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A6 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday October 20,1999 T h e Oakville B eaver Ian Oliver Publisher Neil Oliver Associate Publisher Norman Alexander Editor Kelly Montague, Advertising Director Martin Doherty Circulation Director Teri Casas Office Manager Mark Dills Production Manager Riziero Vertolli Director ofPhotography Metroiand Prinhng, Publishing & Distributing Ltd., includes: Ajax/Pickering New s Advertiser. Afcston HerakVCouner, Barrie Advance. B arry's Bay This Week. Bolton Enterprise. Bram pton Guardan. Burtngton Post. B ulngton Sh o p p n g News. City Parent, Co*ngw oocW \fesaga Connection, East York Mrror. Erin Advocata^Country Routes. Etobicoke G uardan. Ram borough Post. Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press. H irorra Business Tm es. K in gston T h is W eek. Lind say T h is W eek, M arkham Ecnom ist & Sun. M idiand/Penetanguishine M irror. M ilton C anadian C ham pion. M ilton Sho ppng News. M ississauga B usiness Tm es. M ssrssauga News. Napanee G lide. Newm arket/Auora Era-Banner. Northumberland News. North York Mrror. Oakvtte Beaver. O akvie Shopping News. CUdtmers Hockey News. O riia Today. Oshaw aAMirtty/Oarington Port Peny This Week. Ow en S a n d Tribune. Peterborough T h is W eek. Picton C ounty G uide. Richm ond Hiii/Thornhiii/Vaughan Liberal. Scarborough Mirror. StouffviHe/Uxbndge Tritxne. Forever Young. City of Ybrk Guardan OPINION RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont L6K3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-2809 Circulation: 845-9742 4 Suburban N e w s* ol America Editorials Going south Much is made of business doublespeak these days. Phrases like `the new world order' are in vogue with the world's business community. And while there is much to laud in a world economy, there is also much to lam ent. T hat reality hit hom e this week with news that Batawa Ontario, a The question to be asked here town that ow es its entire existence to is simply this: i f production can Bata Industries, is going to lose the shoe making plant that makes Batawa a town. be shunted off to a U.S. plant, The plant is B ata's last production why couldn' t the Canadian facility in Canada and company officials say it has lost $30 million over the past plant be made as competitive, decade in trying to make it more com especially given the currency petitive with its other operations. exchange rates? W hat's particularly appalling in this case, is that the lines produced in the Ontario plant are not only being transferred to offshore operations but also to one in the United States. That Maryland plant was created about the same time the one in Batawa opened, 60 years ago. The question to be asked here is simply this: if production can be shunted off to a U.S. plant, why couldn't the Canadian plant be made as competitive, especially given the currency exchange rates? Not lost on the 209 workers who will be looking for work next March, is the fact that the Batawa plant was the first one opened by the Bata family after company founder Thomas Bata fled Czechoslovakia in 1939. And it's of little consolation to Bata workers that the company will be expanding it retail presence in Canada. That might mean more part time jobs for C anadians but few perm anent full time positions like those lost in Batawa. In the end, Bata has not only lost a shoe manufacturing facility but also the potential customers who used to work there. Corporate loyalty, it seems, only extends to the bottom line. Letters to the Editor The Oakville Beaver welcom es your com m ents. All letters m ust be typed, signed and include the w riter's address and phone num ber. Send to: Letters to the Editor, The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, Ont. L6K 3S4 Old0THSsiteperfectforlong-termcarefacility Thanks go to Howard Mozel for his article `Have your say on long term health care" in the Oct. 10th ed itio n o f the O ak v ille Beaver. We sincerely hope that Oakville residents attend the Oct. 25th pub lic meeting in Burlington or send w ritten co m m en ts to the R FP C oordinator to support the joint p ro p o sal b etw een O ak v ille Trafalgar Memorial Hospital and Extendicare (Canada) Inc. To give you some background information: 1. Halton and Peel Regions are the two poorest-served communi ties in Ontario for per-capita nurs ing home beds. In Halton Region, O akville is p articu larly poorly served, with two nursing homes for approximately 120,000 residents. O f these, one is the tem porary OTMH/Extendicare facility hous ing 34 residents on the fifth floor of the hospital. 2. In the Spring of 1998, the provincial government announced the creation of hundreds of new long-term care beds for Ontario, 650 of which were to be located in Halton Region. Local MPPs, Gary C arr and T erence Y oung w ere quick to boast about their govern ment's actions and criticize former Liberal and N DP governm ents' inaction. 3. OTMH/Extendicare submit ted a joint proposal to develop the `o ld ' O a k v ille T ra fa lg a r H igh School into a long-term care facili ty. This joint proposal was not suc cessful. 4. In November 1998, licences w ere aw ard ed to C en tral Park Lodge (CPL Long Term Care Real Estate Investment Trust) to build two nursing hom es in O akville, with a total of 266 long-term care beds. 5.Since that time, nothing has been heard about progress in getting these beds up and running. The Town of Oakville has received no requests for zoning permission to build such a facility and no properties have even been pur chased. Direct questions to former Long Term C are M in ister (and B urlington M PP) Cam Jackson, and current Minister of Health and L ong-T erm C are, E lizabeth Witmer, are answered by typical bureaucratic bafflegab about sys tems, processes and monitoring. Further, direct requests to CPL L ong Term C are Real E state Investment Trust to obtain infor m ation about the status o f their developments have been ignored. 6. In the Spring of 1999, the p ro v in c ia l g overnm ent m ade another announcement, promising 320 more long-term care beds for H alton. A second `Request for Proposals' was sent to interested parties. Those applications will soon be considered. 