The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

T1IE HERALD Wednesday August 9 Page7 Opinion Page Reader wants abortion law soon 30 years ago Norval junior farmer Bill Wilson represented the Halton County in the annual soils and land use tour for junior farmers During the tour Mr Wilson visited the counties of Oxford Huron and and took in a variety of farms and other sites The trip also included a visit to the new soils building at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph George Elliot a Milton lawyer was the guest speaker at the Terra Cotta Farmers Club and stressed his audience a group of parents the importance of education for their children Entertainment followed the meeting with a humurous reading The meeting was held at the house of Mr and Mrs Joanne Elizabeth the daughter of Mr and Mrs Weir of married the son of Mr and Mrs Lisle Stevenson of Granton Mackenzie Steven son 15 years ago A report by education minister Thomas Wells warned that because of the current levell ing off of enrollments planning for the future is imperative This in eluded looking at the need for new schools more classrooms addi tional teachers a greater number of supplies and extra equipment Mr Wells attributed the lack plan ning for the future to the rapid ex of educational enter prises in the province following World War II Georgetowns Varian Company was awarded two federal contracts worth a total of this week The announcement was made by the federal governments depart ment of services and supplies The contract stipulated Varian produce worth of electron tubes and worth of Ontario Tennis teaching profes sional Brian Barker arrived in Georgetown at the request of the Georgetown Tennis Club to teach for a week at the courts at the Joseph Gibbons Park During the week he gave lessons throughout the day from to 30 m While in Georgetown Mr Barker stayed at the home of Mr George Kelly Haltons History from our files 10 years ago To help alleviate the shortage of blood plasma across central On tano the Red Cross was prompted to schedule a special blood Donor Clinic Urgent appeals were made to Georgetown residents to attend the clinic The Georgetown Clinic was only one of many special clinics organized throughout the province to help out with the shor tage urban co ordinator for the Red Cross southern Ontario division estimated 1000 units of blood would have to be collected each day in order to meet the demand Ian of got the chance to fulfill a dream to work on a New Brunswick potato farm The youngster was part of a travelling exchange sponsored by the John Deere Club He spent a month on a farm in Bath New Brunswick where he worked on a 170 acre potato farm His chores in cluded clearing fields of rocks 5 years ago Several Georgetown residents were chosen to participate in the Hills Com munity of Councils sponsored Band Shell Day during the Canadian Na exhibition Those par ticipating included eight yearold Tamara Hamilton who will smg songs from the movie Sound of Music Geoff Tyler who will be one of the members of a break dan troupe the Actons Citizen Band the Georgetown Girls Pipe Band Mandy Inglis George Mit chell Smit Debbie Tilson and Steve Shelton Manko a Japanese exchange student stayed with Georgetown residents Richard and Lynn Chapman during her stay in Canada Taxing the cake and the icing Kells Korner Donna Ken Staff A month after Michael Wilson the infamous finance minister graced Halton Hills with a visit and a promise to explain the new percent tax the technical tax paper is about to be released The paper was scheduled to be released yesterday Tuesday Mr Wilsons new budget ac claimed by local MP Garth Turner will wreak havoc on the Canadian economy critics say One theory is that the tax could cut into consumer buying power Wasnt this the same tax that was supposed to promote growth in our economy Taxing the consumers those who use goods and services and thereby perpetuate a healthy economy will only hurt sales of just about everything and the in come of just about everyone the finance minister could not deny that the new tax once levied on all goods and services including transporation music lessons and postage stamps in one account will mean a jump of three points in the inflation rate Some sources say that lower- Dear Sir On July 25 Doug Lewis Minister of Justice commenting on the abortion issue was quoted say ing If we bring a law to the floor of the House of Commons which is a consensus of our caucus and a consensus of our Cabinet and It doesn t pass for some reason then we have done our job One week later the same minister applied to the Supreme Court of Canada on our behalf that the Quebec courts not decide to hear the Chan case as abortion is a federal government responsibility The message is clear He does not want the issue solved neither by the government nor by the courts and he intends to pay lip ser vice to the issue The minister has been granted a very powerful role regarding this issue by the prime minister and he intends to use his post exactly to favor his prochoice views So much for the position of Brian am personally pro- life but I cannot impose my views on others By replacing Jake Epp a prolifer with Doug Lewis he has shifted the balance towards those who want to maintain the status quo Hospitals and clinics which are modern aseptic and convenient death camps for the most vulnerable In the same hospitals the morality of our socie ty is buried deeper and deeper 500 times per working day with each Canadian baby whose heart is stop ped whole we wait for the Govern ment to act Giuseppe Gori Family Coalition Party Halton North Riding Association Thanks from Open Door Dear Sir In recognition of Open Door s many volunteers and supporters the participants staff and board I would like to thank all those in vidua Is businesses and organizations who have assisted our group throughout the past year Your donations of time money and services have greatly con tributed to the successful operation of our programs We look forward to working closely with the community for even more growth and success in the future Yours truly Star McGuire Executive Director Open Door Governments want to clean up garbage in the Arctic By GIL HARDY Ottawa Bureau Thomson Newsservice When it comes to cleaning up the Canadian Arctic one mans eyesore can mean another sur The federal and territorial governments want to remove for environmental reasons man made debris scattered across the Arctic That could be anything from a few rusting drums of fuel at a lonely helicopter pad to buildings and antennas left behind at long abandoned military and research stations The Department of National Defence has begun sifting through old files to determine the location of former bases north of the 60th parallel that were closed as far back as the 1950s Some were open ed and operated by the S air force during the Second World War Says