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Page THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday April the HERALD Outlook Putting an end to Canadas National Dream OUTLOOK is published each Saturday by the ALTON HILLS HERALD Home Newspaper of Halton Hills A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Guelph Street Georgetown Ontario L7G Second Class Mai Registered Number 8778822 Your Business Hbl Diane Maley Thomson Strvke Whats the difference between Canada an the Third World Most Third World countries have passenger trains Via Rail Canada our money- losing national rail service is under attack again from the federal government If the bunglers in Ottawa have their way Canada may lose its passenger rail service The federal government has been thinking about scrapping Via altogether So much for the na tional dream More than nostalgia is at stake in defending the national rail service Crowded airports poor air safety and choking pollution are making passenger trains look more attrac tive every day Rather than cutting and trimming Via for years Ot tawa should have been investing in new light rail cars and fast trains taking Japan and France as its models Now after spending million fixing old equipment the time to introduce fast new service has passed Ottawa will not buy new equipment Instead Canada seems to be alone in questioning the viability of passenger trains South of the border Amtrak is gearing up to improve its already relative ly good service And in Australia a consortium of big international companies is stu dying a plan to connect the coun trys farflung cities by highspeed passenger rail The project would cost W4 billion CAPITALIST ROADERS That the Australian study is be ing undertaken by the private sec tor is telling The consortium is headed by Broken Hill Co Ltd the biggest resource con glomerate In Australia Elders I excel the company that bought Carling OKeefe breweries is also in on the plan Brian managing director ot Broken Hill likes to compare his project to the building of the Cana dian Pacific Railway One wonders what Mr might say when he KIT CARLYLE by Larry Wright PUBLISHER EDITOR Brian MacLeod AD MANAGER Dan Taylor STAFF WRITERS Brian MacLeod Donna Kelt SPORTS WRITER Paul Svoboda ACCOUNTING June Glendenning CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING Joan Mannall SNAFU by Bruce Beattie hears that no one in Canada CPR and the federal government includ ed can afford to move people down the great Canadian railroad line What went wrong The sad fate that may await Via Rail is symp tomatic of a much larger problem the decay of the countrys in frastructure This highways sewers railway lines and rolling stock By failing to reinvest for our future we resem ble such grossly mismanaged countries as Argentina Trains did suffer a loss of passengers over the past two decades Ottawas subsidy amounts to about a passenger per year high by any measure The rising popularity of air travel at reasonable prices left rail ser vice out in the cold But with new VFTs trains as they are called all that is about to change in some countries GREASED LIGHTENING The French national railway has a train that speeds along at 300 kilometres an hour the service proposed for Australia would zoom along at km an hour Passengers could travel krr from Melbourne to Sydney in thret hours compared with 12 hours or the bus Indeed Via has captured new business simply by rescheduling some of its trains It managed a Su percent increase in passengers between Toronto and Ottawa by replacing the overnight train with an additional day train The heavi ly populated Quebec to Windsor corridor in central Canada is begg ing to be exploited by a faster train service The federal government is being shortsighted if it expects Via to shape up immediately or close shop Big investments pay off over time Besides the cost of laying off Vias 7500 workers is estimated to surpass billion Do we have a Broken Hill or an Elders a consortium of giant vi sionary companies willing to step in and fill the gap Perhaps but their investment would be selec tive The Quebec to Windsor cor ridor the most heavily populated region of the country could no doubt be served by some bold en trepreneurs But if Via were left to die most Canadians would probably have to do without rail passenger service I cant tell what time it is now that our parrot imitates the cuckoo clock Blackrobed figure in mood management by GIL HARDY Thomson Service Meet Robert Marleau deputy mood manager in the sometimes fractious House of Commons Hes the blackrobed figure seated at the head of a long polish ed wood table in front of his boss and chief mood manager Speaker John His official title is Clerk of the Commons which makes him chief adviser on pro cedural matters But for a 40yearold native of Cornwall Ont they are really in the mood management business That means among other things an opendoor policy which en courages MPs to seek them out for an explanation of an unpopular rul ing It also can mean delaying a ruling until tempers have cooled in the House The place was designed for some intense discussion Marleau said in an interview These are very committed people and as a result theres often a lot of emo tion Marleau Clerk since 1987 after four years as clerk assistant says he was more of a technocrat before became the first elected Speaker in 1986 But that doesnt always satisfy an MP furious over a ruling That intensity to some degree has to be managed The Speaker tries to do it by being very polite in the chair- by trying to understand why the