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THE HERALD Wednesday October to Page Clowns in Ottawa are bothering Turner What are those clowns in Ottawa up to That the big question after watching the news and reading the papers Senators ringing bells thumping desks screaming at each other standing on tables and bringing TV crews on the floor of Parliament The issues that dominate the headlines don t exactly please the average guy Patronage taxes and attempts to thwart democracy But there s more to Ottawa than that Contrary to popular belief the government is still governing The sun over the Canal in the morning and when it sets in the evening some construc tive things have actually happen ed I can tell you it s frustrating when all the media guys want to cover is the circus in the Senate About all that good this is now everyone knows what a joke the place is and the pressure to reform It will build Meanwhile over in the other end of the Parliament building the House of Commons motors on Let me report on a few events that have hardly made the news One is a reform of banks and trust companies and insurers which is long overdue Before I was an evil politician I used to be a holy journalist and often wrote about how consumers could use a lot more competition among institutions The rules cover these were old and tired The industry itself had been waiting a long time for change Well last week it came The barriers between banks trust and insurance companies will be coming down The feds are backing off allowing the institu tions to offer a wider range of pro ducts and services and also letting these three sectors of the banking industry compete with each other Now this may not be as sexy as a steamy senator jumping on his chair but it means an awful of a lot more to our everyday lives Your insurance company will be able to loan you money competing with the bank maybe with lower rates Ditto for trust and loan companies who will have the same power as banks At the same time banks will be able to sell insurance to credit card holders maybe fore ing those costs to also drop And the changes will have some safeguards included chief among them in my view is the require ment that banks and trusts tell Ot tawa how they re doing financial ly That will save us from the pain Americans have gone through when the savings and loan industry collapsed from the weight of band real estate loans And there s more on the federal plate you haven t heard enough about Like selling Canada This is something else which I have long wanted to see I could never understand why the federal government would spend billions of dollars buying a string of service stations What possible public pur pose is by having crown corporation out there pumping Can Ins given us nothing extra in terms of netting public it it is done is ruse the price of gas net in charge was put in place to help the enormous costs of the the first putt Does vour lool in tun service you it lower Is there some kind of dividend that i jet for t ip owned I company Or it Mine we put it in Newcomers meeting Anyone who wishes to join I he of tl r s dub is Oct will lx I eld it St drew Hill il IT iinvuw it spe rs Block I irei Is roup will the mix hug Ncweomt r lub iih rs members in inviled Hit meeting more inform ilion if ml Bonnie it hands and used the money receiv ed to help pay down the debt The answers to questions like that are easy for me to answer We don t need to own a multi bill iondollar oil company in order to regulate the industry The feds can do that anyway We already have laws saying of frontier oil development has to be Canadianowned You can t even get a license to produce oil or gas in this country without at least half Canadian ownership And after petroCan is sold 75 of the shares have to be owned by Cana dians I thought Ottawa was plain wrong to spend all that money assembling a state oil company Americans have certainly found no need to do that and they don t ex suffer in terms of higher gas prices Selling the joint to individual Canadians is a common sense move In fact I think Ottawa should go- farther Lets sell billion worth of federal airports How about the Mint or the Seaway or the Federal Business Development Bank If the options to getting our house in order are cutting programs raising taxes or selling things the feds own why not put even more emphasis on privatization Ottawa is right to get out of the oil business The government should get out of some other businesses too Last week was a good start There is life after the Senate after ail Help Spread The Word LITERACY Losing lbs with NutriSystem improved my looks And my health When I was heavy it took all my energy just to walk to the mailbox Then I went to NutriSystem They were really concerned about my well being The counselors taught me good eating habits and took really good care of me Now thai I busy do aerobics playing softbalt and swimming I feel like a new person A healthy Our Comprehensive Weight Loss Program Will Help Over ONE 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