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THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday December ltM Page Peoples Forum Writer accuses columnist of splatter approach The Editor appreciate the fact that John Sommer in his column Arts and Ideas has firm convictions which he wants to share But perhaps he should confine himself to ideas about art and leave ideas about religion ethics and world peace alone His hand of the latter n a column titled Universal human values needed The Herald Wednes day Decemeber reminded me of a certain kind of art which the century pro duced I am thinking of the list who lays his canvas on the floor hangs a can of paint over it drills some holes in the bottom of the can and allows the can to over the canvas in random patterns That is what I picture when I read the random splattering of ideas John s article I do not doubt for a moment he has good intentions just as the artist may genuinely believe in what he s doing I too long to see the peo pie of this world caring deeply for Answers demanded from Region Editor note The following letter was released to the Hills Herald Tor Mr Pomeroy Regional Chairman Regional Municipality of RE CONDITION The Joint Board THE CONSOLIDATED HEARINGS ACT Reasons for Decision and Decision February 1989 Dear Mr Pomeroy In my presentation to Regional Council on November 28 ad dressing 20990 Proposal Calls for Waste Management Ser vice I raised many concerns about Condition of the Joint Board s decision It is my that Halton Region is concentrating its ef forts on Condition and practical ignoring Condition 1 As you know Condition 2 focuses on gar incineration and Condition addresses the more tally fnendly ways to deal with waste namely reduction reuse recycling and composting Evidence to support my opinion includes the extensive EFW feasibility and siting work already completed by the Region In contract the Municipal Regional Joint Waste Manage ment Committee is not even established yet This despite the almost two years that have pass since the Joint Board s sion and the obvious importance that the Board placed on waste reduction by addressing reduc before As I stated in my presentation to Council the Regional Municipality of Peel has 19 staff members involved in industrial commercial and institutional GST column redux Dear Editor I read with interest your col umn in the Weekend Outlook about the GST Christmas As you know from a recent column that I wrote which you published I am not a fan of the disinformation that the Government is publishing about the GST and the price decreases that MAY hap pen The art from the Senate in Ottawa is as self serving as the Government s articles The unelected Senate made up of political allies given their just rewards for long time political support is not the group I want to govern us As an editor you should endeavour to get to the truth which is somewhere in between what the Federal Government has said and the article provided from the Senate At the present time everything on the list that is manufactured with the exception of clothing is subject to a 13 Manufacturers Sales lax which is hidden tax This tax will be replaced by the GS1 The is levied on the that the retailers pay the manufacturer or importer The- retailer then takes his mark up on his delivered price further the Provincial Sales Tax is placed on the product giving tax on tax While some prices may come down after the is imposed I am doubtful that prices will decrease on small items On the other hand every vice mentioned in the article will go up as in the past these services were not taxable The Feds assume that any savings that the businesses get from GST input tax credits will be passed along I say good luck on that Make no mistake the GST will be highly inflationary in the first year and cause greater negative strain on the economy at this time of recession The purpose of this letter is to warn journalists such as yourself not to fall into the same trap as the Federal Government by publishing distorted stories of the GST and its impact on the economy This is a complex issue the average Canadian is not fully aware of the GST your job should be to set them straight and not publish self serving articles by either side of the debate One last note I was remiss in not congratulating you and the paper on the fine Remembrance Day Supplement that you published it was a job well done Best regards Doug Penrice Georgetown Editor note The Hills Herald has already done a feature on the GST and who and what it will affect Under senior reporter Ben byline the article was published Oct It was a straight forward appraisal of the GST waste reduction Metropolitan Toronto and the Regions of Waterloo and Durham have all made serious commitments to the sector in the form of staff waste audits market directories and so on To my knowledge Region has made zero commit ment to waste reduction in the sector In order that I may be com uptodate on the Region initiatives in the areas of waste reduction reuse recycling and composting could you please answer the following questions I am also interested in any other related information detads of the wetdry pilot project for ex ample May I be a member of the planned Municipal Regional Joint Waste Management Com mittee Refer to article The Independent Waste Manage Getting the public s help December 12 1990 2 What reduction reuse recycling and composting exper tise do the planned members of the planned Municipal Regional Joint Waste Management Com mittee have 3 Will the planned Committee draw on outside sources for ex If so who and what agencies will they draw on What specific initiatives beyond those listed in Condition will the planned Committee con sider How many public meetings will the planned Committee hold How will the planned Cora incorporate the ideas of the public into the overall waste management scheme Who will set out the terms of reference for this committee and how will they be determined Given that zero collars have budgeted for implementa tion of recommendations of the planned Committee in the 1991 fiscal year how will such in be funded 9 If reduction reuse recycling and composting initiatives prove to be capable of diverting signifi cant volumes from disposal will Region scrap its plans to incinerate I have notified the Ministry of the Environment of my concerns and trust that both the Region and Ministry will address the promptly Sincerely Diane van Georgetown each other and for the creation which is our home But I cannot see how shoddy thinking is going to bring us there The responsible action John calls for will not grow out of fuzzy feelings but only out of clear thoughts John begins his article with a splash of ideas which are so wild they leave the canvas