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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2003 THE NEW TANNER Le GRAPEVIN SOUND THE BELLS Bells will be used to tell the Christmas story at Bethel Chris- tian Reformed Church's Candlelight Service on Sunday (December 23.) "Sound the Bells" is for all ages, and will feature partici- pants from many of the church's ministries -- from Sunday School through to seniors -- sharing in Scripture, song and readings. The service begins at 6:30 p.m., and there will be treats for. children. All are welcome. SENIOR SNOW HELP Acton area seniors who need help clearing snow from walk- ways or driveways can call Halton Hills Community Sup- port and Information (HHCSI) for help. : While HHCSI has been able to find workers to help shovel snow in the urban areas of Acton and Georgetown, they need people who could clear sometimes long, rural driveways for seniors, who pay for the service. If you need help or would like to help, call 853-3310. TAKE IT AWAY Come February, Acton resi- dents won't have to wait as long for a bulk collection day to get rid of ratty couches, leaky dish- washers.or outgrown swing sets. Halton Council has okayed an enhanced pickup service for white goods and metal items that will give Acton residents two pickups monthly. The new system will require residents to call Halton to find out which day the material will be collected and, at least for 2004, Halton will continue to collect white goods on the al- ready scheduled bulk collection days. The enhanced service is ex- pected to increase the amount of material collected by 10 per cent, an $8,000 cost that will be incor- porated in the budget. CHRISTMAS LUNCH A small army of volunteers is preparing to help make Christ- mas less lonely for some Acton area people by cooking and serv- ing a Christmas lunch. Anyone on their own Christ- mas Day is invited by the Acton Ministerial Association to the 1 p.m. lunch at Trinity United Church and one of the organiz-- ers, Ann Adema, said they are looking for donations of food. "If people are busy on Christ- mas Day, but would like to contribute, they could drop off a donation of food just before 1 p-m., in a disposable container," Adema said, adding they' ve had two turkeys donated so far. If you would like to be a guest or volunteer at the lunch, call Ann at 853-3687. HAPPY HAMPERS As many as 75 Acton families will have a merrier Christmas this year, thanks to the Christmas hamper they will receive before Christmas. The hampers are filled with a complete Christmas meal, spe- cial treats and some staples -- all items generously donated by lo- cal citizens, or purchased with donated cash. The Christmas Hamper pro- gram is a joint effort by the Salvation Army, IODE Lakeside Chapter, Rotary Club of Acton and St. Vincent de Paul. Salvation Army spokesperson Lisa Hale said although. the number of families applying for hampers has "steadily increased" over the past five years, so have the donations. Hamper recipients with chil- dren "shopped" for Christmas presents for their kids yesterday (Wednesday), choosing presents from the donated gifts. LOCAL SCHOLARSHIPS Congrats to eight Acton High School grads who recently earned Queen Elizabeth II "Aim for the Top" tuition scholarships. The Ministry of Training, Col- leges and Universities scholarship provides up to $3,500 per year to students who maintain 80 per cent averages, and are available for up to four years. Halton-wide, 242 high school graduates received the scholar- ships, two-and-a-half times more than in 2000. The Acton High School schol- arship recipients include; Christopher Galda, Katherine Harder, Kelly Minto, Jake Seigel, Melissa Hanselman, Kyle Larose, Bradley Ridler and Ashley Stinson. MURDER MYSTERY Heritage Acton suggests their tickets for a Murder Mystery Dinner at Acton's old town hall might be just the thing to put under the Christmas tree. Tick- ets for the theatre and roast beef dinner are $40 per head and are available' at Home Hardware, Halton Hills Furniture and the BIA offices on Mill St. Driving now commute... continued from page 6 decided facing two extra sets of lights would be quicker, so I es- caped the additional construction and delays by going through downtown. As I turned"the cor- ner at 'the lights' I was starting to gloat and do my little happy . dance, then I saw it. The cars were lined up almost all the way to Giant Tiger. A train had come to a complete stop and blocked the crossing. With a quick U-turn I was off to go back through the industrial park and through more construction. Man, I hate commuting! wien HOME FOR CHRISTMAS: Lay missioner Scott McDonald of Acton is shown with some of his students at the Redemptorist School for the Disabled in Bangkok, Thailand, where he recently completed his three year contact with the Scarboro Missions, a Catholic missionary society. Scott returned home recently and spoke of his work in Thailand at all three masses on the weekend at St. Joseph's Church, Acton.