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Former Halton MP makes trip to Toronto in effort to promote Vancouver's economic merits 'Time Capsules' are gems of information extracted from past issues of The Champion and other publications to pro- vide a window into Milton's past. Explanatory comment is sometimes pro- vided to place the situation in context. January 1898 William McCraney, ex M.P. for Halton who has been a resident of Vancouver for some years, was in Toronto last week. His principle business was apparently to draw the attention of the people of Ontario to the merits of Vancouver as an outfitting point for the Klondike and to warn those intend- ing to go to the mines against buying their outfits at Seattle and other points in the United States. There's a need to warn the Americans. Among those was Mr. Miller of San Francisco, whose wife Miss E. Martin is a native of Milton. Mrs. Miller recently for- warded letters which she had received from Lake Bennett on the trail to the Klondike fromi her husband. He had bought his outfit at San Francisco and said that when he went ashore at Victoria, where his steamer stopped on the way to the north, he found that he could have bought to better advantage at the lat- ter point, besides saving the freight charges from San Francisco and the duty which he paid when he crossed the Canadian boundary line. The prominence that is now being achieved by Canadian electricians has received another exemplification in the selection of Henry Holgate, C.E., of Montreal as manager of new West India Electric Co. of Jamaica. Mr. Holgate will go to Kingston, Jamaica in February and supervise the erection of about 25 miles of railway which will probably be extended later on. Mr. Holgate was boi in Milton in 1863, and served his apprenticeship with the Northem Railway of Canada. He became chief engineer of the com- bined Northern and North-Western Railways which were merged into the Grand Trunk in February 1888. (The pres- ent CN line through Milton.) He continued as chief engineer of this division under the Grand Trunk until 1892, when he took charge of the Central Bridge and Engineering Co. of Peterborough as engineer for a year during which the steel work of the new Union Station at Toronto was constructed. The Canadian Champion, Frday, September 13, 2002-7 + OUR READERS WRITE T'HE CANADIAN CHAMPIONi Milton ii Alliance MP doesn't have ail the fact about proposed intermodal terminal, says Reed Dear Edîtor: mate change. Whether such a site modal terminal in Ibat location Capsules .C1scIt 'm wrîtîng in response 10ends up in south Milton or not, will In the long haul, I want their chil He went to Montreal in June 1894 as engineer for the Royal Electric Co. and built and equipped the new factory. The directors of the Royal Electric Co. being interested in the Montreal Park and Island Railway he was transferred to the latter company in June 1895, where he remained in charge of operation and construction to the present time. February 1898 Mr. McCargar, our miller, (lessee of the Martin Mill) is paying the highest price for wheat. He will have a gang of men cutting ice on the pond next week. Get your ice houses ready. The report of the registration of births, marriages and deaths in Ontario has been issued. Halton's retums are as follows: births, 405, including 203 males, 202 females, two pairs of twins, one case of triplets and six of illegitimacy; marriages 103 and deaths 214. Compared with the retums for 1895, there was a decrease of 41 births and increases of Il and 10 respec- tively in marriages and deaths. Miss Ethel Andrews is prepared to receive a limited number of pupils for vocal instruction. Apply at her home, cor- ner Mill and James streets in Milton. Town council met on Monday evening. Among the business transacted was the acceptance of an invitation from the fire brigade to the council to attend the formal opening of the brigade's room tomorrow evening. Officials appointed during the meeting included: Dr. H.A. McColl, medical health officer; W.B. Clements, assessor; Robt. McInnes, collector and W.A. Lawrence a member of the board of health for three years. This material is assembled on behalf of the Milton Historical Society by Jim Dills, chair of research, who can be reached by e-mail atjdills@idirect.com. Alliance MP Diane Ablonczy's recent comments regarding the proposed intermodal terminal that may be erected south of Milton. It's too bad that Ms Ablonczy doesn't have all the facts. However, if she did it probably wouldn't change her mind anyway. The fact is the site that's been proposed is still under environmen- tal assessment and no conclusion has been reached at this time. Furthermore, there are other areas being