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LJ: CAS TOA NLL AAR TRU FY) i Ye Loy 2 PRG YOM AD 3 SAT YY 2 PRGA TRIER SO AREAS ER RA, A AER ZO ON ete a ET AR A SS Ra TL ned iid vd 4 } aA 4 PAT 5 a vy * BE Fed AVES CANCUN \ SRY RU ALY Caray TA ¢ ve) PERRIER HARRIES AP SALEM i LPAI BI HR GL ALDEN AN EAS 4 4 editorial commen Brooklin The plan, by First City Development and other companies is to build some 2000 executive type homes in the hamlet of Brooklin, all on full municipal services which will eventually boost the population of that community from the present 1600 to about J0,500. ke J . From strictly a financial point of view, the plan looks a good one for Durham Region. The developer will pay the costs of running sewer and water lines from Whitby to Brooklin, will pay the costs of servicing the existing community, and will pay the full lot levy fees to the Region. From a strictly planning point of view, there are obviously some difficulties with such a massive development leap-frogging to Brooklin, by-passing extensive tracts of land which are already serviced and ear-marked for new houses. But for some reason, developers have not been falling over each other to build new houses in these areas, and in some cases, new homes which have already been built did not sell like-hot-cakes. On the other hand, First City seems confident the Brooklin development can be marketed with success. The vice president of First- City told Regional council last week the company's invest- ment will be $150 million. Just where the 2000 or so buyers for these new homes are living now remains a bit of a mystery, especially in light of the fact that overall new development in Durham over the past couple of years has limped along at something less than five per cent. : What does it mean for municipalities north of Brooklin like Scugog and Uxbridge? The report by Durham's top planner clearly states there will be a detrimental effect on development possibilities in Scugog and Uxbridge, as Brooklin will act like an ""interceptor." : This opinion by the top planner for Durham canno be discounted, and development companies with holdings in the Port.Perry area are already getting nervous. : : : Nevertheless, the approval of the Brooklin plan could result in an immediate short term "boom*' in new housing in the Porty Perry-Uxbridge area as developers speed their own plans to bring new houses on the market before the homes start going up in Brooklin. No oo When and if Brooklin grows to 10,500, there obviously will be a demand for new schools, a new police station and other Regional services. The tax dollars from these new homes may pay for the operation of these services, but won't pay for capital costs of construction of new schools or police stations. It is one thing to build and sell new homes, it is quite another to put in place the infa-structure for a community of 10,000 people. r i) G fo - em -- fo p---- SHALL WE TAKE AN EXOTIC CRUISE OR GO TO THE SUPERMARKET. 7" What Is Going On? Will somebody please explain to us poor country' folk just what the devil is going on in the Ontario provincial legislature at Queens Park? By all accounts, scenes in the House have been much more rancorous than usual lately. And that is saying something because even in the best of times, the MPPs who adorn the benches have not been known for their high levels of civility when referring to members of other parties. But last week, Liberal leader Stuart Smith was ordered from the August chamber by Speaker John Turner, a freshman at his job. According to many reports, he is struggling to maintain order. Dr. Smith got the heave-ho for calling Tory: Consumer Minister Gord Walker "the minister of 'cover-up' in connection with that nasty little collapse of an investment company - known as Re-Mor. More than one citizen of this fair province lost life-savings when Re-Mor went belly up. ~ Mr. Walker, also blessed with a silver tongue, responded in kind to Dr. Smith, calling his state- ments "slimy innuendo.' (How ghastly). In all seriousness, the people of Ontario must be shaking their heads in utter amazement when they read of the goings-on. After all, it was just a few short months ago that the same politicians were the model of decorum as they scuttled around 'the province pleading for votes. Politics in a democracy can be rough and bumpy at times because that is the nature of the game, but the level to which it has sunk in recent weeks must be tougher to swallow for farmers facing foreclosures and homeowners buffeted by inflation and ruinous mortgage rates. Still, it seems the game goes on. The antics get the headlines and lots of front page ink in the daily press, while the rest of us are left wondering if anybody is in charge of government business. : The Speaker, Mr. Turner called the uproar a "grave disorder." But Dr. Smith may have inadver- tently coined a more apt phrase when he said 'what a shameful day, what a shameful day.' Does anyone know when this Gong Show gets out for summer recess? PHONE FAMILY Isn't it strange, in"modern times, how families can grow apart and be little more than well-acquainted strangers when they do