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Is an election in the works Home Newspaper of Halton Hills Established A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Guelph Street Georgetown 3Z6 Ontario Derek BEATT1E Publisher and General Manager Nelson Queen Park BRIAN DAN TA LOR Editor Advertising Manager Phone 2201 i i Page THE HER Saturda December 3 Do they know its Christmas It heartwarming to see that at Christmastime most people enjoy seeing friends and relatives more than other aspect of the vuletide season A recent sunej shows that per cent of us enjoy such visits while receiving ts putting up decorations cooking and entertaining going to parties buying and wrapping presents and travelling all fall well below get with friends and relatives It means we haven t gotten Christmas as much out of perspective as who say the season is too commer would have us e But there are some sombre aspects to this world that we often forget put out of our minds for a day while we un wrap our gifts There are people throughout the world who cannot and will never enjoy even the simplest things we take for granted in our daily lives not just at Christmas Perhaps pop singer Bono of the rock group U2 said it best in the 1984 hit bv Band Aid Tonight thank God it them instead of you We can make it better for them We can stop blaming them for their problems or putting them out of our minds and asking ourselves What can we do Today that same drought that prompted the song Do They Know It s Christmas back in 1984 plagues much of Africa Countries are becoming more dependent on each other with each passing day month year And here in Canada it s hard to believe but there are still many people who struggle daily to get clothes and food If we put them out of our minds on Dec 25 then we haven t come to appreciate what Christmas can and should be Its true as another popular rock singer Billy Joel says We didnt start the fire But we can douse the flames Home for Christmas A provincial election next year If it happens it will come just three years after the last one when Premier David Peterson won a smashing victory and majority government for the Liberal party No better recipe for an un necessary election need be cited Yet the current feeling in the Queen s Park aviary is that the political hawks are in an ascendant position once again Thev sense a feast coming on Let s hope it isn true Let s hope the Liberals show themselves somewhat more principled than their critics give them credit for After all the Grits have of the seath in the legislature Both opposition parties are in semi disarra And the still hive a raft of legislation that t seen the light of royal assent and won t bv next summer So why then an election In a word opportunism The theory is that the Liberals stand their best chance of repeating their 1987 triumph if they tall an election sometime alter Sept 10 for either October or November going after Sept 10 the an date of their victory could claim to be in the fourth year of their mandate and hope to deter criticism that they be going to the polls needlessly TACTICS But that s only tactics Several more weighty reasons are cited for going next autumn One is that the I iberals are deep ly worried about the negative of the general goods and ser vices tax GST undercutting their popularity even though they don t intend to merge the provincial sales tax with this new federal sales tax The GST kicks in in 1991 so get ting the election out of the way before then is a good idea politically Besides it supposedly gives Peterson the chance to run against a tax that is almost certain to be widely unpopular True the GST is a federal tax and there is nothing Peterson can do about it But then free trade was a federal matter and there t anything Peterson could do about it either It didn t stop him campaigning against it But the timing of the GST is only the tip of the iceberg After all there have been stones for a year at Queen s Park that the Liberals would fight the next election over the GST A more compelling reason government minds for an early rip to the polls is the likelv of the economy The boom has penked The high vilue of the Canadian dollar inter nationally which hurts our ex ports and signs of recession in the United States indicate the incredi ble revenue bonanza the Liberals have enjoyed through five years of Ronald Reagan induced prosperity are coming to an end BUDGE- Treasurer Bob Nixon with the proceeds from both the boom and the horrendous tax increases he s imposed the past four years may be able to bring in a projected balanced budget with no tax in creases in the spring It would be an artificial creation in the sense the budget would unlikely be balanced at the end of the fiscal year if we do have a recession But all right It would still take th through an autumn campaign And it is true that the Liberal in ability to bring spending under control it has grown at twice the rate of inflation and faster than the boom economy most of the past five years wnl become very evt dent once the revenues up In an economic sense next autumn is literally the best of times for them to seek a new man date And maybe they 11 even repeat against a dispirited and a Conservative party with a brand new leader and no money One would prefer though that the electorate punish them for call an unnecessary election Home for Christmas the words ring with the brief beautiful moments when all are children once again bright cheeks glowing and giggles bursting with excite ment from amidst rainbows of tied ribbons and scattered wrapp ings Pleasures to be felt and savored are the warmth of steam ing cocoa sipped through cream the loving hugs of young and old as they snuggle around a crackling fire on Christmas Eve A time of tradition Christmas present forever links to Chnstmases past continuing the chain of memories that binds us to that first Chnstmas when the ear father Joseph was himself compelled to return to his homeland to be taxed and thus the first journey home was made in an of the child Jesus birth All over the world people keep the traditions that they learned as children each parent wishing only to recreate for their own children the magic of holiday joy that they themselves shared as youngsters Stockings are hung and trees are trimmed to the sound of carols drifting in from the snowy out doors Children bake cookies and wrap each other s gifts while mom stuffs a turkey and dad drapes the doorway with garlands and tights Young lovers delight in kisses stolen beneath the mistletoe and grandpa sits by the fireside the dying embers as he recalls long forgotten days of boyhood Chnstmases to an audience of wideeyed youngsters Then all too soon grandpa tales come to an end as the children are hurned off to bed so excited it seems they never sleep They check one last time to be sure that Santa cookies and cocoa are left where he s sure to find them and after lingering over a few goodnight kisses are off to bed Dawn finds ribbons flying through a maze of crumpled wrap pings as children of all ages delight in giving and receiving gifts After a festive breakfast the family at tends mass or services though for many a candlelight mass of Christmas Eve is a longstanding tradition After noon aunts uncles cousins and relatives perhaps not seen on any other arrive to share in the day joy Gifts are exchanged wonder ful foods enjoyed and an over whelming warmth appreciated Is it any wonder that all roads lead home at Chnstmas Not at all when you realize that being together is perhaps the greatest gift of all Disabled have it roughreport Gil Hardy Ottawa Disabled Canadians are under employed underpaid and under educated compared to national averages Statistics Canada says in a newly released report Based on data gathered after the 1986 census the report only 30 per cent of the disabled were employed compared to 70 per cent of non disabled people Disabled women fared worse with only 20 per cent having jobs while per cent of disabled men were employed About million disabled Cana dians lived outside of institutions Of the slightly more than 1 25 million who said their disabilities were work limiting only 30 per cent were employed in Almost were unemployed or out of the labor force a report on the Health and Activity Limita lion Survey says The with jobs were paid less than average partly because compared on a percentage basis to the disabled fewer had high salaried management jobs and partly because their education levels were lower While higher education generally means a bet ter job this pattern was more pronounced for the disabled More than per cent earned less than 10 annually com pared with per cent of disabled workers Only 16 per cent earned above compared to per cent of the disabled Average income for a worker was some per cent below the 19 average for the non disabled The gap in earnings narrows substantially for more highly educated disabled workers says Gary Cohen the report s author The survey found university educated disabled women had higher average earnings than non disabled women with similar education Cohen doesn t know why PRIMARY INDUSTRIFS The survey also pinpointed which industries employ the highest ratio of disabled workers Their share of total employment was largest in agriculture health and welfare services and surpns primary industries such as fishing forestry and mining It possible that there s some relationship between work related injuries companies retaining disabled workers Cohen said an interview Some companies ma transfer workers to other duties in dustrul iceidents leave them disabled April D Aubin of the Winnipeg Coalition of Pro vincial Organizations for the Han unturned on 10 I