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4 â€"- THE LIBERAL. Markham Town made a giant leap forward last week with the publication of its comprehensive report on municipal park and recreation needs. nu, , W'fiiétmim is showing to all of York Region the way to achieve an improved quality of life in its communities. â€"..-_-., At the same time Markham is leading the way in growth while still able to balance large amounts of badly needed housing with industrial development. Mayor Anthony Roman and his fellow councillors both past and present are to be most highly comâ€" mended and congratulated. Thornhill needs to add six playgrounds, six baseball diamonds 12 softball diamonds, six major soccer fields, 12 minor soccer fields, 15 tennis courts and an outdoor pool In addition more land 15 needed for quiet parks and other less intensive uses. That’s some tall order. But Thomhill-Markham may well be no more deficient 1n this regard than parts of Richmond Hill, Vaughan, King or other regional municipalities. Similar parks and recreation studies are badly needed in other local municipalities. York County Board of Education Chairman Donald Sim, QC, of Markham has taken what we would call a simplistic consumers’ view of the marketing of U.S. produced books in Canada in a letter to The Toronto Star last week. With all due respect to our eminent Markham Queen's Counsel, we would like to differ with him. Chairman Sim denies US. and UK. manufactured books are being dumped in Canada. He says the situation should be looked at from the consumer standpoint. Markham council now needs the full support of a generous and wise citizenry so the recommendations of the study can be fulfilled. Actually, we suspect even worse deficiencies may well exist outside Markham. The next step is to budget adequate capital funds for land acquisition and construction each year. Every possible bit of individual philanthropy, co- Sim asks why the Canadian public should be denied the Penguin paper- back of a book by York Region native Farley Mowat at 75 cents, or the US. hardcover edition at $5.75, when the Canadian hardcover edition from McClelland and Stewart costs $7.95. He wants to know why we pay $5.95 for a McClelland and Stewart paper- back edition of The Siberians when the book is available in a Penguin edition in the US. at $1.45. Sim alleges the members of the Canadian book buying public are being made second class citizens. He says the new loophole Coles Book Stores has found through which to import below- cost US. book products has existed since 1923. We must disagree with you Mr. Chairman Sim The local school board chairman chooses to ignore, or is unaware of, the notorious and equally old U.S. book manufacturing provision which has always made it absolutely impossible for Canadian manufactured books to be sold competitively in the U.S. Surely Chairman Sim should be aware the answer to his questions is and has always been, the same one as to the question why do we have a nation separate and apart from the US. and We might agree with the school board chairman if he were talking about nuts and bolts. The shape of the new addition to the Richmond Hill main public library building on Wright Street is taking shape. It is a fine thing, and most welcome. Soon the new space will be going into use and the town will have a much needed expansion of service. At this time of re-organization it might be a good idea to consider an expansion of the open hours of the library, thus making the facilities even more useful. The library is now closed two days a week. Elsewhere it has been proven to be Sunday that is one of the most popular library days of the week, a day on which the Richmond Hill library is closed. With proper arrangements for staff hours, of course, operation of the library six or seven days a week might be tried to great advantage. Library hours 1010] Yonge Street. Richmond Hill. [AC 4Y6 Ontario PUBLISHER J. G. VAN KAMPEN EDITOR HAROLD BLAINE The Liberal is published every Wednesday by Metrospan Publishing Limited â€" North Division. which also publishes The Banner in Aurora-Newmarket and the Woodbridge Vaughan News. Wednesday, Mar. 26, 1975 operation, community spirit and group fund raising will be needed for some time to come if the needed facilities and parks are to be provided. Now there is a Blueprint and the targets are in view, it’s time to get on with the job. One of the most important things the report will do, in our opinion, is lay to rest the fears and jealousies which have been all too apparent in Old Markham-Unionville recently as the Thornhill area sought to catch up with the rest of the town. It is significant the report shows the greatest need is in the Thornhill area of Markham. But there also are important gaps in the facilities available to the other parts of the town. Thomhill has been fortunate to get its new indoor swimming pool and two- arena community centres. But this has only been with the good graces of a majority of council elected from other areas of the town. The parks and recreation study clearly shows the voters of Old Markham-Unionville that Thomhill is still far behind and has a long way to go before it achieves its fair share. There will no longer by any validity to the argument Thornhill is getting too much. There will be a better at- mosphere and a more co-operative spirit in the town council from now on, we hope and believe. Tiie municipality now can move ahead quickly with the most wor- thwhile and beneficial projects. The most benefit can now more nearly be brought to the most people, which in the end must surely bring the greatest good to the town as a whole. But we sure don’t agree with him when it comes to the printed word, the key to our cukural and nafionalin- dependence. It is also interesting to recall what happened when Canada recently tried to do some very discreet disposal of soon-to-rot eggs at extra low prices in the US. Ottawa probably hasn’t stopped trembling yet from fear of the sight of that big stick Washington displayed to assure U.S. egg producers they would be amply protected. It is true Canadian manufactured books are much more expensive than necessary, as Sim maintains. We fear for the teaching of our children in the fields of national history and culture as long as such a man as the chairman of the public school board has not made himself more aware of the situation and continues to hold the views he does at this moment. But that is due to the long history of destruction of our Canadian book manufacturing and marketing industry by more powerful and untethered foreign interests. Returning to The Toronto Star, we see on Saturday Edmonton publisher Mel Hurtig reporting on a national survey conducted by high school teachers and Alberta University political scientist Larry Pratt showing 'fhen there is the current probe into US. â€" U.K. book publishing caArtels. an abysmal student' ignorance of Canadian politics, history, and geography. 