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No more time for apathy in provincial election ow anyone, even the most Hdiehard Conservative can, in all good conscience, vote for the Harris/Eves continuum is totalâ€" ly beyond my comprehension. Consider the facts. For eight years the Tories vilified the teaching profession and thus fulfilled their objective of "creating a crisis" in education. They introduced the 60â€"hour work week at a time when other countries were reducing the workâ€" week to offset high unemployment. They downloaded social services They fired 7,500 nurses only to discover later that the Province had a severe shortage of experienced Lost routes a lost opportunity for local children n response to the Inotice given to our city‘s loyal and hardâ€" working Waterloo Chroniâ€" cle carriers this week informing them of the recent decision to reasâ€" sign distribution of this valuabBle local newspaper to the carriers who work for the Record, I am writâ€" ing to voice my concern and disappointment both as a resident of Waterloo and a mother of a 12â€" yearâ€"old carrier. Two reasons why I‘m not voting Conservative m the president of the Waterloo North Optimist lub. Our club sponsors the 1st Lexington Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Ventures. The Harris/Eves gavâ€" erment has opened a lot of casinos and because of this the bingo halls have Te latest fiasco out of city hall only goes to prove that Lynne Woolstencroft is fighting daily battles to try to keep the people who work there I‘m surprised that she has decided to wade into the election foray again, but she‘s nothing if not gutsy. I‘m sure that, on his own, To Stockie is probably a very nice person, and under better circumstances, he would have merited a "going Don‘t blame mayor for city staff‘s latest blunder from making more and But to plan a party for him, _ BEKIND _ THE MAYOR‘S BACK, and to hold the party in the very facility that caused his disgrace is The whole RIM Park mess was, from the start, an Delivering the Chroni Since our club counted cle weekly and collecting monthly provided my daughter an excellent, safe and convenient opportunity for employâ€" ment and developing positive and rewarding relationships with her neighbours and commuâ€" nity. It also provided her the means to earn, manâ€" age and budget money; a responsibility not easily available to our youth. I would bet that as a parent, I am not alone in these views, and would on the revenues from workâ€" ing the bingos we are unable to provide the same support to the kid‘s groups in our area. The last bingo hall in Waterloo will close on Sept. 30, causing 35 local chariâ€" ties to lose their bingo revâ€" enue. At the same time, because of the $1.5 billion obvious case of bureaucratic bumpkins versus slick city snake oil salesmanship. MFP had their routine down to a science, and had sucâ€" cessfully bamboozled other city bureaucracies bigger than ours, like Toronto‘s computer leasing problem. Lynne was very much against holding the public Hadba Looking for accuracy in advertising noted, in the Chronicle, September Il7. page 20, an advertisement from Elizabeth Witmer. It included a claim that she had proâ€" vided funding for a total of six new schools in Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo. If Mrs. Witmer wishes to take credit for funding these new schools then, to be accurate, she should also take credit for the closure of several local schools, including University Heights, the impending closure of Southwood secâ€" ondary school in Cambridge and, when They encouraged a twoâ€"tier health and education system which will primarily benefit the rich. â€" onto municipalities which were already trying to hold the line on property taxes. â€" 0 They targeted the poor while environmental inspection services with disastrous results to public health. While they may have balanced the annual budget, the overall provincial debt has grown from $96 billion to almost $120 billion in only eight years. Hydro costs have been temâ€" porarily capped but sooner or later it is the taxpayer who will have to pay the accrued debt. THE CHRO! COMMENT sincerely hope that those who have made this deciâ€" sion based perhaps purely on business and economâ€" ics recognize that this will have a great impact on the many committed and dependable children of the City of Waterloo who were equally dependent on the Waterioo Chroniâ€" cle‘s commitment to offer them opportunity. I would, however, like to applaud and thank those citizens of the comâ€" munity who faithfully cuts to public education in Ontario, school boards have to scrounge for every nickel they can get. / Last year 1st Lexington paid $1,800 to the Waterloo public board to rent Sandowne public school gym for two evenings per week to run their programs. At a time when health experts say more and more inquiry, knowing it would cost a lot more money, but, once again, the council acted BEHIND HER BACK when she was away at her brother‘s funeral, and voted to spend lots more of our In the upcoming elecâ€" tion, please ‘don‘t throw the baby out with the bath NICL] Thanks for reminding us, Elizabeth. The present government‘s education funding formula, and the original withâ€" drawal of a huge sum of tax dollars from education budgets, has made all of this possible in our community. the dust finally settles, the probable cloâ€" sure of a prominent high school in the core of Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo. Finally, the Tories have used taxâ€" payers‘ money to fund a lengthy preâ€"election campaign and have resorted to gutter tactics in a frenâ€" zied attempt to cling to power. One thing is certain. Political apathy is no longer an option the public can afford. _ 0 The upcoming election is vitally important to the future of all Ontarâ€" ians. It will determine whether we choose to accept the status quo or have the courage to bring about a