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1 THE HERALD OUIUWK 1VUM Outlook OUTLOOK is published each Saturday by the HALTON HILLS HERALD Home Newspaper of Halton Hills A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited at Street Georgetown Ontario 8778822 TORONTO Suppose the Americans dont bring Iraqs Sad dam Hussein to his knees quickly What then Given the dizzying dose of bad news weve had lately it is hard to be hopeful about the months to come Yet one small blessig could emerge from the economic anguish Finance Minister Michael Wilson may have to postpone the GST If the current Middle East strife is prolonged we will pay substan tially more for gasoline and heating oil This will act like a tax eating up money we would have spent elsewhere When January rolls around Mr Wilson will endeavor to wring another seven per cent from us for services not taxed now Chances are we will already be wrung dry If oil prices hover close to US a barrel for some time Mr Wilson will have to postpone the goods and services tax Otherwise the Canadian economy will go into a contraction from which it could take years to recover As for Mr Wilsons allusion to a possible income tax increase this fall if the situation warrants it the situation clearly does not Indeed economists who had been calling for the recession to be mild are not so certain DISCOURAGING NEWS How many bullets can we dodge before getting gunned down in the streets asks economist George of DRI Canada Inc Doug Peters of the Toronto- Dominion Bank also is having se cond thoughts If we are already in a mild recession and I have been predic ting one I am not so sure about my forecasts now Mr Peters said What I am not so sure about is the word mild No use in lamenting Mr Hus sein caught the West sleeping with his invasion of Kuwait If the tur moil of the past week continues it is because the West has not resolv ed its oil problem Until now the world was awash with the stuff The eagerness of some countries to keep pumping it depressed prices and angered the Iraqis As armies mass on Kuwaits Marine Maley border with Saudi Arabia Iraqs next target one cannot help but ask how much a barrel of oil worth Mr Hussein hat more in mind than pushing up the price of oil By seizing Kuwait he wipes out the billion US or so Iraq owes its small neighbor As William Safire of the New York Times so aptly put it what a refreshingly simple motive for aggression This is a Mr Safire writes Broke from his last war with a millionman army to pay Saddam grabbed the gold and oil wiping out much of his debt by wip ing out his creditor NOT FOR US The Iraqi way of handling its budget deficit will not work for Mr Wilson That is he will be reluctant to defer the GST But if things get as bad as some people predict the finance minister will have to give up hope of containing the deficit any time soon For now it is too soon to say what will happen Bond markets reacted on Tuesday by pushing up longterm interest rates Central bankers tried to counter the black mood by easing shortterm rates Behind the bravado the real estate and housing industries are wor ried Stock markets do not seem to know whether to soar or dip so they are doing both Meanwhile forecasters say Germany and Japan will raise their interest rates to combat inflation This will limit North American central bankers room to move It is tempting to say All this because we did not leam from the last oil crisis Poets Corner TROUBLEMAKER In the early spring I love to dress In green I adore this colour so Ive stood here for many and many a year And watched myself grow and grow I have arms and legs my fingers stretch on high Every day since I was born 1 gaze at yonder sky I marvel at whats around me the grass the birds and bees But In the winter months Oh Boy I nearly freeze Yes I am tough my shoulders get covered In the snow I want tor mighty sunshine to see this blanket go I am so soft hearted I look after the birds at night I believe this Is what Im sup I hope Im doing it right And when it rains with thunder and lightening And at timet the sky tarns led tike these I tartly wish Tray head I loved to doze on those warm spring days My arms wave to and fro Until Im rudely awakened by BAs tractor Running down below Many people scream at me They say that Ill surely have to So Youre littering up our land Oh so far below I make a Hell of a lot of work for Poppa As plain as you and I can see Oh Yes you want to know my name Why its your backyard Willow Tree A thought from Tree to Thee I know youre mad as Hell at me Youd just love to cut me down Bnt listen onto me Old Pal of Mine Where the Hell are yon going to hook nntty HA HA HA By Poppa Gesrgetawa PUBLISHER K Robert Malcolmson MANAGING EDITOR Colin Gibson AD MANAGER Dan Taylor Second Class Mall Registered Number STAFF WRITERS Ben Dummett Lisa Rutledge SPORTS EDITOR Rob Risk ACCOUNTING Jennie Haplchuk Inga Shier CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING Joan ADVERTISING SALES Jeannine Valois Craig Teeter Stacie Roberts Kim Haryott PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT Dave Hastings Gilson Stu Robertson Susanne Wilson CIRCULATION DEPT Marie