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PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY MARCH 2, 1983, WHITBY FREE-PRESS whitby Voice of the County Town Pub Michael Ian Burgess, Publisher . Managing Editor The only Whitby newspaper independently owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents. L lished every Wednesday by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography Inc. Phone 668-61 il The Free Press Building, 131 Brock Street North, P.0. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. LESLIE BUTLER Community Editor ELIZABETH NOZDRYN Advertising Manager Second Class Mail Registration No. 5351 Port Whitby needs proper sewage facilities...period Regional council has once again cut the con- strution of the Corbett Creek sewer line to Port Whitby. It marks the third year In a row the project has been "deferred" by the regional works com- mittee and council. Oné wonders what It will take to convince the reglon the sewer Une is a basic necessity, not an .expendible project that can wait indefinitely. With all the talk about toxic waste disposal sites, the region seems to have lost sight of the good old, home grown waste ,that must be disposed of. Port Whitby is dying, and it seems the only\people who can save it are - not elected representatives and taxpayers - but land develop- ers. The region has repeatedly said it won't com- plete the isewer pipe until a firm commitment by a developer has been given to turn the sludge pile into sparkling condominium rows with chic restaurants. Nothing seems more impossible at the moment. The problem, as regional councillor Tom Ed- wards has pointed out to council, is not only Port Whitby's. The sludge that spills into Pringle Creek and Lake Ontario is near the water intake for the entire region. Edwards also points out that the region has vio- lated Its own pollution control laws several times in recent years when sludge spilîs from the Vic- toria Street pollution control plant into Pringle Creek. The region would not put up with such fla- grant disregard of its laws by anyone else. And yet it continues to allow an inadequate sewage sys- tem to do a half-baked Job of sewage disposal. If taxpayers were asked a simple question the entire matter could be cleared up. "Do you want to wait until a land developer agrees to develop Port Whitby, or are you wliing to shouIder the cost and responslbility of putting adequate sewers to Port Whitby immediately?" We do not rule by consensus. Decisions are made for us, by our representatives and experts in varlous fields. Perhaps this is the best and most practical way to govern ourselves. And perhaps there are times when this system breaks down. Port Whitby needs sewers. Denial of those sewers is tantamount 'to criminal negligence against the environment, something we cannot af- ford to allow in our highly populated, highly indus- trialized waste-producing soclety. If people are sick of hearing about the environ- ment, they're going to get sicker before the decade Is through. We must accept that there is a cost related to the high standard of living which allows us to drive automobiles, use disposable products and have hot and cold running water at our finger tips (to name Just a few of our luxuries). We must pay that cost. If the Corbett Creek sewer line will cost taxpayers $3 million, so be It. If we refuse to pay for it now, we'll pay for it later with a dead lake, a black creek and filthy drinking water. The choice is ours...pay now or pay later. Women avoid the sensational and concentrate on the real problem it occurred to me more than once over the weekend of the P. C. Convention that perhaps Canadians don't really deserve the leadership they get. The Tories may deserve the leadership they get; ditto the Grits and the NDP. But the rest of us, although we may lean to one party or the other philosophically, are not active par- ticipants in what, in a sense, is the most important political process. We have no part whatever in choosing the people whom sooner or later we are going to have to choose between. The Tories have now recognized of- ficially, what the man on the street has been telling them for months: that Joe Clark is something of a liability. It's ironic perhaps, that without the consent of Joe Clark himself, the party wouldn't have made that decision. I mean by that if Mr. Clark hadn't painted himself into a corner in which 66 per cent support wasn't enough, he could have remained as leader of his party. Where the Tories go from here is a dubious proposition. That in- famous poli, a few days ago, told the Tories something else about what the public feels. And most of us didn't need a poil to underline the obvious. That is simply that of ail the national figures who wear Tory blue, only two of them, Peter Lougheed and William Davis, would have what it takes to beat a really strong Liberal. But barring a miracle, the Tories aren't likely to get either of them. Peter Lougheed doesn't appear interested and neither does William Davis. Even if they did decide to run, the eastern and left-leaning Tories would have their knives out for Mr. Lougheed; and the western and right-leaning Tories would be trying to carve a new set of orifices for Mr. Davis. The Tories have always tended to put philosophical differences, regionalism, and in-party per- formance ahead of real leadership considerations. That's why the last conservative convention gave us Mr. Clark. If the two premiers do not contest the leadership, and Mr. Clark's only opponents are people like Brian Mulrooney, John Crosbie, Sinclair Stevens, David Crom- bie and Peter Pocklington, then it seems to me that the Tories may finish where they started: wii Mr. Clark, who is after ail, the only one of them who has ever been Prime Minister. It's a shame that the choosing of a Con- servative leader, or a Liberal, or an NDP one for that mat- ter, has to be left to party workers. It seems to me that the people of the country have a little more sense than hidebound delegates. What we need, perhaps, is some system of leadership primaries. That's not news but that too is reality. Three cheers for the organizers of Whitby's celebration of International Women's Day. They are concentrating on the real issue of feminism, and are not cashing in on the cheap sensational (and peripheral) issues so much in the media recently. These women are uniting to dedicate them- selves to the cause of Independence and the right to work for equal wages. They are paying tribute to women of intelligence, strength and power. They are sharing the resource of common strength to better the condition of women in society. This ls the place to begin for women, not (as the National Women's Coalition did recently) with the end result of denying women the above - which is degradation, discrimination and exploitation. Exploitation of women in film and In fact is a symptom of a larger disease, which is denial of opportunity, economic oppression and social in- equality. The way to rid ourselves of the disease Is not to peck away at the symptoms, but to cure it at the root. ~-----:r------ -(----z -, -. 1