollops of taxpayers' money that were recently doled out to a number of community groups only days before the government's fiscal year end. It turns out several of these organizations have significant ties to the Liberal Party, in one case six of seven members of the Board of Directors were contributors to the Ontario Liberal Party. In another case, the wife of a Liberal MPP is a director of a group and his name is registered as a contact for the group's web site. In another, charitable status was only in place three weeks before the grant was paid. In addition, these grants of taxpayers' money were handed out without any process in place to determine how organizations would qualify for the grants. There was no application to complete, no criteria to be met, nor any provincially appointed Board conferring the grants. Minister Colle was clearly flustered during several Question Periods as he ham-handedly attempted to dodge and weave a number of direct questions related to the affair. Certainly, those legitimate organizations that utilize the Trillium Foundation process to get Ontario government grants will be questioning this rather bizarre process. Minister Colle even suggested in response to a question that charitable status was not necessary for a group to be provided money. Charitable status is a prerequisite for a Trillium grant. The Ontario Liberals have a history of refusing to take ministerial responsibility for mistakes. Small Business Minister Harindar Takhar refused to step down after the Integrity Commissioner ruled the Minister was in a conflict of interest regarding his personal affairs when he was Minister of Transportation. Also Minister of Infrastructure David Caplan refused to step down over the insider winners' scandal at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. The slush fund scandal is particularly bad. Only rarely do scandals involve direct misappropriation of taxpayers' funds. It appears that the Liberals used taxpayer's money, disguised as grants to local multicultural groups, as payoffs to Liberal supported organizations. It reeks of the federal Liberal Party's involvement in AdScam and if it widens, it could suck the entire Ontario Liberal government into a black hole just before a provincial election. Minister Colle's duck and cover game will not wash. Taxpayers need to know who authorized these payments. The government must provide any background applications they have. Without them, we need to know who knew what, when did they know it, and why were long-standing community groups sidestepped in the grant process? It's bad enough that these grants seem to have been funded with money that was held off the books by the government -- a clear breach of accounting principles - but when the slush fund is used for political purposes -- it could be in breach of the criminal code. Ontarians deserve answers quickly. These allegations cannot be allowed to fester. NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director TERI CASAS Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production Metroland Media Group Ltd. includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Caledon Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection, East York Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Review, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review, Huronia Business Times, Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun, Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror, Milton Canadian Champion, Milton Shopping News, MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newmarket/Aurora Era-Banner, Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune, Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thornhill/Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirror, Stouffville/Uxbridge Tribune, Forever Young, City of York Guardian RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION Disconnecting, reconnecting and following the fugitive sun Never before have people been so connected. Never before have people been so disconnected. Personally, my wife and I desired to get disconnected. Not from each other, but from the rest of the crazy world. We'd had more than enough of reality. We'd had more than our fill of hostile spring weather, and more than enough of the hustle and bustle, stress and strain of our lives. So, we loaded the Jeep, kissed the kids goodbye, and headed south in search of the fugitive sun. Claire Colburn, the Kirsten Dunst character in the Cameron Crowe movie Elizabethtown, theorized that music needs air. We put this theory to the test through six states, and it proved to be true. Springsteen sounds more, well, Springsteen-ish when the sunroof is open, the windows are down, and clean Blue Ridge Mountain air is licking at the lyrics and buffeting every chord. Personally, I cannot remember a more fertile and pleasurable period in music, what with new offerings from Wilco, Youth Group, The Arcade Fire, Apples in Stereo, Lucinda Williams, The National and, of course, our beloved Bright Eyes. All airenhanced as we made our way through New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. You learn things on a road trip, about yourself and the countryside through which you're traveling. I learned that Americans really love their fatty, fried foods, served in heaping portions, while my body is somewhat less enamored. I learned Americans ­ like any group of people ­ are full of contradictions. The huge crosses they erect on hillsides; the Adult Superstores. The bible-borrowing words they plaster on posters (announcing The Andy Juniper End); the billboard for the store that sells "Fireworks! Swords & Knives! Handguns! Mace & Pepper Spray!" I won't even go into the magazine I found dedicated solely to... shotguns. Ah, God bless America. John Denver once sang that "almost-heaven" is West Virginia. He was wrong. Almost-heaven is Hilton Head, South Carolina. Crossing the bridge from the mainland to the island, the air was redolent not so much of spring, but more like summer in fullbloom. The skies were clear and temperature was in the 80s. Ten minutes after checking-in, we were on the beach. And that is pretty much where we remained for the next week, soaking in reviving rays of sunshine and daring a cloud to come our way (until the day before departure, nary a cloud took us up on our dare). It's been a while since we did a beach holiday, but little in beach culture has changed. People still cram big bodies into small swimsuits. People are still under the misconception that the so-called happy hour gets underway before noon. And many have apparently not heard (or refuse to heed) warnings regarding too much sun exposure: angry burned flesh was espied everywhere. One new wrinkle on the beach ­ cellphones. Every day we would walk for hours, playing tag with the tide, looking for shells, tossing a football, or just talking. And every day we witnessed people wholly absorbed in (and obsessed with) the buttons on their tiny little communication devices. These sorry sorts seemed to be saying: look at me, I'm connected to the whole world. But in reality, they were disconnected with the whole world. As they texted and talked on their phones, they missed Mother Nature cavorting in all her glory. Birds dive-bombing for fish. And dolphins arching into the ocean. For us, it was great to disconnect, and even better to reconnect. Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajuniper@strangledeggs.com.