by Colleen Beaumier, Brampton
The power of the Press has ante again been illustrated in the efforts that it having in the current election of the new leader of the Progressive conservative party. When Kim Campbell first announced her inaction to nun for the highest position in the country, the press encouraged her and in fact even courted her, in fact what they really did was to set her up for a great fall. What has our politics become when the most important issues that the Press can think of are whether a politician has ever smoked marijuana or why one has chosen the religion that they practice. With the terrible social and economic conditions existing today I cannot help but think that these are pure trivia the tip of the iceberg,
There are more important issues than her religion, her youth and her gender. It bothers me that she is prepared to begin the dismantling of social medicine and ignore the need for daycare centers and at the same time commit to purchase helicopters manufactured in Italy when wear in such a mess financially,
Cutting social programs is not the solution, changing the structure of them is a more likely remedy take welfare for example, Welfare was never intended to be a permanent support system, It was put in place to give temporary relief to people who had fallen upon hard times. It was no meant to become way of life. If people had to earn at least a portion of their welfare there would be a lot of positive results, First of all as you know, nothing in life is free, When someone lives on social assistance fora prolonged period of time, they lost their self-confidence their pride and eventually their incentive to take charge of their own life, work of would keep them current in the work force and I would keep their level of self-discipline up by keeping them on a routine. It would prevent people who are cheating the system by working and collecting welfare, as they could not be at two jobs at the same time. And finally many people who claim that they cannot find jobs would very likely find/one on their own which would pay more money than welfare.
Some argue that day care only furthers the destruction of family values, that a mother should stay at home and take care of the children, Well there are probably many mothers who would agree and would love to stay at home, but the truth is, financial realities are such that it is impossible for most working mothers to stay at home. Many are not working for the frills, they are working for bread and butter, And the sad part of the day care situation, these parents who are the poorest are the same people who are unable to off on care for their children.
Those and other issues, economy and social are the things that the Press should be focusing on, not wisely petty stuff, am incensed that the news people of today think that we are so shallow that we can only relate 10 national enquirer type of formalism. I don’t know how we can change this attitude but sure you” to search your newspapers and perhaps you will find these subjects hidden somewhere in the middle of the paper. Your future and the future of this great nation depends upon the informed decision that you will make on Election Day. There is no doubt about it, the economy is inner crises stages, but there are other methods of fighting the deficit than are presently being proposed by the conservatives. Liberally does not matter who they choose as their leader, they have shown us that their big business approach to government simply has” not worked. They could not even balance the budget when we were experiencing some of the best economic times of our generation, Re an informed voter. It is your responsibility.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 11, 1993
