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itorial Comment NLT (ND IDIN ALTA CO rn OM AIR CANADA Arriving home after a month in the sunny south it _was a delight to see the grass so green and hear that the weather here had heen so good. Driving 500 to 600 miles a day for three days is totally exhdusting (a - must at the 55 m.p.h.). Driving 10 to 12 hours every day at an overall average of 50_m.p.h. taking tinie out to eat and stop for gas, etc., is sometimes like an endurance test. The" traffic in Atlanta, Georgia, Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio and Detroit was the worst. Some drivers are mad, the speeds they travel on the city freeways, where it is virtually impossible for the police to stop them in bumper to bumper traffic four lanes wide. Missing one turn in Detroit to the bridge on Route 75 can end up in Flint, Michigan. Dean J. Kelly Highway signs were the worst in Detroit to locate, - with one main intersection missing a vital turn sign to the border. Getting off the freeway is harder than a pitstop at Indiannapolis. It has been said that the best part of a trip is getting home safely. The sight of good old Canadian terra firma at Windsor brings a tranquil feeling to a nerve jangling three days. Instead of filling up with gas in Detroit, where it was 51 cerits a gallon, I thought I would wait and fill up on the first 401 stop at a Shell Rest Station. The price for our Canadian gas was an unbelievable 88.3 cents. Anyone going to the U.S. or back should gas up in London at the stations just off the highway for only 76 cents a gallon. Normally I fly to Florida but as I am so disgusted with AIR CANADA I refuse to fly with them. A year ago, I, along with thousands of other passengers were, as the Globe and Mail in their editorial called it "Diverted and Dumped', in Montreal because of the snow not being cleared at Toronto International Airport. Air Canada refused to pay any part of the cost of dumping its passengers, including the train fare back to Toronto. They refused to pay for bus fare, meals and accomodation until I filed stories with CTV network, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and finally on the Canadian Press newspaper and radio network. The publicity reached virtually every radio, TV station and néwspaper in Canada and eveh the Miami Herald. The Toronto Star called it in an editorial a disgusting performance by Air Canada. a Visitons oye " Peart 3 Popcorn, (Pa brass knuckles, if lead pypes .. ". \ "\ Phat "No. MN /y a /) " AYN NN Later an Air Canada Vice-President called it 'black Friday" for our national airline. I called it "'Desp-AIR CANADA." ' After waiting almost a year for a refund for my train fare, meals, and other expenses and numerous letters to Air Canada 1 finally received part of the costs...$36.75. I'had paid for a"flight from Miami to Toronto International Airport..not- Montreal to be dumped, stranded and ignored. The flight desk even refused to page a fellow passenger from Miami whom I never did see again. It was bedlum with thousands of bfople milling around trying to find some means to gét home to Toronto. The trains were filled to capacity and some had to take taxis all the way to get back for work. As I had paid for air fare not rail fare which is considerably cheaper and *'bone-shaking' on the milk run all night train I felt that Air Canada should refund the differente for which I had already paid for and not received. Also my ticket destination read Toronto International Airport not Montreal. In a letter from Air Canada March 29, 1976, the airline stated an' unbelievable defense for not paying up. I Quote "No refund is outstanding on the ticket issued for your travel, Miami-Toronto, March 7, 1975. The fare covering air carriage Miami-Montreal is actually higher than the fare collected! ($218.00) - At this point I had heard everything so I turned the matter over to the Toronto Star Probe prior to leaving for Sarasota. | am also out of pocket, my taxi fare from the. Union Station to Toronto International to pick up my car...24 hours late...dead tired. It was for this reason I drove to Florida rather, than chance another dumping and year long battle with "DESPAIR CANADA" our national airline. ; Upon my return a letter from the Toronto Star Probe/stated that "'deeper involvement on our part would not, I believe, bring a solution any closer". Air Canada had responded to the Star Probe enquiry with the following remarks, "We have declined Mr. Kelly's claim for expenses...the waiver referred to by Mr. Kelly is the standard Air Canada release form, once signed, indicated seftlement of a customer's claim against the company'. Sighed "Brock M, Stewart, Public Affairs Officer". I have news for Air Canada - I have not signed the waiver. Maybe a legal class action suit will force them to fulfil their legal obligations to the travelling public. When a ticket reads destination Toronto International, jt does not mean dumping, standing and poking if one 1 find one's way home with no help fromthe airline...and'pay for it out of your own pocket and have to battle for a refund some 14 months later. If you have a clear conscience and good health, if you have a few good friends and a happy home, if your heart has kept its youth and your soul its honesty, then cheer up--you are one of life's fortunate millionaires. \ ' - 1 ' NN Lc ~ o " ie Effort Deserves Praise * Best news for the area In some time was the recent announcement by the_Ontario Ministry of Health that the $94,000 budget cut ordered for Port Perry's Community Memorial Hospital has been reduced to under $40,000. \ Hospital officials werent exactly sure what the $94,000 cut would have done in terms of beds, staff, and care, but all agreed that the application of a cut that represents about eight per cent of the salaries and wages would have some major effects n the hospital operation. : ill Even while the hospital was struggling to counter the province's move, there were warnings that beds would have to close, and staff would have to be let go. "So how come the seemingly immovable, stand- fast health ministry has taken another look at what must be a relatively obscure little facility in the eyes of the provincial authorities? . In two words: Brown and Hall. As we've said before, most communities are made up of a great majority of. people 'who sit back and watch, and' a small minority who go out and do. Scugog has more than its share of. "'doers", not the least active being hospital administrator Dave Brown and hospital board chairman Howard Hall. It was the persistant efforts of these two men in the weeks following the announced cuts that resulted in the ministry's decision to take another look at the cuts ordered here. " Their appeal was, as demanded by the ministry, one based on facts and figures rather than emotion. A 15-page brief of "/facts and figures" was prepared for the ministry, and a decision was made to move through "political channels' when discussions with civil servants failed to get the wanted results. In retrospect, of course, it all looks quite simple. But we wonder how many of us would have, instead of fighting it, simply accepted the province's decision. Or after the first appeal failed, how many of us would have given up? fo We wonder just what would be the benefits to this community if everyone was as aggressively commun- ity-minded, as willing to contribute their own time and effort, and as determined. Think about it. ~ Fortress Uxbridge Want to hear the Pros and Cons? Worried about marked decreases in property values? Increased insurance rates? Expandéd police budgets? Kidnap- pings and violent deaths? Of course not. We've heard it all before. During the Great Scugog Prison Crisis. Well the crisis has spread to Uxbridge in a kind of delayed reaction. You remember Uxbridge. That's the neighbouring community that some claimed had the good sense to avoid the emotion and go for the penitentiary if given the chance. Read many of the letters to the editor in the local newspaper or hear the comment'on the street and you might think you've just stepped back a year. All the old chestnuts, disproven, denied, dead and buried are alive and kicking in Uxbridge. Reminiscent of the Good Old Days in Scugog, 'citizens call 180 jobs a "small number", $100,000 grant in lieu of taxes "insignificant" and at'the same time assuring all that land prices will decrease, police budgets go up, and rapists roam the streets. In some cases, the arguments have been so thoroughly disproven, so adamently denied and so completely flogged to death, that one gets the feeling the ""concerned" citizen has spent the last 12 months n Pango-Pango. l A full-page advertisement in the local newspaper, getting no little support in' the 'paper's editorial dolumn, reads like some of the literature circulating around here a year ago. "The danger of having a federal penitentiary (call it what you like, it wont be filled with Sunday School children) in our back yard... weekend passes to rapists and murderers...ask the residents of Attica what they"think about living next door fo a federal penitentiary..." Concluding, the ad urges the locals to tell their council representatives to "slow down and get the facts, and-then present those facts to the people'. You're tempted to ask.... How many more times? d b}