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p 4 tribune august 23 1995 st comment on again off again rail funding is back on on off frozen thawed process and one talked to again and much to the relief can expect a few flubs from such has been the saga of the other and by monday of the railway group every- a new government lets the yorkdurham heritage the funds were thawed out thing is back on track you hope this was the worst railway in the wake of the tbry cuts it was unclear last week just where the railway stood in receiving funds that were promised under the previous provincial govern ment initially it appeared the railway group had escaped the swath of the budget axe but last week local mpp julia munro was forced to announce that funds due the group were to be frozen however monday morn ing munros office contacted the tribune to say that there had been a miscue sent from one ministry to another and by the time it bounced into the hands of munro everything was messed up after the tribune announced the freezing of the funds saturday the ministries reversed the stouffville tribune 6244 main st stouffville ont l4a1e2 905 6402100 905 6492292 fax 905 6405477 publisher patricia pappas general managereditor andrew mair editorinchief jo ann stevenson director of advertising debra veer retail manager mike kogerson distribution manager barry j goodyear administration vivian onell operations mgr pamela nichols questions ncws andrew mair editor jain ransberty julie caspersen roger belgrave reporters sjoerd witteveen steve- somerville phoiogniphry retail advertising joan marshrnan catherine dunkeld classified doreen deacon real estate joan marshrnan distribution arlene maddock the stouffville tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distribu tion group of community newspapers which includes ajax pickering nows advertiser auro ranewmarket bra banner barrio advance brampton guardian burlington post citypar- cnl couingwood connection etobicoke guardian georgetown jndcpcndontacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week markham economist nnd sun milton canadian champion mississauga news north york mir ror oakville beaver orillia today oshawa- whitbyciarington this week northumberland news peterborough this week richmond hillthornhillvaughan liberal scarborough mirror todays seniors uxbridge tribune con tents cannot bo reprinted without written per mission from the publisher conference on women coming to this area i dont have to be liberated ive never been captured now that ive caught your atten tion id invite you to join me at a stouffvillebased conference on women slated for september 9 we are indeed priviledged the conference is being held in conjunc tion with the united nations fourth world conference on women in beijing the conference to be held at parkview village has been named humanitys other wing the price is right the allday conference is free thanks to the bahai community of stouffville incidently if i was in the market for a faith id give serious consid eration to bahais a few weeks ago i had a brief meeting with bahai spokesman doctor farzad katirai hes a thinker if each of us shared dr katirais viewpoint on life the world would be far better shape stouffville is indeed fortunate to have this man live in the commu nity y the status of women matterstbv dr katirai he points out that since we are about to embark on a new century dealing with the toughest of social problems takes on a special significance the upcoming conference which runs from 930 am until 5 pm promises to be quite worth while panel subjects include women and the workforce women in stouffville a perspective a quest for equality health and morality women and justice women as custodian of the environment women the political process and peace whitchurchstouffville mayor wayne emmerson will officiate at the opening ceremonies mean while speakers including alice hawke editor of femine magazine off the record rans b e r r y and professor pat smith also scheduled to address those attending and to serve on panels are brit regan jane graves rahi victory terry spratt fran sansr bury helene johnson and kather- ine fox the status of women mat ters to me i have four grandaugh- ters and three grandsons they remind me that we collectively must continue to work towards equality on a global scale and yes here at home theres much left to do if youre of the opinion that the quest for equality for women is no longer needed ill join dr katirai in offering a few facts q the number of women living in poverty is not only disproportion ate but increasing q two thirds of the illiterate adult population of the world is female q in much of the world access to education even primary education is denied to a large portion of females violence against women is widespread and deep rooted domestic violence rape and sexu al harassment and intimidation in the work place all violate funda mental human rights iri many parts of the world women have only restricted access to participation in the economy they are under represented in areas of responsibility and decision making occupational segregation and wage inequality are common q decision making and the weld ing of power historically vested in the male remain largely inaccessi ble to women both economically and politically i also join dr katirai in suggest ing that it is long overdue for soci ety to reappraise its roots and to concede to onethird of the worlds population their fair and rightful place i can only hope that my grandkids will someday realize that its the dr katirai of the world that make a difference dr katirai stresses that we must strive to to create an environment in which there is full and explicit acknowledgement of the equality of men and women otherwise the loss is ours ps if you need more information on the conference call 6409684 shuffling off to buffalo not as easy as it sounds you can take an english visi tor to niagara falls but you cant get her across the border without a passport the above may appear self-evi- dent to people of even minimal intelligence your columnist alas is not among that number last week a friend invited granny pat and myself to accompany her to the albright- knox gallery in buffalo to admire a highly touted art exhi bition buffalo as even i know is in a foreign country it has a border where they ask such penetrat ing questions as where are you from and then require you to prove it it does not welcome with open arms people from buckhurst hill essex england unless they are accompanied by documentation which indicates they will eventually go back there the morning dawned bright and sunny we arose early and built rome before set ting off for the holiday inn yorkdale where we had arranged to meet our friend eh route to our quest for cultural betterment at the intersection of highways 404 and 401 in the midst of what traffic reporters oricfny euphemistically refer- to as a volume situation a hor rible realization dawned on me do you by any chance have your passport about you i i asked my mother nervously the- answer as the astute reader will already have guessed was not in the affirmative ft is a happy fact that my mother and i enjoy an unusual ly close and affectionate rela tionship built to no small extent on our snared inability to accom plish the boring necessities of everyday life in an ordered effi cient manner we put this shortcoming down to an artistic temperament which transcends such trifling details as weeding dusting and kates corner filing otjhers in our family are unaccountably less charitable being unable to accept that i when the muse strikes dinner becomes a movable feast and the necessity of a passport for bor der crossings a matter to be given scant attention since we were already well on the way to yorkdale and since i refuse on principle to invest in a car phone we elected to con tinue to that destination and confess our woeful inadequacies in person to our waiting com panion it would not have been so bad if i had consulted the map and ascertained that you cant get to dufferin the location of the hol iday inn directly from the 401 as we turned north on the 400 and headed in the direction of barrie i began to see that we would be more than a minute or two late for our rendezvous after several increasingly des perate detours we could clearly see the holiday inn but we couldnt quite work out how to gain physical access to it since the entrance is cunningly hid den from the main drag by the time we arrived in the lobby mild panic had set in all round we salvaged what we could of the day by spending it in the museums and book stores of our own fair city but a certain joie de vivre was definitely miss ing from the proceedings our friend took the whole mess calmly in her stride as she remarked with an admirable lack of rancor i guess thats next weeks column taken care of