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Davis is nowhere tobe found Home Newspaper of Halton Hills- Established 1846 A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Guelph Street Georgetown Ontario DAVID A BEATTIE Publisher and General Manager BRIAN Editor Phone 8772201 DAN TAYLOR Advertising Manager RrKlilrrrdumbrrOU Derek Nelson Page THE HERALD W I 1R89 Editorial New homes arent affordable Our provincial ministry of housing has deemed that a house in Halton Hills and Milton is af fordable Thats absurd New guidelines set down by the province set to go into effect in August 1991 mean that new development in most of Halton will have to contain at least 25 per cent af fordable housing at a cost of less than 118000 And Halton Hills Coun Rick is worried that such homes will be shacks That 148000 figure sounds more like a formula intended to keep the deed to a house in the hands of people in the up per middle income bracket only rather than make four walls and a roof available for ownership by the average family The province has based that 148000 figure on an average household salary of with a down payment of As Burlington Coun Pat McLaughlin pointed out whos got 35000 to put down on a house Probably the only peo ple who have got that kind of down payment are lottery winners and those who already own a house So how do young families break into the housing market Even if there are two income earners in a household there are likely to be the increased costs of day care which significantly eat into that extra income and lower the real spending power of the twoincome family The only reason the government is in the affordable housing market is because private enterprise isnt At least not to any significant amount While we do have a coop with affordable housing near- ing completion in Georgetown only about 20 units will be in the affordable range And even they are only for rent Governments attempted to allow developers to build on smaller lots in hopes of lowering the price of housing But one quick trip to a new subdivision on the 10th Line in not that far from the Halton Hills boundary shows now that policy is working Developers are building huge homes on tiny lots which require parking spaces on major through streets just to accommodate visitors on nearby culdesacs The government must either force the hand of developers on affordable housing or get into the market itself in a big way if the average Canadians dream of owning a home is to come true Under the new rules one quarter of new development in Halton with the exception of Burlington must go for less than a month Thats affordable housing Buyers dont get much of a house for Halton Chairman Peter says That may be true but many young families are willing to settle for a smaller home tightly packed into smaller subdivisions in order to build up some equity so that they can one day move into something bigger They may not be pretty to look at but they can be made eyecatching modest and liveable Its up to us to give them a chance not shut them out becausV their new houses wont be as big and beautiful as our old ones Mttffl ietist now The official unveiling here last week of the portrait of former premier BUI Davis brought a flood of memories to those of us who could recall the days of Ontarios Progressive Conser vative dynasty Some people were impressed by what they recalled somewerent For anyone who visits Queens Park the portrait hangs outside the cabinet offices on the second floor It is one of a long row com memorating former premiers Premier David Peterson did the honors joking with Davis about the trademarks that came to be associated with him from the references to hometown Bramp ton be made in his speeches to his belief the Toronto Argonauts were a football team One Globe and Mail reporter suggested that as the list of at tributes went on the distinctions between the two men began to blur a bit Like his predecessor Mr Peterson stands firmly in favor of the eternal verities of Ontario politics economic development and the provinces selfassigned role as the honest broker of Con federation he wrote Another Press Gallery col league commentator Eric Dowd took the approach that while a handsome portrait of Davis now hangs here there is little else left Since the Liberal takeover in 1985 almost all traces of Davis premier from have vanish ed like some temple overgrown by the jungle As far as it goes thats true The Davis name is not much in evidence the key Davislinked civil servants are gone some Davis policies such as buying Sun- cor have been repudiated But there is a Davis legacy and a massive one For good or bad he left his mark on Ontario Take education Davis became education minister in the 1960s when Ontario still had local school boards He first consolidated small boards In to township boards where some believe he should have halted the changes COUNTY BOARDS But he went on to county boards and whether the resulting organization is too big and cumber some is still argued about today Perhaps it depends on the specific board Davis was also instrumental in doing away with the old standard curriculum including departmen tal exams and replacing them with the then newfangled theories about credits about and about how self- esteem was more important than knowledge How well that worked we all know On the plus side however Davis also founded the community col lege system and expanded access to the universities to lowerincome youth through a combination of student loans and grants Or take transportation It was Davis who launched highly successful regular air ser vice throughout northern Ontario and who placed massive emphasis upon public transit- especially the GO trains and who put much money into it Conversely it was Davis who killed the Spadina Expressway and shortchanged Ontarios road building and repair program for more than a decade with the result communities like Toronto are grin ding a halt Then there is the PC party Some claim be brought it kicking and screaming into the late 20th century with his interventionist and socially progressive policies on everything from sub sidizing industry to expanding human rights legislation But others see a party left hor rendous in debt whose basic policies from opposition to full separate school funding to support of a market economy had been abandoned for shortterm political gain One could go on with a list of Davis changes that some saw as positive others as negative For example even today Davis- imposed regional government still haunts the Tories at election time No its clear Davis has left a ma jor imprint upon Ontario What is noticeable is how few basic Davis approaches have since been reversed by Peterson NEW AM TO Wit SOW AFRICAS WERE TOO BUSY CRIPPLING CANADAS Salary recommendations are offensive If I were in he betting business I would offer very high odds against the Mulroney government taking action to implement recom- recently made on the salaries of MPs Yes Its generally recognized that the government in these relatively early days of its second mandate is gungho to get all un popular legislation out of the way Then all things being equal there will be time to reclimb the popularity ladder before the next vote The proposed goods and services tax certainly qualifies as un popular and to many Canadians so did the freetrade agreement The cuts in VIA Rail service seem to be widely detested But therels a difference between being unpopular or even detested and being downright offensive And if some of the recommenda tions about MPs salaries are not downright offensive they would certainly be perceived that way by many Canadians What the Commission to Review Allowances of Members of Parlia ment concluded among other things was that salaries should be fully indexed to the consumer price index In the meantime MPs should get an immediate fourper cent pay hike The commission incidentally consisted of two former MPs Liberal Frances Fox and Tory Gerry St Germain And arter reading through their report one gets the impression that our poor MPs are rather badly off Not quite bag people but losing ground everyday Their annual Income which includes in taxfree expense allowances doesnt go very far these days FALLING BEHIND Before going any further it might be worth asking ourselves whether there has ever been a salaryreview commission that decided that its subjects were overpaid Ive looked everywhere without success But if you come across a copy save it because it could fetch a fortune at a Sotheby auction Anyway we dont have to worry about that now because this latest study certainly doesnt suggest our parliamentarians are overpaid Far from it The report concludes that the average backbencher could up to more if he or she were not in Parliament Wow that would be about And to think there are a couple of Tory MPs from Quebec who were actually unemployed before being elected If only knew what they were missing One senator mercifully not iden tified In the report figures he fcred a cumulative loss of over the past years because his salary was not fully in dexed where senators enjoy a decided advantage over the rest of us no I am not going to list all of them- is all the free they have to work on their cumulative loss statements w v