member is doing something and that has sort of spilled over on me Its a very sue technique and I think w make a good team Marleau Is the first Clerk to rise through the ranks of the Commons table officers Previous appointees sometimes came from other bran ches of the Commons or were un successful political candidates His career in many mir rors the changes that Parliament has undergone in the last two decades While teaching French at a Cornwallarea high school in 1968 he responded to a newspaper ad for committee clerks in terest in Parliament had been sparked during his University of Ottawa days when he edited com mittee reports in French for about 50 cents each Parliamentary reform in 1968 had given committees a much heavier legislative workload When they needed more clerks Marleau applied But he almost didnt make it The Commons had 10 openings and he was number on theshort list Then one of the had a change of heart and Marleau was hired in 1970 He served as clerk to a number of committees until then worked for two inter parliamentary associations He was named principal cleric of the committees and private legislation branch in 1961 and clerk assistant of the Commons two years later By the time he became the Clerk since Confederation in the House was in the throes of another round of reforms Many reforms were intended to strengthen the role of the in dividual MP as a lawmaker Com mittees were given more power and independence Now bills spon sored by individual MPs outside of the governments agenda had a much better chance of becoming law Marleau said the changes also reenergized the Clerks office and brought table officers more ac tively into the parliamentary pro cess Reforms really changed the Clerks traditional way of doing things Members who come to the table know they will get a course of action It may end up being a com promise but at least they dont go away emptyhanded The Clerk is responsible for the scroll the handwritten record of Commons proceedings He also prepares the daily schedule of business and administers the oath of allegiance to MPs Reforms have made MPs hungry for information about Commons rules and precedents The Clerks office has published a Precis of Procedure which explains in laymans terms the workings of the Commons and is about to release an annotated edition of Commons rules It will outline the evolution and history of each Standing Order so MPs will know at a glance why for example There shall be no debate on any motion to concur in the report of any standing commit tee on estimates which have referred to it except on an allotted day ADVERTISING SALES Valois Craig Teeter Sharon Hollingsworth PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT Dave Hastings Annie Myles Gilson Susanne Wilson CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT Marie PRESSROOM FOREMAN Brian Aikman PRESS ASSISTANT Lee Book Review Tension and conflict By J From 1957 to 1962 Basil son had one of the most unenviable jobs in Canada He was the liaison officer between the Department of External Affairs and the prime minister John G mistrust and dislike of the civil servants hed inherited from the long years of Liberal hegemony was legendary par ticularly his antipathy to the Pearsonalities in External Af fairs The Chief always harbored a corroding envy of Mike Pear sons having won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work at the United Nations The officials in External on the other hand assumed that diplomacy should be handled mainly if not exclusivejy by the gentlemenprofessionals in the department who understood such subtle matters To them baker was just a brash small town lawyer from the sticks who had no experience in running anything never mind a nations foreign policy This tension and conflict of styles is highlighted in an excellent new book by Basil Robinson World A Populist in Foreign Affairs University of Toronto Press 352 pages It is a weighty but readable and often fascinating account of Diefenbakers conduct of foreign affairs In addition to a rare telling of an insiders story of policy mak ing the book also provides vivid in sights to the mind and the politics of the Man from Prince Albert During Robinsons years with the Tory government faced many important external pro blems all of which are skilfully traced in revealing detail There were controversies over South Africas withdrawal from the Com monwealth Britains bid for ad mission to the European Economic Community the Berlin crisis of trade with Cuba and China the Cuban missile crisis in and above all the debate over I nuclear arms for Canadian forces that split the cabinet and brought about the fall of the Conservative government in THEMES Two themes that run through the book are relations with the United States and with other world leaders Churchill he admired extravagantly and paid homage to on visits to the UK Harold Macmillan disappointed him Nehru seemed inscrutable Gaulle was overbearing seemed to need a hero As a new boy from a small power he bristl ed at slights whether real or im aginary and his appetite for being included and flattered could never be satisfied Although he liked and trusted Eisenhower John Kennedy aroused his suspicions even before they met for JFK was what was not a sophisticated insider Robinson writes that the youth wealth connections and charisma of Kennedy were upset ting to the Canadian prime minister and the presidents ap parent preference for Pearson caused strain Jack teaches political science at the University of Toron to His lataat book is The Oxford Book of Canadian Political