- Photo Scarboro Missions. {Canada hopes for Last weekend, in an emotional ceremony, Paul Martin collected the '| keys to 24 Sussex Drive. Martin, who finally got the job his late fa- ther had coveted for so long, wasted no time getting down to. business. We have been promised a new, more democratic, style of government. God knows we need the change. The new P.M. went so far as to say that members of parliament should represent the views of con- stituents to parliament rather than, as has been the case for decades, M-P.'s representing the govern- ments plans to us. That was music to these old ears. The way the fed- eral government, and provincial ones too, ignored us during the past 30 years has been a major irritant. I hope P.M. Martin will make good on this promise but am not holding my breath waiting for it to happen. Remember that the previous P.M. promised to scrap the GST to get elected and we know how that turned out. Still, hope springs eter- nal, etc. Chretien went out in typical style. On his last day he bragged that his "good friend" President Bush as- sured him that Canadian firms would not be frozen out of the lu- crative business of rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq. Problem is, Bush denies any such promise. The truth is that President Bush can't stand Jean Chretien, a feeling shared by many, if not most, Cana- dians. Our best shot at repairing the damaged. relationships with the Americans is through the efforts of Prime Minister Martin. Chretien, by taking credit prematurely, has effec- tively boxed Martin in. If Martin is successful in convincing the Yan- kees to share the reconstruction contracts with us old "Cretch" will take the credit. If Martin fails, our _ | former P.M. will claim that all was well when he was in charge and that the new guy must have screwed things up. Score one parting shot for the Shawinigan Kid. Much has been made of the big changes the new P.M. made to cabi- net. There are some very good choices: Ralph Goodale should be an excellent Finance Minister not- withstanding the P.M. actually The Way | 1See lt with Mike O'Leary controlling the purse strings. I think David Pratt will do a decent job in defence as should Jee Volpe in Hu- man Resources and many others. All in all it looks to be a solid team. Icould do without Anne McLellan as deputy P.M. and Minister of Pub- lic Safety. She was, in my opinion largely responsible for the screw-ups in Justice after the Allan Rock de-~ bacle. Minister McLellan has been a staunch defender of the billion dol- lar boondoggle, a.k.a. the gun control mess, so that tells you how little judgment she has. Don't be sur- prised if she proposes to control terrorists in this country by licens- ing them. John McCallum was a lousy De- fence Minister; so why keep him on in Veteran's Affairs? Haven't we punished our vets enough? David Anderson in Environment is another loose cannon as far as I'm con- cerned. I see Judy Sgro in Citizenship and Immigration as be- ing, at best, mediocre and at worst a disaster in waiting. O.K. -- someone explain to me why we're sending Alan Rock as ambassador to the U.N.? I thought we liked the U.N. Expect to be at war with most of the world by the May two-four weekend. Few tears were shed when Sheila Copps got the boot. Besides being almost totally obnoxious, her pro- gram spending was, at best, questionable. "Tequila Sheila" took alot of flak over the great flag givea- way program. Actually, I thought that was a good idea. We should fly the flag more. It was silly politically correct programs like that calendar that identified every obscure cel- ebration and special interest day or week, but forgot to include Easter, that ranked her high on my dorkmeter. David Collenette fumbled every job he was given. No-loss there. fresh start | _ endless stream of maudlin plati- "tudes extolling the virtues of our recently retired Prime Minister. Re- Same with Jane Stewart; she of the missing three billion at Human Re- sources Development Canada. We won't miss Elinor Caplan assault- ing our ears over the airwaves. Actually, few of the departing min- isters will be missed. One notable exception is John Manley who was very capable as Deputy P.M. Finance Minister and in charge of homeland security. Manley will be missed but he'll be back when the new P.M. decides to pack it in. He still sees himself park- ing his slippers at 24 Sussex. I suppose the price we have to pay for finally getting, what appears to be, a capable Prime Minister is an member friends, it's considered to be rude to gag in public, especially at Christmas. Citizen Chretien has promised to refrain from publicly commenting on the action of the new govern- ment. Fat chance! Oh, he may route the comments through one of his former minions so the fractured syn- tax won't be as apparent, but the message will be unmistakable. He will continue, as he has for the last few years, to do everything he can to sabotage Paul Martin's govern- ment. He will be antsy that Martin will quickly show how inept the Chretien team was. That won't be hard to do even with Chretien snip- ing from the sidelines. I feel optimistic about our new Prime Minister. Canada deserves an effective leader on the world stage. Domestically, he's making all the right moves to restore confidence in our federal politicians. The first thing he did was to acknowledge there is, indeed, a problem. That's a good start. Mr. Martin, give us peace, order and good government. Admit to the mistakes of the past. (Gun control would be a good start) and fix them. Tell us the truth. Bring a breath of fresh air to fed- eral politics. Canadians will support you at the polls. The process is up to you. Determining your effective- ness is up to us. Hopefully, we'll both end up happy. J