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Page 6 — Halton Hills This‘ Week, Saturday, July'to, 1993 HIS WEEK - Georgetown, Ont. L7G 4B1, and is printed in Oakville at Q.E. Web Printing. Halton Hills This time. Bias : = PUBLISHER: Ken Bellamy _ EDITOR: Colin Gibson ; PRODUCTION MANAGER: Kathleen Topolsek _ CIRCULATION MANAGER: Marie Shadbolt OFFICE MANAGER: Jean Shewell HALTON HILLS THIS WEEK IS INDEPENDENTLY OWNED & OPERATED. 873-2254 FAX:873-3918 The People's Corner P.O.W.E.R. should be disbanded The $2 million diet To the Editor: Two weeks ago, several Acton residents and two local newspaper editors published justifiable condemnations of some despicable actions by P.O.W.E.R. which could still cripple this community. Last week, the inevitable letters-in-rebuttal from vari- tations of fiction as facts, more sanctimonious attempts to “clarify” the cult’s motives and intentions - at best, it’s just more well-meaning but dangerously deluded flatu- lence; more likely, it’s inten- tional dishonesty. To paraphrase a famous maxim by an otherwise obscure Victorian philoso- Pher, John Acton: Power tends to P.O.W.E.R. is intellectually Taking us for a ride Must admit, our Prime Minister-designate Kim “Cover Girl” Campbell, really wowed them at the G-7 meetings in Japan. & According to reports, the Japanese couldn’t get enough of this blonde beauty from British Columbia. Just goes to show what happens when you live in an island domain and pig-out a bit too much on fish. Used-to-be-Great Britain is a prime example of this claustrophobic-cum-diet syndrome. One could also mention Canada’s own Newfoundland, but that would be a bit tacky. : Anyway, it seems the Japanese just couldn’t get enough of Kim the PMD. With reminiscent of the propagandized American World War II action movies - which inevitably starred John “Who never served” Wayne - the accredited yellow perils pelted the new PM of the PC’s with truly enlightened questions. They wanted to know things like how a woman was able to become the Canadian Prime Minister?; Why her two marriages failed and what she was hiding when she posed for that provocative ‘bare shoulders behind the judges robe’ pic. Kimbo was flabbergasted by the attention and rushed off to spear a fish to demonstrate both her angst at such ridiculous questions and the sum of her knowledge of Japanese culture. Yer unworthy scribe once again didn’t receive his invitation in time to join in this jaunt across the Pacific - it’s a long swim - but I could have answered the ques- tions put to Kim in sequence. To whit; 1) She isn’t. 2) She loves hockey and is going for a hat trick; and 3) Nothing. The G-7 meetings represent redundancy onified. Supposedly the richest industrialized nations (Canada?, United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, Italy and France), why are they going through the motions of pretending they will share some of their wealth to help poorer countries. They won’t, never have and never will. Closer to home, Kimmy has promised a leaner, meaner government - but in fact, has she done any- thing other than cause confusion? Steve Hindle, vice-president of the P: Institute of the Public Service, (which represents many public servants) has his doubts. “I’m not sure how long that’s going to take,” he said. “And whether this gov- ernment is going to be the-one that actually carries through with it.” “Confusion” was how Hindle described what Campbell's initial decree had created. Others in government service were more blunt in stating that all the Kim of the West had succeeded in doing was simply slowing down government work. Will we here in Halton Hills see any economic bene- fits from the new Tory federal regime in the near future? Not likely! Maybe Kim should have taken one of the useless helicopters she is ready to buy for Canada (at a collec- tive cost of roughly $550 million) over to the Japan- hosted G-7 meetings. . I mean, we all test-drive our motion machines don’t we? And if something went wrong, think of all the money we might have saved - in a number of ways. Colin Gibson [ er | corrupt. More people realize this each and every week. Consequently, P.O.W.E.R. is - in my estimation - become a net-negative in the fight to STOP THE DUMP. The current leadership is exhausting the considerable credibility it inherited from the founders on idiotic misad- ventures which - in reality - have absolutely no meaning- ful connection whatsoever to the R.S.I issue. the course of their stupid digressions, alienated such ‘a broad spectrum of the popula- tion that they have completely negated the organization’s Capacity to act as an effective conduit for community coop- eration. No longer part of the solu- tion, P.O.W.E.R. is now part of the problem because it con- tinues to vacuum up scarce resources which could other- wise be productively deployed to fight R.S.I. Instead of discussing who should