7. On A pril 23, 1999, the provincial government announced that new long-term care beds had been aw arded to St. P e te r's Hospital in Hamilton, Runnymede C hronic C are and R iverdale H ospitals in Toronto and St. Joseph's Care Group in Thunder Bay. These awards were made with no application process, no sending in of proposals, no review process and no w aiting until the next `round' t>f bed allocations. Appeals to Cam Jackson and E lizabeth Witmer to do the same in Oakville, have fallen on deaf ears. 8. On Oct. 25th a public meet ing will be held at Centennial Hall, Burlington Public Library, 2331 New Street, to hear comments on applicants who have bid for beds. The Ministry of Health will also receive written submissions until M on. Nov. 1st. sen t to: RFP Coordinator, Central West Region, 119 King St. W., 11th Floor, Hamilton, Ont., L8P 4Y7. We b eliev e the OTMH/Extendicare joint venture needs and deserves the support of Oakville's residents for the follow ing reasons: -Perhaps the first and best rea sons for awarding licenses to this project is that the hospital already owns the land necessary to build ing the long-term care facility. -This site has also already been zoned for building a long-term care facility. -The site is nex t do o r to OTMH, with all of the opportuni ties for shared staffing, facilities and expertise that would entail. -The site is close to the down town area, on readily-accessible bus routes, and a short distance down the street form a senior citi zens' home. -Currently, Extendicare is oper ating a small facility at OTMH and the hospital now needs the room back to provide acute care beds for a growing population. The plan all along was that this shared arrange ment was a tem porary measure until the site next to the hospital was dev elo p ed . If the OTM H /Extendicare proposal is shut out again in this round of bed allocations, current residents will likely be sent to nursing homes outside Oakville, since there are no satisfactory alternatives. -There is a desperate shortage of long-term care beds in Oakville with fewer than 200 beds available for all the residents in a town of over 135,000 population. L e tte r o f th e W eek Support needed for long-term care facility Re: Howard M ozel's article "Have your say on long term care" Oakville Beaver Oct. 8, 1999. I hope the community, as well as our local politicians, whatever level-municipal, provincial or federal, support the O a k v ille T ra fa lg a r M e m o ria l H o s p ita l/ Extendicare bid (Halton 99-007) By attending the public meeting on Oct. 25th at the Burlington library (2 p.m.-5 p.m.) or sending their written comments to the Ministry of Health. I strongly support this bid to build a long-term care facility on the site o f the old O akville Trafalgar High S c h o o l, as I h av e a p a re n t re s id in g at th e OTMFl/Extendicare nursing home and know that it will be a continued success for our community. This location is perfect, as families are able to visit their loved ones on a daily basis and help with their care. The families of the 34 residents there are very con cerned over what is happening and what may happen if the bid is rejected. What will happen to our families? Your support is urgently needed, not only for the 34 residents, but also for the people on 3East who are still awaiting placement and the many people who are waiting in their homes who need extra care. I'm not only writing on behalf o f a parent, but on behalf of those persons who can't speak for themselves. The public may not even be aware that 1999 is The International Year For Older Persons. Let's all help our community and let your voices be heard. We must be there for our community and only hope that someone will be there for us, if we need it. Please support this bid. Solutions sought to trucking issue Living south the QEW, I can enter Oakville via Dorval, Kerr St. or Trafalgar Roads. Seeing the big `Truck Advisory' signs, I get a bit sad. . On Tues. Oct. 12th, com ing down Trafalgar Road, I couldn't believe my eyes. Signs were being put up by peodple. "Enforce the by-law" said the sign. I would have liked a solution also to be suggestedHow are downtown merchants going to receive their supplies when truckers see those unfriendly signs. L.M. Thanks for Breast Cancer tourney support T he m em b ers o f B reast C a n c e r S u p p o rt S erv ices and the Tournam ent of Hope G olf Committee wish to thank The Oakville Beaver for a wonderful job of being BCSS's media sponsor and servic ing our 1999 Tournament of Hope. Thanks to the generosity of many individuals and businesses like The Oakville Beaver, the Tournament of Hope was a huge success, rais ing in excess of $26,000 after expenses for the BCSS Centre. Tina Kroon, a super volunteer from Oakville, was the happy winner of our raffle for a trip for two to fly anywhere in world, donated by the Canadian Airlines Employees Charitable Foundation. Please accept our sincere thanks for your help and as we approach the new millennium, we look forward to the challenge of an even big ger and better tournament and hope we can count on your support again next year. Maria Costa Kerr Street constable grateful for support This is an open letter to the residents and merchants of, and visitors to the Kerr Community in Oakville to thank them for their support over the past number of months while the Kerr Community Foot Patrol Office was in limbo, but never in doubt. The community has once more demonstrated what it means to work and pull together, forging partnerships and accom plishing w hat needed to be done to m ake the new office a reality. And what a reality it is! The new location is 352 Kerr Street and access to it is from the driveway between 350 Kerr Street, the John Scott Building and 356 Kerr Street, the Salvation Army thrift Store. There is a mail slot for drop-off and the phone number 8446444 remains the same. Time and space required prevents me from naming every one individually that should be named, but I would like to call attention to the O akville Trafalgar Rotary Club, The Optimists of Oakville, Seniors Helping Seniors, Roedean Co op, and the Kerr Community at large who collectively gave the space and the money needed to make the office a reality. Special thanks goes to the Lions Foundation of Canada who gave temporary office space while the new one was being built. The party and the official opening may be over, but community spirit and commitment lives on. Thank you all again. Is it any wonder I feel so privileged to serve this unique community? Diane Baxter Office Adm inistrator Tournament o f Hope Volunteer Marcus & Susan Robertson Ellie Van Vliet, #2556 Kerr Street Village Constable