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PAGE 2, THE HERALD, Wednesday; July 26, 1978

Government - And The Wellsprings of Charity - Afew decades ago - not many decades at that - churches and ‘‘charitable institutions” were almost solely responsible for looking after the poor, the homeless, the orphans, the aged, the destitute (poor), the physically and mentally handicapped - including the blind and deaf -- and, in Canada, the education of Native Indians and Eskimos. ,

When someone in need was sent to the Salvation Army, the cost of the meal and the lodging was paid for almost entirely by the Salvation Army. If the person was sent to a Catholic school - the educational costs were paid for mostly by members of the Catholic Church; if it was a Catholic hospital that cared for a sick person, the costs over and above what the patient was charged, came from supporters of that

. denomination.

Although much has changed over the last twenty to thirty years, the public, as a whole, has never been informed of those changes.

Years ago, for instance, when I was principal of a Church administered Indian and Eskimo Residential School, at Fort George, Quebec, the Canadian government's support towards the expenses was limited to approximately four dollars per resident pupil day. 7

Since the school was very remote - at the foot of Hudson Bay, at the northeast corner of James Bay, and there were only a couple of boats and a couple of airplane visits per year, and the nearest train hundreds of miles south, and the

OTTAWA OFFBEAT

Ottawa, - The mail is piling up -- 2,000, 3,000, 5,00 letters on the desk of former Liberal Defence Minister James Richardson.

They are from the once “silent majority” in English Canada who cooled their tempers and held their tongues lest the Quebec-based Liberals lash them as “bigots,” “rednecks” and “racists” for challenging biculturalism and bilingualism that is dividing the nation.

The two-language state is an exclusively Liberal concept of nationhood, created by for- mer Prime Minister Lester Pearson and pushed by Pierre Trudeau to safeguard the devotion and loyalty to the party of his power-base in Quebec.

Remove those Quebec votes and those 59 Members of Parliament from Quebec, and the ‘Liberals would be cut from 139 to 80 in the Commons, a rump minority.

Subtract French MPs from the other provinces “and the Liberals would be even ridiculously less representative of Canada.

James Richardson has received all those letters, and they’re still piling in, since he left the Trudeau cabinet because, essentially, he refused to subscribe to the party’s proposition that Quebee equates with the rest of Canada.

Now he has left the Liberal Party altogether, unwilling to longer play ‘Uncle Tom,” a role other English members of the Trudeau cabinet still seem to find acceptable if not exactly en- joyable,

A free and independent political agent at last, James Richardson can speak his mind.

And he finds “bilingualism the greatest single cause of disunity in Canada.”

Not that he objects to French, he doesn’t.

“Tf Quebec wants to speak French, that’s fine,” he says, “but in everyone's interest in- cluding their own, they should speak the com- mon language of the country.”

The “common language” is English, —

The minorities, he says -- and he classifies the French as a minority little different from the Poles, the Italians, the native Indians, the

Vancouver Board of Trade

With an air of resignation, Mrs. Jones, dragging along four year old Tommy, ap- proached the doors of her local supermarkel, This weekly shopping was a chore she did not appreciate, She felt that, from the first Struggle to unlatch a buggy from the impacted row facing her to the very last moment when she finally detached Tommy from the candy. display at the checkout, it was one long battle.

Why was this so, she wondered bitterly, everybody has to eat, everybody is a shopper sometime, even the diabolical genius who was responsible for all the things She hated most about shopping. Somewhere there were people behind this shopping system; people who did not care how dif- ficult it was for the shopper and who made big fat profits. They had a captive market, the bigest in the world and they obviously felt that they had a divine right to exploit it

“But wait.” whispered a small still voice ‘Be reasonable, Thal’s nol the way it is. You pay good money to come in here, it can't be all that bad.”

“It can't?" questioned

Mrs, Jones aloud, bumping into the manager, “Well, let me tell you” - and off she started, “First, there is your full page advertisement offering me 5 Jb, of whatever for 69 cents less than the usual price. If you can sell them for that this week, you have been making a pretty big profit all the other weeks,’?

It was useless for the retailer to try to explain the purpose and function of what he called a “loss leader”, Mrs. Jones did not un- derstand, she only knew what she saw and she was still convinced that grocery preducts made huge profits for someone. Once agaln, when the store manager tried to explain the profit motive - how it was an In- centive for those who put up money and used their time and experience to operate stores providing goods and jobs - he was getting nowhere,

Maybe what was wrong was the public attitude to business and profils, an attitude best deseribed as iii informed and not un: derstanding.

