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Paget ALTON HILLS OUTLOOK Saturday October 1M Halton Hills Tbeir Outlook OUTLOOK to each Saturday the TON llll 1S Home Nfwipaper of Hilton lllili A Division Nrwipaprni Company Limited at Street rargrlonn Second Class Mall Registered Number AD MANAGER Dan Taylor Pith St Caroline Mac I rod Barbara Jeannlne Valols PRODUCTION NT My I m lis on Annie Mary lou foreman Pull all the stops Twos a Crowd What this country needs It seems to me Is a partisan without commercial Interests to bring our political leaders together for a debate In each federal election campaign Ottawa I Stewart MacLeod Thomson It should oe one those old fashioned town hall events knock cmdown drag em out at air In which the leaden would given all sorts of leeway to shout argue and accuse There should no particular lime limit and then certainly should be no panel of jour The moderator should have disputatious streak In him a Jack Webster perhaps The political parties should no part in the event I one particular leader like th format he could stay home the consequences All lelevisior networks would of course be in to cover the debate but they too should have no part in arranging it Any network that doesn I like can show a rerun of Love Boat What patently clear is that present arrangement of three political parties and three television networks getting together to debates is not the answer There arc too many partisan and commercial interests at work We invariably end up with a stilted format a compromise that no one seems to like neither the parlies the networks nor the public But that s not unusual with com mlttec work I SHOW What has emerged this time from countless hours of negotiations Is a format under which Brian Mulroney John Turner and Ed will participate in two threehour debates on Oct In French and on Oct in English The negotiators fought over the number of telecasts the number of hours the number of topics the sub to be dlvusscd the length of questions the length of answers tell Naturally no one is happy Both the Liberals and New Democrats entered the negotiations asking for three separate debates in each language one general one on free trade and one on women s issues The Tories wanted no part of this particularly with regard to free rode Actually they don want any televised debates since these things Invariably work to the disadvantage of the party In power But after be ing so vociferous in demanding a debate in SW were opposition they couldn do a com about face now So to say the negotiations were healed would be gross understate ment To say the results are sat I sine lory would be an even greater understatement TORIES BENEFIT Although none of the parties is happy with end result the Tories probably have the greatest cause for satisfaction At least they managed to avoid a special debute on free trade this subject will doubted y dominate the general issue parts of the debates That subject being so complex is with danger for the prime minister Not only is he in danger of being tripped up an details or being challenged on some unknown aspect of the deal but the debate automatically gives opponents two- thirds of the time allotment Both Mr Turner and Mr angrily oppose the deal And without a debate devotee specifically to free trade the primt minister will at least be able to steel discussions In other directions That represents a victory of sorts So docs the business of having thi French debate ahead of English Three hours of arguing in French going to be much more difficult fot Mr Turner and even more so Mr than for Mr Mulroney who is so comfortably fluent He should be much more rested on the second night A threehour non slop and lightly controlled debate strikes me as nonsensical Listening to a good freeforall in a town hall setting la one thing but watching leaders Stan ding stiffly in front of glass dressed by professionals and pro tecting their makeup against the heat of television lights Is quite another thing And with all due respect do we really need a full hour on women s Issues s this more important Irian free trade which all parties agree- is the central subject of this cam poign Or environmental issues Or general social issues Or global hunger Remembering that a camel is a horse designed by a committee It lime we got these debates into one pair of hands Who knows we might even end up watching them all the way through SNAFU by Brace Bealtie Campaign trailers Guess Id better dust him while Im at it Mining tugofwar The strange case of Lac Minerals Corona the billion dollar gold mine has reached the fi Your Business Diane Matey Thomson Stntct Court of Canada At issue is which of the two com panics is entitled the Page- Williams gold mine In the field In Northern That t should be has been a point of fascination business peo ple since the dispute flared up throe