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- SR AC 3 Sd NA PRE SAS x RE VVAS NRA ns TM ow A bo £3 Sal REE BS Sa A WE TEL HESTON, ATL AAS BE WE fe WY I al Toh ra AMAR ad A BEC AERA RY EI Evi . v - : +7 A Perfect 95? Most Canadians would have to agree that when it comes right down to the crunch, this country is a pretty darn good place to live and call home. But wait a minute. What's this? Horror of horrors, we see that a Washington-based organization known as the Overseas Development Council ranks six countries slightly ahead of Canada as good places to live. Using three factors - infant mortality, literacy, and life expectancy from age one - the group ranked every country in the world on a scale from zero to 100. Canada didn't do too badly with a score of 95, the same as Switzerland, but Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Japan and Norway all scored 96 in the ratings. And what is the best country in the world in which to live? Well, it really is no surprise to see good old Sweden at the top of the pile with a score of 97. Sweden of course has had several decades of social democracy where the state quite literally takes care of its citizens from "womb to tomb.' Todo this, the Swedish state taxes the devil out of its citizens, and maybe it is significant to note that in compiling its ratings, the Organization did not take into account such things as taxes, income, housing, and other economic measures. So maybe a score of 95 for Canada, just two points behind Sweden is not so bad after all. And consider the country rated to be the worst place | in the world to live: Guinea-Bissau, an impoverished land on the west coast of Africa which was given a score of 12 out of 100. Of course, the citizens of that country couldn't care less about the report. In the first place, 90 per cent of them can't read it, and in the second place they are too. busy just trying to get enough food to stay alive, never mind worrying about the so-called quality of life. And Upper Volta, another land of poverty in West Africa, is just about as poorly off as Guinea-Bissau. Almost half the children in that land won't ever have to worry about reading the fancy report because they'll be dead before they reach the age of five, and 20 per cent of them won't live to see their first birthday. They are dying from polio, measles, whooping cough, diarrhea and any number of infections which they can't fight off because of severe protein deficiencies. And as if the children of Unper Volta don't face enough health problems right now, doctors fear that next year will see a pandemic of spinal meningitis, a disease which tends to strike in 10 to 12 year cyices. It is still a fact of life that in a country like Canada, which can score a healthy 95 as a good place to live, the problems we face tend to be minor when compared to others in the world. Yet, in these good healthy days in Canada, the very mention of more aid to those less fortunate sends a lot of Canadians running for cover. And the argument is that we can't afford it. Our economy is in a mess, our taxes are too high, it costs so much to buy a new car or boat. Ah, well, we're pretty sure the rest of the world understands our problems these days. And, after all, nobody's perfect. Once upon. ota. £ poor. alike --26-.. AEE ry vt, "NOTH NG" ama Clam Woz -- "the lovg awed budget, ove. that Liss to tha beokstsa and ought " The Nothing Tic: JM wad wailing th be Filled «Inet Olam scot himsolf I phe up ha) ona what did ha. do than ody? ty clelisrti Aled with. clita, white, on. oma bololly Crossed. + with "BUDGET.™ The Budget They were all lined up at the door last Thursday night in Ottawa looking for some kind of relief in the Federal budget. Farmers, small business, big business, organized labour, home owners, home builders, tenants, consumers, the rich and the poor. And when the budget was released, they found to their dismay that there was precious little relief for any of them. What did they expect? The Liberals enjoy a safe majority in the House of Commons. They are not facing an election for at least four years, and there is just no way that any big plums were going to get tossed by the Liberals from that budget. As we all know, there is a tiny bit of relief for wage earners in the $15 to $25,000 range, a few loop-holes in the tax structure have been tightened, and those - farmers and homeowners who literally are standing on the brink of disaster can get some help. But the net effect is that the federal government will take an extra $1.4 billion in taxes out ofthe pockets of Canadians in one form or another. = That's a fair chunk' of money which might have helped a wee bit if used to buy some of those new cars sitting on dealers lots, or