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6- The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday November 7, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS 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 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA ANCHOR Circ. Manager Our job to work safe Today is Take Your Kid to Work Day. Employers across Canada -- including the Oakville Beaver -- are playing host to Grade 9 students who are joining a parent, relative or friend to job shadow for the day. It is hoped participating students will gain insight into the value of work generally, and safe work practices in particular. When a student is visiting the Oakville Beaver they receive a healthand-safety overview immediately. New employees are also introduced to the newspaper's strict health-and-safety policies. There are also regular fire drills, immunization clinics, staffers trained in first aid and, among other things, mandatory departmental meetings to ensure employees are working in a secure and healthy environment. While most employers stress safety above all, there are far too many companies that fail miserably in protecting their employees. Last year in Ontario, 101 workers lost their lives due to traumatic injuries suffered while on the job. That number stands at 73 for 2007. Obviously, the message of staying safe at work is not getting through. Last year, Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) produced an extremely graphic public awareness campaign, which the board hoped would shock employers into action. However, WSIB Chair Steve Mahoney said the number of injuries and deaths on the job are not coming down fast enough. So he is warning people the 2007 marketing campaign has been stepped up with a series of advertisements that "will strike an emotional chord" with Ontarians. "We won't stop until every person in every workplace, worker and employer alike, takes responsibility for workplace safety and spreads the message that zero is the only acceptable number of workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities," said Mahoney. Today might be a good day for those companies with a less than stellar workplace environment to consider the consequences of not upholding the law when it comes to the safety of their employers. As well, all employees should follow policies and guidelines set out by their employers. Let's teach our kids the importance of playing and working safe. The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR I was shocked upon hearing the story of the Halton Children's Aid Society worker leaving private files in a client's home, but I am even more shocked and dismayed by the reaction of many readers against the mere decision to print this story. Oakville and its residents have a reputation of living in a "bubble" where they do not have any idea what goes on in the real world -- I believe this is just a stereotype, but many of these letters are making me reconsider. Have any of these "offended" people ever picked up a major daily Halton CAS must be held accountable for careless mistake paper and seen the reports on far worse, more scandalous things than this? In my opinion, one of the media's jobs is to tell the truth about injustices such as this, and by bringing these issues to the public, bring about change. From the letters, many readers would prefer that we forgive and forget about this incident. While this was a simple mistake on the CAS worker's part, the documents they left in the family's home contain extremely sensitive, confidential material about families in the area. Aside from the morality of the actual leaving of the files in the home, a newspaper has the right to report on anything within reason that occurs in the area, and the family has the right to go to the press with their story. What would have happened if people close to the young child in Toronto who was shuffled around by a Toronto Children's Aid Society worker and returned to grandparents who starved him to death had not gone to the press with their story? Mary Lohr asks "Can people not make an error these days?" In the case of confidential information, no -- this is no different than an accountant accidentally giving a client someone else's financial records, if not more serious. While I can't say I support the decision of the family to keep the documents, I support the Beaver's decision to run this and other stories like this. Thank you for printing this story; hopefully it will cause the CAS to evaluate any cases involving misconduct with their employees and change their ways to protect the families they serve. Instead of blasting the Beaver for running this story, why not be glad that the problem was exposed and will now be dealt with? Thankfully, no child's life was lost in this particular mistake. VICTORIA NIXON Pud BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com 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.