get whom to write “unprompted” rebuttals to this letter, the cadre should dig deep and muster the decency to do the right thing: disband the organization. But not before turning its bank bal- ance over to the Town of Halton Hills, a publicly accountable body, to ensure that the funds will be focused on the fight for which they were solicited - to STOP THE DUMP Steve Dawkins Justice served To the Editor: My sense of justice has been satisfied with the recent conviction of Ms. Homulka. in St. Catharines, despite the grotesque hand ringing by the media and’some horror movie fans about the court’s publication ban. The much quoted “public right to know” does not exist, contrary to popular belief. Individual rights (such as that to a fair trial) must always take priority. over perceived public rights. I believe that the handling of this trial by the court was a major blow to Paul Teale’s defense strategy. They had obviously hoped for a media feeding frenzy, making it harder, if not impossible, to Properly try him on the charges he faces. ~ The horrible circumstances of the two murders have been exploited by the media ad nauseum, and another blow- by-blow description would have only appealed to our less civilized instincts of morbid fascination. Lothar Rabstein Belwood Halton region ‘By Patricia Hretchka Are politicians as stupid as they seem? They can’t be. They usually have a fine education and have Foften found € ‘ u cess in other lines of work, before they turn to government. What is it about being elected that dumbs them down? Perhaps it’s all those pergs. It must be hard to understand the average, poor-sod’s worry about. having enough to retire on, when an MP can look for- ward at an-early age to a ‘tich pension with cost of living adjustments includ- ed. Free trips, cheap meals and haircuts, free mailing, bowing and scraping from obsequious lobbyists and hangers on, all tend to insu- late elected officials from the traumas of every day life. S one time it was thought the taint of privi- lege was less in lower forms of government. The idea being that the closer the elected officials were to the people who elected them, the more down to earth and sensible they were. After all, an MP gets sent to Ottawa, an MPP or MLA goes to the provincial Capital. The mayor and councillors have to stay home. But lately, the most grassroots of all political bodies, the local school boards, have been taken over by folk with delusions of grandeur, The whole point of local school boards was to make the schools more account- able. Parents were sup- posed to volunteer some of their time to oversee the local schools: Now it is a Guest column handsomely over- for professional I would not be Hie bers of the scho boards their outrageous salaries if there was univer- Sal rapture over the product being graduated from our : schools. There is not. We are spending ever more money for ever less educat- ed children, This is lunacy. But of course, all politics is an adventure in lunacy. Just one small example. The Ontario cabinet tetreats to ponder the dire Straits that politicians have ANG appoi is even worse. Just lool the senate. : Anyon ‘But only body of the truly ignorant would even think of doing it, while the entire country is in the economic dol- drums and every branch of government is demanding more in taxes and provid- ing less in services. brought upon the financial ° Status of this province. - “Just once I would like a government to give up something for itself instead of just for the rest of us.” They, of course, retreat to a luxury resort. Why should we pay for them to be cos-~ seted and pampered while they discuss how to make every Ontarian share in the pain of belt tightening? Just ‘once I would like a govern- ment to give up something for itself instead of just for the rest of us. It is a sobering thought that we may get the politi- cians we deserve. Most Canadians would deny vehemently that they were ever évil enough to deserve Brian Mulroney. He didn’t vote himself into office. We did it. Same with Bob Rae. It’s not his fault he’s premier, it’s ours. It is not just the fact of being elected that causes brain cells to die. cloak of apathy and rise up and demand an end to this body that takes and takes and gives back so little in Teturn. But we do not. We barely bother to vote. If an honest man or woman appeared and told us what really would have to be done to reverse the downward spiral of our sputtering economy, not only would that - be elected, he would be lucky to escape alive from the wrath of the voters. We don’t want to hear that it is all our own fault. We want everything. We want to pay for nothing. We whine and carp and moan, but we don’t grasp the nettle and demand that our leaders be responsible. That great philosopher “Pogo” said it all: “We have seen the enemy and it’s us.” Patricia Hretchka is‘a free-lance writer living in Georgetown.