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Peoples Forum THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday December 8 Page People should speak up Editors note The following letter was released to the HDIs Herald for publication Editor The Georgetown Independent 211 Armstrong Avenue Georgetown Ontario RE Regions surplus to cushion budget blow article by Norman Nelson Wednesday November Dear Editor The last two paragraphs of the article mentioned above should make tax payers in Halton Region very nervous The paragraphs read Burlington Mayor Bird pointed to an area in waste management where he hopes further savings can be realized Under the terms of its waste handling contract Halton faces a penalty if it doesnt generate enough garbage possibility the Region acknowledges Bird quipped that Halton should avoid the penalty by buying enough garbage to meet its quota from another When Region negotiated the contract with to pro vide a transfer station for gar bage they committed to pro viding a minimum tonnage per year According to the Region this was necessary in order to cover capital and operating ex penses So the Region gave its best guess at an annual tonnage and this year we will be short by about 20000 tonnes Halton Region has notified the other Regions Peel Durham Metro and York that this surplus capacity exists What I Short of Does this mean that the more our dedicated reduce their garbage the higher the penalty to the Region Does this also mean that our ef forts to cut waste could let a less ambitious municipality off the hook What happens when we reach the Ministry of the En vironments target of per cent waste reduction Will we be wasting money searching for gar bage money that should be spent on further waste reduction On Wednesday November 28 Region approved a Proposal Call For Waste Management Services PW Private sector pro posals may include Energy From Waste incineration Just as with the transfer station a minimum tonnage will be re quired to cover the extremely high capital and operating ex penses In this decade of change and increasing environmental awareness and with a clear pro vincial commitment to waste reduction it is extremely dif ficult to predict how much gar bage we will be making in years The economic amortiza tion of an incinerator is usually 20 years If you think there is potential conflict waste reduction and incineration now is the time to speak up Call your local Coun cillor your Mayor your Regional Councillor the Regional Chair man your Member of Provincial Parliament the Environment Minister and ICE Incineration Counteracts the Environment Rita Landry Sincerely Diane van Georgetown Socialist agenda Dear Editor In the anniversary of the Mon treal massacre one of the issues covered by the media and pro moted by feminist groups has been the issue of pay equity The wording pay equity has been used for two distinct issues which deserve separate discus sion The issue of equal pay for equal work is a womens issue as unfortunately women are still discriminated against in some work places It is also a discrimination issue as it affects some minorities nonwhite There Is no question our mind that ANYONE performing that same job should be judged solely on the basis of experience and per formance and not by their sex or skin colour The issue of equal pay for work of equal VALUE is in stead a socialist policy as it im plies a government VALUE deci sion on the importance of each job The previous Liberal Ontario government has its im plementation under recommen dation of Judge Rosalie Abella and the current NDP government is committed to complete the job The centralized decision of salary levels in both public and private sector is the same policy which caused the eastern block coun tries economic collapse We are deeply concerned that this socialist agenda is hidden under the respectable name of pay equity The calls for the media to expose this piece of misinforma tion and publish indepth reports on exactly how the government is spending our money to imple ment this policy Giuseppe Gori Vice President Family Coalition Party of Ontario Wilson is guilty of political gamesmanship By VIC PARSONS Ottawa Bureau Thomson News Service OTTAWA Revenue Canadas taxation statistics for 1988 only serve to highlight the folly of the political gamesmanship played by Finance Minister Michael Wilson in his tax reform plans Wilson trumpeted the numbers this week to- try to salvage a little credit for the personal income- tax reform that went into effect on July l 1988 Revenue Canadas figures show that most Canadians paid less income tax that year than in 1987 The finance minister desperately needed some good news to spread With seven out of 10 Canadians griping about the pending goods and services tax Wilsons name is mud in most parts of the country these days Unfortunately for htm and for the Conservative government taxpayer memories are short In fact any voter gratitude owed the Tones from lower income taxes may have been used up in the federal election Lets back up a bit One of the first promises of Brian fledgling government in was an overhaul of the tax system It would be made fairer simpler and would contribute to future economic growth Wilson said then A decision was made to break the reform into two main phases The first was the reduction in the number of personal income tax brackets to three from Special tax breaks were eliminated and credits replaced a bewildering series of exemp tions and deductions Beginning July l most taxpayers saw a in their takehome pay Wilson pledged 85 per cent of households would pay less tax EXTRA CASH One example provided by the Finance Department suggested a married taxpayer with a family of four earning 25 a year would have an extra to a week in disposable income depending upon the province of residence