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Whitby Free Press, 14 Jul 1993, p. 6

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Page 6, Whîtby Free Press, Wednesday, Juty 14, 1993 The only Newspaper owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby resîdents! ONTARIO. COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION MEMBER 0F: CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION CANADIAN CIRCULATIONS CNA DIVISION AUDIT BOARD 25,500 COPIES [DELIVERED) WEEKLY Published every Wednesday by 677209 Ontarlo Ic. Box 206, 131 Brook St. N., Whitby, Ontario Il N 5S1 Phone: 668-6111 Toronto Line: 427-1834 Fax: 668-0594 Doug Anderson - Pubisher Maurice Pifher - Editor Alexandra Martin - Production Manager Prînted on newsprint with minimum 20%411: recycled content using vegetable based inks.tu cAlil written material, illustrations and advertising containeci herein is protected by copyright. Any reproduction by any means for commercial purposes without the express permission of the newspaper is prohbited and is a violation o f Canadian copyright law. Reproduction for non-commercial distribution shouid bear a credit uine to the Cvrltby Free Press. Biwoit On the brink To the Edîtor: I have just finished looking et the provincial govarnmant's 1993 budget paper. I arn convinced thet the government is attempting a magnificent hornswoggle and s trying te do se on the becks of ail public service amployees. Since coming te power, it Iocks te me as if the- NDP goemment: *aiowed the provincial debt te rise by 86 per cent; R only increased 4b per cent in the previeus six years; a increased the amount of annuel financing by 233 par cent; 0 continuas te want te spend more money then they bring in, even wlien cutting off their main backers'saares te the tune of $2 billion. .What they are going te de this year is increese the ameunt of government expenditures, bieme it on the debt and deficit and bring the* budget down by unconscionable attacks on the wegesand béefits of the general uTiheye havepincreased the budgets e! saven dapartments te the tune of $785 million. They knockçed off about $423 million from other departments and that, To the Editor: Thougli meny Canadiens are stilî in liard economic timas, Whitby residents hava sliown thay are wiling te meet the cost o! compassion. In the past 18 months, severai vast humen tregedies -- from Bosnia te, Somalia -- hava made international headlines. Many Canadiens wondar whether tliay cen realy make a diferance, but they can. One exemple !rom Bangladesh shows how Canadien donors, încluding those from Whtby, can help save livas. For several months, researchers have been tryinig te idanti!y e bacterial diseese that lies effected soe 63,000 people in Bangladesh and kiiied 1000. The diseasa ceuses severe diarrhee and the repid ioss o! body fluid cen cause daath within e few hours if it is net treated quickiy. Diarrheel epidemics1 occur frequenitly in Bangladesh, one of the poorest and most densety plus the $1.8 billion increase in the debt interest peymants, forces tham te do something. That soniething is to nullify a lot of lagal management/union contracts and make the littla guys on govermaent payrolls pay for the government's poor financiai planning and giveaways. ln business, the bress would have. said -te ail departmants, "Tough bananes, boys and girls, ail budgets will be dut by .4.6 per cent. Get the job done on that.7 Next yaar's negotiations would then be based on the resuts. But te unilaterelly negate al union contracts, stop ail earned menit increases and service- earned raises, force cuts in pay and- ht most of these same employees with the same increased taxes that we will al bear, is. monstrous, aspecially when. with raalistic cutting e! expenditures, the sae resuts would ba obteined. Sure, a lot of us think most goverfiment workers are overpaid and underworkad, but they don't deserve this, especiaily those who put their lives on the line for us -- police, f ire, ambulance and hospitet nurses. WJ.Gge Whitby populated countrias in the worid. People acquire the deadiy disease from infectad drinking water. Proper hygiene and a source of dlean watar cen protect tham. I arn giad te report that 21 chiidran in Bangadesh, supported by Worid Vision sponsors in the vicinity o! Whitby, ara stili in good health. Tliay are among 3,573 Bangladesh children sponsored by people across Onterie. The diseasa bypassad thase chidren iargaly because sponsor- slip funds halped instail sanitery latrines and sink an adaquate number of hand-pump walis te supply dlean water. Sponsors have helped make a dffaerence lika this in thousands o! communities around the world. i wish te tlienk people in the community who have mainteinad a higli standard of ganaresity. Thay have shown that their commitmnent cen make e lasting diff erence in somneene's if e. J. Don Scott -President' By Jason Kennsy The Canadian Taxpayers Federatlon Another year eIder, and $35 billion deeper in debt. When Finance Minister Don Mazankowskçi rose te table the Iast budget of the Mulroney ara, he had a choice te make: aither to respond te' the overwhelming public demand for fiscal restreint through maaningful spending reduction, or te trot out t he tired rhetoric that, has masqueraded as leadership for the past nine years and merely te trim at the