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A= NS pe v ee SPAR A : ' Sa Wh Soe LN rat. Se SS - , "E -- Ne tN Alternatives? Faced with stiff opposition for the Liberals and New Democrats, Ontario treasurer Darcy McKeough was forced to back off from a proposed 37.5 per cent increase in health premiums. But he didn't back down completely as the OHIP increase will still amount to just under 19 per cent, or about $136 million this year. And the treasurer is bound and determined that the $272 million which the 37.5 per cent hike would have brought in, is not going to be lost to the coffers of this province. The shortfall therefore will be made up from other sources of revenue; and one wonders whether these sources are any more acceptable than the increase in the health premiums. First of all the Ontario civil service ranks will be reduced by 4400 employees through attrition. While there are no doubt sound arguments to be made that the civil service is over-staffed, it is obvious that the level can't be reduced by 4400 jobs without some kind of decrease in the level of service to the people of this province. Also, with unemployment in this province running at a shameful rate, a total freeze on government hiring is going to eliminate one avenue for qualified people to find a job. The second source of revenue to be tapped will be the large and small business tax, both of which will be hiked by one per cent. With many businesses, especially those which are independently owned already staggering under the increasing costs for just about everything, any tax hike, no matter how small is going to create hardships for some. It also comes at a time when areas like Durham Region are attempting to attract new industries. Even a one per cent hike in business tax creates a psychological barrier, and is just one more reason why a potential investor may decide to locate elsewhere. If that proposed 37.5 per cent hike was unaccept- able, the alternatives (if they can be called that) are hardly any better. Our Food Supply The Ontario Federation of Agriculture last week presented its annual brief to the provincial Cabinet, and some of the claims made by the Federation are alarming. While statistics and figures released by any organization are often presented in a way that is bill smiley GLOOMY TIMES self-serving of a particular point of view, the OFA nonetheless says clearly that Ontario is fast be- coming dependent on imported foods. The brief says that in 1962 Ontario was almost self-sufficient in its capacity to privide food for its citizens. However, unless current trends are rever- sed, Ontario will be producing only 74 per cent of the wheat, 57 per cent of the beef, 75 per cent of the pork and 46 per cent of the fruit and vegetables needed by the year 1985. If these figures are accurate, both the producing and the consuming sectors of Ontario should be sufficiently worried to demand a reversal in the trend. The OF A brief goes on to say that Ontario is now importing more than $340 million worth of food that could be produced in this province, and the imports caused 6000 farm jobs to be lost and a further 7000 jobs in the food processing industry. Again, the figures are startling. «While there are solid arguments to be made that imported food into this province helps keep the price down for the consumers, it can at the same time be argued that a growing dependence on imports is dangerous and more costly over the long run. In the * first place, the supply could dry up for any number of reasons and on very short notice. If that happens, and if in the interim, farm land has gone out of production and processing plants have shut down, any short-term savings to the consumers will be lost; not to mention the very real possiblilty of food shortages, which will drive prices sky-high. v It's a fact of life that oranges cannot be grown in Ontario. But the farmers of this province can supply us with meat, most vegetables and fruit, pork, poultry and dairy products. At the very least Ontario should be striving for self-sufficiency in the food products that our farms are able to produce. We can't afford to strive for less. iy, ". PA ARR DD mii : oP A727, 5) my ZZ Sy | "WE'RE cUrTING DOWN ON JHE DOSAGE 70 PREVENT ELECTORAL SIDE EFFECTS" Canadians are in a bad mood these days. Not bad in the sense of angry or ugly. Bad in the sense of gloomy, depressed. And not without reason. After riding a post-war boom, with indust- ry thriving, new money coming in, new opportunities opening up, and a general sense that the man might be right after all, that the 20th century did belong to Canada, we have skidded to a low that hasn't been touched for decades. ' Trouble is, during that boom, we grew accustomed to affluence and a measure of ease, and we weren't built to cope with that. We were a rather dour, independent, sturdy people, far more used to battling for an existence than lying around enjoying life. We just couldn't cope with the ideas: that we would get a raise in pay every year; that practically everybody could own a house or car or both; that there was a. job for everyone; that we might even be able to borrow money from the bank in a pinch. All of these were alien to our Canadian experience, which had always maintained that life was real and earnest, that fun was almost sinful, and that if things were going well, you kept your fingers crossed and knocked on wood. Those of us who had grown up during the Depression, of course, never believed for a minute that the prosperity would last. We went around like so many -Jeremiahs, warning the young of the horrors to come when the bubble burst and boring them to death with tales of our own impoverished youth. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the boom didn't end with a bang but a whimper. We Cassandras of gloom were scoffed at. There were still plenty of jobs. Everybody could go to college, on loans and grants. Everybody really needed a summer cottage or a ski chalet or two cars or three snowmobiles. The banks would lend money to anyone who didn't have two heads, and the loan companies looked after them. The Canadian dollar was buoyant, and we were a little sickly glad when the Yanks had to pay a dollar dnd five cents for a Canadian dollar's worth. If you were temporaily between jobs, unemployment insurance was easy to get and fairly generous. If you were really strapped, you could go on welfare and sit home watching TV. If you got sick, hospital insurance looked after all the bills. Gas for the car and fuel for the furnace and food for the belly were cheap and plentiful. And then the rot set in, slowly. A touch of mould here, a cockroach crawling there. Strike after strike after strike made us one of the world's most unstable industrial countries. As a result, capital investment began to dry up. Another effect was that many of our manufactured products had priced themselves out of the world - and 'even Canadian markets. Branch plants began to close as their owners pulled in their horns and retreated to the comparative stability and higher pro- duction of the U.S. Other plants running three shifts cut to two, then one. Foreign investors found more fertile fields for their money. Our armed forces became ineffective for lack of funds, and lost much of the pride they had once held in their role in NATO. It snowballed. Inflation became more than a topic of conversation; it became a bogeyman. Then suddenly, there wasn't much gas and oil left and their prices soared. A new, ugly racism reared its head, sparked by the fact that so many immi- grants did so well with so little, because they were willing to work. A separatist party was elected in Quebec, and it was a whole new ball game. The employment force swelled steadily, while new jobs failed to keep up. Huge mining and smelting companies which had been stock- piling their products because other nations could buy, them cheaper elsewhere, closed down and put thousands of well-heeled workers on the pogey. Small farmers fell by the wayside when only the big ones could survive. And we kept paving over valuable farmland with asphalt and concrete. . Retired people saw their life's savings gobbled up by inflation and the falling dollar. Small businessmen cut back on staff and service in order to stay in business. Doctors, fed up to the teeth with overwork and bureaucratic interference, began head- ing for greener, and warmer, pastures. University student$, toiling over their books, grew ever more bitter as they began to realize that the country did not want or need them,. that the chance of a job on graduation was paper-thin. Thousands of ' high school students who should have been out working, went back to school and lazed ® away another year, because they were a - drug on the market. . And governments, national, provincial, and local, wrung their hands and waited for the wind to change, the miracle to take place, while they went right on spending more and more taxpayers' money. It's not much wonder that the prevailing mood of the country is morose and suspi- cious. : But surely a nation that toughed it through two world wars and a world depression is g not going to roll over and die. We ain't licked. yet. And spring will be here. Probably by the first of June. The Argyle Syndicate Ltd. . EC ------