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Lack of programming did not close University Heights U Laurel Vocational School, has been a part of the educational landscape of Waterloo County since 1968. Initially, the school was estabâ€" lished to service vocational students interested in pursuing a trade as opposed to attending college or uniâ€" versity. Over the past 15 years, the focus has broadened to encompass the acaâ€" demic and personal needs of students who are either unable to succeed in their home school programs or whose home schools provide no programâ€" ming for them. In the Oct. 31 edition of the Chronicle (University Heights‘ future uncertain), Chris Smith suggested limâ€" ited extraâ€"curricular student opportuâ€" nities. The staff at University Heights has always consciously and deliberateâ€" ly offered a wide variety of activities for all the students. In addition to encourâ€" aging each student to achieve their full academic potential, the staff at University Heights works diligently to provide a fullâ€"service program outside the classroom. All students are invited to participate in career fairs, school teams, intramurals, assemblies, activiâ€" ty days, workshops and conferences. Further, students are encouraged to accept major leadership roles in the creation, organization and manageâ€" ment of school activities. Although our students are not involved in WCSSAA events, they nevertheless have always had the chance to compete in a fairly wide array of sporting activities. To suggest that there are "not many" sporting opportunities is simply inacâ€" curate. As an example, one of our staff members has coached 64 teams over the past 20 years. The Waterloo County board has always been able to provide the necesâ€" sary financial support inherent to the continued operation of University Heights. . . until now. Due to provincial mandates that dictate the fiscal orgaâ€" nization of school boards, it appears that University Heights will no longer be able to operate as it currently does. Recommendations regarding the posâ€" sibility of three magnate schools housâ€" ing the students normally destined for UH were approved unanimously by You said it WHAT DOES REMEMBRANCE DAY MEAN TO YOU? QUESTION niversity Heights, formerly the trustees at the board meeting on The major reason behind this deciâ€" sion is a financial one... not one due to a lack of programming either in the classroom or in the field of extracurricâ€" ulars. As a staff, we are confident that iblic servants at Grand River P:lospital have announced heartâ€" less plans to force patients, visiâ€" tors and staff to travel further away from the hospital and into smoking sheds on hospital property. While promoting current beliefs about what‘s healthy can be a part of our health care system, dictating these everâ€"changing beliefs to a free society is â€" without question â€" inexcusable. Smoking is legal in Canada The hospital claims moving ill patients further from the building is meant to ‘promote health‘. s Grand River Hospital claims ‘most‘ support their new policy and they were under pressure to forbid all smoking on hospital property. Freedom is not a matter of popularâ€" ity. The true measure of our society is how we protect the freedoms of the minority. Public servants at Grand River Hospital seem to have forgotten that smoking is legal in Canada, a country where ‘every individual is equal before 11 Canadians must raise their voices Aagainsl the proposed assault on our freedoms, under the pretext of "antiâ€"terrorism legislation". Canadians with environmental and social justice concerns are now being portrayed as unpatriotic Americans. From now on, every public hand raised in objection will be regarded as a hand raised in attack. Clayton Ruby (lawyer) and Peter Tabuns (Greenpeace direcâ€" tor) wrote in the Globe and Mail (Oct.17) that the law wouldn‘t distinâ€" guish between violent and peaceful means of expression of political opinâ€" ion. "Preventive arrest" â€" being imprisoned on the supposition that a Canadians must raise their voices "I always think of my four uncles who fought in Europe and still struggle with what went on there." "It‘s not only imporâ€" tant to show respect to the veterans, but to teach youth the significance the day, and the role it still plays." THE CHRONICLI Claire Arthur Don Schlegel COMMENT the board will ensure that our special students will continue to be supported in their new educational environments and will experience the opportunity, equality, success and dignity they curâ€" rently now enjoy. and under the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit without discrimination.‘ These public servants seem to have forgotten the reason patients, visitors and staff huddle outside the hospital is due to their previous directives that prohibit smoking inside the building, Where one smokes outdoors is not a public health issue. Clearly Grand River Hospital‘s change in policy is a cruel attempt to further restrict the freedom of the hospital‘s smoking patients, visitors and employees. This policy change is about freeâ€" dom â€" plain and simple. At a time when we come together to remember those who have given their lives protecting our freedom and to give support to our soldiers now in action protecting our freedom from outside threats, it is imperative we proâ€" tect every Canadian‘s freedom from attacks originating inside our country. crime may be committed in future â€" could be open to very broad interpretaâ€" tion. Will "crime" become so expanâ€" sively