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mbmsm p 4 the tribune tuesday march 10 1998 st tuesday march 10 1998 vol 110 no 19 the tribune is a member of the ontario press council the tribune comment opinions send your letters to the editor to the address below editorial charests in deep there are few people in this country who would share the shoes of jean charest these days the beleaguered progressive conservative party leader is being pulled at both ends to remain leader of his federal party on the one hand and to assume the reigns of the quebec liber als he has indicated he has no interest in the job but many are saying he has no choice charest is indeed in a difficult bind if he takes one road he is abandoning his party his alliances and a shot at becoming prime minister should he choose the other he may be throwing away the best chance the federalist forces in the province have at defeating the pq whats at stake could be the country itself while stating he doesnt wish to become premier of quebec his refusal has built up increasing momentum and it is entirely possible his refusal is a political ploy to generate headlines build some sort of mythic saviour status and come into the elec- tion with all political propaganda cylinders firing and his pop ularity assured the reluctant saviour act has been used before notably by pierre trudeau and of course by lucien bouchard himself by entering public life charest takes on a certain responsibil ity if called upon to serve his country to the detriment of per sonal ambition he may be compelled to do so anyway other wise he is risking a whatif political hindsight nightmare a cynic might say that the epilogue to this drama has already been written after saving quebec and the union charest marches back onto the federal stage where his personal destiny is assured but political dramas can often have a twist ending terrible tragedies can return to haunt it was a great news story and a terrible experience it happened in the early 80s yesterday it came back to haunt when i started yesterdays coverage of the death of a private military school student a 16yearold stouffville boy i found myself reliving another tragedy a canoe accident in quebec claimed the lives of 13 children and a teacher all from a private military school in clare- mont the media including me were quick to follow as the parents of 25 students were summoned to the school and off the record jfoan ransberry escorted into the chapel i stood on the side as the parents were told that emergency crews had plucked 14 bodies and 13 survivors from the icy waters they didnt know who was dead and who was alive the parents were told the job of identifying had just begun time dragged finally a clergyman read the names of the dead it was a long night it was so very very sad as a newspaper reporter i had a job to do i did it i interviewed private school officials griefstricken parents the par ents of the survivors and the clergy i was given photographs of the dead kids and photographs of live kids from a newspapers perspective it was a very big story with many angles it deserved to be covered had to be cov- this english patient not raising fuss the english find illhealth not only interesting but respectable and often experience death in the effort to avoid a fuss pamela frankau since there is a corner in some for gotten field of my pysche that is for ever england i feel qualified to endorse the above insight albeit with some modifications what the eng lish particularly try to avoid is bother ing the doctor in my day it was tacitly acknowl edged that the doctor was far too busy with matters of true import to spend time on his it was always his patients im not sure what we thought he was busy doing but i do recall that you had to have one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave before you would dream of contacting him with the dreary details of your sundry symptoms last week i saw more doctors and other health professionals than i had previously consulted in the whole of my life not that i was bothering them with my problems perish the thought but mr wallethead had to have a nose job it was for health reasons as opposed kates corner kate gilderdale to cosmetic ones so he still doesnt look like robert redford and we found ourselves hobnobbing with medical glitterati of all stripes moreover i was engaged in writing a series of articles on various aspects of health care which meant i had to bother not just one but whole prac tices full of physicians in all cases they not only willingly gave of their time they also made it abundantly clear that patients r them having lived almost half my life in canada i already knew that but i am still astonished by the glaring differ ences between my north american and british experiences even now friends and- relations across the pond are more likely to put up and shut up than consult a consultant its a habit thats hard to break i am forever advising my nearest and dear est to visit the doctors office but last week when my back broke down i stubbornly refused to seek solace in the obvious place now that its better a stubborn inner voice with a strong english accent is telling me its just as well i didnt waste their valuable time my other fear is that the doctor will tell me i should modify my lifestyle this innocuoussounding advice usu ally turns out to have an unpalatable component eg perhaps you should try a little exercise or replace that medicinal glass of cabernet with car rot juice which is enough to give me a severe attack of the vapours its like going to the dentist you know at some point in your visit the subject of flossing will raise its ugly head you also know that doctors and den tists are just doing their job but its hard to rid yourself of the ensuing guilt trip which takes you back to the days when your teacher discovered youd failed to hand in your home work there must be some middle ground as my doctor pointed out during one of my rare personal appearances its one thing to abuse the health care sys tem quite another to visit her office only once a decade ered and was covered of course there were many questions directed at the pri vate military school why did a few adults take so many children out into such waters some couldnt swim and most knew nothing about life saving who ran this school what went on at this place why did people sent their kids there in true military style the private school officials stressed that their job was to make men out of boys i wasnt impressed i got all hung up on the fact that 13 boys never got to be men one boys family distanced them selves from the school claimed his body and buried him alone a mass funeral was held for the others a dozen white coffins lined the front of the church the survivors wearing the school uniform filed in stood in front of the coffins and sang jesus loves me at that i put my notepad down and sobbed our photographer put his camera down and joined me in tears we cried for a few minutes then i picked up my notepad and the photogra pher picked up his camera we did our jobs on friday the stouffville teen and his friend ran away from their private mili tary school on saturday wearing their school uniforms they lay down on the railway tracks a freight train ran over them police reported it to be a double suicide today the media and provincial officials are asking questions about this niagarabased private military school a robert land academy school offi cial said the academy has 160 boys from all over the world the academy stress es discipline he said when i approached the door of the stouffville boys family home yesterday i thought about making men out of boys militarystyle a lump formed in my throat i swallowed took a deep breath and knocked on the door the boys mom declined comment she looked so very very sad stouffville tribune a mctroland community newspaper patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief tracy kibble editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us m mmm if distribution 905 6402100 905 6405477 imajl v ml iwl thetnbistarca 6244 main st stouffville ont l4a1e2 pvory tvickuk thu mgfefudwdi rdslurby inf pub- ion llwldcouriir brri advmk ijoirtyv bytluwejge u prim brampton tarip shopping nw durlinrlon iw city prwit cihiiiroovwr bch cnnnwtlon kmi york mirror erin awurcounlry iul klobiooli sf aon tnr letters policy the tribune welcomes your letters to the editor please keep letters to no more than 300 words note that letters may be edited for space libel spelling grammar while we endeavor to print as many letters as possible we regret that not all let ters may be printed jj vvi kvvi too x m mm