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

THE HERALD Wednesday February 1991 Page 5 Political Forum Ottawa Report Do you pay too much in taxes Stupid question Most people feel tbelr fax burden is excessive and growing larger Worse they feel theres no welldefined goal for all this money it just sort of sinks into a black bottomless bole called Government Sometimes we forget how much cash it takes to have health care and education and roads But most of us dont mind paying a fair share if we could only know what that was Right now it just doesnt feel right And that is why we could be on the verge of a tax revolt And if it comes it could be a healthy positive and necessary event for politicians at all levels Oh there are rumblings Frank Gue down in Burlington is stirr ing the pot forming a chapter of the Taxpayers Coalition And up in Caledon people like Peter Pro- and Helen Gordon are busy organizing In the middle are many more who are sick of see ing taxes go up at all levels of government Yes the GST is part of that along with property taxes in come taxes provincial sales taxes excise taxes capital gains taxes land transfer taxes business taxes income surtaxes and all the taxes that hide under other names like duties and user fees levies and assessments Too many taxes In a country where we have enough govern ments and politicians to support a population of say 150 million people And we are just million I read last week about a man in Milton who refuses to pay an unreasonable increase on his pro perty tax I see that City council is aking for public in put on how it can trim spending And I studied a real tax revolt in Kent County where a small town was nailed by businesses refusing to hand over large additional cams As you may have read I recently gave Finance Minister Michael Wilson a report on all this making conclusions and recommendations The conclu sion was that governments spend too much money At the federal level its mostly to pay interest on the debt and to account for inflationproofing government payments At the provincial and municipal level its to cover NDP position on auto insurance British Columbia Manitoba Saskatchewan and Quebec are models we are studying Motorists are required by law to have auto insurance in order to drive When the law compels peo ple to buy insurance the govern ment must ensure that it is available fairly and at a reasonable price The insurance companies have not met this responsibility Public auto insurance will have lower costs public auto insurance will likely eliminate the need for rein surance The government is bet ter placed to do the pooling of risk than the existing system of many companies with low market shares public auto insurance will substantially reduce the need for the process of risk selection and underwriting This activity in volves gathering information on a potential risk to determine whether to accept or reject the risk The public plan will in surance all drivers licensed to operate a motor vehicle public auto insurance will also eliminate the need for and the costs of the facility association where in recent years the private insurers were unfairly placing many drivers public auto insurance will reduce commission expenses public auto insurance will substantially reduce the costs of investing funds the costs of maintaining many computer systems public auto insurance will substantially reduce or eliminate the advertising costs and the ex pense of the intercompany paper shuffle the administrative effort in settling a claim involving more than one insurer public auto insurance will substantially reduce the costs of the Ontario Insurance Commis sion which now regulates the ap proximately ISO auto insurers in the province Halton North New Democratic Party This week I would like to discuss an issue that affects almost every constituent in North I would like to outline our governments position on auto insurance According to a recent news ar ticle the Insurance Bureau of Canada has released statistics which show auto insurers made a net underwriting income of million in the province during the third quarter of The com panies saw their profits soar under the Liberal nofault plan which became law last summer Our approach to auto insurance guided by the same principles that guide our approach to other issues what is in the best in terests of the people of Ontario We believe that drivers are entitl ed to affordable insurance coverage with fair compensation for injured victims As you know auto insurance has been a concern for some time In the mid1980s auto in surance premiums were increas ing dramatically sometimes by 30 to 35 per cent in a single year Toward the end of the Liberal government introduced Bill 68 outlining its threshold no- fault automobile insurance plan As we all remember the Bill was subject to strong opposition from a wide area of public opinion and to much vigorous debate from the members Despite the pro test the former government did not listen Bill 68 was passed and came into effect on June 2290 Our position on auto insurance has always been dear We have historically advocated public auto insurance a driverowned nonprofit insurance system a plan that would provide coverage at a reasonable price a system that would guarantee fair com pensation for innocent victims MAIN ST S DOWNTOWN GEORGETOWN John EST on ver Garth Turner MP HaltonPeel Progressive Conservative rapidlyincreasing costs often due to wage settlements or new political policies For example Queens Park may tell the Halton Board of Education what the ratio of teachers to pupils should be So the board hires more people but doesnt get the additional funding it needs from the province So property taxes are raised and homeowners pay the price for a policy they may not have asked for Federal taxes will never go down until the deficit does And the deficit wont go down unless there are more tax increases or spending cuts And if there are more tax increases there will be a tax revolt Ditto for more taxes from the province or the local govern ments And that will be a good thing because a revolt will help force politicians to spend less even when it means cutting ser vices and taking the heat for do ing so Since my goals for the past two years have been to see less government lower spending an end to the growth in debt and especially the hope of lower taxes I have no problem with what Frank and Peter or Helen are doing In fact Ill help them revolt As for Wilson he has my report recommending he declare a debt emergency freeze spending link the GST with deficit reduction cut payments to the over spending provinces combine local provincial and federal taxes set debt targets to achieve have MPs fund their own pen sions make a balanced budget a Constitutional must and damn the torpedoes I sense he is listening after all hes the one who asked me to look into this tax revolt stuff But Ill lay in a few pitchforks and torches just in case I have to be in Ottawa next Monday night so please note the Palgrave Town Hall meeting is changed to Friday March at 730 pm in the Community Cen tre To those who got notice of a meeting on Feb IB well just use the back of it for a grocery list MENS DRESS PANTS 39 DRESS SHIRTS MENS OXFORD DRESS SHIRTS MENS CASUAL SHIRTS CASUAL PANTS 1Q99 Ladies Dresses Ladies JEANS Cotton Sweaters LADIES DRESS PANTS CASUAL PANTS MENS BEAVER CANOE CASUAL SHIRT MENS COATS MENS TIES 30 OFF CLOTHING GEORGETOWN MARKET PLACE GUELPH ST GEORGETOWN 8771598