One might quibble over the precision of these numbers but the thrust of incometax reform seems to be borne out by Revenue Canadas numbers Certainly the per cent of taxpayers who earned less than in paid less income tax In total the 18 per cent of taxpayers who made between and paid a modest amount more than in in fact less than the inflation rate So its quite likely since many of these taxpayers would have paid less close to the mark Lets recall the timing of Phase I of tax reform The benefit of the change would have first been felt in the months leading up to the November 1988 election A con venient coincidence You be the judge The economic timing wasnt good however The summer of was a boom time and infla pressures were building The tax cut gave another push to inflation ultimately to higher interest rates Short term politics overruled economics But in 1988 the bad news was still to come in the form of Phase and the GST ONE TWO PUNCH This was not unforeseen Heres what then Liberal leader John Turner had to say in June when Wilson revealed his plan Its not tax reform its a tax grab Its a onetwo punch that at tempts to tell Canadians theyre going to get some personal tax reductions next year But the sleeper is that in the following years theres going to be the most massive increase in the sales tax side in Canadian history As a leader Turner may have flopped As a he did well Now Wilson has got himself in to a box The political credit he may have gained from the 1988 incometax reform was used up in the election that year When an election rolls in 1992 taxpayers will have forgotten the candy offered four years before The more recent memory will be of the GST raid conducted on consumers at a time when money was tight jobs scarce and the economy in sion He would haye been better ad vised to have followed the path used in New Zealand when its GST was introduced The New Zealanders combined their GST and personal Income tax cuts into a package in diffusing some of the public anger over a new retail tax Canadian federalism lacking a strong voice AW A idea might strike you as daffy if this country is going to hang together in one we need a political in to advocate Quebec in dependence Actually we don t even require a full blown party A very individual advocate might do the trick It would be a bit of reverse psychology You see as things stand no one is advancing a strong case for federalism in Canada The only thing people in that province are it seems is about the glories of independence or at least sovereignty association And everything is coming from themselves English Canada and particularly the federal government appears to be in a daze sitting around silent ly while one province goes about deciding its own destiny When an anglo voice is heard its invariably the form of a plea or an apology What are from out side are repetitive statements about the importance of their pro vince to the rest of the country how Quebec departure would Canada how desperately we want them to return to the hearth Something like a jilted spouse begging a partner to come home while the partner is surrounded by friends who preach the delights of divorce NEW APPROACH Rather than being defensive and reactionary what we should stive for is someone or some movement in English Canada to get out there and make the case that wed be better off without Quebec No routings or ravings just some enthusiasm about how the rest of the country would be so much better off if it didnt have to pour so much money and atten into Quebec And lets not squabble about the figures There are no two economists in the country who agree on how much a province gets out of Confederation com pared to its contribution Its cer tainly clear from some of the Stewart MacLeod testimony before Quebecs Belanger commission that not all advocates of in dependence are beyond a bit of figure fudging You hear an occasional reference to the uncomfortable economic adjustment that would follow any form of independence but nothing frightening The overwhelming view of commis sion witnesses so far is that Quebec would be a very viable entity on its own The view is so overwhelming in fact that federalist members of the commission have banded together to organize a common defence of Canada Not even the Quebec Liberal long the bastion of federalism is offering much help The commission t even bothered to invite submissions from francophone groups outside Quebec nor anyone else from other provinces About the only thing heard from the commission hearings are televised live throughout the province are ad vocating sovereignty and the casional sorrowful reaction from English Canada Its the jilted spouse syndrome again Ill try to be more accommodating if youll stay WONT WORK That as everyone knows doesnt work too well Far better to say Take a hike with only one mouth to feed Ill stay here and live in relative luxury In constitutional terms we wouldnt be that nasty of course But it would certainly put an in teresting twist on things if some credible person in Canada were to start taking a positive view of Quebec in dependence positive for the rest of Canada tha is Human nature being what it is this would obviously change some thought process in Quebec I mean those of us with ex iii such matters are fully aware the best way to kick kids out of the house is to say how much they are needed at home On the other hand talk about the glories of living without them and they 11 stay home until retire ment Bet if someone in say Toronto made a convincing case that English Canada would be better off without Quebec and should encourage independence it wouldnt take long for some to mount a defence of federalism It might even become fashionable Pierre Trudeau used to say and probably stil does that every initiative spawns a countervailing force Worth a try