greater degree of integrity and com:â€" passion within the political system. The choice is ours. supported the paper and these children through their monthly donations as well as the outstanding\ support and commitment of the dedicated staff at the Chronicle office whose everâ€"present words of encouragement and smiles were always someâ€" thing these kids, and their parents, could count on. children are becoming obese, it seems the Harris/Eves government would sooner have the gyms empty and dark. _1 have mentioned only two of the many reasons why I won‘t be voting Conâ€" water‘. Keep Lynne as our mayor, but change that council. She‘s an honest and hardworking lady, and deserves to join the ranks of the top â€"notch lady mayors that this province has proâ€" Suzanne Kienapple Mother of a Chronicle Carrier David A. Crow Witmer claimed that the government was "halfway" toward implementing the recommendations of the Rozanski report. She ignores the fact that the report specifically says that each of its recommendations is "concomitant‘, meaning that they are not to be viewed or implemented in isolation. This government has chosen to implement only the recommendations that it likes and ignore other areas entirely (while often falling short of the fundâ€" ing recommended in the areas that it has taken action). The addiâ€" tional funding was to have been over and above the cost of inflaâ€" tion, for example, but the govemmen“:si@ored i:?flon in calculating what school boards receive. also fnorell Rozanâ€" »ski‘s call for $674 million in catchâ€"up funding for salaries and benefits, the single greatest expense borne by school boards. The reality of education On Monday evening, 1 was in the audience for an allâ€"candiâ€" dates meeting at Empire public school in Waterloo. Given that it is likely to be the only time during the current election campaign that Elizabeth Witmer, Ontario‘s minister of education, will agree to debate education I thought it was imporâ€" tant to hear what she had to say about her government‘s woeful record in this area. Along with her Conservative colleagues in the area (including Witmer‘s Parliamentary Secretary, Ted Arnott), she had already declined invitations to meetings organized by local teachers, citing fears that the meetings would be "hostile". It appears to be part of a provincewide strategy by the Eves governâ€" ment to hide from the electorate. At the meeting, Witmer spent most of her time telling the audience that their personal experience with the education sysâ€" tem wasn‘t valid. Voter after voter went to the microphone to talk about ballooning class sizes, missing text books, and special needs services that are impossible to access. Before they sat down, voter after voter had received a lecture from Witmer (her favourite catchâ€"phrase being, "The reality is..."). She repeatedly talked about how much new money her government had comâ€" mitted to education; in fact, she said, the Tories were spending more on education â€" over $15 billion a year â€" than any other government in Ontario‘s history. In other words, in her view, the experience of the educators, students, parents and grandparents in the room was trumped by governâ€" ment statistics. (Obinimnitntmtmpiommmmmine Of course, the statistics employed by Witmer were not complete, and they don‘t begin to tell the whole story about the crisis that her government has invented in education. Let‘s take a look at what "the reality is". Witmer trumpeted the number of | | new schools that had been built since Ks * | 1995 (in one of her newspaper ads, she â€" t M even lists those built in this area). What | ces she doesn‘t want to talk about is the 39 | number of schools closed under their ‘ W f | watch. People for Education reports | | that, between 1999 and 2002, 192 | SCOTT | schools were closed in Ontario and a further 122 were threatened with cloâ€" ‘ PIATKSKI sure. In Waterloo region, we‘ve already lost St. Patrick‘s, St. Michaél‘s, St. Thomas, Cecil Commwall, Dickie Settlement, Little‘s Corners, Heidelberg, Winterbourne, Brighton, and Harold Wagner. Southwood is scheduled to close next year. All of these closures were made inevitable by a funding formula that treats students as a part of a mathematical equation, systemâ€" atically punishes small schools, and ignores community conâ€" Despite the numbers quoted by Witmer, a more careful analyâ€" sis shows that â€" after enrollment and inflation is taken into account â€" education funding has actually been going down. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has calculated that, using constant 1994 dollars, education has been shortchanged by $1.8 billion a year. By 2005 (when the government says it will have implemented the funding increases recommended by Rozanski), CCPA notes that "the cumulative loss in funding for elementary and secondary education over the 10â€"year period will be $15.5 billion". In other words, in 10 years under Harris and Eves, eleâ€" mentary and secondary students have been shortâ€"changed to the tune of a full year.i raised at the meeting. People could have talked about the fact that Ontario parents have had to raise a total of $35 million a year for their children‘s schools, with 67 per cent of schools reporting fundraising for basics (such as textbooks, classroom supplies, computers). They could have talked about the fact that 33 per cent of schools surveyed by People for Education reported that "general upgrades for roofs, furnaces, paint, and carpets were required but not approved". They could have complained about the fact that school boards have been forced to raise fees for comâ€" munity use, making it harder for small community groups to operate. Then again, I‘m sure that Elizabeth Witmer would have summarily dismissed their concerns as well. That‘s the reality. There are literally dozens of other topics that could have been | ANOTHER Revat 16 ml â€" +#3 H y | _ scort | PIATKOWSK