meet, with nothing mare in common, nothing more to talk about, after the family gossip has been exchanged, than their physical problems: partial plates, bursitis, bill smiley festival, arriving at 3 a.m., a call from another brother-in-law to ask if he could help about the suicide, and a dejected call from daughter to say her conference was washed out and we wouldn't see them until Christmas. Prodigal son phones, now 100 miles from home; collect, broke, unrepentant. He's home. now, driving his mother crazy be- high blood pressure, piles? These are the very people who slept two or three to a bed when they were growing up, fought bitterly, had the same parents, endured the same ups and downs of the family fortune. Weird. In most of Canada today, the old family unit was pretty well disintegrated. Those of us who were brought up with grandparents, . legions of aunts and uncles, too many sisters (or brothers), and dozens of cousins, are scattered into thousands of tiny, one-cell units, with little or no connection with the other old familar cells except for the occasional phone call or greeting card. ~ Ifind this a little sad, but it doesn't really destroy me. The times they are a-changin'. Our once-warm, once-large, once-close families broke into fragments and we just had to accept it, as we did the pill, deodorant and ring-around-the-collar commercials, women's lib and other great steps forward by mankind. That's what I thought. In fact, I didn't - mind it that much. Families canbe a pain in the arm. An older sister who still thinks you are 12 years old and need straightening out. A younger brother who doesn't realize that under those dull gray socks of yours is another dull gray - clay. That's the way I thought. But once in a while, for some reason, or no reason, the whole fam damily comes roaring out of the woodwork, all at once, and your phone is so hot the wires are melting, while Ma Bell sits back with a satiated leer, almost post-coital, and you take out a mortgage on the house to pay your telephone bill. Families don't write any more. . They telephone. With the state of our mail service, it's no wonder. You could send two letters in a row to Uncle Ed, before you got the letter from Auntie Agnes, mailed 13 months before, telling you that he was either dead, or had run off with a strip tease artist. That's what happened to us recently. My kid brother had been taken suddenly and rather violently ill. We had a couple of $34 conversations from his hospital room in Montreal. He was to let me know of any change. Total silence. After a month of this, I phoned my older sister, and asked whether he were dead. She hadn't a clue. Said he'd just vanished. Fair enough. I wasn't going to phone. Then my daughter began phoning frem Moosonee, telling my wife about her troubles with beating off the bachelors, and telling me innocuous stuff like she was going to buy a snow-mobile, and would we take the kids while she attended a weekend confer- ence, and asking me how to cope with students who threatened to shoot the princi- pal if she kicked them out of class, Each of these calls was returned, almost nightly, by my wife, who had thought up more piercing questions and answers in the "intervening 24 hours. And I had to talk to the grandboys, find out what they wanted for 'Christmas, who had won the latest fight, and such-like. Then came a call from my son, collect, as ° usual, who said he was in Florida, on the way home from South America. When he'd arrive he didn't know. Grind, grind. Teeth. Then a close relative jumped through the window of a fifth-floor apartment and was pronounced D.0.A. at the hospital. This spewed a frenzied round of long-distance calls to the police, relatives, her son and so on. It also elicited similar calls on the in-line for us. Just got over this, intermingled with frequent calls to great-grandad, telling him we'd be over any weekend now, a call from a brother-in-law to ask if he could sleep at our house on the way back from a music cause he's a health-food nut and won't eat any of the great meals she is busting to prepare. Result, she cooks one pork chop for me with a baked potato, some squash and a bit of broccoli with cheese, she eats the saw-dust and stuff he eats, and I feel like a pig. ; 5 2 Kid brother calls from James Bay project to tell me he's alive, but has had serious - surgery and medication, but now feeling great. He's two years younger than I, and is going to retire next July, with a fat pension. This goes over big, as you can imagine. Sixteen phone calls for prodigal son, from friends who seem to have received news of his arrival by tribal drum. He's never here - when they call. They all want him to call " back.. On our bill. - As though Ma Bell wants to rub it in, a bell telephone crew, complete with huge trucks, backhoes and other vile machinery, arrives at 8 am. every morning, sounding like Revelations will, and tears great holes in my lawn, to plant a cable, cutting the roots of my maples, so they'll all die. It's nice to have family. But if I'd cut the phone line 20 years ago, and put the money into its stock, I'd be a major shareholder in Bell of Canada today.