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

Brian Newton Group charges Via misled ' Minister with revenue data "A member of the passenger association fighting to keep VIA rail service through this area says the company misled federal transport minister Jean Luc Pepin 'with incorrect information on revenues from the Toronto- Havelock line in 1980. Brian Newton, an actuary and member of the Toronto- Havelock Passenger Associ- ation made the statement to a Conservative Task Force on Passenger Service at a hearing August 19 in Peterborough. Mr. Newton, who lives "near Nestleton and uses the VIA line to get to his job in Toronto, told the hearing that 1980 revenue from VIA could be as much as $100,000 less than it should be based on the number of passengers who used the service last year. '""The most probable explanation is a simple misprint by VIA Rail," Mr. Newton told the hearing chaired by Alberta Conser- vative MP Don Mazankowski. "Someone has carelessly written $344,066 as $244,066 and never bothered to correct the mistake," he went on to say. "But this mistake had disastrous consequences. It gave the false impressions that revenues were only 23 per cent of costs on a line where revenues have consistently exceeded 30 per cent of costs by a substantial margin." "Without this error, there would have been no question of cancelling the service, in fact other figures indicate this service is a prime candidate for expansion," said Mr. Newton. In 1980, the Toronto- Havelock line carried 123,460 passengers, and according to VIA's figures, this generates . just $244,000 in revenue. In 1979, the line carried 129,000 passengers and generated $360,000 in revenue. Mr. Newton said that if the Task Force on Rail Passenger Service co biid Mazanknpmk; Mp fasion Groupe de travail sur le service de train voyageurs thon Don May, BROWER (opis Members of the Conservative Task Force on Rail Passenger Service heard several briefs last week in' Peterborough, concerning the intended closure of the Via line from Havelock to Toronto. From left to right EE -- EE $100,000 in revenue had been reported by VIA to the tran- sport minister, it would boost the revenue-to-cost ratio to 30 per cent, a figure the minister has accepted in keeping passenger lines in service, In his well researched and Vol. 115 No. 39 documented brief to the Task Force, Mr. Toronto-Havelock line is cancelled as proposed next summer, there will be no cost saving to the Canadian tax payer, as the real cost of operating the line amounts to Newton. concluded, that even if the a Gt on one- "third the cost claimed by VIA, and these are recoverable from revenues. - Mr. Newton said that if the service is pulled, the remaining two-thirds of the costs will simply be re- (Turn to page 2) 32 Pages Wednesday, August 26, 1981 Homeowners vow to fight interest rates A group of concerned homeowners which wants the government to do some- thing about high mortgage -rates says support for their demands is starting to snow- ball. More than 200 people, some of them from Port Perry, attended an informa- tion meeting Sunday after- noon in Oshawa, and Chris Rubinstein, one of the meet-' ing organizers, told the Star she is pleased with the turn- out and the response from concerned homeowners. The meeting had originally been called for those home owners who are also faced with re-paying loans under the members. are: MP Tom Siddon; MP Sinclair Stevens; MP Don Mazankowski [chairman] and MP Fred McCain. Senator Guy Charbonneau is also a member of the Task Force. ~the federal Assisted Home Ownership Plan (AHOP), but Mrs. Rubinstein said there is so much concern over high interest rates that the group decided Sunday to try to get the government to do something about this as well. Mrs. Rubinstein said she expects support will continue to grow as there are an estimated 300,000 mortgages due for renewal this year alone, most of them at close to double the rate. ~ Anne Martyn of Port Perry was one of those who attended the meeting Sunday in Oshawa, and last week she collected a petition with some 40 names of AHOP families in Port Perry who are facing the double-barrel crunch of renewing mortgages at high intgerest rates and paying back the AHOP loan at the same time. Mrs. Martyn, whose AHOP loan and mortgage come due next summer told the Star in an interview last week that there are some families who simply will not be able to - handle the two payments and they could be forced to give up their homes. That sentiment was expressed by Mrs. Rubin- stein who said "if a family can't pay the first mortgage (when it comes due at higher rates) how .can people be expected to pay back the AHOP loan as well?" Mrs. Rubinstein said that a typical mortgage of $43,000 that comes due at an interest rate of 20 percent would require a monthly payment of $930 for principal, interest (Turn to page 3) Accused wants judge-jury trial A man charged with attempted abduction in connection with an incident involving a ten-year Port Perry girl August 10, has elected trial by judge and jury. : John A. Thorpe, 48, origi- nally from Medicine Hat, Alberta, appeared in Whitby provincial court August 21 and waived preliminary hearing. He is being held without bail and his next court appearance is scheduled for September 16. The charge of attempted abduction was laid by Durham Regional Police after a man approached the young girl August 10 at the 'then Birdseye Park swimming pool in Port Perry. The girl was asked to show the man where the liquor store and library are, and bought her a hamburger in a Port Perry restaurant. A waitress became suspicious of the relationship and asked the girl not to leave the restaurant with the man. Police were called and the man was arrested and charged a short time later. Thorpe, described by police as a transient carnival worker, was denied bail at a hearing in Whitby on August 11.