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Pages THE HERALD Wednesday March 1991 Political Forum Ottawa Report GST guarantee an important budget feature A few days after I was elected in the fall of I had my first meeting with Finance Minister Michael Wilson I ran a few ideas past him but the central one was this use the money from the GST to pay down the federal deficit At that time his advisors think Wilson should do that in the belief that Canadians would not pay a tax to reduce the deficit because they didnt care about the deficit And that is why the GST was sold as being revenueneutral In other words the money it rais ed would equal the money the taxes it was replacing raised plus enough to send credits to lower income people But all this is now history And I m glad of it A week ago Wilson stood in the House of Commons and said all of the money the GST raises will be used to reduce the deficit This year after replacing the money lost from the end of the old tax we could see three or four billion in GST cash applied directly to the deficit largely because a chunk of the underground economy is expected to bubble to the surface In order to get credits for the GST paid businesses need to be part of the system As the economy recovers and the feds keep cut ting expenses the total revenues will rise a lot more The plan is that within moo ths todays 5 billion deficit becomes just billion And the yearafterthat no deficit That means our debt will stop growing The big Debt Clock which I helping to install in Ot on March 20 you re invited to come and watch will finally stop clicking The deficit will be zero and we will start on the task of actually paying down the debt itself redeeming the bonds which people bought from the government Of course I support this Kill ing debt so we can get to lower taxes is the central reason I ran Garth Turner MP Peel Progressive Conservative to be an MP Now that the government is setting up a separate bank account to pay our debt charges we have a guarantee that this tax money won go into a big black hole in Ottawa and be used for increased spending before the next election This is also a guarantee that the next time the Halton Hills Chamber of Commerce gives me a cheque to reduce toe deficit it will end up in the right spot Before this there was no guarantee the money would ac tually go to the deficit Ditto with the cheque the Bolton Lions Club gave me the other day also for deficit reduction The GST guarantee is one of two very important elements in the budget actually radical stuff which a lot of people thought a finance minister would never do Wilson will also be bringing in a new law which will legislate ding limits That a right politi cians won be able to spend beyond a certain level unless they re willing to cut the same amount of money elsewhere Under the legislated spending limits the budget makes this clear statement Spending limits will provide the assurance that higher taxes including the GST will not be used to finance higher than projected or new spending programs That means no higher taxes to cover higher spending a guarantee for taxpayers And in addition to these two main themes there are other measures to hold the limit on federal spending and try to have other levels of government do the same like A cap on the wages of civil servants leading to a possible elimination of more public jobs Hundreds of millions of dollars cut from grants to special interest groups A cut in the number of ex in the government ser vice Spending cuts of billion over the next five years Transfer payments to the pro vinces limited And Wilson is calling for a partnership of all levels of government to deal with the ris ing costs of governments and at tack overlap and duplication I think this is going in the right direction Not fast enough yet but were definitely rolling And all you remember about the day after was three cents more a smoke right Queens Park Report Ontario waste reduction action plan discussed Ontario Waste Reduction Action Plan As an advocate for en issues I welcome the opportunity this week to discuss the Ontario Waste tion Action Plan announced by Environment Minister Ruth Gner on February As you know the disposal of solid waste has become one of our most pressing problems not only in Halton Region but throughout the province There are 1 landfill sites in Ontario About of these sites are expected to reach capacity by and another 150 sites are expected to reach their capacity between 1993 and Meanwhile Ontario s residents and industries produce about 10 million metnc tonnes of municipal solid waste in total per year In her statement to the Legislature in November Mrs Grier indicated the direction of SAME DAY TAX RETURNS 101 Guelph St Georgetown 8772217 877 Simon CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT Phone 4168770109 Main Street South Georgetown Ontario the new government The first thing we must do is get our priorities straight reduce then reuse and finally recycle The first R of waste management is to amply reduce the quantity of waste produced Some examples include consumers avoiding the purchase of disposable and over packaged goods and industries changing production processes to generate fewer unusable by products The next R is to reuse or to use an item again it its original form fo the same or a dif purpose Some examples include cloth diapers and rechargeable bat teries Voluntary and private sec tor organizations also accept us ed goods for restoration and resale The third R is recycling or the extraction of waste materials to meet a market demand through such systems as source separation for example Blue Box programs community com posting and the processing of mixed waste to recover useful materials In her remarks last month to a Noel Duignan Halton North MPP New Democratic Party gathering of southeastern municipal representatives the Environment Minister indicated that waste reduction and ing programs would be man datory for all but the smallest businesses industries municipalities and institutions She also said that she was con province wide bans on such materials as corrugated cardboard wood and drywall brick and block newsprint and yard waste at all disposal sites The Minister noted the ambitious steps taken by in this direction The Action Plan is intended to ensure that we divert from disposal at the very least 25 per cent of our waste by 1992 and percent by the year It calls for developing and implementing the following measures strong regulatory measures to reduce at source the flow of valuable resources now going to landfill the financial and technical systems needed to divert these materials from landfill and into productive use and reuses healthy markets for materials recovered through source separation programs public education programs that will give all members of On society the information they need to make responsible choices to reduce waste The Environment Minister Called the plan a cornerstone in the building of a new society for the years ahead New regulations will require ma jor retail mails construction and demolition sites office com hospitality services in dustries and most Ontario municipalities to do waste audits and to develop waste reduction action plans to ensure they ef fee meet the government s waste reduction objectives Municipalities involved in recycling will also be expected to provide community composting for leaf and yard waste starting next year She predicted an ex of current blue box pro grams to include old corrugated cardboard telephone books magazines boxboard and mixed rigid plastic containers The Ministry s share of funding of municipal backyard composting programs will be increased from onehalf to twothirds of eligible costs and provincial assistance for other measures will be reviewed FREE DAY PASS PLUG We WOULD IKE YOUR CHILDREN Pictured above are two of a series of new safety signs They have been designed especially for children to warn them of the dangers of playing with equipment and climbing 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