invested in new business ventures, or spent in just about any way in this country. Instead it disappears into the federal maw and is gone forever. Fair enough, all governments need money to operate, but this one continues to gobble more taxes rather than cut its own spending. The-budget of last Thursday night has been roundly condemned by just about everyone in sight. But the government at this juncture doesn't have to compete in any popularity contest, and anyone who thought there would be anything of broad popular appeal was being a trifle naive. Before the country goes into a complete panic about the lack of assistance in the budget for all those who say they need it, consider this: by not throwing out expensive (and temporary) plunis the 'government. has essentially told Canada that it is not going to get massively involved with fancy measures to sort out the problems. And if the government had decided in the roel that all who say they need relief at this time would get it, we'd be carping from the other side of the fence that the budget was inflationary and adding more to the already massive deficit. Chicago. days, you were offered a cuppa and REARS ALE PRE SS AAORTAI LM Widmer 0nd BESSA OSE VE 8 bill smiley WE'VE CHANGED / There has been a tremendous change in the manners and mores of Canada in the past three decades. This brilliant thought came to me as I drove home from work today and saw a sign, in a typical Canadian small town: "Steakhouse and Tavern." Now this didn't exactly knock me out, alarm me, or discombobulate me in any way. Iam a part of all that is in this country, "at this time. But it did give me a tiny twinge. Hence my opening remarks. I am no Carrie Nation, who stormed into saloons. with her lady friends, armed with "hatchets, and smashed open (what a waste) the of beer and kegs of whiskey. 1 no Joan of Arc. I don't revile emers or hear voices. I am no Pope John Paul II, who tells people what to do about their sex lives. I am not even a Joe Clark. I am merely an observer of the human scene, in a country that used to be one thing, and has become another. But that doesn't mean I don't have opinions. I have nothing but scofn for the modern 'objective' journalists who tell it as: it is. They are hyenas and jackals, who fatten on the leavings of the 'lions' of our society, for the most part. Let's get back on topic, as I tell my students. The Canadian society has rough- ened and coarsened to an astonishing degree in the last 30 years. First, the Steakhouse and Tavern. As a kid working on the boats on the Upper Lakes, I was excited and a little scared when I saw that sign in American ports: Duluth, Detroit I came from the genteel poverty of Ontario in the Thirties, and I was slightly appalled, and deeply attracted by these signs: the very thought that drink could be publicly advertised. Like any normal, curious kid, I went into a couple, ordered a two-bit whiskey, and found nobody eating steaks, but a great many people getting sleazily drunk on the same. Not the steaks. In those days, in Canada, there was no such creature. The very use of the word 'tavern" indicated ty. It was an evil place. We did have "parlours", later exchanged for the euphemism 'beverage rooms." But that was all right. Only the lower element went there, and they closed from 6 p.m. to 7:30, or some such, so that a family man could get home to his dinner. Not a bad idea. In their homes, of course, the middle and upper class drank liquor. Beer was the working-man's drink, and to be shunned. It was around then that some wit reversed "the old saying, and came out with "Work is the curse of the class," a neat version of Marx's(?) "Drink is the curse of the working classes." If you called on someone in those misty something to eat. Today, the host would be humiliated if he didn't 'have something harder to offer you. Now, every-hamlet seems to have its' - steakhouse, complete with tavern. It's rather ridiculous. Nobody today can afford a steak. But how in the living world can these same people afford drinks, at current prices? These steakhouses and taverns are usually pretty sleazy joints, on a par with the old beverage room, which was the epitome of sleaze. It's Jot all the fault of ihe owners, though th e nothing on Steak and 100 pes. cent on the drinks (minimum). It's just that Canadians tend to be noisy and: crude and profane drinkers. And the crudity isn't only in the pubs. It has crept into Parliament, that august institution, with a prime minister who used street language when his impeccable English failed, or he wanted to show how tough he was. It has crept into our educational system, where teachers drink and swear and tell dirty jokes and use language in front of (Turnto page6)