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6- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday November 3, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Guest Columnist NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production Metroland Media Group Ltd. includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Caledon Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection, East York Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Review, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review, Huronia Business Times, Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun, Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror, Milton Canadian Champion, Milton Shopping News, MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver is a division of Stephen Harper is playing games Bonnie Brown Oakville MP Prime Minister Stephen Harper and members of his government are now under investigation by the Elections Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner and the Ontario Provincial Police. Canadians deserve to know the outcome of the three investigations into the Harper government's (questionable) tactics, but needless to say, the Conservatives want an election in a hurry. They are engaging in unprecedented political gamesmanship to try to force one, against the wishes of the Canadian public. Mr. Harper's most recent ploy was to turn the regular annual fall fiscal update into a full-blown budget complete with an ill-advised GST cut that will do nothing to improve our productivity and competitiveness in the world economy and nothing to improve the fairness of our tax system. Rather, it will preclude the use of government revenue on all the investments in our future that Canadians want and need. Investments like infrastructure improvements, environmental protection, healthcare and a host of other important programs that reflect the desires of the Canadian public. Virtually all economists are united against a GST cut. Even Finance Minister Jim Flaherty once called cutting the GST a "relatively useless" measure because it only advances consumer spending "that would happen in any event.'" Mr. Flaherty said he was instead more interested in cutting personal income taxes because it provides a more "direct stimulus." (Jim Flaherty, The Niagara Falls Review, Dec. 7, 2001). Each one percentage point cut in the GST saves the average Canadian only about $13.60 per month, but leaves the federal government with nearly $6 billion less in annual revenue. What kind of environmental protection can you buy for $13.60 a month? Collectively, what could we do with that $6 billion each year? Not surprisingly, this mini-budget was timed to distract Canadians from the anniversary of the Conservative government's disastrous income trust tax. The Conservatives' broken promise on income trusts has directly resulted in a huge surge in takeover activity in the sector since they first announced a 31.5 per cent tax on the sector last fall. In total, there have been 32 successful income trust takeover bids since Oct. 31, 2006 and there are currently 10 more takeovers pending that will likely pass in the next couple months. Compare this to the previous year when there were 11 successful takeovers. As RBC pointed out on Oct. 19, 2007: "There are 215 trusts remaining and 39 months until 2011." Note that 2011 is the year the trust tax will begin. Flaherty's response to the huge surge in takeovers is that it isn't his fault. "This is not something that has to do with a particular tax policy," April 2, 2007. He is wrong, this activity is almost entirely driven by a singular tax policy. In early 2007, Liberal Members of Parliament pointed out that dozens of the wounded income trusts were bought up by private equity players and pension plans which will pay very little if any tax revenue to the government of Canada. The Finance Minister said the Liberals were fear mongering. Since the announcement last year, 14 income trusts have been acquired by private equity companies that can leverage their debt to pay no significant taxes for years to come. This is real tax leakage unlike the government's unproven claims that income trusts cause tax leakage. IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newmarket/Aurora Era-Banner, Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune, Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thornhill/Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirror, Stouffville/Uxbridge Tribune, Forever Young, City of York Guardian Bonnie Brown RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION See Trust page 7 Celebrating the last birthday before the teen terror years I magine, empathetic readers, a man of my advanced years crammed in a car for a prolonged period of time with a gaggle of giggly girls, all hopped up on sugar, excitement and expectations for what lies ahead: specifically, a few games of glow-in-the-dark bowling followed by a pizza party and sleepover at our home in celebration of our daughter's 12th birthday. Alas, the road to the bowling alley is long and winding, and the drive is taking forever, and with each passing minute the noise levels in the car are rising as the girls get more and more hyper, and I become more and more claustrophobic. I'd jump out of the Jeep and abandon them at the roadside, but in all honestly, the amateur sociologist in me is having too much fun listening in on their conversation. They talk about classmates. They talk about boys. They tell really bad jokes. They talk about their families. They tell more really bad jokes. And as they talk, as I try to keep up with the conversation, it becomes hopelessly clear to me that what the girls are saying to each other is, to my old ears, hopelessly unclear. I don't know if it's the way they speak (100 km an hour), or the lingo or secret code they employ. Regardless, it makes me think of Dr. Deborah Cameron. In case you're not in the know, Dr. Cameron is an Oxford University philologist, who recently wrote a tome debunking the popular notion that "men and women are genetically unsuited to communicating successfully with each other," a theory that had been advanced in the Dr. John Gray bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Dr. Andy Juniper Cameron contends the whole Venus and Mars thing is a stack of myths. Among the notions she says are myths: that women talk more than men (Cameron says studies are divided on this, with some concluding that men actually gab more than women); that men and women communicate differently (Cameron says linguistic studies have concluded that men and women share a 99.75 per cent overlap in the way they communicate, the only small differences being that women smile more and spell butter, er, better); and, finally, that men interrupt conversations more than women (actually, Dr. Cameron says, females interrupt just as much). Well, I can say with certainty that on the last point, Dr. Cameron is bang on. As we trek to and from the bowling alley, as the party continues at our house over the next 12 hours, I marvel at how much these girls interrupt each other: no sentence is left uninterrupted. As for Dr. Cameron's other contentions, I'm just not so sure. These girls sure talk more than any boys I've ever met. And if these females don't communicate differently from me, then why am I at a loss to understand them half the time? It's only after the party, after conferring with my wife, that I discover that she was experiencing similar difficulties. Thus, we determine, the communication gap is not a gender thing at all, so much as it's an age thing: we can't comprehend what the girls were saying because we're too freakin' old! But even fossils like us manage to appreciate kids like this. Full of curiosity. Polite. Full of wonder. Determined to have fun. And not yet jaded and full of attitude. That nonsense, the experts say, comes early on in the teen years. Ah, something to look forward to! Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajuniper@strangledeggs.com.