margins. .Unfortunataly, he chose the easy.way eut and, in se doing, has taken Canada one step cdoser to the brink of fiscal collapsa. Remarkably a small and diminishing number of Cenadians continue to labour under the myth thet Canada isn't raally facing a fiscal crisis. .We're only suffering from "debt hysteria" they say, and if we could only get beck to the business o! taxing more and spending more, the debt bogey man weuld somehowy disappear. But this ýhead-in-the-sand approach ignores the very real and very disturbing facts. Canada's debt lias bacome an aconomic Frankenstein: the politiciens who created it have Iergely, lost control 0f it; it now roems the land killing jobs, threatening our economic sovereignty and imperilling the social programs that many sey lie et the heert of our pc"Iiticai culture. Cenede's $650-billion federal and provincial drint now equel 95 per cent of our national income. lt's the third largest debt in the industriaiizad world. ft grows at a rate of $7 million an hour. Our annual interest bill costs two-thirds of ail personal income tex revenues; hli!of that interest goes te foreign lenders. Over the past year, a remarkably broad consensus lias deveîoped around the need for wliolesale reductions in fedeal spending. Politicians and academnics from both the Ieft and right, together with millions o! ordinary Cenedians, have seen thet we are rapidly approeching the end of our lina o! cre-dit. And atter having experiancad the fastest-growing tax burden in the industrialized world ovar the past decada, with taxes now consuming 49 per cent of average household income, Cenadiaris have ciearly said thera's no more room to tax. But despita lis dlaim not to have raised taxes, Mr. Mazankowski (former finance minister) did decide to ievy a massive tex increase on Canadiens in May; a $35-billÎon tax deferred to.the.future.in the form of def icit financing, levied to finance an increase in faderai spending. Whiîe making minor cuts te govmrment departments, Mazankowski f ailed to take on the entitiements that are really driving goverment spending. Transfers to individuals and provinces constitute 50 per cent of federal spending and weren't touched in the budget. Unless and until we are prepared to have an up-front and public debate about the principles of universality and. national standards, principles which have driven these spending entitiements, ne finance minister wilI ever be able te wrestle the deficit monster to the ground. And unless we urgently choose te make the difficult decisions that Mr. Mazankowski avoided, our creditors may make those decisions for, us in the net-too-distant future. 1Opinions expreàsed are thos>e of the author. 1 moth reuitor... 100 oin wal To the Editor: I wouid like te, thank the Whitby Free Press for advertising the Renascent Foundatien Imc. walk-e-thon. It was a big success. Over 100 people turned eut te, walk and volunteer, many of whom were townspaopla. Thera were prizes donated by local businasses, and the Meadowcrest Baptist Churcli aven changed the time 0f their service in order te aîlow their parishionars te walk. f oniy the little town of Brooklin was a microcosm for the worid, how much botter off we ail weuld be. Lucilile Toth Directer of deveîopment and public relations * 'B B.Prk.Reor By Drummond Whlte Durham Centre MPP The profound sense of freedom a newly-icensed driver feels can, unfortunateîy, lead to irresponsibility. We have already seen the tragic resuts of Iate-night driving after end-of-year school parties, even when alcohol is not involved. The government has proposed a graduated icensing system that witI be introduced as legislation next fail. It wilI be a two-Ieveî system intended to enable ail new drivers to gradualîy gain practical driving experience in Iow-risk conditions before obtaining f ull driving privileges after their first two years on the road. The regulations for Level One new drivers include: a driving only when accompanied by a f ully-licensed driver with at least four years' experience; .* restriction from driving on 400-series highways and somne multi-lane urban expressways; a prohibition from driving between midnight and 5 arn. Level Two requires newly-licensed drivers'to take additional testing with a government examiner, focusing flot only on basic driving skills but also on their ability to recognize and take appropriate action in hazardous situations. Why the new system? Statistics tell us that ail new drivers -- not just youngj drivers -- are far more ikely to be involved in serious or fatal crashes than drivers with more experience. Safety experts agree that it takes between two and five years to develop the fuli range of skiîls and judgement needed to avoid collisions. Graduated licensing is in practice in other jurisdictions, resutting in a 10 per.cent reduction, on average, in fatal collision rates for affected drivers. Public consultations on graduated licensing wili be held this sumrimer. if you wish more information on this, catI the Ministry of Transportation's toIl-free linoaiat -8Oj387-34S The legisation wiII affect al drivers b« improving road conditions and, hopefuîly, reduce the nunber of tragic and senseless deaths that are so prevalent at this timne of year. 'Monstrous' moves' Making a differenc c .:NA

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