'No‘do'ubt literature and all the arts could be added to the list. In the same newspaper issue a Gallup Poll report showed only 32 percent of Canadians feel the schools are doing a good job of preparing children for their future. That is down 15 percent in five years. Public School Board Chairman Sim and his fellows, we say, should be thinking some long, long thoughts. Donald Sim. QC. of Markham Viewpoint from the regional desk It’s spring again, and with a young mother’s fancy lightly turning to thoughts of day care centres, the op- portunists up in York Region have dusted off their two-year-old study on these particular schools of tot. And they have turned the study over to the planning and health and social services committees for joint weekend reading. The study, which was prepared by those two departments, is 70 pages long and contains more charts and figures than the last census. It also includes numerous paragraphs on the need for such centres, day care survey forms, costs, definitions, summaries of findings and occasional explanatory passages such as the following: BY JIM IRVING “Throughout this paper the term significant is used in the statistical sense to mean the following: If 95 times out of 100 a relationship between two variables is real then the other five times out of 100, it could have been due to chance, and the relationship is said to be significant at the 5 percent level. If it occurs 99 times out of 100 and is real with the remaining one time out of 100 due to .chance, the level of significance is 1 percent. If 991/2 times, the level of significance is .5 percent and so forth.” Clear, eh? Sounds like a cross from a chapter from the Kinsey Report and a blurb for Deep Throat. However, it apparently has great bearing on it all. No doubt by the time the learned councillors have finished digesting that and similar bits of data, they will be ready to descend on council with a significant recommendation. And that will be to the effect speedy legislation should be enacted guaranteeing all children born in the region not only freedom of speech (“Ga Ga,” or “Goo G00”) and freedom of religion (that is, attendance at morning services only), but also the right to attend the day care centre of ,their choice from the age of three days on. There they will be able to mingle with children their same age (although fratemization with the opposite sex will be discouraged) and will also be able to call the teacher, “Mother” during h lh SC (:3 hig‘grfihere will be limited op- The Regional Council of York is currently sorting out its budget priorities for 1975. It is trying to determine whether more funds or less funds should be spent on roads or health and social services, on police or on planning. 1, Don Deacon says :‘ r“That is not a simple matter because 90c out of rydollar received at the municipal level from Queen’s Park is subject to some condition being met (the federal government places conditions on 50c out of every dollar provided the province). So in sorting out priorities, 4% MLA, YORK CENTRE 12;! municipal councillors are very conscious about whether a 25 percent or a 50 percent or a 75 percent provincial grant applies to the programme because the balance must be raised by local property taxes. Distort priorities I don’t agree with the principle of conditional grants, as these distort local priorities. For example, if a per- centage grant received for a roads programme is 70 percent and there is no grant for preventive health programmes, the municipal councillors are going to lean position to providing the centres was given at the planning committee where the report was presented. Th-ose in altendance seemed to suggest it was just a matter of when, and not why. ‘ \“Where' are we going to get the money from?” asked Councillor Bob Adams of Markham. Then resorting to the jargon of the schoolyard â€" or maybe of the‘centres â€" he added, “Let’s face it, we’re into day care.” Mayor Bob Forhan of Newmarket, a man given to arm-waving outbursts of rhetoric on most matters, but who keeps his hands in his pockets when discussing money, was also resigned. “If there are sufficient requests from the other municipalities, I don’t see how the region can turn them back,” he said. Mayor Evelyn Buck of Aurora left a little ray of hope for area taxpayers. There was nothing to stop local citizens from setting up their own centres and v Eloser to home', the Hill’s Lois Hancey suggested a recommendation be made pronto for council to adopt the report. ‘ Just what would council be adopting? What kind of facts did the study bring out? To begin with, it brought out what I feel anyway, was a strained attempt to bring a kind of glow to the term “day care.” In its definition, which was borrowed from the Canadian Council on Social Development, it said â€" after presenting the usual remarks about “family-oriented service” et al â€" that, “day care must be seen as not limited to support for the working mother but an opportunity for all children to benefit from an environment that will enhance their development.” That would be very commendable if these kids had nowhere else to go. But more and more they are the products of young, healthy, handsome parents, both of whom now work because it’s a short life and 35 or 40 is much to late to try to fulfil that urge you always had to drive a moving van, or to be practice goalie for the Maple Leafs. Even though Nature had left one of 3&1 anyway, better equipped to stay toward improving the roads and cutting out the preventive health programme. What aré ’ our priorities 7 That is why i believe the province should lump together all the grants in its own budget which are made to local councils and divide the total amount between the municipalities on some equitable basis, such as assessment per capita. It should then pay out the grant money in a lump sum to each municipality, leaving it up to the locally elected councillors to sort out the priorities. York Region day care study dusted off for committees m home and help provide that “en- vironment that will enhance their development, ” offered by the day care services and now demanded by their clients. Home, if I may be permitted an ancient bit of meandering here, would still seem to be the logical place to bring up kids. However, that was only one definition. As in all things truly Canadian, no report or study, or play or football team is really authentic without first being cleared south of the border. So the regional report naturally included a definition from the Children’s Bureau, US. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which said in part: “ . . . it (day care) offers these children individual attention and affection; it enriches these children’s daily lives, helping to realize his potential.” Syntax aside, isn’t it rather sad that “his” potential anymore has to be realized away from home? Because in the philosophy of the day, the only way a child can possibly be raised is on two salaries. Dear Editor With regard to the Ontario Housing general manager’s response in your paper last week to my letter of January 29 in which he claims I am blatantly biased, I agree. ulw y. unvuvrl .J v- ....., u..._, , _ a child can possibly be raised 15 on two Or on those nights when they head salaries. over to the community centre to take in Just as the schools say more and alecture on the need for more day care more money is needed to turn out facilities in the area. Richmond Hill should beware of large low-rent housing complexes He also claims my facts are inaccurate; and strongly indicates I oppose subsidized housing for the aged. To this charge, I answer he is ab- solutely wrong, I support it wholeheartedly. The fact that he claims I am biased against Ontario Housing indicates he is also biased. His bias is natural, the more Ontario Housing he can sell, the more important he becomes. Mr. J.B.S. Rose’s dream probably would come true if everybody lived in Ontario Housing. This of course, is the way civil servants are promoted to higher-paying positions Annual evaluation An evaluation published annually by the province, of the road standards, the Lllv . v‘.‘_ -vw, police standards, the health standards and the quality of the other programmes under regional and local govern- ment control, would soon highlight areas in which particular municipalities are deficient. In my view, our roads are generally very good in York Region. There are few traffic jams, except on the weekends when all the cars in Metro seem to head north or south. Hopefully, the con- The problem is, who will pay the bill? My bias is based on the fact I bought a home in North York near the Fair- view Mall, and after eight years of residency had the Ontario Housing move in next door to me. Our neighbors organized to try to stop it â€" but to no avail. The OHC indicated the property belonged to them and it was basically none of our (including local govemmeht) business who was going to live there. End of case. I had considerable dif- ficulty selling my home due to OHC as neighbors and sold at low price to escape from the area. With regard to what it’s like living next door to large complexes of Ontario Housing, don’t take my word for it. Visit some in North struction of Highway 404 will soon relieve the worst of the problem east of Yonge Street. ' Transit lacking However, we don’t have a good public transportation system, although it is slowly improving. . u n, can Most of us feel the $10 million road programme could be drastically cut back to save our attractive country roads and hamlets from further destruction by the highway bulldozers. ‘ The 0funds could be used either to cut back on taxes or to improve other areas of local government responâ€" / happy students. the parents say more and more money is needed to raise happy children. Whatever it is, it means mother has now joined father as part of the work force. She stands on her feet all day on the stone floor of some depart- ment store, selling waxed flowers and exchanging small talk with her fellow employees about the problem of raising kids and how the government should provide more day care facilities, because she wants her child to have the very best. Or maybe it’s just needed to sustain that mood of merriment these happy students apparently bring home from school each day. Well the government â€" in this case, the region â€" shouldn’t, in my not- so-humble opinion, provide day care centres, anymore than it should provide baby sitting services in the evening when the proud parents step out to a movie. Or when they go down the street for a session of bridge at one of the neigh- bor’s. Citizens' Advisory Group ' says its thanks Dear Editor 'At the annual meeting of the Citizens' Advisory Group held last month at the Consumers Gas “Blue Flame Room" a motion was passed, with unanimous consent, thanking The Liberalâ€"in particular reporter Mary Dawsonâ€"for the good coverage of GAG activities and of municipal affairs relating to the planning process. We hope you will be able to continue informing citizens of what goes on in their municipality that will affect the way of life. In this way town council will be provided with views from a more informed public and the community in general will benefit. DAVID FAYLE. Past chairman (CAG), 17 Elizabeth St. N., Richmond Hill. Ont. York where they have had bad experiences. Also you don’t find many old people living in these units. Mr. Rose’s job of promoting Ontario Housing is much easier if people are unsuspecting and don’t write letters to newspapers to give them bad publicity. I appreciate the op- portunity vour newspaper has afford .d me to express my opinion on this subject which I feel is very im- portant to Richmond Hill and we should beward before it’s too late. CHARLES HILTON, 20 Brightway Crescent, Richmond Hill, Ontario. I believe a housing complex was cancelled a while ago, when OHC tried to locate next door to a North York politician. sibility where the need much more apparent. And yet, because of the conditional grants from the province, the regional council will probably ap- prove a $10 million road budget which is subject to a 70 percent provincial grant support. It is the wrong way to set our priorities. They will tend to cut back heavily on Day Care and Family Life Centres, where the provincial grants are much lower, or do not apply.