years ago The epic explains why com panics prefer to settle of court the outcome of a trial Is about a predictable as rolling dice When Lac Corona dispute surfaced few observers seriously thought would lose the entire gold mine Dividing the mine the two parties seemed a more likely result So It was no wonder that Lac slock price plunged and Corona soared In 19B6 when the initial decision was handed down people involved in the companies it must hovi beenagul wrenching experience The Initial ruling took the mine from Lac and gave 11 to or The court found that Ijk hurt broken a trust with confidential geological inform t ion it had obtained from Cortina This week Ihe Ontario Court rejected Lac bid for a new trial That decision may be Lac however already has separate appeal lot the lower rullngsi before the Supreme Court Canada Thot It not my Intention commen on the merits of the case The court ruled and the decision is being pealed To a disinterested onlooker though the battle over Ihe Page Williams mine is the stuff great Is made More Important for business pen pic are the for cor responsibility elusive thing known as trust or fiduciary duty Trust companies have a clear Idea of where their fiduciary duty lies but mining com panics apparently do not That not surprising under the circumstances Lac claims it was acting on publicly available In formation that Involved no trust pi i or explicit Corona and the lower courts disagree Lac lawyers argued that their client did not take on a fiduciary ty when It discussed the possibility of a Joint venture with Corona As it happened no partnership was struck In my submission the courts had stretch the law to find lhat Lac was under a fiduciary duty in this case and they stretched It all out of shape says Earl Chemlak Lac Corona lawyer Alan Lenczncr disagrees arguing that the court decision did not extend the law The relationship between the two com ponies was lhat of unequal partners mining industry custom protects junior exploration companies from senior producers such as Lac DAVID AND GOLIATH observers have tended to view the Lac Corona as a battle between David Corona and Lnc Goliath where Utile guy wins In everyone delight and dismay 1 doubt It as straight forward as thai Lac behavior since lost the mine In 1986 has come under fire Without excusing the company one only imagine what it means to a company its owners executives and public shareholders to lose a billion dollar gold mine Regardless of the merit the case the implications for corporate in and beyond the mtnind In dustry serious All over the try corporate executives could chary of other afraid all accidentally a position of trust could subs be breached The legacy of Page Williams dispute may well be these questions What constitutes fiduciary duty Is the court decision limited the mining industry El Staff Comment By BRIAN MACLEOD politics fun With two elections going on at the same time there no lack of political to talk about In the now remember this municipal riding of Hills and federal riding of Hal tan federally the Tones have brought Prime Minister Mulroney and Affairs Minister Jot Clark in for show Mulroney Ignored the media Clark flirted with it Yes lovable Joe was just that last week when he was candid relaxed witty and actually seemed to be en joying himself in front of local reporters at a press conference He put on a better show Ihe Prime Minister albeit for a smaller In the mldsl of Joe press con I asked him what the Tories would do in the event of another recession and all this nice new American investment courtesy of the free trade deal simply pulls up His answer Nol all new invest rncnl will be American Oh pardon me for thinking the free trade agreement dealt with Canada and the US But Motion Peel Candidate Garth Turner tossed In his two cents He said the inevitability of a recession would be diminished by the deal So there you hove All those rumors about economic cycles and about booms and recessions They re obsolete No more recessions we hove free trade deal Down at Ihe social gathering in the Milton CAW hall last Saturday which Incidentally Is not In this tiding a small group of about 30 party members listened to an elo quent speech by Federation of Labor Leader Gord Wilson He I like free trade or Prime Minister Mulroney Ministers promises lo the wind Mr Wilson offered up this dandy cabinet is like a bunch of bananas they re pale in color they hong together and there isn I a straight one in the whole damn The audience was amused Liberal speaking Pierre Klein seems to be fond of coffee parties with his No word If the quid served of the decaffeinated variety or Hie real stuff Okay now for the local stuff you noticed the signs for the mayoralty candidates Miller sign bus ia rid writing with a background while Pam has name scribed In blue yellow background Now which election was again