PAGL 4, WlLNISI)AY MA Y. 1985, WIIIIlBY FR lI PR ESS PbliIsh ed very Wednesday MICHAEL KNELL by M. Publishing community Editor and Photography Inc. ~ Phone 6fii-f;ill iVALERIE COWEN AdvertIsIng Manager The Free Press Building, Voice of the TownMichaelaBurgessuiser-rB131rock Street North. Second Class Mail Count Town I n Burgss, li P . Box , Whitby. Ont. Registration No 5351 The only Whitby newspaper independently owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whithy residents. Ail three parties better start listening Election showed people unhappy with Fc will lead Libe Prog T' resu elec vote the t H cou man look a Co far disc stands on separate scho or the third time in the last 10 years, Ontario teresting fact. The people of Ontario are not all be ruled by a minority government uniess NDP that enthused with the government's plan to ex- er Bob Rae decides to form a coalition with tend funding to the senior grades of the Roman ral leader David Peterson to toss the ruling Catholic separate school system. They are also ressive Conservatives out of office. unhappy with the Liberal's and the NDP's carte his most interesting situation has been the blanche support of the proposal. lt of a generally lacklustre and uninspiring During an exit poll and "man-on-the-street" in- tion campaign. It would appear to us that the terview conducted by the Free Press at four of rs of Ontario are not all that happy with any of Whitby's polling stations last Thursday, the fun- :hree major parties. ding extension issue was first and foremost on owever, this election has brought out one in- the minds of people casting ballots. The voters are not happy with the extension. They do not believe that the means in which it was euly news menmatahy trom implemented was fair or reasonable. They are of Canada's afraid that it will have a detrimental impact on the tanding nos per=snses public school system and, therefore, will increase both their property taxes and their personal in- come taxes. From what this newspaper can determine, most people in Ontario (including Durham West) want the government to.re-examine the issue and bring it before the Legislature for a full and complete debate. They want to know how this decision is Pe11going to effect them. They want to know how much It is going to cost. 020 People don't care that all three parties agree r11sa3IrORGLOBALN with the fulPfunding concept. As far as they are concerned, this was the issue uppermost in their hile browsing in a neighborhood bookstore a minds and they are angry the politicians didn't pe of weeks ago, i noticed a paperback by a talk about it. i called Derek Tangye. I discovered after Premier Frank Miller told the press last Friday king at it awhile, that the book was about life in that his government will now have to re-evaluate ornwali cottage, overlooking Mount's Bay, not the extension in the light of the election results. from Mousehole and Penzance. i also But we can expect the next Legislature to dance a overed that Tangye had resigned from M.1.5., fine step around this question because not one of dI +thnt the British military inteliigence service, ani i ai his wife had thrown up her job as the PR director for the Savoy Hotel chain, to live in a Cornish cot- tage and grow flowers. Since Cornwall is one of my favorite places, and since pipe dreams are my specialty, I grabbed that book, "Sun on the Lintel", and two others, and began my own escape. I don't know how I could have overlooked Tangye for so long. It is not just that he and his wife have done what I have only dreamed of doing, I find myself in agreement with him about the important things in life, and most of them have very little to do with what we call civilization. Cats, for example. He too didn't think much of cats until his wife introduced him to one. And slowly, as i did he became a convert. He came to admire cats for the very same reasons that dog lovers tend to despise them. "Cats", Tangye writes, "I have now learned sin- ce my cat-hater times, offer subtleties of pleasure that earn them forgiveness for their irritations. They have grace and style and a sweetness of movement, a detached elegance, and a mar- vellous devotion to those they choose to love. Cats are not for the coarse. I cannot vision a militant besotted by his rights having the time to appreciate a cat. A cat would be far too subtle for him. A cat, in my young days, was too subtle for me." I hit Tangye at just the right time. Our old Siamese, who had been a member of the family for 17 years, gave up the ghost this winter, and my wife and I have taken it hard. I think now, after reading Tangye, we're almost ready to do what would have been unthinkable only two weeks ago, that is to enrich our lives with another feline. l funding the parties or their leaders will be willing to take a firm stand on this issue because they are looking at another election 18 months or so from now. But it is obvious that they have to do something that will be acceptable to the people of this province before the next election or they are going to find themselves ln this situation once again. A few months ago, when former Premier Bill Davis announced the policy, this newspaper denounced It for several reasons. The most impor- tant reason is that we believe it will have a detrimental impact on the public school suppor- ter. The public school taxpayer is paying an ever increasing share of the education bill in Durham Region (about 50 percent of the tax dollar) and this policy will do nothing to lessen that burden. We also believe that if the separate school system is going to accept full public funding, then it must assume some obligations and respon- sibilities to the general taxpayer. It must hire non- Catholic teachers and admit non-Catholic studen- ts. There has also been speculation that the gover- nmeht's policy could sound the death knell for the separate system. The taxpayer cannot afford to support two public school systems in Ontario, so it is logical that eventually both the separate and the public systems will become one entity. This newspaper believes that the people of On- tario have voiced their displeasure with the separate school funding issue. It is now time for all three parties to deal with this issue (not to mention the hippocracy of rent control) in a man- ner that is acceptable to the majority of people in this province. THE GURU The Roman government gave the people bread and circuses. Our government does the same thing, only the circuses are called alections. -M c