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Page THE HERALD Wednesday June Political Forum Ottawa Report National debt eating away at Canada Garth Turner MP HaltonPeel I talked to a man who had lost his job almost a year ago when the construction industry slowed down He was too proud to apply for unemployment insurance and figured another job would come by anyway But it And then his wife lost her job The man went and asked for unemployement but too much time had passed and now he didn t qualify He called my office in Georgetown and about all we could do was try and line him up for welfare which wasn enough to make the mor payments He came in and we tried to see what else that government could do for him I talked him about what the recession had done to him and others and who was to blame For him it was clear people like me were to blame Somehow people like me were supposed to stand in front of the economic downturn the one that comes every seven or eight years and make it stop in its tracks Well I couldn And it makes me very sad and frustrated to have to talk to people about lives gone bad because of nothing they did on their own I didn blame this man for holding me ble I am Every elected pohti is And every one of us has a duty to try and make sure jobs are created instead of lost and that the economy is both stable and strong This doesn happen overnight as I have well found out And sometimes it takes very different tactics to get the kinds of changes we need One of my preoccupations has been attacking tht country na debt and the annual deficit it creates through the huge in teresl bill To the man sitting in my office forced to put his house up for sale and with his future falling apart this can seem very distant But it is not In fact that debt is eating away at our very country and it has a direct impact on our lives and our wealth I can think of anything more valuable that I can do during my time as an MP than wage war on this economic enemy Canada has almost billion in debt The interest this year alone will be billion That eats up the government budget surplus of billion and means we have to borrow another billion the deficit That means almost per cent of the taxes we pay go to meet the interest on the debt What a waste That money could be returned to us in the form of lax cuts It could go to health and education or the environment Or research and development to make us more competitive treating jobs Our taxes arc high because the debt is high It s that simple The debt is also hurting us because it forces interest rates to be higher than they have to be That in creases the cost of car loans and mortgages and drags down the economy High rates for exam pie helped kill off the real estate market last year In turn that stowed construction of new homes Thousands of jobs were lost The debt threatens to attack our social programs as more and more money is diverted into pay ing the interest Already we can hardly afford to fund health care for example Every tax dollar for the debt is one lost to serve all of The debt means the rich are getting richer Billions in taxes are taken from all of us in eluding pensioners and single parents and transferred in in pajments on the debt into the bank accounts of those who bought Treasury bills and government bonds usually wealthier Canadians The debt has given us high axes high interest rates and reduced government services It has made our economy sick and it has cost jobs And that is why I am doing all I can to fight back That s why I oppose the Ontario government s plan to add more debt in four years than we got in all the 125 years which went before Thats why I support the Taxpayers Coalition in their demands for less government Thats why I held that Debt FVeedom Conference in Ottawa to find new ways we can erase debt Its why I host others across the country That also why last September I decided to resign my government committee chairman s job and gel back to doing what drove me into politics in the first place The middle class I believed was being at tacked by governments that spent and borrowed too much Onl by trying to deal with the disease of debt can I ever hope lo do something for the man sitting in my office He doesn t want a cheque Queens Park Report New rent control act expected in near future NoelDuignanN HaltonMPP Back in February I talked about the release of the Consulta Paper on Rent Control Op by the Ministry of Housing Some 20 of these papers were distributed The Ministry ed a summary of the paper which included a mail back portion for your comments on rent control options and these were sent to almost one million tenant households in Ontario Meetings were also held in communities across our province in order to invite tenants landlords and other interested citizens to help shape a new per manent system of rent control On May 14th Housing Minister Dave Cooke released a report outlining results of this public consultation process which generated a great deal of public involvement The questionnaire on the summary yielded responses while the process itself prompted 500 written submis Summaries of the results are available by calling toll free The Minister has been con sidenng your views and expects to introduce a new rent control act in the legislature this month Transportation Minister Ed Philip released the On Road Safety Annual Report last month It outlines a broad range of statistics about motor vehicle collisions and their causes in Ontario Surprisingly enough most cidents do not occur on dark and slick roads but on dry roads dur ing davlight hours The summer months of June July and August can be the most risky for motorists as almost one third of all fatal collisions occurred dur this time with per on Fndays and Satur days The Minister also announced the release of new edition of the Ontario Intercity Guide The guide outlines public transporta tion services including regularly scheduled air rail and bus ser vices for large and small com munities across Ontario It also gives carrier addresses and phone numbers with details on food facilities and transportation for the disabled The free pocket sized guide is distributed through various outlets including the tourist industry tourist tions municipalities and transportation earners It is also available at Tourism and tion Centres and major intercity transportation terminals or by writing to the Ministry of Transportation Map Office Wilson Avenue Downsview On M3MU8 And finally small companies in need of capital might want to con tact the Small Business Develop ment Corporations Program The mandate of SBDC is to stimulate private sector investment in small businesses and to en courage the development of new enterprises through the mat ching of investors with these companies SBDCs are set up solely to direct funds and pro vide managerial expertise to eligible small businesses in On More information about the program is available by tailing Save 50 Storewide during our NORTHOFTHEBORDER Short Seeve 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