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the HERALD Home Newspaper of Halton Hills Established A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Guelph Street Georgetown 3Z6 Ontario K ROBERT Publisher and General Manager COLIN GIBSON Managing Editor Phone 877 2201 DAN TAYLOR Advertising Manager ROB RISK Sports Editor Colin Gibson I was on my way to Canada s wake last weekend the death ing been so ominously predicted by our steamed Prime Minister Brian just prior to the Meech Lake Accord being deepsixed when wonder of wonders I chanc upon the Canada Day Were these revelers not aware I pondered that our nation was no more according to the doom sayers and nearly apoplectic pro phets I checked to make sure the sky t fallen before getting out of my car to join in the festivities celebrating Canada s birthday and lo and behold our roof to the heavens was still in place Appropriately the clouds and the ram gave way to a lovely blue sky topped day and I hear shouts of Happy Birthday Canada being used as greetings when Maple Leaf flag waving friends chanced to meet I can honestly that Page THE HERALD Wednesday July We stand on guard for thee Our nation celebrated its birthday on Sunday its 123rd birthday to be exact The year 1990 also provides Canadians another historic anniversary to observe as our flag waved so patriotically at numerous Canada Day celebrations has been with us now 25 years Our Maple Leaf flag was adopted by the Commons on Dec 15 1964 by a vote of 163 78 and two months later it flew on Parliament Hill for the first time With so much to celebrate Canada s 123rd birthday par should have been a joyous affair Instead an interloper the form of the Lake Accord crashed the party and as is usually the case when an uninvited guest forces himself on partv goers the mood of revelry was altered to one of uncertainty The interloper had been prowling the outskirts of the Canadian encampment for roughly three years and although rumours abounded about his purported lm portance to the community as a whole his friends within the community chose not to have him formally introduced In fact the interloper should not bear the blame for spoiling the party Rather his friends who chose to leave him lurking in the shadows should accept responsibility for the fiasco Canada as a nation has survived internal turmoil and external threats Canada will continue to survive and yes even thrive But with party wreckers like those mentioned above we don t need enemies from without to threaten our existence itseems the threat is from within 0 Canada we stand on guard for thee The nation will save itself from the self serving fools who appear willing to sacrifice the country for personal glory Happy Birthday Canada The sky didnt fall throughout the splendid day never was heard a discouraging word on the fate of Canada Quite the opposite was rue Peo ple of all ages seemed to have found renewed belief in our try the most appropriate slap in the face that could have been delivered to the politicians who at tempted to bring Canada to its knees with scare tactics A curse on their respective houses The Lake Accord fiasco brought out the political hounds baying hysterically and smelling blood ready to move in for the kill over the country prone body as soon as the backroom masters of the hunt gave the word What a farce What a total denigration of the Canadian political system that peeked ten out of the British womb way back 1867 The politicians underestimated the strength and will of the Cana people however but the wounds caused by the Lake blood letting will take time to heal These same politicians who threatened the stability of Canada with their hyperbole are now ask mg the people to remain calm and once again trust them as they at tempt to steer the ship of state It is to laugh at these hypocrites Hopefully the Canadian public will turn the scorning laughs into jeers the next time elections are WHICH ML TOSH CHMN nepaRiY crow Battle for second place looms when election called TORONTO The truly fascinating fight in the looming provincial election is to see whether the New Democratic Par or the Progressive Conser will finish second And whether two strong fourth parties the Family Coalition Par ty and the Confederation of Regions Party COR can concen trate enough votes to actually elect candidates Or at the very least whether they can influence who gets second place between the and PCs The is usually identified with anti abortion and COR with bihngualism but both parties have programs much broader than that The for example pur sues various profamily policies while COR has ideas to democratize the existing political system The started from nowhere in 1987 and took a surpris ingly high 000 votes for com the PCs and each won about 950 the I iberals I million while COR just recently acquired official party status in Ontario by putting on a petition Still there is little doubt who 11 actually win the election Only the margin of the I iberal victory re mains in doubt and that probably depends a lot more on local factors and the fourth part than anything else CENTRA FACTOR The 1987 provincial race was the David Peterson barbecue and babies tour with the premier being the central factor the Liberals had to sell He isn so popular this time running behind his party in the last couple of polls But the Liberals still corral about per cent of the vote which with the NDP and PCs splitting about 50 per cent and the minor parties taking the remaining five per cent means an easy walk for the Gnts unless something happens to skew then- campaign as occurred with Tory Frank Miller in the election Still assuming that hap pen the race will then come down to the opposition parties trying to capitalize on local concerns or general dislike of governing par ties in order to pick up a seat there and a seat here The Ontario Teachers has an interesting analysis of the current legislature with its Liberals NDP and PCs They found high risk Liberal seats which they defined as those where the plurality of the winning can was less than per cent or where a long time PC or NDP seat went down in the Peterson sweep or which is extremely volatile in general Because it is strictly statistical in origin it isn t a flawless analysis of course leaving out a Derek Nelson Queen Park Haunt Unit halfdozen Liberal seats in places like Windsor Toronto ant where the incumbents may be in more trouble than raw numbers indicate And a few op position seats without incumbents t quite solid either But as a rough gauge it is However the didn attempt to determine which op position party might benefit from Grit seats at risk THE FDGE A quick calculation shows that the PCs are the main tion in eight the NDP and two are wide open But all the other Liberal seats that could be threatened are probably partial to the NDP which would give it the Cornwall and Sudbury in par ticular will also see strong COR campaigns with totally unpredic table effects A broad belt of eastern Ontario communities and a number of Northern Ontario communities are deeply upset over the Liberal government s forced bihngualism policies This election will perhaps give us some measure of that hostility In any case barring something completely unexpected before voting day not all those seats will leave the Liberal column In addition elections invariably pro duce a surprise result here and tnere For political junkies it 11 be fun Editor note After a decade at Queen Park this is Derek Nelson final column on Ontario politics He succeeds the retired John Harbron at world affairs col for Thomson News Service Following a vacation he will begin his world affairs column in mid July Money draining out of Third World Vic Parsons Ottawa Bureau THttnien OTTAWA Heres a comforting image Devoted citizens of the rich industrial world bundling up piles of cash and generously shipping it off to the needy poor developing countries Warms the cockles of your heart right Unfortunately it s very misleading The sad fact is that since 1983 money has been draining out of Third World countries also known as the South in development parlance and into the wealthy North The 1980s say some in the poorer countries of Africa and Latin America were a lost decade The gap between rich and poor has widened In the early 80s billions of dollars flowed from the rich to the poor United Nations and World Bank figures show that from to 1982 about billion US drained from the South to the North It s estimated another billion went to the rich from the poor last year Moreover by 1988 interest payments for the Third World on its debt was three times the amount of aid it received from the North LEADERSHIP URGED These numbers are included in a recently released report by the Commons subcommittee on inter national debt a document that calls upon the Canadian govern ment to take on a leadership role in resolving what it sees as a crisis Canada should not be content to be a follower says the report unanimously backed by MPs from the three major political parties It time for the country to face facts and get serious about ing debts that poor nations are simply unable to pay it adds There an element of self interest in this according to Walter McLean the sub committee chairman and onetime Conservative cabinet minister It has been estimated that 50 Canadian jobs a year since 1982 have been lost because poor coun tries crushed by debts can buy our products