considered as possible sites for such an installation. I believe in the principle of inter- modal transportation. There's no doubt its expansion across Canada will have a positive effect on greenhouse gas emissions and its support is one of the steps neces- sary to tackle the problem of cli- depend on future considerations. Personally, I'd be betraying myself as well as the majority of the constituents I serve if I were simply to take a "not in my back- yard" attitude. You know that Ms Ablonczy's party - the Alliance - is also deadly opposed to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Their argument in debate has been that increased amounts of car- bon dioxide really doesn't matter and the overall impact Canada has on global warming is negligible, so why bother. I've made a commitment to the citizens of south Milton that I'il do everything in my power to see that each and every concern is addressed, if indeed the decision is made to go ahead with the inter- dren and my children to be asthma free. I want Canadians to be able to grow the food Canadians eat. I want the water to be pure and ade- quate in supply and the quality of life to be advanced and not retract- ed. This old earth is at a crossroads. A successful future depends on the direction we take and we all as cit- izens have a responsibility to that end. Political leadership is never easy because it often means saying to people some things they don't nec- essarily want to hear, especially at first or until they have thought it through. In the name of our envi- ronmental future and for the sake of all our citizens, I stand by my position. Jullan Reed Halton MP Milton Hydro's commercial customer security deposit policy seems unreasonable, says reader (The following letter was sent to the Ontario Energy Board and a copy wasfiled with The Champion.) Dear Editor: I'm writing in regard to the issue of security deposits by local distribution companies. Recently, Milton Hydro requested a deposit equiva- lent to two-and-a-half months of service at peak usage from its commercial customers to protect Milton Hydro from losses due to bad debts. The Milton Chamber of Commerce requested a review by the Ontario Energy Board of this policy and has received confirmation that a working group will review the issue of security deposits and their service implications. I've followed this issue with interest and would like to offer a possible solution to the problem. The current policy of Milton Hydro addresses the very real con- cem of bad debt losses which can't be recovered through rates, but places an undue burden on commer- cial customers. Existing residential customers aren't subject to this burden, but new residential customers will be required to pay security deposits. For some large commercial customers, the security deposits have been reported in The Champion to be as high as $160,000. Milton Hydro has records of bad debts going back many years and can use this information to estimate bad debts. One hundred per cent of the commercial customers can't reasonably be expected to default on payment and therefore, the amount of the security deposit would appear to be excessive. The most common practice for businesses facing this problen is to obtain insurance against bad debts. Altemately, Milton Hydro could require an annual fee from its entire customer base to cover estimated bad debts for the year. It's interesting that Milton Hydro suggests anything less than 100 per cent collection of revenue is unac- ceptable. Having worked for a small business for many years, I know that bad debts are something every business bas to suffer. One would imagine that Milton Hydro eams a prof- it on the existing rates or they couldn't cover the expenses for their building, equipment and staff. The amount of bad debts was formerly paid by the Corporation of the Town of Milton. Although Ontario has moved to privatize electrical distribution, manage- ment thinking at local distribution companies like Milton Hydro seems to be lagging behind still clinging to the way things used to be done. Local distribution companies should be hiring man- agers from the private sector who are experienced in the running a business that's not subsidized or retrain- ing staff to adapt to their new business environinent. Sophie Cheney Campbellville Milton Heights Academy Es. 1999 LOCATED ON THE BEAUTIFUL GROUNDS OF COUNTRY HERITAGE PARK, MILTON OFFERING JUNIOR & SENIOR KINDERGARTEN A limited amount of space still available *Small Classes (14 max.) *Full and Half days campnouls nd * French *Reasonablefees 4,Before and After school Care C Computer classes For Further Information Tel: 905-693-1557 msel are 8560 Tremaine Road, Milton A PIVAE CHO FOMJ..T*GRDE l-