Col Dave Lett one of the officers coordinating the search Were looking at the whole thing anything that was military whether it was ours or something the Germans put up on our coastal shores Lett said that while protecting the Arctic s delicate environment is important safety concerns also play a role in deciding what is removed and what stays A barrel of kerosene fuel could be looked at as a cache of life- saving proportions if someone needed that fuel to make a fire Similarly some of the buildings may not be all that pretty hut if they are the only windbreak for hundreds of miles they can be im portant for survival SERVE PILOTS The same could hold true for large billboard antennas that have been idle for decades but serve as navigational aids for Arc tic pilots These really involve a lot of thought on what s important to be left up there said Lett Carting materials north to build shelters is extremely expensive so if you have shelters up there in reasonably good condition maybe we want to move them to com munities where they will be useful 9 The clean up of the Arctic is curnng now because tal standards have changed drastically When sites were closed m the 50s and 60s little thought was given to removing material Federal departments oil and surveying companies and the U air force simply packed up and left We re not looking at the North now the way we looked at it even years ago said Lett Its not satisfactory to take 120 barrels of turbine fuel up there use 85 and leave the rest lying around We dont do that anymore The department removed con tamniants such as from abandoned DEW Distant Early Warning sites years ago Lett said this new round of cleaning up will remove eyesores that could harm the tourism potential of the Arctic Once the mditary sites have been catalogued the department will know how big the problem is It also will know which sites are cessible in winter or summer con ditions But such a massive job will take money and that where the pro blems start Former U S air force sites for instance were transfer red via DND to territorial govern ments or to the Indian and Nor thern Affairs Department Goddess to the rescue income Canadians will be hardest hit by the new tax And small businesses will be negatively af fected when a 13 5 per cent tax once applied to manufactured goods is replaced by a catch all levy on just about everything The premature release of the budget in April the controversial budget leak to a Global news reporter was all just lemg on a very large cake The real story will unfold when the tax nits when consumers have to reach deeper into their pockets to scrounge for fastdisappearing loons The deficit that we keep hearing about that our government has va promised to solve for us is a problem we are supposed to share But who shared in the decision making when the govern ment sent funds to Beijing in the heart of a country that balks at democracy Under the new tax we might decide which cake we want to buy but after that the tax process snowballs We pay for tax on the cakes ingredients the sale of the cake it its not considered a grocery item and if were m a restaurant we pay tax on the act on someone putting that cake down in front of us on a table Under the new tax we can have our cake and eat it too But were going to pay through the nose for it And a lot of people will be left hungry for reform Weirs View Naturally Id never try to pass myself off as any kind of expert on Japanese politics Generally speaking politics in foreign cultures work on principles that seem mysterious and baffling to the average Canadian as well as to those of us who are marginal ly below average As such Japanese politics can seem about as bewildering as Albanian politics Saudi Arabian politics or British Columbian politics Ah those vast unanswerable questions How did they build the Great Pyramids How do they get the caramel into the Bar And is Bill Vander real ly serious In any case you can imagine how intrigued I was to read a newspaper article assessing the probability that socialist leader Dot will become Japans next prime minister Despite heading a party which Is so rigorously socialist It only recently dropped its call for one- party rule the consensus seems to be that Ms Do will win purely and simply because she is a woman And the explanation for this ac cording to one analyst Japan There is a long history in Japan that whenever the country fell into chaos a woman god would appear to save the day This is you will admit remarkable And quite foreign to any tradition which exists in Canada The closest we have is a tradition which states that whenever Canada is in dire trouble we send out and Gretzky This works wonderfully well against the Soviet hockey team although experts are unsure whether it would work quite as well against an economic collapse On the polltcal front we just dont have any tradition of saviours descending from the skies Weve admittedly had Pierre Trudeau looking down his nose at us from a great height but this isnt quite the same thing This is not of course to say that Canadians have no traditional response to economic and govern mental crisis Of course we do Generally speaking we just re elect the government that got us in to the mess in the fust place Closely related is the time honored tradition by which Cana dian prime ministers when faced with a crisis take a deep breath muster their steeliest resolve and blame their predecessor Thats why Japans tradition is so wonderfully appealing Just im agine being able to count on a wise and godlike female to appear in times of despair Imagine a female deity descen from the heavens to rewrite Meech Lake Accord Or failing that even imagine Michael Wilsons mother marching into Ot to seize him fiercely by the ear and demand that remove that sales tax right this instant Interestingly enough there are murmurings in Canada that its high time for at least one of the major parties to elect a woman leader The problem of course is that none of the candidates really qualifies as a goddess Its the same problem that has been confronted by other nations that have tried to elect a female saviour although Britain manag ed to reach a compromise of sorts by electing Margaret Thatcher Mrs Thatchers opponents are unanimously agreed that she is merely mortal Mrs Thatcher on the other hand remains profound ly unconvinced In any case this Japanese tradl is fascinating And it provides such a ray of hope for those of us who have begun to despair of the possibility that governments can solve anything at all the hope that we might yet be able to rely on wise and loving female figures to redeem us When the nations woes grow too dire to contemplate just close your eyes and wait for a goddess to des cend from the clouds Or failing that holler loudly and plaintively for Mom A little unorthodox maybe But itd probably work at least as well as anything weve tried so far