The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Wednesday October 1991 Opinion Page Dont be fooled by PC piginapoke proposals Oh say can you see where is Brian Mulroney Lost in the of what might have been could never have been and never will he will never admit to being less than perfect and weve all heard that same story time and time again during the Christmas season Mulroney suffers from the same contractive disease that seems to afflict all politicians Its called brain death Once youre grey cells begin to deteriorate and you forget why your constituents voted for you the first place So what do we do with Brian and his new proposals to save Canada Throw Brian and his proposals in the along with the rest of the fatcat bureaucrats and porkbarrelling syncophants who have wasted so much of Canadian taxpayers hard- earned money while going through the motions of a politically- motivated charade In his column this week Halton- Peel MP Garth Turner waxes eloquently about the new con stitutional proposals Mr Turner also announces in his column he will be holding Town Hall meetings in Georgetown and Bolton to discuss these proposals What a joke A proposal is merely a suggestion Garth The only answer you can give to a suggestion is that it will be discussed further and that is the same meandering maudlin muddling metaphor we have been hearing for years from your leader and your political others of the same ilk So what do the purported new proposals offer to patchup our pig in a poke The new constitutional proposals are a political document Bash Buffoon has come up with to take peoples minds off the sad state his party has dragged Canada nothing else We have all read about the proposals in the large southern On tario newspapers and heard about them through major radio and television outlets The reaction to them throughout Canada has been mediocre at best tepid at worst The biggest joke of all is that these proposals still must go through at least four months of parliamentary committee hearings before the final federal govern mental stance is revealed Even after thatlt will be Meech Lake revisited with a further cost to the Canadian taxpayerwith more meetings There is a solution to this made- bypoliticians Canadian crisis Quebec must call a referendum and decide to be a part of Canada or go it alone Once the results of this referen dum are in a federal election should be called to allow all Canadians a voice the future of their country As I see Developers fee viewed as wishful thinking Local councillors may believe their recent decision to phasein the new Town commercial and in dustrial development charge over a fiveyear period will attract in dustry to the area However the fac ts suggest it may be nothing more than wishful thinking Councils decision means in dustrial and commercial developers will be required pay the Town per square foot in year one to build in the area per square foot in year two per square foot in year three 1 per square foot in year four and per square foot in year five The development fee is meant to cover the cost of services such as roads that must accompany a new development Only when the fee is a 188 will the development charge be sufficient to cover the total cost of Townrelated services ac companying a new development Until this time the Town will be required to use taxpayers money to cover the amount the development charge doesnt Council decided to give the in dustrial and commercial develop ment community a break on the development charge at the expense of local taxpayers to encourage in dustrial growth Council rationalized in light of the slow economy Hills has to be as competitive as possible if it is to at tract industrial and commercial development Taken at face value this line of reasoning makes since increased employment comes with industrial and commercial development However the reasoning doesnt make that much sense given the fact the Town has never before Bens Banter by Ben Dummett posed a charge for industrial and commercial development and there has been no significant develop ment of this type during the past several years including the economic boom times in the 80s What makes council think a charge will make a dif ference When Town staff first released the report on the new development charges earlier this year it was recommended the per square foot charge be approved without being phasedin At that time Town Ad ministratorClerk Dan Costea said the charge wouldnt discourage in dustrial and commercial growth He explained the lack of this type of development results from the significant distance separating Halton Hills from Highway The existence of a development fee therefore wont play a major role in affecting industrial and com mercial growth Mr Costeas comments make that much more sense knowing it has always been more expensive to build industrial and commercial development in the citys of Bramp ton and compared to Halton Hills while at the same timethey have had no trouble at tracting this type of development to their municipalities Obviously no easy answer exists to how the Town can attract in dustrial and commercial develop ment However it appears before dealing with the establishment of a new development charge the Town should have first done a com prehensive study on what type of development it could attract regar dless of a charge On that basis council would have been better prepared to make a decision on whether or not a development charge should have been approved Politicians learn little from history The presentation of the new constitutional package shows how little our politicians have learned from the Meech Lake fiasco At issue is not the content of the constitutional package there will be plenty of time to discuss the matter At issue is the role of government in our times Assume for a moment that as chief executive of a corporation we ask our staff to give us a pro posal to build a new facility We would logically expect to receive two or three alternatives for our consideration with the pro and con clearly stated we would then make a decision Every single politician at whichever level claims to be at our service Unfortunately when it comes to the crunch we are handed one proposal and told in no uncertain terms we better get along with it or SNAFU by Bruce I dont understand this eleventh commandment Dont rip those little tags from pillows and mattresses The blackmail process is already under way We are fac ing the breakup of Canada we will face a lower standard of liv ing it is our last chance these and more is throw at us to gain our support Step back in the shoes of the chief executive and tell me what would be your reac tion if presented with such manure There are at least three major alternatives for the future of Canada a strongly centralized coun try with administrative powers delegated to local authorities something along the lines of what the government is now pro posing a Canada without Quebec To allow us to make a decision we need to know the pro and con of each alternative and their im plications For example which territory would be given to an in dependent Quebec A Canada which would retain the Southern shore of the St Lawrence and return Quebec would be indepen dent and probably become economically associated with us A bad solution I do not know un til I am given the facts As most politicians nowadays are less competent than the peo ple they represent the role of the elected representative must change They can hardly be trusted to make decisions for us and giving us one option to con sider to accept is presenting us with a Politicians to serve us proper ly should play a staff role prepare and submit options to the people their masters It is a ma jor farreaching change one which we already see taking place in Eastern Europe The politicians there are however unwillingly following the people To simply throw at us one solution and tell us to take or face the consequences is foolish To solve Canadas problems there are many ways We are en titled to be offered all the options and be allowed to make up our mind Poets bonier THE DRUMMER RAIN Bass drum like thunder The driving rain falls on comes the storm the teardrops of with sticks like trees burdened clouds The sound began to form Refreshing the world every crash of the symbol Nicole Charles Acton your heart curves every crash the snare WINTER SNOW Total sound wave Crisp clean winter snow Prlestman Acton The wind whistling softly Everything Is still THE JUNKY Lisa Sprostranov Acton 1 I am all by myself LIGHT BELOW but my best friend Is here Waves crash upon rocks no one understands lifting mists on the mountains Why Giving light below I am so Steve Sheppard Acton 1 weird SPARKLING SNOW flurries of snow fall from the sky like streams of Shawn Dryden Acton falling stars glistening from the moons beams to the my mother calling happy ground where they lie in seas of glittering blue red green the cold blowing and yellow crisp I can smell Lonnie Patenaude Acton the sweet brown maple DANCE OF THE LEAVES rich Leaves rustling in the wind I can taste Fluttering freely in the the bright sunny spring day white Drifting along In no particular direction fresh Dripping and diving 1 can see a world curving and climbing of winter Until they settle perfect peacefully onto cold The soft bed of grass Bugala Acton On the ground Patricia Monte Acton BEDTIME FOR AN CHILD THE TREE The face with Us smile The tree stands proudly Is put into Us rile limbs grabbing at the Its cheeks all nice and red night sky are finally put to bed As It tumbles down Trine Acton Nicole Charles Acton