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Btn. #0 «aw 4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tues. February 28, 1984 - editorial comments ".... AND YOUR TIP chatterbox by John B. McClelland BOOR OF THE YEAR If anybody is handing our Boor of the Year awards, Rene Levesque should win it hands down. Levesque, you may recall, had this reaction when told of speed skater Gaetan Boucher's three medals at the Winter Olympics. 'Quebec three: Canada Zero." The guy never did have much class. No wonder his party is in trouble in la Belle Province. No wonder they ven't won a by-election in years. Levesque may have thought he was being smart with yet another cheap slap at Canada, but a remark like that is really an insult to all thinking individuals, no matter what their personal politics may be. And it was even more of an insult to Mr. Boucher, a remarkable athlete whose highly personal achieve- ment was totally above the realm of petty politics. I don't know what Boucher's politics are (he is pro- bably too busy to even think about it) from the televi- sion images, he looked like a proud young man as the Canadian flag was being raised when he received his medals. As for Levesque, he continues to display a bankrupt- cy of tact, class and common sense. He's a joke, a comic clown who makes himself and his party look foolish. How can anyone take him seriously? : YES, NO, MAYBE I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of all the stories about when Pierre Trudeau is going to do us all a favour and retire from public life. He has long out-stayed his welcome as a Canadian politician, and now we have to endure an endless string of speculative stories about his pending retirement. Frankly, who cares. The only thing that matters, is that he leaves, and the sooner better. Trudeau has been Prime Minister for almost 16 years, and that is probably the best argument I can think of in favour of the American way of doing things: presidential elections every four years. I think historians 50 or 100 years down the road are going to be much kinder to Trudeau than his current critics. But right now, he is tired of Canada and certain- ly, hs country is Sised of him. e seems to take t personal pleasure and amusement in the cat-and. mouse game his playing with the Caniajiin SEbFie Stout wiieil he is oing to step down. He talks "shrugs and smirks as if to say "ifs au of your damn business when I retire." same contemptuous, condescending attitude has been part of Trudeau's trademark almost from the day he took office back in the warm summer of '68. It able {0 stay In power for 1 lent. Sar wat has been . Sa able to stay in for so ys something about Canadians, I . The board which on he operates the local Scugog Shores Museum has been ha a rough time lately, and from what I'm told, things came to a head at a meeting last week. I don't think it is for this paper to start necessary poking around for all the gory details, but from what I've been told, the root of the difficulties is a conflict of personalities of major proportion. Every local organization, club or group runs into these problems from time to time, when people, for whatever reasons, take a dislike to others. There is the inevitable back-biting, scratching and name calling and the longer it goes on, the more harden- ed opinions and positions become. That's human nature, I suppose. . What is bothersome is that the local museum over the years has made a positive contribution to the quali- ty of life in this community. It's a pity to see this thrown up in the air. Hopefully, with the summer season just around the corner, the Museum Board can sort out its troubles and get on with the job it's supposed to be doing: running the museum. Enough is enough. SPRING IS HERE? Has spring hit Scugog Township? For a couple of days last week, it sure seémed that way. But as the snow melts, it is amazing the amount of dirt, garbage and assorted debris that has been hiding underneath all winter. The town takes on a kind of scummy grey ap- pearance. I suspect people are afraid to get into an honest spring clean-up in February because the chances of another dose of winter are still pretty good. I still have a major complaint. When is somebody going to replace those trash cans along Queen Street with something better. The ones there now look terri- ble; peeling paint, etc., and so small, the trash almost always is overflowing the brim. Really, some large brightly painted trash cans, would do wonders for the main street. Will this be the year for replacement? Let's hope so. "NO WONDER YOU CAN'T GET TLE J! WATCHING TUE MICROWAVE. ca; YOM es We're Confused Why can't the provincial ministry of Social Services fire a Kitchener social worker who used an employee washroom for homosexual affairs with a mentally retard- ed youth who eventually became a client of the case worker? The case became public recently with widespread coverage in the media, and if the facts as reported are correct, Social Services minister Frank Drea is right on when he says the welfare worker should be fired or demoted. But the Ontario Public Services Employees Union has vowed to fight any move by the government to get rid of this social worker. In" October, 1982, the social worker was suspend- ed for a year for the homosexual affairs in the washroom, but was re-instated in January with some back pay at a grievance hearing. The hearing found (and this is incredible) that it could not fire the worker because there was conflicting evidence as to whether he had paid the youth for the sex acts. And apparently, this social worker has had two previous convictions for gross indecency. If the evidence in this case is correct, and nobody "has disputed it, we are totally baffled as to why this in- dividual is still on the public payroll in any capacity. We are totally baffled why the Ontario Public Ser- vice Employees Union is tighting any move to fire or demote this worker. Surely the time has come to say enough is enough. It is not enough that this social worker is simply transferred to work where he won't come in contact with juveniles. The kind of conduct by a person in a very sen- sitive position of trust is simply inexcusable. The major question that begs an answer in this ridiculous case is who's running things: the provincial Social Services Ministry with the responsibility to look after less fortunate people who can't help themselves in our society, or a public service union, which vows right or wrong, to fight against dismissal. It is a mind-boggling situation, to say the least. ~ No, No, No The management committee of Durham Region council has instructed staff to look into the possibility of a severance pay plan for councillors who resign or are defeated at the polls. Surely, they can't be serious. Granted, the committee at this time, has only ask- ed for a staff report on the matter, but we are hard press- ed to figure out why they would even bother taking this step. Once the wheels are set in motion for a staff report on an issue, it gains a kind of credibility, it becomes open for discussion, and it is the first step towards approval on the floor of the council chambers. We don't think Regional councillors need any severance pay should they resign or get turfed out of of- fice by the voters. Regional councillors now earn over $14,000 per year, most claim mileage for official business, and since all Regional councillors are members of their respective local municipal councils, they receive remuneration from this source as well. Let's just say they are not underpaid. Most, but not all, Regional councillors have other jobs or business interests away from their public lives. If there are some councillors who are really feeling a financial pinch, severance pay at the end of their term of office isn't going to be large enough to do them a great deal of good. So why bother with it? The council just recently ask- ed the staff to look into a pension plan for councillors. Where will it end? What's next? If the council members think they need more money, they should vote themselves a raise, but picking away at the taxpayers money in pension or severance pay schemes is not the answer. In Ontario at this time, there is apparently no other municipal jurisdiction which has a severance pay plan for members of council, and rightly so. The idea is wrong. Regional councillors should be instructing staff to come up with reports on how to save dollars, rather than schemes to put more money in their pockets.