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Home Newspaper of Halton Hills- Established A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Street Georgetown L7G 3Z6 Ontario DAVID A BEATTIE Publisher and General Manager BRIAN Editor Phone 8772201 DAN TAYLOR Advertising Manager Second Clan Page 6 THE HERALD Wednesday May 17 Heed the warning Halton Councillor Bill Johnson is worried that the new rules governing the Regions Land Division Committee wont keep the committee squeaky clean In the face of three charges laid against applicants to the land division committee in recent months including one charge against the former secretary treasurer of the com mittee his warnings shouldnt be ignored The investigation into the land division committee is still going on Halton Regional Police are poring over hundreds of applications for severances to see if indeed as several local agricultural organizations have said there are many fraudulent applications Halton wants to preserve its farmland Its that farmland thats helped the Region retain its unique image Its one of the few areas with Regional government that has managed to retain its rustic countryside Local agricultural organizations are warning us that the huge profits to be made out of gaining land severances are putting that rustic countryside in danger The new rules require all eight people who sit on the citizens committee to take part in land division committee hearings with a minimum quorum of five people Thats up from five people with a quorum of three That move alone should ensure a better and more intense level of discus sion However just as we have seen at council tables discus sions can often get side tracked and sometimes there is need for sombre second thought At local council the general committees actions are ap proved by town council the following week thereby allow ing that sombre second thought The land division committee should operate much like the Ontario Municipal Board That is it should hear the ap plication take time to discuss it together and issue the decision later perhaps at the following meeting in two weeks It would take the pressure off members at each and every meeting and allow members a deeper personal analysis of the application Dont lose sleep over this one Editors Notebook Brian MacLeod Herald Editor Did you know that May is Bet ter Sleep Month Did you lose any over it Yes there is actually a Better Sleeps Council set up with a head quarters in to tell us walking weary how to catch all winks each and every night The Better Sleep Council tells us how often to replace our bed every eight to years and how to relax into sleep Ive always preferred the nice dream solu tion myself You can even dial a toll free number during the month of May to hear the superhero Mattress Man give sleep tips in a 90 second adventure thats sure to put you to sleep So what happens when you dial Well youll here Mattress Man meet Miss Murdoch and offer hints in typical superhero fashion- Miss Murdoch desk filled with papers indicating her lack of sleep huh is told that she should ease out of a long day with mind games Mattress Man says you should imagine yourself painting a long white fence with a tiny little brush counting every little stroke I guess counting sheep is out of fashion A few other tips offered by Mat tress Man during the sleepy month of May are keep regular hours I guess that counts me out pun intended quality of sleep matters more than quantity exercise every day but not too close to bedtime dont smoke avoid coffee and alcohol late in the day dont nap unwind in the evening dont go to bed starved or stuff ed and developa bedtime ritual Oh yes if you want to talk with Mattress Man sometime in May his phone number is 1-800-223- Pleasant dreams Liberal musings on payroll tax not a particularly novel idea Queens Park Derek Nelson Thornton Nairn Service TOKONTONow Treasurer Bob Nixon is musing about a payroll That would mean a percentage levy made on the total payroll of many or all businesses in Ihe pro vince Nixon was responding to a reporters question about what kind of tax he might substitute for OH IP premiums Among others he mentioned a payroll tax which isnt particular ly new The Liberals considered that possibility even back in the days when they were in opposition But the story grew beyond that stimulated by the treasurers tendency to wonder out loud about all kinds of taxes to pay for his ac celerating spending A payroll tax might be an in novative to pay for the costs of government he said In short it is the emphasis Nixon is putting upon it that is making ears perk up in interest He appears to be looking at a payroll tax not just as a possible substitute for OHIP premiums but as A general revenurraiscr His thinking appears to be that this would be one way of absorbing some of the annual per cent or so increase in the costs of health care Ontario of course has always used premiums pay for a portion of medicare costs about 20 to per cent of the cost in the days of the Conservative government But the Liberals are pledged to abolish OHIP premiums someday because they are regressive everyone who pays OHIP most poor are exempt pays the same amount Thus when the Grits came to power in they froze OHIP premiums The result is that every year premium pay for a continually share of healthcare costs They are now down to about per cent of the health budget itself onethird of all pro vincial spending Nixons problem is that 12 per cent is still a huge chunk of money about billion currently If he abolished premiums hed nave to find a way io replace that money somehow BUMP TAXES He estimates it would bump per sonal income tax another four or five points if he took that route for example In any case it isnt abolishing premiums that seem to be his im mediate concern but simply the desire to take in more revenue overall If he raised the same percentage of medicare costs by a payroll tax as the Tories did with premiums Nixon would have another billion dollars to spend There is a negative side to a payroll tax one the former provin cial Conservative government discovered when it con sidered such a tax in the early 1980s It hits small business dispropor tionately hard Thats why the Tories backed away from it Large employers and most unionized operations currently pay all or part of premiums for A small payroll tax instead of OHIP premiums would have minimal financial effect upon them A large one with the sole aim raising revenue would be another matter It is the small and struggling shop that would have difficulty af fording such a payroll tax And as Progressive Conser vative Leader Andy Brandt pointed out here 68 per cent of On tario businesses operate with under four employees and per cent operate with under 20 All are under increasing cost pressures in everything from workers compen sation payments to unemployment insurance premiums No wonder Nixon likes the idea of such a tax It would be a virgin Held he could plow for cash Yet small business is also the key generator of most new jobs and according to provincial finance officials in Manitoba which has a 22percent payroll ax employer tend to do without some employees because ey cant afford the additional cost There could be exemptions for businesses up to a certain income level say though this would seemingly destroy the point of the tax in the first place Leaf stock rises as Pal Hal falls Your Business Diane Thornton Nam An embarrassing thing happens every time Harold Ballard gets sick Investors start snapping up shares in his company Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd sending the stock price leaping The company owns the Gardens a Toronto arena and the Toronto Maple Leafs of the Na tional Hockey League Apparently investors believe the company would be worth more without Mr Ballard than with him Mr Ballard owns per cent of the stock so not many shares are available for public purchase This makes it easy for investors to drive up the price by buying and selling the remaining 20 per cent Ironically Mr Ballard as major shareholder benefits most from these ghoulish price runups Mon days rise earned him nearly million This exercise in bad taste has happened so many times now that stock market analysts believe Mr Ballard who is will have to strike a deal soon for succession Odds are he will sell his controlling interest If so the buyer will ex tend the offer to minority shareholders as well RAW CAPITALISM A few years back when Mr Ballard first took ill speculators clamored after hidden profits in Maple Leaf Gardens stock the valuable downtown property on which the hockey arena sits Such a choice piece of real estate would net millions from a developer But the prospect of fat real estate gains was clouded recently when the City of Toronto said the Gardens should be preserved as a historical property The proposal enraged the crusty Mr Ballard who viewed it as confiscation The battle continues Always optimistic speculators are looking to another source of easy gains Molson Cos Ltd the beer company has hinted it would be interested in buying Mr Ballard out Minority shareholders would be included in the deal Molson a big industrial com pany with good management could turn Maple Leaf Gardens in to a much more profitable opera tion analysts believe RAISES QUESTION The ongoing saga of Mr Ballard the Maple Leafs and the hockey arena that bears the teams name points to the problems that attend shareholders in familyrun com panies That Mr Ballard runs his company as if it were private does not seem to bother shareholders now that he is getting on in years Indeed the gyrations in stock price have led speculators to pick up the shares dumped by longer- term investors Investors bailed out because they did not believe Mr Ballard was running the company as effi ciently as he could have Mr Ballard an oldtime entrepreneur chose to do as he pleased