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p4 weekender november 271993 t c i r a mst grier should ban greasy burgers and fries health minister ruth grier will go down in history as the woman who would be king in her previous position as environment minister she lorded over the selection of dump sites without a moment to listen to alternatives now shes decided ontario residents should give up smoking and shell give them a hand new smoking legislation makes it illegal to buy cigarettes if youre under 19 to sell cigarettes in pharma cies or from vending machines and bans smoking from all health facilities her reasons for doing so are clear the ministry of health paula crowell says 13000 people in ontario die each year from tobacco use smoking is linked to condi tions such as heart disease lung cancer chronic lung dis ease stroke and cancers of the mouth throat esophagus and bladder lung cancer is one of the biggest killers of adults and 80 per cent of lung cancer is caused by tobacco use griers aim is to make it harder to smoke and more importantly to start smoking young people are one of the growing markets for cigarette manufacturers while her intentions are good the smoking law leaves a bad taste even in the mouth of the most ardent nonsmokers any parent will agree you cant legislate good behavior rules are constant ly broken often just because they are there by making smoking more of a forbidden practice grier will cause the underground smokers connection to flour ish the money and energy which will be spent on enforc ing these laws would be bet ter spent providing young people with positive non smoking role models why not arrange class trips for children at a grade 5 or 6 level because more kids are starting to smoke in grade 7 to a hospital where lung can cer and lung disease patients can show graphically what smoking has done to them this sort of legislation bodes poorly for ontarians whats next a ban on the sale of greasy burgers and fries because they cause clogged arteries and lead to heart disease why not one first rate school for all markham economist and sun stouffville tribune uxbridge tribune weekender edition a metroland community newspaper patiuciapappas publisher jo ann stevenson editoriihief paula crowell editor andrew maffi editor debraweller director of advertising barry goodyear director of distribution vivian cneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager markham 2942200 sales 7987624 classi fied 2944331 stouffville 6402100 uxbridge 8529741 2948244 distribution and administration 9 heritage rd markham l3p 1m2 fax markham 2941538 stouuvule 640- 6477 uxbridge 8524355 the markham economist and sun stouflfville tri bune and uxbridge tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distributing groupof subur ban newspapers which includes ajax pickering news advertiser barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post collingwood connection etobicoke guardian the liberal georgetown inde- eendentacton free press kingston this week indsay this week milton canadian champion missiasauga news north york mirror oakville beaver orillia today oshawawhitby this week peterborough this week scarborough minor the era banner contents not to be reproduced without written permission from the publisher opinions wanted send to address or fax on masthead this page dear editor isnt it time we acted a little more rationally towards our edu cation system or is it systems is that where the problem is two sets of buses going up and down the same streets two com plete bureaucracies thats worse than the federal government two large head offices for each dis trict some schools loaded with portables but with a school a block away halfempty and perhaps worse than any of the above two sets of politicians i recently read in the paper about an offer from the public school system to the separate school system to pool the busing costs and stop the duplication sav ing thousands of dollars for each system it was indignantly turned down by a separate school trustee why would the public school children contaminate the separate school children did the separate school trustee have a vested interest in the bus compa ny i dont know and i dont care but when you read headlines like bankruptcy looms for rc board it is time we all took a look at what we are not doing for our children in the way of having adequate funding and what we are doing to ourselves in the way of allowing these well paid bureaucrats and politicians to increase our taxes 6810 per cent each year way above inflation yes i am aware the provincial government legislates many costly changes and additions to the school systems with no extra fund ing which in itself is ludicrous but with one well run well financed school system we could indeed offer our children knowl edge challenge and above all direction and this without dupli cation what would the savings be on our school taxes 102030 per cent remember the education tax makes up 728 per cent of our total tax bill like to save 30 per cent of that perhaps when you take a look at a cost of 100000000 over a 30 year peri od for a new education centre for the york region separate school system the problems start to show up politicians work so hard to try to get reelected that many times they abrogate their fiscal responsi bilities to the people who elect them remember the provincial gov ernment gave a grant gift to the york region roman catholic sep arate school board of 126 mil- lion in january 1993 this money came from people some of whom support the public school system and some who support the sepa rate system all of whom support the provincial government so why not one first rate well funded school system for all our children this would take leadership trust desire and guts who has it percy e hughes unionville canada post is worst culprit for junk mail dear editor i agree with donna marrin let ter to the editor nov 13 week ender telephone soliciting is very frustrating equally frustrating to me is the mounds of junk mail addressed and unaddressed that appears in our mail box on a daily basis canada post is the worst culprit despite the fact that i have a sign posted on our mailbox no flyers newspaper inserts or valupacs please they continue to be delivered in fact i recently received a flyer advertising posi tions for people to deliver advertis ing flyers for canada post a third source of aggravation is door to door soliciting i have four month old twins and it seems i am always in the mid dle of a diaper change or nursing when the door bell rings i think it is high time our government started doing something to protect our rights this is my home i should be able to decide whether or not i want people calling me coming to my door or leaving advertising in my mailbox perhaps our new mp jag bhaduria could have markham designated a solicitationfree zone i know local businesses will complain but thats just too bad it is time to start thinking of alter native strategies for advertising for example requiring busi nesses to obtain permission from householders to solicit their busi ness tammy l morrellbellai markham we say no to suicidal teens dear editor on monday i found myself in three recently constructed publicly funded multimillion dollar administrative buildings in york region on tuesday one of our hospitals announced staff reductions to their child and adolescent crisis program due to a projected deficit for 9394 of 31000 slightly higher than the monthly hydro bill of 25000month for the york region administrative centre this program serves pri marily suicidal adolescents it is the only program of its kind in york region dr jennifer steadman clinical director of the child and ado lescent crisis program predicted suicide rates will increase without effective crisis intervention on wednesday a grade 9 high school student committed suicide something is very wrong with this scenario has government at all levels lost sight of the real issues or is the real issue the fact that there is money to be made from building construction and there is no profit to be made from saving teen lives it is time for us as citizens to make our voices heard and to take action how can we say yes to buildings and no to suicidal teens this is not the time to get stuck in the mire of funding problems it is the time to move forward with solutions imme diate then long term annlefebvre markham wiilwjfhv ttlf 7 v9 yvtf 3 9 o 9-