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# -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, May 2, 1989 The Pout Perey Blac 235 QUEEN STREET - PORT PERRY, ONTARIO. PHONE 985-7383 FAX 985-3708 The Port Perry Star is authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, for cash payment of postage. Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 Subscription Rate: In Canada $20.00 per year Elsewhere $60.00 per year. Single Copy 50¢ --~ EDITORIAL Publisher - J. Peter Hvidsten Editor - John B. McClelland News/Features - Cathy Olliffe News Reporter - Rob Streich PRODUCTION Annabell Harrison Trudy Empringham Darlene Hlozan BUSINESS OFFICE Accounting - Judy Ashby ADVERTISING Advertising Co-ordinator Office Manager - Gayle Stapley Billing Department - Anna Gouldburn Retail Sales - Kathy Dudley, Linda Ruhl - Valerie Ellis Advertising Sales Representatives Pat Webster, Lisa Hutchings G CNA 3] Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association Ontario Community Newspaper Association Published every Tuesday by the Port Perry Star Co. Ltd. Port Perry, Ontario Editorial Comment STRONG ENOUGH How do you know if the cold medicine is really work- ing? When everybody in the family gags and makes a sour face. Over the past few weeks and months, finance minis- ter Michael Wilson has dropped enough broad hints that his budget was going to be tough medicine for the ailing fiscal policy of this country. And sure enough, when the details became public by a round-about fashion in Ottawa last week, just about everybody in Canada coughed and gagged at what Mr. Wilson and the Conservatives were doling out in large spoonfuls. Now maybe the analogy between a cold that runs through a family and the $320 billion debt is not an apt one. Canada, it might be argued is suffering more than just a simple case of fiscal sniffles. In fact, some would lik- en the national debt to afar more serious malady, with the prognosis anything but bright over the short and long term. But analogies aside, Wilson's medicine is turning everybody in the country off. You'd have to search far and wide to find a single member of the Canadian family who likes this budget. La- bour, business, consumers, low income folks, the middie classes and the wealthy all have something to be upset about. To be sure, there are many who applaud the idea of -scrapping the purchase of those nuclear powered subs and other cut-backs in military and defense spending. But these same people are aghast that Canada is also cutting back its contributions through foreign aid to the less fortu- nate countries of the world. The tax hikes in Wilson's budget are truly horren- dous. We will be paying more at every turn: sales and in- come taxes, UIC premiums, gasoline, booze, tobacco and SO on. Wilson has been promising tough medicine, and the budget is one promise the Government has kept. The gnashing of teeth is understandable. But a coun- - try that is $300 billion bucks in the red, and spending about $30 billion more each year than it takes in, really has no choice. Without tough measures, our debt would soar to $1 trillion by the turn of the century, and that would cost $100 billion in annual interest payments alone, clearly a path that would lead to bankruptcy of the federal purse. For the past 25 years, most Canadians have been liv- ing a charmed life when it comes to services provided by government. Whatever we asked for, we got. Government poured money over this country like there was no tomor- row, and we loved it. Our standard of living ranked at or near the top among all nations, and we bragged about it. Only trouble was government was paying for a good part of all that prosperity not in the traditional manner, but rather simply by turning up the printing press spewing out all those dollars, or by floating another bond issue some- where. Our attitude over the past three decades or so 'seemed to be, enjoy the good life today and let the children or the grandchildren worry about picking up the tab. Wall, the day to pay the tab has come. Nobody can dispute the fact our national debt is far too high, and piling deficit onto deficit year in and year out, only put off the in- evitable. " (Turn to page 8) " You MAY FIND THI HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT IN THE LONG RUN (/F you'll PARDON THE PUN) -- IT MucH MORE. EFFIcienT / " Chatterbox by CATHY OLLIFFE LOCAL 'COLORS' | just stepped outside, a minute ago, on a sulvsnake Friday - April afternoon at lunch our. Only to be assaulted by a skinny kid in a black leather jacket and a bad haircut, swing- ing a walkman the size of a small microwave oven. Some kind of weird and syncopated rap was blasting from the thing's speakers, bouncing off the Queen St. buildings like a hard rubber ball, consuming the air, the street ang its occupants with sheer, unadulterated noise. The kid, side by side with another teenaged tough, strutted down the sidewalk in that pe- culiar head jut rhythm, making the downtown his own private rock concert. Nobody told the kid to shut the damn thing off. We just turned our heads and pretended the kid and the kid's racket didn't exist. | didn't want to confront him. Nobody did. He just ruled the airwaves, man, and we let him. A month or so ago, my husband and | were at the north McDonald's in Motor City, picking up some Macs to go. It was a Friday night and the restaurant was filled with minors, in- cluding a grouping of leathered crew cuts hanging out in front of the straw dispenser, blocking everyone's access to the line-ups. Their mouths spewed obscenities, directed at the boopss around them and at the "po- loses: the pigs" that had been hassling them of late. We avoided them like the plague. Everyone did. The cashiers wouldn't even look at them. They ruled the joint, these punks, with their dirty smirks and their foul words. A ripple of fear sank down into my gut. There's been a lot of talk about gangs in the Giynewspaners are full or indepth re- rts, the six o'clock news screams another ating, another mugging, another death. The people of Toronto are beginning to fear these SANG. gangsters, as they already loathe them. | wonder if that's what | saw hanging out at _ the hamburger stand. A fledgling gang testing the Oshawa waters, mimicking the city broth- ers. Not that the kid with the stereo in Port Perry was any kind of gang member, but he did dis- play the same brand of arrogance shown by the group in Oshawa. | wonder where all this is coming from, this arrogance, this desire by some young people to cluster in gangs and threaten those around them. These aren't street kids. They're the sons and daughters of the middle class, with homes and plenty of opportunities. What S it that drives them to gangs? Boredom? Or the potent drug power? Likely the answer is a combination of both, but the latter, power, is perhaps more interest- ing to pursue. If there's one thing a gang has, it's power, created by fear. Gangs are strong because we are afraid of them. We're afraid to look at them, and even more terrified of confronting them. It* would have taken a lot of guts to approach the gan at McDonald's, and ask them to clear out. Af- ter all, one never knows how close their anger is to the surface, how much it would take to prompt violence, or what weapons are con- cealed in their pockets. Maybe they would leave quietly, if asked. But the sneers on their faces, the words they speak, tell different stories. Every day in the city, someone is hurt be- cause of gangs. Old women are beat up for the change in their purses. Families are threatened with knives and fists. Rival gang members donnybrook under the streetlights. These thugs are mere children, and | have to ask myself, where are their parents? Don't they have any idea what horrors their kids have become, or what they do at night? It is terrifying to think that we are mere awns in their deadly games, helpless targets n their next attack. | i { -------------- BE