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Home Newspaper of Halton Hills Established A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Guelph Street Georgetown 3Z6 Ontario A BEATTIE Publisher and General Manager Fighting the bilingualism law BRIAN Editor Phone DAN TAYLOR Advertising Manager Page THE HERALD Wednesday October J Stamps please There are some truths to the cutting remarks directed by Councillor Joe Hewitt at a Canada Post representative on Monday Councillors sat through a presentation by Canada Posts west Metro division city services director Peter Monday extolling the virtues of the crown corporations 96 million profit Mr Darvill said the post offices first profit in 33 years mean Canadians are no longer footing the bill through taxes for postal services But it doesnt take a financial wizard to cut back ser vices increase the price of your service and make a profit It just takes a good marketing plan to sell it The reason governments run services like post offices is because distant communities which could never yield a profit will get served Privatize the whole post office and youll never get a stamp in Whale Cove It just couldnt turn a profit Canada Post is doing the next best thing Reducing ser vice to new subdivisions through the use of super mail boxes and privatizing rural services which means the Limehouse post office is no Ion in That hardly calls for a hearty pat on the back Control the hunt The concerns of Oakville Coun Janet Mitchell about the fourday deer hunt in Haltons forests shouldnt be ignored Deer hunting in our forests has been a controversial issue ever since a temporary ban was put in place in 1985 after a hunter died in a shooting accident The fourday hunt was put in place the next year to keep the deer population in check It must be remembered that controlling the deer popula tion is the reason for the hunt Not placating hunters Theres plenty of room for hunting in more distant forests near less populated areas Deer should be allowed to in habit forests but too many deer can cause exten- sive damage to area farms For the last three years the amount of deer harvested either shot or killed by the archers arrow has remained steady at about 150 even though the number of hunters par ticipating has increased However if the deer population shows any sign of decreasing then the annual November hunt should be reduced accordingly or even cancelled outright Talking tax Brian MacLeod Editors Notebook Judging by the poor turnout at the tax committee meeting at the Hilts Cultural Centre on Thursday people arent as angry about the new Goods and Services Tax as we thought Only 10 people snowed up to air their concerns at the committee room and 12 people showed up at a previous meeting in Bolton The tax committee was set up by HaltonPeel MP Garth Turner to listen to residents concerns about the tax and to make recommenda tions to the tax committee touring the country Committee Chairman Colin Mackinnon started things off by saying the proposed nine per cent Lax is too high He wants it down to at least seven per cent The GST should raise about billion more than the current 18 billion brought in by the 135 per cent tax on manufacturers he said But to billion will be refunded to families whose income is less than a year in the form of tax credits Several audience members com plained bitterly about taxing books And one panel member Mark Shepherd had what was perhaps the best suggestion of the night He wanted to tie Michael Wilsons hands by directing any extra money brought in from the tax to specific projects like paying off the deficit and lowering the GST tax in succeeding years The finance minister stopped just short of tarring and feathering him when he made the suggestion to him a few months ago Mr Shepherd said Queens Park A reader in Thunder Bay com mented on a recent column here that took to task a boorish demonstration in Brockville against As an alternative to demonstrations what do you suggest we Englishspeaking tarians actively do to deter the unwelcome spread of French he wrote He added that letterwriting to politicians appears futile The reader has a point Incidentally I called the Brockville incident a demonstra tion by APEC which is the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada Two members of APEC whose opinions I respect have informed me APEC had nothing to do with the foolishness that the demonstrator who said it was an APEC protest is not a member in fact was unhappy about the affair realizing quite well the negative image it projected If not demonstrations then what can be done Frankly theres a lot And much of it comes down to politics But first be clear on the goal or goals Bill the Frenchlanguage Services Act originally passed without a fight here and no recorded vote or attendence being taken because the leadership of the three oldline parties squashed caucus dissenters and the public wasnt paying attention Official bilingualism shouldnt be allowed any such free ride Secondly while Bill is theoretically law this November in practice some of its more ob noxious aspects are still years from implementation and preven ting their imposition is still possi ble What is not in the works however is a repeal of Bill 8 or a referendum on it so pursuing those goals is a waste ot energy Still Bill patently unfair and Nor are the Grits the only party Many rankandfile New Democrats are less than thrilled by bilingualism as it is affecting their lives But right now the best op portunity is the Progressive Con servatives who are in the midst of a leadership campaign where every member of the party yes everyone will get a vote discriminatory method of im plementation can be challenged above all by publicizing as many incidents of discrimination as possible I fully understand the fear many people have that they will suffer retaliation if they become publicly involved Its true that nothing is going to convince Premier David Peterson that it is wrong to appease Quebec and Ontarios federally financed francophone lobby PROTESTS REGISTER But Peterson has a large caucus all of whom want to get reelected Letterwriting to backbenchers so long as it is temperate does register The Liberals are not as united on having official bilingualism in On tario as their public posture would indicate Where will power come from What is the energy source of the future Dont fret if you cant come up with a snap answer because 3500 of the best minds in the energy business dont all agreeeither That was apparent at the trien nial meeting of the World Energy Conference this week All manner of possibilities were discussed oil natural gas nuclear power hydro solar wind fusion coal hydrogen and pure conservation Some of these options are more realistic than others but Robert Saunders of the World Bank of fered a tongueincheek summa tion of the diversity of views The worlds largest energy forum was like a conference on the environ ment touching on energy issues and led by the nuclear lobby he said Nuclear power got a plug from keynote speaker Lord Marshall of Goring who just happens to be chairman of the World Association of Nuclear Operators Lord Marshall dismissed public fears about nuclear energy even in the light of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents and argued that its the clean and safe way of the future Radioactive emissions from nuclear plants are less than the natural levels of radiation from floating radon gas and sobluble radium he argued and should not be feared But despite Lord Marshalls protestations most conference participants recognized that the public is not ready for expansion of nuclear power Nor can many of Vic Parsons the worlds poorer nations afford the heavy capital investment re quired James Schlesinger the former US energy secretary who once headed the US Atomic Energy Commission said nuclear power is now cloud While he personally favors nuclear energy Schlesinger said realistically oil will be the prefer red energy source for Americans in the near term US demand for oil is burgeon ing even while domestic supplies are falling said Curiously the hostility of the 1970s energy crisis the US has become the main engine of suc cess for the once widely condemn ed oil cartel the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC What of coal which is abundant in many parts of the world Despite efforts to improve its im age through socalled clean technology coal is still regarded as the dirtiest of the fossil fuels With concern about car bon dioxide emissions causing the Greenhouse Effect use of coal is not expected to grow much over the next three decades at least Hydroelectric power is a major energy source in Canada but most experts dont see rapid growth in this sector Poorer countries dont have the money and the richer na tions are running out of suitable sites The search for other major energy sources continues Fusion the production of energy from the joining together of atoms rather than splitting them holds promise for the future The waste products of fusion are much less dangerous than those of existing nuclear technology but as the fuss over socalled cold fu sion showed earlier this year progress is slow Another possibility is hydrogen A paper coauthored by Canadian David Scott of the University of Toronto points out that hydrogen available from water is a sus tainable nonpolluting energy source The waste product of the use of hydrogen is water And we could never run out of fuel LEARNED A LESSON As If to confirm the chummy new atmosphere Issam Al Chalabi Iraqs oil minister said OPEC and others bad learned a lesson from the oilprice volatility of the past two decades and now believed pro- ducers and consumers should sit together amicably at the negotiating table