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A6 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday May 16, 2001 T h e O akville Beaver Ian Oliver Publisher Neil Oliver .Associate Publisher Norman Alexander Editor Kelly Montague, Advertising Director Steve Crozier Circulation Director Teri Casas OfficeManager Mark Dills Production Manager Riziero Vertolli Director ofPhotography Metrotand Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd., indudes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News. Barrie Advance. Barry's Bay This Week. Bolton Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post. Burlington Shopping News, City Parent. Cdlingwood/Wasaga Connection. East Ntxk Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian. Flamborough Post, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press. Harriston Review, Huronta Business Times, Kingston This Week, Lindsay This Week. Markham Ecnomist & Sun. Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror. Milton Canadian Champion. Milton Shopping News. Mississauga Business Times. Mississauga News. Napanee Guide. 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L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-2809 Circulation: 845-9742 Canadian Community New spapers Association tO T V & IRONTE THE BUTTERFLY AM TTinN TV AUCTION O N T United Way of Oakville A R I O Cfa/Mftitd OWN Of | o PC* O BUSINESSKTHEA m I JTbhata ^ jh e __ JAvoard (§aki>iHe ^S h o a rfk FOR BUSINESS EXCELLENCE | oakville galleries | F M tt SKE d i t o r i a l s Suburban New spapers el America 8 o * £ u jl Children's Choir School funding debacle Since when is the Ontario government in the business of catering to every special interest group that asks for a handout? Residents of this province pay taxes on the basis that certain services will be provided in a one-tier fashion. But that all changed last week with the decision by the Province to kick in $300 million to fund private schools. When parents choose alternative schools they do so knowing they will have to pay for it themselves. That's the way it should be. What is the Province doing in helping subsidize religious, ethnic and elitist private schools while the public school system is in a shambles? Public education is available to everyone. That's the Province's only mandate and to cater to about 100,000 private school students and their parents speaks vol umes about the direction in which the Harris government is headed. It certainly bodes ill for the 2.1 million students in the public system. Does anyone out there really believe parents who send their children to Appleby College, St. Mildred's Lightboum School or similar schools are average middle class types? It takes huge after-tax money to send kids to these institutions and what amounts to a $3,500. gift to them is nonsensical. We don't care that these institutions exist but we do care when our tax dollars go to help pay for this kind of education while our public system decays. The same holds true for Christian, Jewish or other ethnic schools. If parents want their children to have this kind of education, more power to them. Just don't expect your neighbour to help pay for it.And what does this decision say to the parents of the approximately 32,000 children awaiting special needs assessment for public school placement? It means the waiting will continue needlessly. Ontario's public education per capita spending now ranks 56th of 63 North American states and provinces which really puts the government's latest decision in perspective. Lastly, what does this ghettoization of education say about Ontario as a soci ety? Instead of being exposed to a wider and varied view of the world and its peo ple, the state is encouraging its citizens to compartmentalize along religious, eth nic and socio-economic lines. Our public education system deserves better from the Province. Letters to the Editor The Oakville Beaver welcomes your com m ents. All letters m u st be typed, signed and include the w riter's address and phone num ber. Send to: L etters to th e Editor, The Oakville Beaver 4 6 7 Speers Rd., Oakville, O nt. L6K 3S 4 S o m e tim es children sa y it b est Re: Nuts to Nestle, May 4, 2001 Way to go Stephanie! This article was both sad and inspiring. Sad by the fact that a child so young has already found a need to battle a giant corporation to protect her brother. But inspiring by the fact that she has decided to take on the task. My 7-year-old son, Jason, also has allergies to peanuts and eggs. My family was devastated by Nestle's decision. Our entire family wrote letters to Nestle, including Jason's 10 year-old brother, Jeff, who does not have any allergies. This is what Jeff had to say : Dear Nestle, My name is Jeff Mitchell and my brother is highly allergic to peanuts. 1 think what you 're doing is dumb, stupid and wrong. We eat your chocolate bars almost every single day. They are practically our favourite dessert and defi nitely they are our favourite chocolate bars. I f you make this new chocolate bar in the same factory we will never be able to eat any o f your chocolate bars again. My brother is struggling to fin d any special desserts when our fam ily goes out fo r lunch and dinner. I f you make this new chocolate bar in the sam e factory, I do not know what special desserts he can have anymore. I f you care about my brother and other kids you won' t do what you 're planning to do. Jeff Mitchell, Age 10 My seven-year-old son had this to say to Nestle: Dear Nestle My name is Jason and I am seven. I am allergic to peanuts and eggs. That means that there are lots o f foods that I can' t eat. I can' t go out and eat ice cream or donuts or cake or most kinds o f treats. That was ok because my mom always brought Smarties or Kit Kat or Aero or Coffee Crisp fo r me. But now you are making it so that I can' t eat them. That is mean to me. D on' t you care about kids? So go back to nor mal please. Jason Mitchell, Age 7 We can all learn a lot from our children. Letter of the Week A trashy tale that really stinks Friday M ay 4 was our garbage pick-up day but there was no pick up. My wife complains by telephone and is told to check and see if the bags have been labelled with an organge sticker. Told to leave out for pick-up. N o pick-up all week - original garbage left sitting by-roadside. May 11, 2001, garbage and Blue Box day. Now there are six bags at roadside, some containing cedar · clippings. With massive cedar - Thuja (Arbor-Vitase) hedges surrounding our property we generate consider able cedar clippings once or twice a year. In past years these cedar clippings have been bagged (in regular garbage bags with other household waste) and collect ed as garbage without any problems. Our