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

the HERALD- Wednesday January Political Forum Ottawa Report Town hall meetings are wideopen affairs Since being elected a little over three years ago Ive held close to Town Hall meetings around the riding of HaltonPeel Some have been quiet and poorly attended Others have been nothing short of explosive with people spilling out into the hallways There have been arguments shouts applause and angry speeches Dorothy has come to dread the events She finds herself sitting there getting defensive and as she says tak ing all your hits Each public meeting has its own chemistry and anything can happen It all depends on who at tends what people want to talk about the news of the day or simply how people are feeling Standing at the front of the room can be a harrowing experience representing the government or the system but it can also a rewarding one We have simply had some moving and amazing conversations Last week in a hall in rural Milton for example about people showed up on a night that had freezing ram to talk about the future of Canada There were some people present who argued passionately that Canada should be unified and strong which they interpreted as being unilingual English Others were horrified by that vision They argued that Canada is special and precious because we are French and English im migrant and aboriginal all at the same time There was tolerance at that meeting for two languages and cultures and there were peo ple who hate to wake up and sec French on their cereal boxes In East the next night downstairs at the community complex because a dog obe dience class had booked the upstairs hall a few more people came to talk mostly about the economy The discussion at that meeting was about the word Depression Are we in one Thats the question a lot of media people seem to be asking In fact the tone of the meeting had been set by television which that night ran a feature on the Dirty Nineties and started off with pictures of the human misery that marked the 1930s Leaving for the meeting Id been personally appalled at the irresponsiblity of the Queens Park Report Fiscal honesty For the first time in Ontarios history the Premier of Ontario addressed the people of the Pro vince about the fiscal problems facing our government It is also the first time that a government has opened the provinces books before the budget Our government believes it is every Ontarians right to see the governments balance sheet People need to know what is go ing on the province to unders tand the tough choices we are all facing The economy is going to get better But recovery will take time We also promised to open up the budget process and the Premiers address is part of that openness We believe in open govern ment And we think it is impor tant for the public to understand the economic reality we all face As far as our government is con cerned it is your right to know what is happening to the govern ments balance sheet and your tax dollar The premier outlined to the people of the Province that for the first time since 1945 the government received less money from taxes than it did the year before According to the balance sheet unless we make real changes this year our operating deficit will be too high Bob was clear And I will be clear too That this situation is unaccep table to our government so we are doing all we can to reduce the deficit from the 1991 level Part of our solution involves each person making a contribu tion to help the province through these tough times We need to work together We all need to look at our budgets to see where we can make changes and where we can restructure We made the tough decision to limit the in crease in funds to agencies like municipalities schools and hospitals to one per cent this year and two per cent in 1993 and 1994 That is why reconstruction of services is our goal The alter native cutting and slashing of services is unacceptable We know these agencies deliver ser vices which are essential to your well being We are helping transfer agencies in two impor tant ways to adapt and deliver af fordable quality public services We have set aside million to help them adjsut in the first year This money is earmarked strictly to encourage them to develop innovative plans for Noel Duignan Halton North New Democratic Party maintaining service and meeting their fiscal targets In addition to give transfer agencies a better opportunity to plan ahead we have told them what money they can expect from Queens Park in the next three years For our part we are changing the way we work In October we imposed a freeze on the salaries of politicians and senior civil ser vants We also cut the operating budgets for ministries by 10 per cent And there will not be any in flationary increases for ministries either We began reviewing 23 of the largest government programs last fall and we are looking at ways to make these programs more ef fective and more efficient The governments recent ten tative agreement with its employees to limit their wage in crease to per cent in the first year shows the labour move ment is willing to make a con tribution towards recovery in On tario Building a fairer society with good public services must not get put on hold especially in lough times We will not forget our commitment to helping the people of Ontario People from all walks of life rely on the govern ment to play a role in our economy We must maintain our health insurance system and make investments in schools bridges and roads By investing in Ontario we are investing in our people and we can save jobs and create new ones Our focus is jobs We are get ting the province moving through initiatives such as better skills training programs and more support for industries that build on our resources of a skilled and welleducated workforce We are giving top priority to the research and development that will bring new jobs to Ontario We are developing the infrastructure of our province Garth Turner MP HaltonPeel Progressive report figuring it was a cute piece done by a bunch of yuppies born in the 1960 who figured that depression is when you have to buy a used car instead of a new one But the report took its toll And when I said to the people at this meeting that in my opinion it was absurd to say this is a depression there were a few cat calls suggesting that the guy at the front of the room was just another politician who was in sulated from reality So I responded by saying that when you hove a strong social safety net and financial institu tions that have never been more profitable depression is im probable But my words meant nothing compared to those of the older man who sprang to his feet and turned his powerful gaze towards those who had just been crying the blues I lived through the Depres sion he said and it was nothing like this The problem with you is that youre suffering from greed and selfishness have no idea just how good we have it in this country right now Then a person rose and said that life had to be better in the States despite the fact education and health care are not all covered by taxes because booze and cigarettes and property taxes arc less In response another retired person turned around and said simply Good bye Well at the end of the night we all left The discussion continued among knots of people in the hallway and out in the parking lot Dorothy and I packed up the flag and the brochures and drove home talking about what people had said and how should res pond The blowing snow closed in as we crawled along the Sideroad The lights of town were welcome when they started blink ing through the weather At home the dog was excited to see us He hadnt thought about either the economy or the con stitution all night which was a relief Guaranteed Pricing Quality Service Name Brands Great Selection MATTRESS SALE FACTORY DIRECT PRICES Save on Our Entire Copgoni4 V Also Available At SPECIAL PRICES Complete Set MATTRESS Complate6t- MATTRESS CHIHOPHACT1C Emerald Isle Bedroom Gallery 130GuelphSt Georgetown 8732753