GST may be postponed Post Meech practical solutions needed of the great dif ficulties in trying to figure out where Canada goes from here is the fact that were hearing only one voiceQuebec s The silence in the rest of the country particularly from those in places of power is stunning And probably with good reason too Its unlikely that anyone really knows what may happen as a result of the demise of the Meech Lake accord In fact its not clear what would happen had the accord gone on to live happily ever after There are many who feel that despite all the rhetoric from supporters the ac cord would not have brought the country longterm constitutional peace Well never know the answer But we will come to know what happens to Canada without although perhaps not for a few years While we can predict with some confidence that the country will never be quite the same again thats about as far as anyone can go- And until there is some input from other parts of the country- including going to have a distorted picture So far the discussion has been confined to Quebecs future not Canadas We dont even know how Prime Minister Brian intends to launch his big national debate or what form it will take We cer tainty dont know whether any new ideas will emerge ONE VIEW About all thats known is that the Quebec government is establishing a very large commission make recommendations on the pro vinces constitutional future And given the current mood the pro vince we can guess that the com mission will suggest a loosening of lies with the rest of Canada Opinion polls suggest a clear ma jority of Quebecers favor some form of sovereignty but with home economic ties to the rest of Canada This is what Rene que triedunsuccessfullyto sell to with his referen dum on sovereigntyassociation There is no doubt it has a far wider appeal years later at least in principle Trouble is very few people have tried to define it the one exception being Parti Leader Jacques What he envisages in essence is an independent Quebec sharing a common currency and Stewart MacLeod central banking with the remains But even his proposals are large ly hypothetical until we know how the rest of the country will react Sharing anything including cur rency requires cooperation So far there is little indication of how other provinces might respond to a more independent Quebec There might well be a strong reluctance to cooperate par ticularly if the loosening of con stitutional bonds is not carried out in an amiable way NOT EASY And its not easy to imagine much backslapping amiability should Quebec decide to become a full partner of Canada rather than a part of it There would be a lot of messy little details to work out such as the of the debt the dividing of assets the location of boundaries And we havent even begun thinking of the portrait on the com mon currency One hopes it will never come to this that the nationalist emotions stirred up in Quebec by the failure of Meech will soon begin to ebb But few predict they will disap pear Changes seem inevitable However until we hear some practical propositions andmore to the pointthe responses to them theres little point in gazing at a crystal ball The one significant thing is that so far you dont hear much talk in Quebec about total independence that is severing all links with the rest of Canada It will certainly be interesting to see what that Quebec commission comes up with by next spring And it will be even more interesting to see how the rest of the country reacts Until then we remain frustrated spectators Pity Mike Harris By PAULINE JOHNSON Queens Park Bureau Thomson News Service TORONTO Its hard not to feel some sympathy for Ontario Pro gressive Conservative Leader Mike Harris He got himself elected party leader just weeks before the election was colled And in those preelection weeks six of his 17 retired Unless he can boost his partys sagging popularity enough to win 12 seats in the legislature its harder for a party to win a riding without an incumbent seeking re election he will not have an of ficially recognized opposition par ty to lead Then theres the Conservative party itself Though it had the same hints as everyone else since last November that an election was coming it was caught napping Party insiders like to excuse this saying they were getting ready for the Hay leadership vote But its a poor excuse While they were signing up party members what was to stop riding association presidents from con ducting candidate searches and setting up candidate nomination meetings WAY BEHIND As it was when Premier David Peterson dropped the writ on July only Conservative can didates had been nominated com pared to the Liberals 100 and the in the 130 ridings As to the Harris election tour itself as one nonmedia wag associated with it said- Com pared to this Dieppe was a smashing success Reporters on the Harris cam paign bus have dubbed it the Bus From Hell According to them no riding and few candidate profiles are available and only two press releases were issued in the first When they bristled at being of fered a steady diet of hamburgers pop and doughnuts with which to fuel their 12hour working days an Page