altogether He hails Mikhail Gorbachev as truly great leader the our who has set free Eastern Europe even comparing him to Jesus The facts are that Gorbachev far from engaging in leaps of im agination is a thoroughly prac tical communist leader The Soviets have driven their coun into ruin and cannot afford the cold war anymore They want the west to invest The main thrust of John s arti cle is the idea that if people will- simply realize that we all worship the same god or divine pie or whatever and become responsible caring people we can save our planet from destruc That is like saying to a con pie of hockey teams go out and get the puck in the net never mind which net as long as pucks are going into nets we 11 have a great game Or like telling Toron to commuters to no longer at reaching Toronto instead that they should simply drive and never mind the direction for eventually they will certainly reach the destination A more helpful approach to the important question of how to save this world is found in a classic statement by K Chesterton There are an infinity of angles at which one falls only one at which one stands The crucial question as always is What is that one angle In Charles Col son recent book Against the Night Living In The New Dark Ages he compares our situation in the west to that of Christian Bntain in the time of Alfred the Great Barbarian hordes were destroying everything in their path Alfred though vastly out numbered fought back Eventual ly the Danes were living side by side with the Britons but not because they came together and decided they both worshipped the same divine principle anyway The peace and the foundation of Great Britain came when Guthrm the barbarian king re jected his pagan gods and asked to be baptised as a Christian I agree wholeheartedly that the source of peace and responsible living is religious But certainly a religion must be chosen at least as carefully as you select your environment friendly detergent Polluters of the heart and mind have been around for as long as mankind As C S Lewis says somewhere Hornble religions produce cultures The splatter approach to ideas religions or to solving the crises of our times is actually he root of the problem What we need is to find the one angle at which we stand That new slant on things is what the Child in the manger is all about As Jesus said in his characteristically uncompromis manner I am the way and the truth and the Life No one comes to God the Father except through me Or in the words of a bumper sticker the grafitti of the highway Wise men still seek him Yours sincerely Dick Vandervecht Georgetown Remember the past Dear Sir Our Federal government s miscalculations in the mood of the people of Canada when it comes to introducing legislation without regard for the country as a whole has now become com For the record The Lake Accord Free Trade so called the GST and now a possible involvement a conflict in the Gulf creating a situation which is demanding budgetary reductions within various govern ment departments including once again Veterans Affairs Not satisfied with the April 1990 in creases to Veterans room and board reductions in benefits without full consultation or ceptance of those affected the elimination of Heavy housekeep ing benefits and now a proposed reduction of 35 in the departments budget This will on ly result in a reduction of staff with repercussions and delays to future benefits or the processing of claims I am also led to tand that the proposed GST will have an effect on the Veterans annual Poppy Campaign in that it will in some instances tax the production and in some cases the sale of Poppies or Wreaths This writer finds it ironic that a government which recently granted Reparation payments to the Canadian Japanese for advrse treatment in Wartime Canada and Japanese during the war were responsible for untold suffenng and death of Canadian prisoners can without concern for these ex prisoners and other veterans reduce fur er the budget of a department to the care of these self same veterans God forbid The History of war is wntten in terms of battles campaigns grand strategies and costly mistakes The Reality of war is the sacrifice of mortal men and women The History of Peace is sometimes the Forgotten pro mises Those who can not remember the past are con demned to repetition in the future Sincerely Charles Tutty Georgetown Ontario Opinion Ethnic rivalry could end in civil war At its worst and it may be at its worst this Christmas Eve ethnic rivalry can end in c vil war The southeastern country of Yugoslavia is a federa ton of a dozen diverse ethnic groups the Serbians being the most dominant But there are areas of varying size where one or another of the 12 groups has a majority and other sections where these groups are minorities The resulting stew is a tial cauldron for ethnic and na conflict Under the nasty Communist dictatorship of Josip and his successors tribalism was generally kept under control until the late 1980s But now all six of Yugoslavia s republics have held generally free elections the last two being in Montenegro and Serbia last week Unfortunately that has only made the prospect of fighting even more unlikely The winner in Serbia was Slobodan Milosevic a Com munist who calls himself an ex Communist and who played the Serbian nationalist card and won overwhelmingly The eight million Serbs represent about 36 per cent of the Yugoslav Milosevic has warned he will not allow the disintegration of the Yugoslav federation The warning is specifically directed at Slovenia which lies along the Austrian border and is the most westernized of the Yugoslav republic home to about two million people or eight per cent of the Yugoslav population There anti Communists easily won a majority in parliament early this year and they have hinted at independence ever since particularly whenever Milosevic seemed to imply more centralization rather than a loose confederation was the best for Yugoslavia s deep economic problems On Dec Solvenes vote in a referendum on secession The results of the balloting should be known Christmas Eve Croatia the Yugoslav republic adjacent to Slovenia and where a majority of the country million Croatians live is a close ally of Slovenia in desinng much looser ties among the six republics Many observers believe it would react strongly to defend a Slovenian declaration of in dependence and to oppose Ser bian intervention Earlier this year Serbia posed tariffs against Slovenian and Croatian goods in an effort to pressure the two republics but it backfired when Slovenia and Croatia retaliated in land On Nov 15 the increasingly powerless federal prime minister Ante Markovic warned the SlovenianSerbian clash directly threatens the survival