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Should the paediatrics service at the Oakvilleâ€"Trafalgar memorial Hospital be considered for centralization with any other hospitals in Halton Region? adgdgo I feel it is very important to keep the paediatrics section in the hospital since it is supported by community funds. We would lose our specnahsts the paediatricians, if we did not have that service. Let‘s recognize that part of the healing process is the assistance and comfort of family members and extended members. By moving to Burlington we are adding @xtra travel hours onto an already stressful situation and with today‘s economy not everyone has a secâ€" ond car. So let‘s keep the paediatric section in place in our community. No, it shouldn‘t be centralized. Centralizing is an excuse to reduce the costs when the real costs in hospitals are the overstaffing of support services and management services. If those two things were reduced you wouldn‘t have to go to these drastic methods of trying to save money. Also the cost of salaries for nurses has caused all the problems in the last year. Ian Oliver Publisher Robert Glasbey Advertising Director Norman Alexander Editor Geoff Hill Circulation Director Teri Casas Office Manager Tim Coles Production Manager It‘s total hypocrisy on the part of Brandt to cheer the impressive wins in international wine compétitions by our Ontario wines, when it took intensive lobbying on the part of wineryâ€"owners to have their doors open on Sunday. Instead of waiting for the vintners to come to the LCBO and Queen‘s Park, both bureaucracies should have been doing everything in their power to proâ€" mote one of the great business success stories in the province. Bigâ€"hearted Andy was quick to pat his agency on the back for permitting Niagara region wineries to actually remain open on Sundays. What a concept, to actually allow wineries in one of the most unique grape and wineâ€"producing regions of the world, to actually allow the selling of their products on a Sunday. If Brandt really wanted to do something progressive, he could start thinking about allowing liquor stores to be open on Sundays or alternatively, permit corâ€" ner stores to sell liquor. But then again, perhaps that would be too progressive and we can‘t have that in good old Ontariâ€"ariâ€"ario now can we? Consider this: of the total cost of a bottle of spirits, 83% is composed of fedâ€" eral and provincial taxes. The same figures for a bottle of wine and beer are 69% and 53% respectively. These figures are ridiculous and it has taken the Ontario alcohol consumer a long time to take action against this gouging. The result has been the unpreceâ€" dented growth of doâ€"itâ€"yourself wine and beer facilities. People are tired of using afterâ€"tax money to pay for a bottle of more tax. Who needs it? Increasingly fewer people, that‘s who, if we are to go by the LCBO‘s own records. Consumption is falling dramatically and this latest credit card sleightâ€" ofâ€"hand is just another attempt to try and staunch the flow of cash from Queen‘s Park coffers. Andy Brandt‘s explanation as to how the provinciallyâ€"operated corporation is customerâ€"driven. Of course, this really is nonsense. The LCBO‘s latest initiative is to promote the use of credit cards at liquor outlets. The reasoning, Brandt told a group of Oakville Rotarians last week, is to take a more progressive approach to liquor sales. I‘s interesting to hear Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) chairman The real reason for using credit cards at liquor store is quite selfâ€"serving and it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with customer convenience. Instead, it has everything to do with increasing the amount of money taken by the province to help ease its deficit. 845â€"5585 Booze bafflegab 467 Speers Road, Oakville, Ont. L6K 3S4 Classified Advertising: 845â€"2809 Circulation: 845â€"9742 or 845â€"9743 845â€"3824 Fax: 845â€"3085 The Oakville Beaver, published every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, at 467 Should the provinciallyâ€"run liquor stores be open for business on Sundays? A sampling of the best answers will be published in the next Weekend edition of the Oakville Beaver. All callers are allowed 45 seconds to respond and must provide their name, address and phone number for verification. Give us your opinion on thisstopic by calling 845â€"5585, box 5012. Agatha Platiel Jim Houston Well, the recession helped. Here in Canada, we felt the economic downturn pretty bad, This is the "green and pleasâ€" ant land"! This is the country that colored twoâ€"thirds of the world Imperial Pink on my old Grade 9 Geography Rand McNally map! The Empire On Which the Sun Never Set. The Entity that Ruled the Waves. The cultural fountainhead that gave the world Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, The Beatles... How can something as magâ€" nificent as all that be â€" to cop a phrase from the Bard â€" "shrunk to this little measure"? Fortyâ€"nine percent of the respondents said yes, if they could, they‘d leave. Fortyâ€"nine percent! How is it possible that virtually half the native inhabitants of Great Britain would emigrate if they could? The birthplace of Burns and Yeats, Churchill and Cecil Rhodes, whose advice to young Britons was "always remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life." ou read a lot of sad stuff i in the newspapers these days, but one of the sadâ€" dest things I‘ve read of late was a statistic. It came from a surâ€" vey published in a London newspaper last month. Gallup pollsters asked 1,030 adult Britons a simple question, "Would you like to settle in another country if you were free to do so?" When it comes to mother England, the family would rather leave but the Brits really got clobâ€" bered. At last count, the U.K. had more than three million unemployed on its rolls. British businesses and factories are still sloughing off employees by the thousands as they strugâ€" gle to stay afloat in a sea of red ink. Margaret Thatcher helped to scupper the operation too. She swept to power like a metaphorical new broom, promising to set the British economy to rights with some good oldâ€"fashioned housecleanâ€" ing. Survivors say that in fact she gutted the joint, replacing the old British ethic of Fair Play with a rah rah chant of "Me First!" She privatized everything in sight and left Northern Ireland, Scotland, and the north of England economic wastelands. Europe? She cocked a snook at Europe, preâ€" ferring to cash her chips at the Bank of America through her good pal Ronnie Reagan. Sound familiar? The 12 years under Margaret Thatcher were a bit like a hit from a crack pipe â€" heady and exciting at first, but ultimately a massive downer, leaving the victim not much more than a basket case. It didn‘t help that theâ€"undeâ€" niably ~ vibrant Martgaret Small wonder that more than 75% of those interviewed said they expected things in the U.K. to get worse before they got better. We have our share of probâ€" lems here in Canada, but I doubt very much that anything like 50% of us would emigcrate. To paraphrase the old tea commercial, "Only in Brxtam youâ€"say? Thank heaven." Enough. Small wonder, really, that 49% of polled Britons say they‘d up stakes and move off the Sceptred Isle in a flash. First, there was Fergie â€" plastered all over the front pages of the tabloids, having her toes sucked by her Texan financial advisor. Then Chuck and Di called it quits, and the selfsame tabs got hold of their private cellular phone calls and... Thatcher was replaced by the undeniably dishragâ€"like John Major. A nice man â€" perhaps even competent â€" but not a man to inspire a confidenceâ€"stricken nation to follow hiin "over the top". John Major is rather, as the London Times described him "a wellâ€"intentioned chap â€" the sort you would like to see marry your problem daughter." And then there were the Royal Troubles. One thing that has long distinguished Great Britain from the rest of the world is its veneration of royalâ€" ty. Regrettably, the British Royals chose this moment in history to become publicly unglued.