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Page6 THE HERALD Wednesday Septembers 190Q the HERALD Home Newspaper of Hills Established 1 866 A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Guelph Street Georgetown Ontario L7G 3Z6 877 2201 K ROBERT MALCOLMSON Publisher and General Manager CLASSIFIED Joan Mannalt CIRCULATION Marl ShaOboll ACCOUNTING JenniHiplthuk Accountant SUBSCRIPTION RATES ill aamonlha Canada soot SO Of Tha Harald copyright on all original nana ana malarial by and In this National Advartlilng Quaart W Toronto Ontario MSH 1MB Montreal Quabac Tha grt that lull I labia tor out of error In adiarttaa- amount paid lor actually occupied by that portion tha advarlliomanl In which arror arior la dua lo Ita or- and I hall no lor In tart Ion any bayond I ha amount paid tor auch Get out and vote The rhetoric for the most part is over To coin a well worn cliche the die is cast and now the people must decide Tomorrow Thursday is provincial election day in On tano with approximately six million Ontanans eligible to cast ballots The much maligned Sept call to the provincial polls started out not so much with a bang as with an extended whimper that could be heard throughout the province as the majority of Ontario residents asked Why an election call The race for political offices in the province has heated up considerably over the past few weeks helped in no small part by the fact that the voting public became much more involved in the campaign and confronted the various would be politicians with issues which people considered affected everyday life and which people demanded must be addressed A highlight of the 1990 provincial election campaign and it was a phenomenon that occurred time and again throughout the province was the heated give and takes which erupted between the public and the political can dictates at countless allcandidates meetings Not content to be spoon fed unpalatable boring political party borsch those who attended allcandidates debates were demanding Wheres the beef and were more than willing to wait until the cows came home for satisfactory answers Concerned Ontanans became involved in this provincial election campaign and turned what had been expected to be a Cakewalk for Ontario Premier David Peterson and his ruling Liberal party into a veritable dash over hot coals and there is no doubt Mr Peterson and his cohorts got their feet singed All that remains now is voting day and the caring On tano population must take the final step into the polling booth and cast their ballots Postelection grumblings about politics and politicians by those who dont vote should be discarded like yester days garbage The blame for what could have been might have been perhaps should have been will rest solely on the shoulders of those people who were eligible to vote but for whatever reason chose not to exercise that right Its your province have a say its future and get out and vote South Africa to remain in turmoil TORONTO Why is the African National Congress s Nelson Mandela fiddling at a conference in Norway while the black townships of South Africa burn Why does he have this Nerolike attitude to a society accelerating toward chaos on an almost daily basis Is it perhaps that a few thou sand deaths of ordinary people are irrelevent to the grand scheme of things now unfolding South African Andrew Kenny supplies a shrewd guess or two in a recent issue of the British newsmagazine The Spectator In an extremely pessimistic vi of the future Kenny argued that the outlines of a threeparty deal already exist between the nil ing Afrikaner based National Par ty of President Klerk Mandela and big Politicians drinking at public trough Tuesday past was just like any other day for most Canadians Wake up put out the wife make breakfast for the dog and take the goldfish for a walk in the shower Nothing special Aha but not so for federal members of parliament elected in who rhapsodized to the tune of I got the money as they joined an exclusive club that continues to wallow and drink at the public trough For those MPs elected in Sept marked their sixth in office and therefore made them eligible for a lifetime pension that could cost taxpayer- anywhere from to more than million dollars depending on the Member of Parliament s age years of service and parhamentary responsibilities It is to weep tears of angst at these politicians who are constant imploring and in turn berating the Canadian public about the sad state of our country s finances and asking that we make sacrifices and accept hardships for the good of the country If I was travelling by air at this moment I would ask for a ha bag Federal MPs pensions differ from the ordinary pen sions in a number of ways The pensions are fully indexed to Colin Gibson the cost of living and when the MP turns the value of the pension is adjusted on the accumulated im pact of inflation from the time the member leaves parliament The MP s pension starts im mediately regardless of his or her age upon retirement from parha ment and is payable regardless of the type of job or other honorariums the former MP cepts The MP s pension only stops if he or she is appointed to the Senate With senior citizens struggling simply to survive on their meagre pensions and the constant inflation spiral cutting deep gouges in the value of the ordinary working man pension how can federally elected politicians be so callous Carol Goar National Affairs writer with the Toronto Star used the example of Conservative backbencher Jean age in pointing out the me of the system reached six years of elected office Tuesday Had he retired immediately he would be eligible to begin receiving a government pension of 390 a year Goar pointed out that if Charest reached the age of 75 he would col lect in pension money Charest a lawyer would similarly not see his pension affected by whatever money he made from his law practice We all hear about political patronage positions and should a retired or defeated politician receive a government job or be ap pointed to a federal board or cy according to Goar that pohti could receive both a govern ment salary and a parliamentary pension It is estimated that last year tax payers paid out million to 315 former MP s in pension money Something smells here and it is the stench of on the part of politicians who would deny senior citizens the right to live out their lives in relative comfort while laughing all the way to the bank themselves at the taxpayers ex pense All three despite their different origins are now collectivist and authoritarian he wrote Each wants a South Africa in which it can have power privilege and security The NP wrote Kenny can provide physical security through the white security forces and ad control through the bureaucracy of the state big business can provide financial and industrial expertise and capital the ANC can provide a path to in ternational legitimacy and the means of controlling black labor This new South Africa will have Mandela as head of state and the ANC as the principal party of government since this is what the world wants and if necessary any elections will be fixed to en sure such a result VEHICLE FOR POWER Kenny doesn t have any time for the mindless western adulation of the as a force for democracy and justice He accepts that it is simply a vehicle for power whose leaders share attitudes along the lines of a traditional African tolerance of dissent and variety Nor does he think much of the onceproud NP the means the Afrikaners have used to rule South Africa since 1948 It now consists of obedient party hacks and servile state functionaries wrote Kenny As for the grey faced organization men who operate big business who love agreements and cartels and hate argument and competition in short they long ago ceased to be capitalists they want stability above all else An ANC monopoly on black labor is as welcome to them as the Labor Government closed shop legislation was in England Kenny sees two obstacles to this deal One is black nationalism or black racism as exemplified by the slogan one settler one bullet that is the main political platform of the ANC long time rival the Pan African Congress or The PAC is strong among the nominal youth currently rampaging through the townships The second is white nationalism or white racism which essentially amounts to some version of the old apartheid scheme without the fig leaf of white democracy and black self rule in homelands It would be a pure and simple tyranny THIRD FORCES Kenny discounts third forces such as Chief Mangosutha s Zulu based Inkatha organization The current war in the townships of between and Inkatha forces the ANC claiming a monopoly on representing blacks while Inkatha insists on a seat at the negotiating table Kenny thinks in the end the tnumverate will cut a deal with Nor does Kenny take seriously the s current Marxist economic policies considering them simply political rhetoric They will be disgarded once power is in hand The resulting South Africa he says will not be free but cor and authoritarian which for me would be sheer purgatory But purgatory he adds beats hell the likely result of either a black or white racist state Write us a letter The Herald wants to hear from you If you have an opinion you want to express or a comment to make send us a letter or drop by the office Our address is Guelph St Georgetown Ont AH letters must be signed Please include your address and telephone number for verification The Herald reserves the right to edit letters due to space limitations or libel