defined as to threaten the peaceâ€" ful activities of political canvassers, Council of Canadians members, sion of Mother Jones magazines? National security is fostered instead by a humane economy, cultural diverâ€" sity, equity, and a habitable environâ€" ment. The estimated $1 billion for the Canadian war effort is an obscene waste of taxpayers‘ money stolen from peaceful pursuits and human needs. "L remember my poor parents and friends back in Croatia." "It‘s remembrance of the people who fought in the war, and those who lost family members." or those in possesâ€" t‘s a rare event when this columnist can join opposition politiâ€" Icians and environmentalists in praising an action taken by the current Ontario government. Nevertheless, let me join the choâ€" rus of people saying "good job" to the Tories for their move to preâ€" vent development on the ecologically important Oak Ridges Moraine. The moraine is a 160â€"kilometre ridge of hilis, kettle lakes and river headwaters (for over 30 rivers) running from the Trent River to the Niagara Escarpment near Caledon. The area just happens :o lie right in the path of the untilâ€"now unstoppable northward spread of Toronto suburbs. Under legislation introduced last week by Municipal Affairs Minister Chris Hodgson, the natural and water resources on the moraine will be protected, agricultural land will be preserved and development will be directed to "approved setâ€" tlement areas". Even there, "any new development would be subâ€" ject to very strict policies to protect natural features and water resources," Hodgson said. "Almost all new development would be limited to the settlement areas, which constitute just eight per cent of the land area of the moraine." Developers who had planned to build up to 8,000 houses on the moraine will trade that property for provincially owned land north Of oo Glenn De Baeremaeker, of the Save s 0 al the Rouge Valley and Save the Oak Ridges uio t Moraine coalitions, was effusive in his * praise of the plan. "This is some of the P s most expensive real estate in Canada R under the most intense development zh pressure, and Chris Hodgson and Mike s Harris made a decision to draw a line in C the sand. Hundreds of millions â€" if not billions â€" of dollars of real estate has s l been protected forever... It would be political suicide for any government to try to undo that. [Mr. Hodgson) figured SCOTT out a way to satisfy the developers... He created Z wmwlfny situation, ?veilere we PIATKOWSKU the public protected the entire 160â€"kiloâ€" * e metre length of the moraine, and the developers get to build someâ€" where else." The deal heads off two pending events that would likely have opened the floodgates for development. Last spring, the governâ€" ment slapped a sixâ€"month development freeze on the entire Oak Ridges Moraine, whichwould have expired on Nov. 17. In addition, a series of developer appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board that have already dragged on for a year can now be settled. There are still concerns about provisions in the legislation that would allow a future government to revisit the freeze after the first 10 years (but only for areas outside of what the legislation calls "the core and linkages"). As well, it‘s unclear what will happen to previouslyâ€" approved developments in Richmond Hill and Uxbridge that Hodgson had exempted from the sixâ€"month freeze. Some environmentalists have asked why farmland and ecologâ€" ically sensitive areas north of Pickering are any less worthy of proâ€" tection than the moraine. Pickering councillor Maurice Brenner warned that "The same developers who found themselves in a fight over environmentally sensitive lands on the moraine are going to find themselves in the same kind of battles over here." De Baeremaeker would have preferred a swap of moraine land for abandoned industrial sites in downtown Toronto. Still, without last week‘s deal, it is likely that both the Pickering land and the moraine would have been bulldozed for development. Developers who bought land on the moraine were gambling that the Harris government would never intervene to stop them from developing it. The more the public resisted development, however, the more the Tories felt pressure to bite the hand that feeds them (financially). Two weeks ago, developer Fred De Gasperis told a Richmond Hill newspaper that developers were "very disappointed in the provincial government. They‘re falling in the footsteps of the environmentalists. We‘re very upset, but we‘re not finished with them." After the deal was agreed to, he told reporters that he wasn‘t happy with the land swap, but accepted it "as part of the new political reality. We have spent millions of dolâ€" lars on lawyers, but when this government said we had to back down, we backed down... it was a compromise and we can live with it. I‘m happy it‘s over." Toronto Star columnist David Lewis Stein writes, "It may turn out there is less to Hodgson‘s announcement on the Oak Ridges Moraine than meets the eye and we will find that pretty soon develâ€" opers are working their way back on to the moraine. But, it still means more of the moraine than anyone ever expected has been placed under the protection of Queen‘s Park." Adds American environmental lawyer Robert F Kennedy Jr. (who spoke at a fundraiser the night after the legislation was tabled), "This is a good example of what government is supposed to do and what political leaders are supposed to do." Oak Ridges Moraine is safe... for now ANOTHER VIEW _ z bud k SCOTT