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HERALD Wednesday January in iwi Opinions A silver lining behind every cloud car I experienced my worst nightmare over the weekend but it wasnt without a silver lining It was Saturday afternoon and my editor couldnt get his car started He asked me if I could give him a boost No problem I replied being the humanitarian that I am 1 got into my car placed the keys in the ignition turned the key but nothing Whats the problem Ben my editor asked Confident as usual I said the cars a little Before going on any further I should explain the use of the word to describe my car Before owning a car and becoming completely dependant on it I would never have thought a machine could ever take on human characteristics But its the that creates a personal relationship between car owner and his or her car In the two years Ive owned the car the relationship has progressed or should I say digressed from superior man and subservient machine to the exact opposite I guess subconsciously I think if I treat the car more like a person it will take pity on me and my bank account and not break down Anyway back to the story at hand I tried to start it again again and again but to no avail The first fear that entered my mind was repercussions of not completing the work I had to do on the weekend A chewingout perhaps Monday morning or worse my walking papers Slightly paranoid you ask Perhaps The second fear to rear its ugly head was the lack of funds to repair the car No paranoia here My worries were initially alleviated by my knowledgeable editor and leader Being the ex pert he is on dead car batteries he predicted all I needed was a boost and Id be on my way And herein lies the silver lining that ended up extending longer than I ever im I asked three different people each with a larger car battery to give me a boost and all tried everything they could to help me get my car started To them I owe a thanks Only one problem remained I still couldnt get my car started After the third unsuccessful boost even I realized the battery wasnt the problem especially after I used my deductive mind and thought to turn on the headlights Needless to say they worked By this time the afternoon had turned into early evening all garages had long since closed my car didnt work and the Sun day work schedule weighed heavy on mind Here comes the next part of the silver lining A coworker gave me a name of a local mechanic whom be said may be willing to make a service call Sunday at the Herald Un convinced somebody would be willing to give up part of their Sunday to fix a car regardless of their love for engines I reluctant ly called the person His name is Rick and be never hesitated to help me out We met at noon and he didnt stop working on the car until he fixed it a half hours later What initially looked like a minor problem with the cars less than desirable spark plugs turned out to be a major tuneup involving two trips for Mr Staite back to his garage for necessary tools I wont tell you bow much be charged me but take my won for it it was more than reasonable my problemplagued weekend it was uplifting to me to meet someone as generous with his time as Mr Staite Relax and enjoy the GST its reality OTTAWA He may just be whistling past the graveyard but Minister Otto seems to believe the short atten tion span of Canadians will smooth over the transition to the GST The new tax on everything from diapers to caskets will sell itself Canadas No l tax man said bravely last week Con sumers will learn that when all is and done its good for them And theyll get used to it Why just the other day Jelinek ate out and when the bill came he plumb forgot about the new federal tax on restaurant meals I dont believe the GST will be an issue in the next election the revenue minister told reporters I dont think itll be an issue in six months There will be other issues Whether the average Canucks memory is as murky as remains to be seen there could be other preoccupa tions for us down the road recession and lost jobs war breakup of the country and native unrest The onetime world champion figure skater went into an im pressive routine of leaps and spins when he was pressed last Friday on how Canadians were reacting to the GST Chaos No such thing said Only a few businesses that waited too long to adjust to reali ty and now must have their drawers pulled up with the help ing hand of Revenue Canada OLD NEWS All those reports about grumpy Canadians griping at the tax Come on the newspapers wrote those headlines up months ago How about the calls a day to Ottawas Consumer tion Office Only 500 calls in the first two working days were com plaints Why Revenue Canada gets more calls than that on income tax questions I Disgruntled Canucks fleeing across the border to make GST- free purchases No such thing Vic Parsons Jelinek said No change in traffic and no additional pressure on customs officers due to the GST Bureaucratic nightmare Weve planned this properly and its running well In short there are no surprises the tax boss said thmk theres a sense of calm out there Well and colleagues may have overlooked one point Danger lurks in the fact that most provinces have resisted merging their retail taxes into Ottawas dream of one harmonized na tional sales tax The minister believes that in time all provinces will fall in line That may well be But each time a straying pro vince comes to the fold broaden ing its tax to cover items that were previously exempted the whole GST debate could be replayed Undoubtedly when the next federal election is called there will still be provinces that havent fallen under the GST