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p 4 the tribune thursday october 16 1997 st the tribune thursday october 16 1997 vol 109 no 66 comment tntons send your letters to the editor to the address below editorial be brave give blood cmon roll up your sleeve it wont hurt honestly now when the torontoarea red cross blood centre is at criti- cally low levels its time for you to give blood you are unfortu nately in good company about 96 per cent of canadians never give blood as only about four per cent are regular donors youve heard the urgent appeals for blood before but this time the blood centre which serves 61 hospitals between toronto and huntsville and oakville to napanee is so depleted of stores of blood that some hospitals were close to cancelling elective surgery earlier this week thats your hospitals the ones you depend on in the event you or your loved one needs a lifesaving blood trans fusion ok so you hope some other guy is going to give blood this week or that the crisis is over because 675 people turned out to emer gency clinics held monday and tuesday but the crisis is not over supplies of some blood types are still critically low and if a major accident takes place such as the recent bus crash in quebec which killed more than 40 people ontarians may literally die from a lack of blood the hours of regular blood clinics have been extended and sat urday clinics have been established to respond to the crisis so lets get to the real reason you have never donated blood fear of pain fear of catching some disease fear of lineups these are the excuses which prevent you from giving one bag of blood which your body will replace in a few days yet other than the slight prick of the needle donating doesnt hurt you cant pick up any disease from the sterile equipment and even a firsttime donation only takes between 60 and 90 minutes of your time so be brave to find out about a clinic close to your home or work call the toronto blood centre at 416 9749900 youll save the life of a stranger or maybe a friend letters market street speeder kills whiskers dear editor on wednesday oct 1 at about 8 pm a speeding car on market street in stouffville hit my seven-month- old kitten whiskers the car did not stop to see if the cat was alive even though a friend witnessed this and yelled to him i feel that this was very thoughtless and uncaring of this person and just wanted them to know that as a result of the incident my cat died within the hour as a parent i am very concerned about the speed of vehicles on mar ket street there are many children in this area and they can sometimes dart out just as quickly as a cat the stop sign is often obscured and in any event most vehicles pay little if any attention to it if drivers were a little more consci entious about our speed in residen tial areas then perhaps we as a com munity could avoid a tragedy like this from taking place again nicholas jones and mom tribune editorial adding fuel to labour tension dear editor your sept 20 editorial entitled education reforms should not be stalled is full of misinformation and misguided comments it lacks both critical and judicious thought first by stating ontario has in creased spending from 82 billion since 1986 to 132 billion for 22 million pupils and should have a system unequalled you imply we are spending more than other juris dictions in fact ontario ranks 6th among the provinces and territories in per pupil expenditures and 46th harris listen to ontarios future open letter to ontario premier mike harris this letter is regarding bill 160 which will affect every student in ontario the students attending this pro vinces schools will be affected by the cutbacks made by these educa tion cutbacks most students will agree that many of our classes arc already too large with up to 44 stu dents in some classes so why make them bigger students already have to share texts and desks and some students even sit on the floor your party docs say that the class sizes will be limited in size but how is this possible when there will be 25000 more studentsnext year and 10000 fewer teachers you want noncertified teachers to be teaching us just because the pre vious teachers arc too old or too expensive how will this be helping our edu cation nonqualified people can not possibly offer students a quality education wc arc appalled by the statement that ontario has a lower quality of education when com pared to alberta and saskatchewan i dont know if you arc aware of the fact that ontario has a higher population of immigrants than the other provinces cutting back on the teachers prep time will result in not having any time to prepare for our work or con duct extracurricular activities teacher prep time is used for con ferencing with students setting up labs working with other teachers organizing extracurricular activi ties and planning new lessons for us adding an additional class to every teachers schedule will mean less teacherstudent attention not more if this happens the educational standards of ontario will go lower not higher wc believe your government is misrepresenting the effects bill 160 why should wc trust you when the past government promises havent been fulfilled wc may only be students but wc arc aware of whats happening in our schools wc arc ontarios future please listen to us anna panakos and navncet panwar york region students when compared to both us states and canadian provinces in us dollars ontario spends 5355 127 above the canadian average of 5228 whereas the us aver age is 6469 in a province with the highest cost of living and therefore the highest cost of doing business the reality is that ontario students arc being underfunded in compari son to north american jurisdic tions second you state ontario stu dents ranked dead last in canada internationally were an even bigger embarrassment in a recent interna tional math and science test 1 can only surmise a strong bias against the education system your editorial docs absolutely nothing to aid students and educa tors in improving the system in fact they arc quite irresponsible they only add fuel to an already tense labour situation and provide false data for those who arc predis posed to negative attitudes towards educators and the education system steve bull stouffville 3 t kt f stouffville tribune a metroland community newspaper patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief tracy kibble editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen class if i ed manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us news 9056402100 retail sales 9056402100 classifieds 9056402874 distribution 9056402100 fax 905 6405477 email thetribistarca 6244 main st stouffville ont l4a1e2 tho stouffville tribune pub lished every tuesday thursday and saturday is one or the metroland printing publishing and distribution group of commu nity newspapers which includes ajaxpickcring news 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