understand ing was that cedar is not compostable - I am sure your readers would put me right if I am wrong. On page 12 o f By-law No 30-96 specifies tree and shrub trim mings, cedar hedge clipping are not specifically noted. May 11, 2001,3 p.m., still no pick up when, obvi ously, garbage from our side o f the road had been col lected. No orange sticker either. Back on the tele phone, they ask, again, if tagged with orange label the answ er is NO! Six garbage bags sitting by the roadside, the w eather is hot. It d o e sn 't take long before the bacteria to start to work and create real problems. It now becomes a `WATCH' for the garbage truck along the other side of the road to ask WHY no pick up? The truck arrives, sim ultaneously a supervisor arrives, The truck driver tells us the bags are yard waste and illustrates by ripping open a bag of cedar clippings, although he did very kindly pick up four of the six bags. The supervisor, an arrogant and clearly insouciant person, informs us it is yard waste. When we ask about orange stickers so that at least we know, and u n d erstan d , the e rro r o f our w ays, he calm ly reached across his truck and produces a roll of orange stickers. Never having seen one, we reached (grabbed) for this sticker to see just what it said. It was kept out of our reach and, later, one orange sticker appears on one bag od the tw o cedar hedge trim m ings. A tick against "yard waste not in clear bags" is spelled out. As we all know garbage disposal is a problem. The R egion o f H alton has contracted out all or part of garbage services. Canadian Waste Services, Halton Recycling Ltd., and Halton Region Waste Management Services are all part o f our Region's attempt to address garbage disposal. One would imagine that stringent rules are laid down when contracting out any of these essential services. One wonders how these rules are e n fo rc e d , w hen we are le ft h ig h and dry on o u r garbage collection by a private contractor who doesn't have the courtesy (or an apparent aw areness of the danges of leaving garbage by the roadside), to leave an orange sticker (provided and paid for by the taxpayers of Halton) to inform us that we are breaking the rules. As we survey the littered roadsides in Oakville at this time, we either have a major problem or somebody at Halton Regions isn't doing their job! Either way, somebody at Halton Region should give our contracted garbage people a right royal rocker for what we have been through. Karen Mitchell Case for lunchtime busing I am writing as a follow-up to my earlier let ter about all-day altemate-day JK/SK. I have been trying for weeks to get more information from the Halton District School Board and have finally succeeded. Firstly, I've read that some schools are being designated as "walk-to" schools and therefore will have the right to choose between alternate day or half day JK and SK. I wondered how that would be implemented. Well, it will be a "majority rules" decision. The enrollees for the coming year will be asked for their preference, and the majority opinion will be implemented at that school for that year. And the same ques tion will be asked each year for each new set of enrollees, revisiting the decision each year. Secondly, the current cost of lunchtime bus ing is $320,000 (for SK) and to add JK, it would only be $28,000 more next year. Those were the numbers that the Board's JK commit tee was working with. I know that $28,000 was NOT the number that was presented at the pub lic meetings. The Board presented worst case scenario costs, in an effort to mislead the public and make a stronger case for their impending decision. I'm calling for the Halton District School B oard to re v isit the decisio n to cancel lunchtime busing. After seeing the strong pub lic reaction against this decision, the Catholic Board chose to not even go down that road. It will take a trustee who voted to implement all-day altemate-day JK to reopen the issue. I hope someone will be courageous enough to do that. A n ti-p e s tic id e fight will continue Thank you Mr. McKenna. (Letters to Editor, `C ouncillors ignored the vocal m in o r ity ' Oakville Beaver May 9, 2001.) While we were still searching for the politically correct words to express how we felt about the "pesticide" m eeting h eld M ay 7th, you said it all. Congratulations! Your very well-written letter to the editor expressed the opinion of many of us, and I applaud the Oakville Beaver for hav ing the courage to publish it. We too noticed the absence of questions from the councillors. In may case it was very embarrassing, as it had been suggested to me by one of the councillors that I bring along, if at all possible, one of my doctors. I certainly would not have asked my doctors to take time from their busy schedules to do this for me as a favor, had I known the councillors would not have the courtesy to acknowledge them. Why did you suggest I do this? We also noticed the lack of interest and general boredom, especially of the two lady councillors who obviously had far more amusing things to talk about. We adults should be ashamed of ourselves. When did we become so arrogant? I will not give up, and I too will take the Refined sugar bad news for any diet My heart goes out to Adam Scicluna, who, along with nearly half a million Canadians, could die from ingesting peanuts -- an excel lent source of protein. (Beaver, May 4) His eight-year-old sister Stephanie's out rage at Nestle Canada's decision to eliminate nut-free candy, transform ed into political activism, is highly commendable. By organiz ing a petition, young Stephanie has dem on strated a level of involvement foreign to the v a st m a jo rity o f p e a c e a b le C a n a d ia n s. Youngsters like Stephanie offer hope for this country's future. Nestle may well be offering the Scicluna family, and others in a similar predicament, a blessing in disguise. Rather than snacking on candy or chocolate, whose nutritional value ranks alongside fast food and soft drinks, why not introduce whole food treats such as fruit, dates, raisins and figs? As well as delicious, these foods contain nutrients essential for growing, active bodies. We are what we eat. A surfeit of sugar and Chocolate is detrim ental to good health, as well as addictive. Moreover, no amount of exercise, spiritual awareness or positive think ing can offset the negative impact of exces sive refined sugar. By developing healthy eating habits, chil dren lay the groundwork for long-term vitali ty Peter D. Pellier Lisa Seiler Pad THE. BSCOH^ A UTUE UH, CRISPY.. THE EGGS ARE KlNDA COLD i s c m \ Bu r k e d by Steve Nease ITSTHESESrl Br e a k f a s t i ever hap / V 11-- ^ THE TOAST... 6 ? Ar-T I SPILLED Your juice Ivor Davies