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the eXaminer serving borrie and simcoe county Monday Feb 1879 Published by Canadian Newspapers Company Limited 16 Bayfield Street Barrie Ontario LAM 4T6 Bruce Rowland publisher CIRCULATION 7266539 NEWSROOM 7266537 ADVERTISING 7266537 ClASSIFIEDS 7282414 Time to rethink public transit Has the time come to rethink city transit That question arises with the recommendation this week by Barrie General Committee to increase all bus fares by 10 cents The reason for the proposed hike is simple money City transit everywhere is laboring under heavy deficits Barrie transit is no exception As our city grows service grows too And that can only mean greater costs in the future The question is who should pay The General Committee proposal would pass the cost increases on to riders Among those hardest hit would be students and senior citizens Yet they are the ones least able to afford the in crease number of things must be decided about the future of transit in the city Is transit an integral part of living in the city If so should everyone bear the cost through the general levy What about service Should we be looking at expan ding service or better servicing the routes we already have One thing we dont want to see is buses riding around half empty merely to give Barrie an expand ed service What about cost Is the city committing itself to an annual deficit of $200000 or more for transit purposes Is financial help available beyond the 75 per cent sub sidy already received through the province Ridership too is question How much are city buses used and by whom Would the fare hike proposal have the reverse intended effect by driving ridership and thus revenue down At this point perhaps public meeting is in order to fully discuss the matter Certainly city council might do well to initiate that discussion when it meets Monday to consider the fare increase proposal simcoe yesteryear The old St Marys Church in northwest Barrie from picture taken many years ago The church has been torn down and rebuilt Thanks for todays simcoe yesteryear to the Simcoe County Archives DearSir am writing to try to bring to your attention the damage that is being caused by the misuse and incorrect usage of the English Language lot of people are very quick to pass judgement upon the Local School Boards Apparently they are to blame for everything from the fact that our children do not know how to speak properly to the fact that they have acne from living sexually liberated life have ac tually heard this statement Our children spend maximum of six hours per lay in school If assume that they sleep for eight we want your opinion Something on your mind Send Letter to the Editor Please make it an original copy and sign it The Examiner doesnt publish unsigned let ters but if you wish pen name will be used Include your telephone number and address as we have to verin letters Because of space limits public interest and good taste The Examiner sometimes has to edit condense or reject letters Letters to the Editor are run every day on the editorial page Send yours to letters to tile Editor The Exmher Poet Office In 170 Milli Oat MM letters to the editor hours this would leave them with ten hours that are still not ac counted for Part of this time would be taken up by eating bathing playing and homework However considerable amount of that time is used for watching television and reading newspapers and books Quit few years ago there was famous commercial that stated Winston tastes good like cigarette should cringed everytiinc that heard or saw this commercial believe that the wor ding of this commercial has since changed However the wording of other commercials is constantly in grammatical error In addition what we read daily in our newspapers follows the same tradition There is hardly day that goes by that do not read in your newspaper something that is gram matically incorrect For instance in Mondays edition of the paper there was hearllinc that stated Bus driver feels bad The point that am trying to make is this How may we expect our children and grandchildren to know how to speak our language correct ly when they hear and see it used incorrectly everyday Children copy much more readin what they see and hear than what parents or teachers attempt to show them Yours truly Mrs Alice Booth Stroud BUSINESS 7266537 Caveat NEWSROOM Craig Elson managing editor Ian Mulqrew city editor Bill McFarlane wire editor Dave Fuller sports editor Claudia Krause Litestvle editor SALES Bert Stevens Julie Franks Ian MacLeod Aden Smith Steve Skinner Brenda Woods FOR TE Carl De Gurse Stephen Nicholls Dennis Lanthier Nancy Figueroa Lori Cohen Stephen Gauer entertainment Gary Forbes sports Belly Armor camera operator Dave aurcsik photographer CLASSIFIED Freda Shinner Peggy Chapell Janice Morton ADVERTISING Len Sevick manager Ruth Blais supervisor Dana Homewood BUSINESS Marian Gough accountant Delva Mills Gail McFarland Vikki Grant Kathie Mitchell CIRCULATION Bill Halkes manager Steve White assistant manager Andy Haughton Alva LaPlante PatMerson Elaine Porter Cheryl Aiken Don Saunders Lorne Wass Wilt Cadogan Stan Wray Bill Raynor Ed Allenby Janie Hamel Susan Kitchen Ron Gilder Barbara Strigl PRESSROOM Der Near foreman Fred Prince asst Ioreman Harris Blanchard Brian Marr COMPOSING ROOM Jack Kerney toreman Glenn Kwan asst toreman The Examiner is member at The Canadian Press CP and Audit Bureau of Published daily except Sunday and statutory holidays WEEKLY by carrier 90cents YEARLYbycarrier circulations ABC Only the Canadian Press may re publish news stories in this newspaper credited to CF The Associated Press Reuters or Agence France Presse and local news stories published in The Examiner The Examiner claims copyright on all original news and advertising material created by Its employees and published in this newspaper 54630 Copyright registration number 2038l5 register 6i BV MAIL Barrie 680 National advertising ottices 