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To baa or not to baa...

An open letter to Jimmy MacLaren

by Lesley Moore

As a fellow student, I was extemely insulted to be labeled a “sheep” simply because I do not agree with the Axworthy/Martin. According to your opinion piece in the last edition of The Other Press, students are essentially ignorant about the proposals laid out in the Green Book. You did have a point there, since the Feds are constantly changing their stand on exactly which way they plan to attack the poor, and what they have stated so far is couched in such blithe terms as the need for “re- form” and “improving” our social safety net.

lave reaped the fruits of - Canada They may fe “Sa | helped build the country bot they have

also watched it slide into debt while | large corporations contributed less and

less in taxes. Now the wealthy don’t want to be taxed to pay that debt. In- stead, they are putting the lio anada’s debt on our s

-Weisgerber and Campbell place less

- ing the a

For those people who are still con- fused about the Green Book and (with good reason), allow me to do a little translation: “Investing in people” means giving incentives to companies to train people for jobs that don’t exist; “‘adjust- ing the UI program” means eliminating employer contributions to UI so that workers are the only ones paying into the plan. (The gov’t does not fund UI); “improving access to learning” means eliminating federal transfer payments to the provinces and replacing this with block funding (smaller, lump sum pay- ments with no stipulation as to where the money will actually go). Inciden-

tally, I wonder exactly whose “access”

Nelson told his

- meaning behind - what our. politicians are

saying. For that we need to be edu- Next time there is an election, I hope students remember that

ue on our education than on pleas-

will be improved when students are forced to borrow huge amounts through student loans, with interest accruing from the day those loans are negotiated? Obviously, argument about whether or not students should be members of the CFS are irrelevant to this issue. Ostensibly, the funds diverted from UI and gain would be used to finace “Employment Tools” (workfare and trainingfare). Translation: The gov’t plans to take from the “unworthy poor” and give to the “worthy poor’, not ac- tually create jobs. These proposals are part of the feds new low-wage strategy which is designed to pit the working poor against other (ie. unionized) work- ers. This will only succeed in eventu-

These kids nowadays

ally reducing everyone’s wages as peo- ple are forced to compete with each other in an ever-shrinking job market.

The deficit scare has apparently succeeded in frightening Canadians into believeing that we must slash social programs and/or raise taxes. What the Feds and the Bourgois media have not been telling us is that making people poorer and more desperate will not re- duce the deficit (besides, social pro- grams are not responsible for the defi- cit).

Furthermore, the gov’t is not plan- ning to raise the taxes of those who can afford it — the rich and the more than 60,000 corporations who currently pay little or no taxes on huge profits. In-

its achance for OP readers to vent - you guessed it- their opinions. Submit to room 1020.

Articles may he edited for brevity, clarity, or pretty much anything elsity.

stead, they expect Canadians — of low and middle income — to sacrifice so- cial programs and pay even more taxes, which may or may not go towards the deficit.

To conclude, the “Spoon-Fed Masses” — the sheep you referred to in your opinion piece — are all the peo- ple who support the feds proposals without asking who is really benefitting from these schemes. The rest of us, and those of us who need to use social pro- grams (the unemployed, students, women, children, seniors, and so on) are not sheep, we are guinea pigs tar- geted for the gov’ts [sic] latest experi- ment.

Damn them, their goin' to school, their classical, and their jazz...

by Trent Ernst

There has been a bit of the Music Department amount of noise rai both in the field outside the

The offices have

ime Hallway, sic students tend | we say, rowdy. nts laugh and joke lway, they. are promptu jam g.

unlike most music depart- e actually tu-

is a bit of ano cause the students h each other as friends, and class mates. Such interpersonal relafie ships tend to be the basis for the no levels that are causing concern.

nts would just congregate Stvencie making noise and disrupting the effi- cient flow of traffic through the h ways.

To dissuade the student more jam sessions in the h

instruments could be for- bidden from ol property. This would wreak havoc on things like the ~ school band and private lessons, but the members of the Faculty As-

-

sociation would no longer have to live

in fear of spontaneous music disrupt- ing heir work. Music education would ly of theoretical k

be to abolish the music program. Since

the students would not be in the same Glasses, there would be no way that they know each other to the same

students? That w people in the office work in the silence that sire. No students mak bodies sprawled in thi weave through. Compl peace.

What more couk Douglas could cease tional facility, and haven for aoe

Trent Ernst is the A&E Coordina- tor for the Other Press and a Douglas College music student.

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