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6 economist suntribune saturday nov 2 2002 s stouffville tribune serving the community since 1888 publisher ian proudfoot opinion eorror in chief debora kelly business manager robert lazurko director marketing new product development brenda larson advertising director retail flyer sales nicole mathieu advertising director classified real estate events management gord paolucci letters to the editor alternative diplomas bad idea re york board wants alternative diploma after seeing literacy test results oct 3 according to the education quality and accountability office eqao test 25 per cent or 13000 grade 10 students are illiterate the school boards solution ignore the systemic problems in the system pass failing students and make them feel successful by giving them a worthless token alternative diplo ma hogwash feeling successful comes from true achievement not from a worthless token diploma that stands for failure and destroys a students selfesteem the province needs to fix the systemic root problems of the educational system not pass more students it needs to live up to its accountability mandate it needs to fix the eqao office it is criminally negligent to rob students of literacy and a bright job future by masking the symptoms and failing to address the root problems according to the national adult literacy survey low literacy creates barriers to inde pendence employment adequate wages and costefficient health care it also makes active participation in social and cultural life citi zenship and equal treatment before the law more difficult to achieve an inability to read places huge financial burdens on taxpayers our social services and lowers the available qualified labour pool shame on our education boards for their lack of integrity and blatant disregard for the future wellbeing of our students dannayuhas unionville vandals need lesson in values on thanksgiving day our car was tem porarily parked on the street in front of our driveway while my husband moved the sum mer furniture to our garage on one of his trips from the back yard he saw three young boys ages ranging from 1 1 to 13 two on bicycles and one on skateboard by our car and the others parked on the street just then the boy on the skateboard ripped the emblem from the hood of our car my husband noticed and immediately shouted at the boy who threw the emblem away all three boys made a dash for it my husband gave a short chase but they made their escape at the top of the culdesac through a pathway i am writing this letter with the hope par ents in the community will emphasize to their children the importance of being respectful to other peoples property as well as to their community i also hope they will explain and stress the consequences and liabilities of being caught in illegal acts i believe these boys are old enough to have known better markham has grown over the years but i still consider it a small community with respectable disciplined lawabiding resi dents i hope this is an isolated incident and not the reflection of our young people today or the erosion of our community l harrison markham columnist mixed up her history re us president shouldnt be quoting jfk a column by joan ransberiy oct 10 ms ransberiy should take her own advice and not mention events about which she is not well versed for starters she confuses the thwarted bay of pigs invasion of 1961 with the cuban missile crisis of october 1962 she also claims john e kennedy backed down but that was what soviet union leader nikita krushchev did in his speech to the nation mr kennedy assumed a very strong stance against nuclear weapons on cuban soil he vowed to board soviet ships heading to cuba and turn back any found to have nuclear weapons this sounds a good deal like george w bushs stand today to rid iraq of chemical biological and possibly nuclear arms with regards to electoral majorities mr kennedy also won the presidency by the nar rowest of margins over richard nixon yet he went on to become one of the greatest us presidents of the 20th century ms ransberrys revisions of history were probably influenced a great extent by her falling under the kennedy spell although a staunch admirer and support er of president kennedy the passing years have taught me he was like all of us a human being with weaknesses and flaws we have no way of knowing how many offensive weapons of mass destruction saddam hussein possesses we know he had an astonishing amount when un arms inspectors were allowed into iraq in the 1990s i bet that he has more now unlike mr kennedy should president george w bush take ms ransberrys advice and wait for the next attack as was done in europe in the days before the second world war ms ransberry says 40 years later fidel castro is an old man living out his days in his homeland i wonder if thats the feeling among the cuban people who have suffered the trade embargo no democratic elections imprisonment for speaking out against castro civilian disappearances etc in the meantime ms ransberiy consider a night school course in history 101 to bone up on your facts michael rose unionville too many services in short supply recently i moved from whitby to avoid the long commute west to work as well as to live in a modern vibrant growing community though i have encountered many positive things in markham some things are severely lacking and need to be addressed one is the lack of swimming pools libraries communi ty centres and kids programs i was unable to enroll my kids in summer camps or fall swim ming because there were no spaces available this is a community with a large popula tion of young families who are finding it extremely difficult to access activities for their kids despite a willingness to pay the planners of this town have neglected to include the above services when they were dealing with subdivision applications another severely lacking service is health care markham stouffville hospital is severely stressed trying to provide services for its 200000plus population are there any plans for a postsecondary institution universitycollege for this area why not how many new universities and colleges have been built in the past 25 years to accommodate the growing population in this area why arent our local politicians and rep resentatives seeing this kenkahn markham liberal media unfair to harris last week senator michael kirby deliv ered his final report on the state of our health care system listing problems and cures the senator wrote a national healthcare guarantee would compel the federal govern ment to pay for a patient to immediately receive the necessary treatment in another jurisdiction including the united states if necessary were the good senator and his committee not aware former ontario premier mike harris had been doing just that by taking the initiative mr harris was pil loried by the opposition and lambasted by the liberal media for doing the right thing after nine years of cutbacks in transfer payments and as many years telling canadians there was no more money for our healthcare system mr chretien announced in mexico last week that more cash would be forthcoming in the next budget when roy romanow presents his royal commission report next month it will be the third conducted for the government since 1997 the liberal government cant ignore the reports any longer by discrediting mr harris the print media was deflecting the heat from mr chretien for not coughing up money for health care could the newfound cash be too little too late jshaw markham letters policy the stoultvilletribunc welcomes your letters all submissions must be less than 400 words and must include a daytime telephone number name and address the tribune reserves the right to publish or not publish and to edit for clarity and space letters to the editor the tribune 9 heritage rd markham on l3p1m3 email letterseconsuncom editorial editor jim mason ncwsroomeconstmcom advertising retail sales manager steve kane 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