spell Brian Mulroneys vatives may see a price exacted WRATH ESCAPED There may be a way for the Tories to escape the wrath of voters however And opposition critics are already developing a conspiracy theory Liberal John Manley and New Democrat Lome Nystrom were skeptical of claim that the GST wU net after costs rebates and credits about billion this year The tax will probably bring in substantially more they argue And the surplus might be just the IJUC3L1UI11 IU1A3 111 JCal Disgruntled Canucks fleeing provinces have resisted merging The tax will probably bring in across the border to make GST- their retail taxes into Ottawas substantially more they argue free purchases No such thing dream of one harmonized na And the surplus might be just the being ignored by Federal g thing the government needs to finance a package of election goodies Nystom even referr i to the possibility as the 1993 Game Plan Jelinek and Mulroney have already made references to some beneficial alternatives if the tax man extracts more than an ticipated from consumers pockets The prime minister has said there might be a reduction of the sevenpercent rate or the extra money could be applied to the federal deficit out within a year If more cash will be available he said recently distancing himself from Mulroney says hes not sure how realistic it would be to cut the rate hed choose deficit reduction A third option would be to trim income tax rates But it would be up to the cabaret to decide how additional money would be used says In the meantime the govern ment would just as soon that you relax and enjoy the GST Rural Canada being ignored by Federal government OTTAWA In all thats being written these days about holding Canada together and Lord knows theres lots of it a central question is whether wed be bet ter served by a prune minister from Quebec or one from English Canada A more compelling question it seems to me is whether wed be better served by a prime minister from rural rather than urban Canada Both questions might seem rather academic to the present generation Apart from the Joe Clark blip of and the John Turner microblip of we havent had a nonQuebec prime minister since 1968 And we havent had a ruraloriented pnme minister since 1963 Its true the Quebec question raises a more urgent debate since that province obviously feels alienated But what more frequently overlooked is that much of rural Canada has similar feelings And while politicians of all stripes are bending over backwards to understand Quebecs problems no one seems to have the same concerns about rural Canada This point was driven home again during all those yearend interviews with our political leaders particularly Prime Minister Brian Ab solutely nothing emerged to in dicate there was any gut feeling for small town or rural Canada Actually some of the com ments indicated a complete in sensitivity to these parts of the country Take Mr answer to questions about the dismantling and privatization of such tions as VIA Rail Air Canada and NO FEEL You wouldnt have to have much confidence in a country to think that it was held together by Air Canada or he replied As for VIA Rail it was costing hundreds of millions of dollars that taxpayers dont have to subsidize trains that nobody was taking This has nothing to do with our sense of nationhood Oh yes it does Mr Minister Perhaps not if you live in Toronto Ottawa Montreal or Vancouver But when you tut the real Canada trains have a great deal to do with our sense of na However among today s crop of politicians there are probably very who have ever viewed Canada through a train window or talked with other Canadians in a railway waiting room I would even argue that in smaller cities Air Canada also contributed to our sense of na tionhood far mare than regional feeder lines that might change names every few months and have no national identity But more than trains and planes perhaps the one institu tion that contributed more than anything else to our sense of unity was the post office And thats put in the past tense because with some 750 post offices turned over to private enterprise in the past Stewart MacLeod Ottawa decade it s probably no longer true If successive governments over the last two decades had any feel whatsoever for what makes Canada tick in smaller com munities none of these closings would have occurred ALL MONEY Sure the new Canada Post Cor now is making big bucks and actual mail deliveries may be just as efficient although I harbor some doubts but not everything can be measured in economic terms The Governor General doesnt makea profit for us Yet it could be argued that small town post offices con far more to our sense of Canada ban even the Governor General But then unless one has lived in small towns and ex perienced the friendly face of a local post office this argument might seem absurd Perhaps the most ludicrous doubledecisions ever taken by government came in the 1970s when the closings of rural post of fices were accompanied by an in itiative to increase the federal presence in smaller com munities The govern spent untold- millions to erect billboards claiming credit for new roads airports wharves etc while dismantling the most popular federal presence aginable It was stupid But then neither Pierre nor most of his ministers had spent much time socializing in rural post offices Mr hasnt either I our leaders have been dead wrong in saying these in stitutions have nothing to do with our sense of nationhood They have everything in the world to do with It But urbanites afflicted with that billboard mentality have never been able to grasp the fact No wonder we have problems Berrys World