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

Page 4 — Halton Hills This Week, Wednesday; July'14, ‘1993 HIS WEEK ‘Georgetown, Ont. L7G 481, and is printed in Opinion 2 PRODUCTION MANAGER: Kathleen Topolsek ISHER: Ken Bellamy OFFICE MANAGER: Jean Shew . EDITOR: Colin Gibson <GRCULRTION MANAGER: Marie Shadbolt Seage HILLS THIS WEEK IS INDEPENDENTLY OWNED & OPERATED. Editorial We’re not helping things That all of us in Halton Hills are suffering one sort of economic hardship or another in this particular blip of historic time is a given. One can blame the feds and be partially right. In fact, a university study showed that the recession in Canada began a full year in advance of the world economic downturn; hustled along mes the Mulroney economic geniuses. One can blame the provos for tripping the light fantastic with Ontario’s budget during the consum- mation of their wedding to provincial power - which eventually turned into a pratfall only Wayne and Schuster in one of their more imaginative skits could have envisioned. One can blame regional and municipal govern- ments for attempting to horde the paltry pile of coin of the realm left in their cob-webbed cupboards, for cutting back on services deemed so necessary by our mostly very much washed hordes. But where does that leave us? And how much are the people in Halton Hills really doing to ease the economic strain in their own. community. Not too damn much, this writer suggests. I spent some time last week informally canvassing acquaintances, strangers, business people and others | in both Georgetown and Acton about our local eco- | nomic situation and to be blunt, I wasn’t very impressed. People still want to cut away south of the border down Buffalo way looking for bargains. If they can’t make it to Buffalo, they head to Bramalea or Brampton or even Toronto to buy things. All the while bitching about how tough things are in Halton Hills. Money must circulate im small to medium sized communities for them to survive. Local jobs - or local residence - should mean money spent locally, leading to the surviving of small industries and busi- nesses, which in turn, through their tax load, ease the tax burden on the individual rate payers. Buying locally also.creates jobs and the incentive for small industry and businesses to locate in that particular area. This allows those people - not in a derogatory sense - who might not happen to have the aptitude for skilled jobs to remain in the commu- nity they call home. ~Bitching and complaining normally doesn’t cost anything. We all do it, it’s one of the cheapest forms of entertainment extant. But when it’s done while packing the car with the family for an out-of-town shopping foray, that’s a different story. Our local merchants and business people are also partially to blame for our particular problem; one I’ll discuss in our Saturday edition. Colin Gibson. Rae a partisan politician To the Editor: Yet once again Premier Bob Rae demonstrates that he is purely a partisan politician who is apparently incapable of representing the interests of Ontario and her citizens in the manner of a true statesman. As the only premier not participating in the federal- provincial meeting i Vancouver, he has isolated himself and demonstrated a mee: in helping to man- age either global or national economic problems. Socialism does not work and our current provincial govern- ment demonstrates this on a daily basis much more clearly than any capitalist possibly could! Glen Duff Rockwood HONE: 8; FAX:873-3918 The People's Corner Incineration will solve garbage problem To the Editor: I enclose a copy of a let- ter sent to the general man- ager of the Interim waste Authority. I have not Justice To the Editor: Many words have been written about the Karla Homolka case and doubt- less many more will follow. Whilst the strictest letter of the law as it is written is of prime importance, I feel that the people’s perception of the law is equally impor- tan ‘ This seems to be the point that has been missed by the presiding judge in this issue. He apparently made the observation that Canadians as a whole do understand the law, and n this view he may be ate However, this, I feel, is the crux of the issue. If in fact we do not understand the law, then the interpreta- tion, of the perception of the law, becomes even more important. The very fact that a crime of this magnitude, a crime so heinous, so despicable, can be bargained with for the sake of information is life of Kristin and the last moments in the life of Leslie could have been like. There could have been no bargaining here. What ter- ror they must have felt. But now the fact that Karla, received a reply: I didn’t think they would want to argue with someone who knows something about the subject. denied who stands accused at the very least as an accomplice, has the opportunity to bar- gain for her rights, is beyond the understanding of most of us. We need to know that justice has been done, but in making this ruling we feel the judge has denied us that right and taken from us the ability to form our own opinions. It is my own humble opinion that when someone commits a crime of this magnitude, they must relin- quish their rights, as indeed they robbed the victim of his or her rights, and must suffer the consequences of their actions without the benefit of any bargaining tools or other devices to lessen the impact. ou their deeply the agony and pain that went with this case. Our reasons are not maudlin or mere. fascina- tion, but rather the shared feelings of parents, brothers or friends and the need to protect our children from this most vile of occur- rences, the culmination of our very worst fears, and for this reason we need to know the facts. John Tatham Georgetown Reducing garbage a priority To the Editor: In response to an article by Dianne Van De Valk, direc- ~ tor L.C. os