The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

For decades, school buses have been the safest and most costâ€"effective way to transport children to and from school. In today‘s society, it‘s important for parents to know their children are safe on the way to and from school. Simply put, the need for that reliable yellow school bus exists today more than ever before. This fall, the provincial government cut four per cent from the student transportation budâ€" get. A further sixâ€"perâ€"cent cut has been announced for 1997. The Ontario School Bus Association calculates that from 1991â€"92 to the end of 1997, $130 million will have been cut from Ontario‘s $600 million student transportaâ€" tion expenditure. â€" But what they should be asking is this: can we afford not to? Can we afford to provide school bus services fior Ontario‘s school children? This is the quesâ€" tion school trustees are debating right now as they prepare thier 1997 budgets. Harris isn‘t the only right wing politician with this problem. Reform Party leader Preston Manning is constantly tying himself in knots to try to discance himself from comments made by his MPs and candidates. In 1995, soâ€"called "moderate" Herb Grubel compared aboriginal people to teenagers living on a south sea island and immigration Critic Art Hanger publicly attributed increasing crime rates (which in fact are going down) to Jamaicans and Asians. This year, former party Whip Bob Ringma and MP Dave Chatters openly defended the right of A senior member of the Queen‘s Park Press Gallery has commented to me on how tightly scripted Mike Harris is, "even in the most casual encounters with the media". His analyâ€" sis leads him to believe that Harris‘ advisors are afraid of what he might say if he were not given clear marching orders. "They don‘t want Ontarians to know just how right wing he realâ€" ly is." This will affect dozens of communities across Provincial and. muni "an Iranian or an Iraqi group" _ ____ among Metro Days of Action parâ€" ticipants and his attempt to blame hungry children on the AM fact that "mothers are not there to prepare a hot breakdast". VI The script for these incidents is as follows: Harris makes an W objectionable remark; the oppoâ€" & sition and the public expresses ' outrage; Harris or his advisors & assure us that he didn‘t mean 2 what he said; the furor dies down $ until his next outrageous remark. While the temptation to concentrate on responding to Harmis‘ latest bizarre pronounceâ€" ment is hard to resist, it is more useful to focus on the deeper, more disturbing truths to which the pattern points: that Mike Harris really believes everything he says; and that attempts to soften his statements after the fact are just window dressing. Can we afford not to provide school bus service? LETT BE R $ Premier Harris‘ advisors have been kept busy lately trying to explain a neverending series of offensive remarks that he has made. The two most recent examples were his singling out of "an Iranian or an Iraai group" What he meant to say ... But deepening service cuts and contract rate cuts threaten the viability of our safe, secure and costâ€"efficient student transportation network School boards must continue to balance the goal of efficiency with the safe transportation needs of 816,000 Ontario children who ride school buses every day. It is our responsibility as parents, taxpayers and members of a communiâ€" ty to encourage and work with our school trustees to ensure our children get to school safely. We can‘t afford not to. facing a harsh fiscal reality. To deal with reduced funding, school boards have asked operators to do more with less. And they have. Operators have voluntarily responded by implementing cost efficiency measures and by cooperating with boards and contractors in dovetailing the need for transportation service with available funding. Between 1991 and 1995, 21800 more Ontario school children have been transported on 2,000 fewer buses. Scott Piathowskis columns are also available on the World Wide Web at http//wwwionline net/â€"activist Similarly, when Harris gets into trouble it is not, as his advisors would have you beheve, because he has made a slip of the tongue and has said something he doesn‘t mean. Rather, it is only when his guard is down that he says what he really means. During the 1993 election campaign, Manning also responded to controversial remarks by his candidates by applying the muzzle. Ten days before the election, an internal party newsletier warned candidates to "be careful and stick to basic issues. Avoid controversial issues if possiâ€" ble. We recommend that you consider carefully any decision to give personal views." In other words, Reform representatives‘ greatest sin is not holding extreme views, but being unwilling to keep them appropriately sheltered from pubâ€" lic view. pavmrrt lesbians and gay men At the fhiididabll | same time thai Manning was (temporarily) expelling Ringma and Chatters from caucus, his MPs were voting en masse against legislation that would prohib it such discrimination. Manning may be sucâ€" cessful in preventing his MPs from making bigâ€" oted statements, but the actions of his caucus speak far louder than his plea for tolerance employers to fire employees for their race or sexual orientation. Manning wrote in May that, unless its MPs learn 0 refrain from making extremist comâ€" ments, he says, the Reform Party will "shrink into a cranky rump" rather than continuing to develop m into a major political party He w argued that Ringma‘s and Chatters® remarks in paricular are totally inconsistent with party principles MB ] | According to Manning, anyone But, the fact is that the Reform Party opposes both the current level of immigration and the demands of aboriginal people, who espouses such ideas "should leave the party, the sooner the Shantz Coach Lines Fj ‘ Mon.â€"Fr. 9â€"6, Sat. 9â€"5. Sun |2«% ,\'\/} YORKK NURSERY LTD. us 1541 Highland Rd. W., Kitchener, Ont. NZC, 3W7 _ 745â€"9876 "This was our first home and for the first time our future felt secure. We planned for this for a long time. Still. there were many details we could have easily overlooked." "Standing on the porch, we were on top of the world." ONTARIO _ * Canadian Bar Association [@j For life‘s trials... Ontario Lawyers m in onencnar t enamen ar EARLY g CHRISTMAS SAVINGS TREE ORNAMENTS SAVE 25% til Nov 24 Now we‘re concentrating on bigger things like starting a family ~ "Fortunately our law yer made sure the purchase went through without a hitch Special Savings as tagged. POINSETTIAS NORFOLK PINE CHRISTMAS The Counts & Disire Presade nsA ssen use ks <Tey CACTUS 4)