65 Queen St Toronto 864 17m 640 Cathcart St Montreal SIMCOE COUNTY $3650 MOTOR THROW OFF s39a year ELSEWHERE IN CANADA S38 50a year The advertiser agrees that the publisher shall not be liable tor damages aris ing out at errors in advertisements beyond the amount paid tor the space ac tually occupied by that portion at the advertisement in which the error oc curred whether such error is due to the negligence at its servants or other wise and there shall be no liability for non insertion at any advertisement beyond the amount paid tor such advertisement Parliament Hill By STEWART MaclJIOI Ottawa Bureau Thomson News Service Those heavyheartrxl Tories who think that Party Leader Joe lark and Toronto Mi Da vid rombie may have torpedoed the next election with their verbal convulsions about sovereigntyassociation might well find comfort in looking back two years That was when some ually heavyhearted Tories were saying that ntario Premier Wilr liam Davis was scuttiing the federal party with his impulsive utterings about Rene Icvesquc and his Parti Quebccois See you have forgotten that already Well back in February 1977 Davis was getting good oldfashioned political scorr ching for allegedly setting himself up as the Englishspeaking interpreter of Quebec politics and the embarrassing vibrations were shaking Joe larks Ottawa office to its very foundations guess the vibrations were similar to those that rocked that office again last December when Crombie the former mayor of Toronto suggested that on servalivc government would negotiate with levesque over sovereigntyassociat ion There are things that are better left unsaid particularly after Prime Minister Trudeau had declared that he would never negotiate the future of his country with Quebec separa lists Its difficult to mount campaign against that simplistic position And after romlne Two years later empm words of wisdom By LEONARD NOBLE After some two years of deliberation the Task Force on anadian Unity under the co hairmanship of JeanLuc Pepin and John Robarts has come to the conclusion that it lawa has been too superior in its dealings with the Province of Quebec As Mr Pepin stated so succinctly in re cent television broadcast We dont believe in the Federal Government having to say tut tuttut do this and do that and move that way This is producing more antagonism more bitching than it is producing results dont know how many millions of dollars it took for Mr Pepin and Mr Robarts to spend in order to come to that conclusion but bet it was plenty It is as though they had made miraculous discovery rather than reslating the obvious The same results can be seen repeated over and over again by Royal ommission after Royal Commission Howabout Judy LeMarsh and her Royal Commission as to the effect of violence on television There was considerable amount of criticism levelled at Miss LaMarsh and her Commissioners for the amount of money that was spent by them in the end the Royal Commission found among other things that violence on televi sion was not good thing What insight and what brilliance must have come into play in order for the commission to come to that con clusion And where do these and other Royal Com mission decisions lay Obviously in some unused cupboard in order to avoid the sight of their trite and obvious opinion by the politi cians who ordered them 1WIIAT THEY SAID can imagine that when at long last Pepin and Robarts had to put pencil to paper in order to produce their report on fanadian Unity the conversation probably went something like this Well JeanLuc says Robarts weve SCOOPS 50 ACT NOW FOLKS AND ORDER ONE OF MY AUTHENTIC FINE ART REPRODUCTIONS JEANLit lIIIIN say something soon been at it for two years and Id guess wed better say something pretty soon agree replies Pepin notice the Prime Minister is getting little edgy about the length of time were taking Well you cant do these things over night retorts Robarts testily would have liked to continue our coiwersation bit fur ther like in Miami or Nassau particular ly with the bad weather weve had lately Well says Pepin suppose we simply say that Ottawa is too bossy Maybe theyll send us down South to reconsider our opinion WISTHAT NELSON ROCKEFELIER Time heals all wounds at least PCs hope so said it would be silly not to negotiate lark had to have hearttoheart talk with his powerful lieutenant before declaring that we are not going to negotiate sovereignty association We are going to keep this country together DAMAGE DONE But there are many Conservatives who think the damage had already been done that Trudeau will get enormous campaign mileage from the alleged Tory waffling on the issue However if its any consolation to them other Tories were saying the same thing when Davis came barging into the debate two years ago At that time only three months after the election of the Parti Quebecois few English speaking politicians had made any profound observations on the Quebec situation Apart frmn saying that Canada is not divisible we wont discuss it Trudeau had said little in those first few months It was period of uneasy viewing Nobody was pushing any panic buttons But then Davis for reasons best known to himself shattered the silence by appealing for calm in the midst of calm He accused Trudeau of being immature in his response to the Quebec threat and he said the media was being hysterical suspect that thoughtful Canadians will share with me distaste for artificial confrontation and the rhetoric of anger he said But at that point no one could find any artificial confrontations The future of the country said the Ontario premier must be debated with decency re spect and dignity He said nonQuebec politicians should not get on our horses and go barrclling into Quebec to make an argument for Canada Dayls then went to Quebec ity to open the winter carnival and he sat smiling beside Rene Levesque as the Quebec premier said that no matter what happens in the future there will be an inevitable