eas Counterac the Pavirciee) published in the Halton Hills Weekend, dated June 27. I think everyone agrees (including Mr. MacDuffee) that reducing the amount of garbage is a number one pri- ority, but the fact remains that in today’s society there is still an awful lot of garbage to be disposed of. How does Ms. Dianne Van De Valk propose to dispose of this? Eat it! M Hills This Week wel- sear Teer. Letters must be signed and include your full name ag es Names will be wi ‘on req Halton Hills This Week Letters Welcomed Send your letter to: The Editor — — Halton Hills This. Week 232 Guelph St., Unit 9 Georgetown, ON L7G 4B1 Or fax to: 416-873-3918 y, ash when properly handled is that it is not a very toxic sub- stance; it can be used in mak- ing concrete, thus reducing the amount of other agere- gates required. I suggest that people who are just against something serve no useful purpose in a community; it is the people who come up with a practi- cal, economic better way to solve problems that are an asset to Our country and we all would welcome those types of suggestions. The new federal cabinet has now been formed, with Gilles Loiselle in charge of finance, Jean Charest as deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Industry con- glomerate from Quebec and Bernard Valcourt in charge of the resources department which handles worker retraining and has the largest budget of any government agency; just watch the pork barrel roll in Quebec. Nothing has changed but the names of the players. The Liberals and Conservatives will go across the country before the election, telling people what they think the people want to hear, but you can be sure the Quebec ship- yard workers (and other sim- ilar situations) will be well looked aft Rod Pinkney Georgetown My thesis is that properly engineered incineration equipment is operating suc- cessfully elsewhere, with the minimum adverse effect the surroundings. “Concerned citizens groups” who oppose it at every twist and turn with junk science should be ignored and the job given to engineers. By cynically turning the discussion into WHERE the DUMP should be, the iticians have diverted attention from the consider- ation of the correct way of doing things, and have suc- ceeded in polarizing whole sections of the community against each other. Nobody is coming out of this smelling of roses, and I shudder to think what our descendants will say, as they try to grow crops on Macyntyre, General Manager Interim Waste Authority l am a professional engi- neer, and am writing because I am not satisfied that certain aspects of your waste management policy have received proper engi- neering consideration. Will you please respond to each of my numbered points: 1,) There seems to be a widespread belief that, once buried, garbage will decom- pose and be re-absorbed into the’ earth’s crust after sufficient time has elapsed. This is not the case. Test excavations done in the U.S. on landfill sites 50 years old reveal that no change has taken place. The newspapers could still be read, and the hot dogs, teaks, etc. were unchanged (although I would not like to eat them). The reason is that no oxygen can get to the garbage, therefore there is no oxidation and conse- quently, no decomposition. In other words, the stuff is there FOREVER! What a legacy to leave our descen- dants, Anyone not fright- ened by this thought must be totally stupid. 2.) Ihave spoken to farm- ers who have lived in this area for generations, long before garbage collections was invented, and they never had any problems. Anything they did not eat or use On the farm was burned. I can remember my childhood, when milk was brought round by the milk- man and poured from a large churn into our jug. Mother had her own shop- ping basket, and any left- overs were burned. Nowadays, people generate mountains of garbage as if there were no tomorrow, and then moan to the gov- ernment to do something about it. The only ee solution is to stop ing such huge anoint ne oF garbage in the first-place, and then the irreducible minimum should be incin- ited. 3.) When I speak of incineration, Iam speaking of up-to-date co-generation plants using garbage as fuel, and generating power and useful heat. At least 300 such plants are in oper- ation at present. Any ratio- nal discussion along these lines has been blocked by closed-minded government on icials under the influence oor advice and so- eee “concemed citizen’s groups” led by ignorant lawyers purveying what has been termed eh science in the courtroot The main objection appears to be the fear that deadly chemicals will be released into atmospheré by such plants. This is not so, when designed equipment is used. The facts are as fol- lows: The earth’s atmosphere contains traces of almost all the chemicals known to man. If anyone want to say “there is so-and-so in the atmosphere we are testing,” no competent engineer with experience in this area would are to contradict because he knows that if you spend enough money, you can find anything in the. earth’s atmosphere. The bila questions, of ps e “how much?” and “ this bad?” The tangy of incineration is well known. Equipment is avail- able. It is not necessary to send a deputation of our leaders on a tax payer-sub- sidized jaunt” to see how they do it in Denmark” (which happens to be one of the leaders in this field). 4.) | understand that the province of Ontario has a unique opportunity for an interim solution while such co-generation equipment is being set up. I refer to the abandoned mine workings at Kirkland Lake. The facts seem to be that the resi- dents have no objections, and there is no technical reason why this interim solution could not be adopt- ed. If there is, I would like to be informed. If not, then I can only say that the gov- ernment’s refusal to consid- er the proposal is irrespon- sible. John C. Tysoe, P.Eng RR#1, Cheltenham