Far from satisfied about the whole thing, Mrs. Jones shook her head and, after a brief look at her shopping list, started gingerly down

“ | Was a Strangrer And Ye Took Me In”

nearest road many more hundreds - that four dollars barely covered the food-bill, let alone the fuel, the maintenance, books, transportation or staff salaries... even though salaries were at a bare minimum. _

The Church also had to provide the school with medical care.

Later, the federal government per capita grant was upped until it covered almost the entire cosf of the school’s operation.

Later still, the government bought the schools outright from the churches, paid 100 per cent of salaries and maintenance, and all the Churches had to do was to provide suitable staff that could meet certain requirements, and also any ‘‘ex- tras” the Church supporters cared to donate, such as prizes for achievement, vacation ex- penses, perfume and feminine ‘luxuries” for the girls, and maybe bicycles, or a typewriter, ot T.V. set - and sometimes extra vehicles for staff

use,

Thus it is, when the public hears of St. Philip’s Anglican Residential School, or St. George’s Presbyterian Residential School - or Day School, or Hospital - or the Salvation Army Kanata Residence for Girls - they still assume these institutions, run by those denominations and, in the main, staffed by them - are also being mainly supported by them. Wrong.

At a graduation speech some years ago, at- United College (now University of Winnipeg) I heard my old Dean remind the audience that the actual amount of money being raised by the

hy Richard Jackson

Icelandic -- are free to speak their language in their own community.

“But in the common community of all Canadians, they should speak the common language. .

“Those minorities, of national necessity, should be bilingual.

“For only the majority can be unilingual and function in the whole common community.

“But the Trudeau government has the whole thing backward, and wants the majority to speak the language of the minority.”

Wants? f

Forces, is more the word for it.

The Liberals, ever aware that Quebec alone holds their key to continuing power demand concessions from English Canada in the name of national unity.

James Richardson knows how dangerous and destructive this can be. Ct

He knows that history has shown that where the majority is docile, complacent and ftexible, and the minority is aggressive, impatient and unbending, the soft and yielding majority gives way and ultimately is replaced by the hard and demanding minority. ;

The thousands of letters James Richardson is receiving give a clear signal that an enormous number of Canadians are looking for leadership.

Distrustful of the Liberals, uncertain of THE Conservatives, they grope for-an alternative.

If James Richardson would only ...

Meanwhile, Francophone ‘'Ontarians,” carrying Quebec's fleur de lis, marched on Parliament Hill, demanding their “rights’’ in English Canada,

When may we expect the English minority in Quebec to dare march on Quebec City — or even on Parliament Hill - demanding theirs.

In Quebec City, Premier Levesque might not

like it, especially if they bore the Canadian flag. —

And in Ottawa, who would listen?

Not the Quebec-bossed federal cabinet and its English “Uncle Tom” ministers ~ not while “National Unity” remains a one-way street.

‘

little black bara which one day, not too far off, would mean the end of an in- dividual price on each ar- ticle. This was a system she regarded with great suspicion. When she reached home, she would not be able

the first alsie. Arriving at the shelves of coffee, she remembered the coupon that had arrived the day before. it offered a 25 cent reduction on one brand. She had beiter look to see how its regular price compared with Fred's

United Church towards the operation of that United Church “institution” would barely pay the expenses to keep it operating for one single school day - ten hours, I think he said. Remember now that was before inflation and several years ago!

These days, more and more, we are hearing a great deal about “truth in advertising.” We should, perhaps, expect to find - even in these admittedly corrupt days - from those organizations that profess a moral standard above that practiced by those who do not sub- scribe to their beliefs, a lot: more truth than we are getting,

So it is, therefore, when one watches, on television, the Salvation Army’s Red Shield

‘ Campaign - and other appeals for funds, and

sees, on the screen, the poor and needy and

otherwise, destitute being helped by persons |

wearing the uniforms and insignia of that religious and charitable denomination, it 1s surprising that no mention is made that the major support in the way of funds for its work are provided by the government. That when a ‘down and out” destitute receives shelter and three square meals at a Salvation Army hostel, the Salvation Army is usually reimbursed for the cost by the Department of Human Resources. Or, for example, that the Friendship House hostel run by the United Church at Prince Rupert can (or used to, at least) ; claim for so many occupied beds at a fixed rate per day from D.HLR. - in this case, though, to be fair, only a

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fraction of. the coat of operation, but still an important factor nonetheless.

What is the point of this editorial? To disillusion the general public about the great and good and sacrificial work charitable institutions are carrying out in our country?

By way of an answer, here is what I am trying to say. The image the public has - and the actual facts of charitable work supposedly being per- formed in our communities are two vastly dif- ferent things.