partnership between Ontario and Quebec NICOOPERATION Just before this Trudeau had said that sovereign Quebec should not expect any co operation from the remainder of Canada Davis soon realized the danger of his position and shortly afterwards he told London Ont audiencemuch like Joe Clark recently told Canadiansw that separate Quebec cant expect any special treatment from other provinces After all that backslapping with Levesque in Quebec City Davis now was saying that it would be absolutely foolhardy for the government of Quebec to believe that it have both independ ence and economic association with the rest of Canada Davis was suddenly so blunt that he enraged Levesque Like myself and Mr deeau Mr Davis and others will go the way of all flesh eventually said the Quebec premier am just recalling this because two years ago many Conservatives were predicting that the federal party would never recover from Davis alleged pussyfooting on this issue And now no one seems to even remember it DONT KWW II COULD BE JUST From the legislature The problem with tenure By DEREK NELSON Queens Park Bureau Thomson News Service TORONTO The Toronto board of educations decision to grant tenure to its teachers last week brought to mind an in cident at the Progressive Conservative convention here in the autumn Tenure means that regardless of plum meting enrolment in the schools no teacher will lose their job aNewlyappointed education minister Bette Stephenson was the focal point at rap session in tiny hotel room packed with teachers as well as convention delegates rural delegate told Stephenson about teacher his children had who couldnt speak English well enough for any of his students to understand him Stephenson sympathized mentioning that one of her own family had had similar ex perience in Metro Toronto school And teacher present agreed there were teachers totally incompetent at the basic task they were paid to do communicate their learning to their pupils Somehow that memory burned little brighter when news came of the Toronto lboards incredible precedentsetting deci Sion Most disturbing of all is the reasoning behind the boards decision MPP Evelyn Gigantes NDPCarleton East repeated the rationale in statement calling the boards action model for use elsewhere in the province She spoke of allocating teaching resources so as to eliminate oversized classes and of special programs designed to meet the individual needs of children Toronto already has the lowest pupil teacher ratio in the province and there is no definition of rightsized class Still the theory is that smaller classes and special approaches to education will benefit the children although theres absolutely no proof this is true and actually some evidence to the contrary COST T00 Even if it were true one would have to weigh the unbelievable cost billions over time if other boards follow the Toronto route against other social needs such as health or transportation 1f teachers get more then someone else will get less Even more important than the money though is what is symbolized by that hotel room discussion last year What is the point of having special classes it the teacher is incompetent Are classes ac tually oversize or is it that the teacher is incapable of handling it whether he or she has three or 30 students The Toronto boards tenure scheme removes the faint hope some of us had for the age of declining enrolment In the baby boom years boa rds of education were desperate for teachers and took almost anyone as long as they could point chalk Today we have surplus of teachers That should mean boards of education being able to pick and choose keeping on their best and letting their worst go The teacher unions still object to this understandably but the whole question of teacher performance and pay based on merit was finally starting to get hearing What is most upsetting about the Toronto board decision is that such discussion is stopped dead in its tracks When all are guaranteed employment there is no point in considering their ability to do the iob Interpreting the news Deficit hits record high ByGLENNSOMERVILLE WASHINGTON CP Canadian trade officials are finding new reasons to look nervously south of the border this year as Americans try to find ways to whittle down staggering United States international trade deficit After posting record $285 billion deficit on foreign trade in 1978 compared with $266 billion year earlier the administration is considering several ideas for controlling imports to US markets One of the most ominous suggestions from Canadas point of view came last week from William Miller chairman of the Federal Reserve Board who said surchar on imports might become necessary if inf ation worsens and the dollar continues to weaken surcharge is an extra tariff raising prices of imported goods to make them less competitive with domesticallymade prod ucts Canada sells 70 per cent of its exports in the US so any move to make Canadian products less attractive to US consumers can have heavy impact Miller said after suggesting an import surcharge that he didnt really think it would be necessary to impose one and government officials in Ottawa say they are discounting his comments about the surcharge But considering the ILS dollars weakness on international markets and noting that the US did use import surcharges as recently as 1971 Millers comments were enough to make Canadian officials take note Mike Kelly director of international finance for the federal finance department said in telephone interview the tilpercent surcharge in 1971 imposed by the Nixon administration hit anada quite hard initially Later exemptions for specific im ports including most raw materials made the effect on Canadian exports less severe The 1971 surcharges lasted from August to December and were used as coercive tool by the US to get international agreement to devaluation of the US dollar by freeing its value from gold and introducing floating currency exchange rates