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"WEEKEND STAR" FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2000 - 7 | By Heather McCrae Weekend Star Two teenagers from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean have become friends. Through their involvement with the International Student Exchange program, Anna Gonzalez, 15, of Manresa, Spain and Dayna Harder of Sunderland have become good chums. Since Aug. 22, Anna has been staying with Dayna and her family on their dairy farm. For a girl coming from a city of 60,000 people, she says she loves living in the country, "especially the farm as | have never visited one before." Leaving city life behind for three months, Anna has adapted well with coun- try life and pitches in with the daily farm routines. "I like it a lot. It's so nice and quiet hase: But I do miss the city life -- just a it." Attending Brock High School with Dayna, Anna studies Grade 9 French, Grade 10 History and Grade 1] Biology and Geography. Language is not a barrier as Anna has studied English since she was six-years-old. She's also versed in other languages, too, and speaks fluently in Catalan, Spanish and French. In Spain elementary school is taught from Grades 1 to 6 while high school is from Grades 7 to 10. Then it's two years of pre-college before entrance is gained to a university or college. Having completed Grade 9, when Anna returns home she will enter the next grade. The education she receives at Brock High School will not count towards her diploma. "Anna will be given only an evaluation, not marks," Dayna says. Taking part in this student exchange is not about getting an education, it is about experiencing life in a foreign country, "one I'm very grateful for," Anna says. It was through Dayna's Spanish teacher, Ms Rideout, that she learned about the international student exchange program. A person who wants to do something in the future with languages, Dayna says she took Spanish last year "just because it was something different to do" and has spoken French since Grade 4. Now, to hone up on her Spanish skills, Anna is coaching her daily. Participating in exchange visits is not new to Dayna as, through 4-H, she has already travelled to Japan and Albeita. While Anna's stay with the Harders is only until mid-November, Dayna doesn't depart for Spain until the spring. During her three-months' stay in Spain she will be living with Anna and her parents and brother in their city apartment. "It will be a far cry from farm life but I'm really looking forward to it." Because her teachers from Brock High School will have prepared several assign- ments it will be her responsibility to mail completed homework back to the school. "I have to continue to study as I will return home just in time for exams in June." Before Anna arrived in Sunderland she spent a couple of orientation days in Toronto where she saw many city sights. Since arriving on the farm she's been to many fall fairs, including Sunderland, where she won a prize for travelling the farthest distance. Exchange program creates cross-Atlantic friendship Anna Gonzalez (right) of Spain is currently living with Dayna Harder and her fami- ly on their Sunderland farm. Attending Brock HS until mid November, when Anna returns home, the two teenagers have become friends through the International Exchange Program. In the spring Dayna leaves for a three-months visit to Spain. Shopping is great here, especially at The Gap, she says, as there are none back home. And Anna likes Tim Horton's doughnuts. "We only have honey-dipped and sugar-coated doughnuts in Spain, not the large variety you have here," she says. And while she may love our doughnuts, our bread certainly does not compare to the dough prepared at home. "Spanish bread is different. It's the best. | miss it." One food Anna has tasted a lot of since her arrival is our unique Canadian agricul- tural product: maple syrup. And she couldn't have come to a better place to taste the sweet syrup and maple butter as the Harders harvest both prod- ucts from their maple sugar bush. Straight rr Talk by °y ALEX SHEPHERD DURHAM M.P. The Reform Alliance party is commit- The CA flat tax proposal taxes, we discover that the tax system is already flat. The only progressive tax is the income tax system. If you 'allow it to be flattened you actually get the absurd results of seeing high- er income people paying proportion- ately less tax than the middle class. There isn't a single country in the OECD that has a flat tax. Income redis- tribution, while we may not like it, is in Tough decisions on trash | Staying in Touch JOHN R. O'TOOLE 120833 S38 0105 24 3 FaV\Y BB OVS NCH) ted to bringing us flat or single rate income taxes. And while they have flip-flepped, the fact remains, they see this as central to their platform. So why wouldn't everyone buy into flat tax? The present government is committed to tax reductions. It is also commited to coupling tax reduction with debt reduc- tion and enhanced health care. Traditionally most Canadians have wanted their government to develop progressive income tax system. Simply put people eaming higher incomes pay proportional- ly more income taxes on higher incomes. What I think is important to understand is tax as a percentage of total income. By deducting taxes we arrive at disposable income or what money we have left to buy the groceries or pay the mortgage or rent. As we all know income taxes are only one component. We pay G.S.T., provincial retail taxes, excise taxes on gasoline, municipal taxes and custom duties. Indeed hardly a day goes by that we don't pay some kind of tax. But the other taxes | mention are flat already. This means the wealthiest pay proportionally less of their total income on these taxes. If we take total taxes, including income fact necessary to promote a healthy soci- ety. What logic could a flat tax have? I sug- gest it is immoral and unethical to argue that the very wealthy should pay even less tax than the middle and lower income groups. Income redistribution allows those in lower income groups to catch up. It allows them access to government services like health care and education, - 'which they likely could not afford if these services were privately operated. A good example of countries that do not have good redistribution of income are those in South America. Technically they don't mean to have a flat tax system but because of poor enforcement and corruption, the effect is that they have a very small wealthy group. This leaves the rest of the country poor, unable to participate in the economy, unable to advance themselves and unable to get any form of health care. This illustrates the likely effects of what a flat tax would do which is wipe out the middle class. And only a very few mem- bers of the middle class would rise into the ranks of the wealthy. The result would be to see most of us going backwards eco- nomically. Clean air, water and soil are some of the top environmental issues today in Ontario and around the world. Growth and development are creating environmental challenges. Last week's vote by Toronto City Council to ship its garbage to the Adams Mine in Kirkland Lake is just one of the decisions that has engaged Ontarians along with last spring's contaminated water situation in Walkerton. The emis- sions from coal-fired power plants have also been the subject of debate over the last while. In Durham riding, these matters appear to be shared values among the vast majority of my constituents. We have our own local concerns that have been with us for many years; the contaminated waste at Port Granby, recurring dumpsite reviews, the Oak Ridges Moraine as well as the spreading of sludge (paper and sewage) on agricultural land. If we look to the past, we can see how these difficult decisions have been stud- ied to death and at the end of the process, millions of dollars had been spent and officials did not have the courage to make the difficult decisions. This has been the case in the siting task force dealing with the Port Granby low-level radioactive waste. The Liberal government of David Peterson had a policy debate on locating waste facilities in a iwilling host commu- nityi, while the NDP government banned incineration and set up the provincial Interim Waste Authority. They spent almost $100 million and made no deci- sions. It might be worth remembering that when the Keele Valley landfill was opened, the then Liberal goverment exempted the site from an environmen- tal review. From table scraps to packaging to yard waste, we all have conscious decisions to make. Where we live and make our living also factors into the decisions we make and our impact on the environment. Today, it seems that many people want to live in the country, but have diffi- culties with some agricultural practices. Growth and development often bring more challenges than rewards. In Durham Region, our current population is about 500,000 and is expected to grow to over one million by the year 2020. Many peo- ple have moved to rural areas and small towns while commuting to their jobs in the larger urban centers. Many drive from Peterborough to General Motors in Oshawa and many more travel from Durham Region into Toronto, Oftentimes, people bring expectations for the types of services they had access to in the cities. We demand municipalities provide all of the more sophisticated levels of service that we were accustomed to in urban areas. People want municipalities to attract more industry so we can avoid commut- ing, but at the same time, we donit want industry located close to residential developments.