A young man arrives in town. He is destitute because he has been robbed. He seeks shelter {0% the night at the Salvation Army. The Salvatieg? Army tells him to go to the RCMP. For reasom’ of past experience, he declines. Being a Native American Indian he looks for “the Brotherhood” and is directed to the Kermode Friendshi Centre. He is told the Centre has no funds, an directed, again, to go to the RCMP who will decide whether or not to issue him with a voucher good for one night’s accommodation and three meals at a hotel.

That is the best we can do, in our country - with one of the highest standards of living in the world -for those in need? And with all those television commercials showing how no one is ever turned away. who needs help desperately?

Did you ever see anyone, on T.V., going up to the Salvation Army or to a Native Friendship Centre - and being:told - “Sorry, we can’t help you. You'll have to go to the RCMP?”

More about this, in our next editorial.

“sue? ho diGute ayebet rer ge Aine eee.

ap peasant

* Scaredove

Sally Ann Foots Bill For Barefoot Losers

ANTLANTIC CITY, N.J., AP - Tho losera have come, barefoot, broke and stran- ded, seeking hot meals, hotel rooms or bus fare home after

’ gambling away their money

in the Bast’s first legal Canin bling has gi sino gam -has given the Salvation Army a new reason for belng in this seaside resort, A barefoot gambler, broke and embarrassed, recently asked the Salvation Army

for a pair of shoes. He told Salvation Army officials his shoes were stolen while he walked in the ocean to cool

He is just one of dozens of broke gamblers who have come to the Salvation Army

for help since Resorts In- -

ternational opened its casino May 26, esid Capt. Donald Hodson of the Atlantic City office.

“It's mogtly the middle- class persen who comes to

favourite brand. Maybe he wouldn't mind the switch this time if she explained how much she had saved. She could go back to his usual brand next time. Picking up brand “X"' Mrs, Jones moved on, unaware that as far as the manufacturers were con- cerned, her motives were all wrong, Could it ba that, this time, the food industry did not understand its con- sumers? That retailing and marketing practices were not designed for the con- sumer’s benefit and con- venience? . Stopping compare soap prices, Mra. Jones found to her surprise that the bar marked “special” actually cost more per ounce than the regular priced, but bigger, bar. For the first time, she felt a small glow of warmth towards the retailer and to the people who developed the unit pricing system, Suddenly, an angry frown crossed her face - there was that wretched product code business again. All those

to remember the costs of her individual purchases. She was far from sure that she trusted these new computer things. She was sure, however, that there would be some mistakes at the checkout and that she would never know about them.

It seemed useless to tell the retailer about her fears but Mrs, Jones, undaunted, tackled the poor man again. Patiently he explained that the checkouts would be faster, yes, and more ac- curate. There would be savings in labour costs, which he hoped customers would share. He asked Mrs. Jones whether she realized that her checkout tape would carry aibrief description of each item beside its price.

Somewhat reassured, Mrs. Jones plodded on, narrowly missing a mountain of soup cans with her buggy wheels and, at the same time, ex- tricating Tommy from the cookie counter.

The reason for this sad little .tale? All across the country there are shoppers

Who's continued

try his luck and then blows It in the casino,’ Hodson sald. “T's the people who thraw a nickel or dime in the tam- bourine at Christmas time and never think they would have to use our services.”

A review of figures released by Resorts In- ternational shows gamblers lowe thelr money at an average rate of $18 an hour.

Resorts International has no policy for dealing with gamblers who lose all their money, said James Carr, the casino’s assistant manager.

Hodson said that in one

case the Salvation Army gave a bus ticket to a: gambler who claimed he was borke. The man cashed the - ticket, however, and headed back for the casino.

“We'll give them a shower, if they want one, and a telephone to make a collect call home,” Hodson said. If they can't get someone to accept the charges, he said, the Salvation Army will pay for the call. _ “We usually tell them to have someone wire money for bus fare, but if we have to we'll buy the ticket,” hesaid.

who have a poor image of the food industry. They do not understand the marketing techniques being used. Whether the methods are too sophisticated, or are misunderstood because of lack of explanation, is open to question. We think it is a pity. The food industry is an easential one. It has a cap- tlve market, Deep down, we think that it DOES care

about its customers. We see signs of concern on the part of the industry and an at-

tempt to explain today’s

marketing methods.

There is a lot more to be done. We hope that the In- dustry will accept the challenge and continue to explain to, and communicate with its customers, im- proving both its eperation and Its reputation,

/ SUPER,

a a

for yout

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