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TIIFIIEKAII Wednesday November 1090 Pages Columnists Ratepayers association should be more proactive A local ratepayers association should be more proactive in its attempt to influence future development in Hills if it wants widesweeping public sup port Thats what one town resi dent argued at the Residents Ac live in Development Decisions sponsored public in formation meeting last day And hes right Its easy to criticize but a lot of time this ap proach turns people off or worse shows the group to be selfish During the meeting another Georgetown resident contended members of have been able to enjoy the urban rural set ting Halton Hills offers because of development But now that they live in Hills they dont want any more develop ment for fear it will disrupt their rural urban lifestyle In response RAIDD chairman Gail Rutherford acknowledged shes heard this argument before but stressed doesn op pose all development Instead the group wants responsible development But the question remains what is responsible development Taken alone the phrase is am biguous Developers wanting to built two buildings in a single family home residential area like Maple Avenue wouldnt argue they are irrespon They could most probably supply proof the buildings would Bens Banter By Ben be and then inturn argue they are helping to address the shortage of housing In this scenario the market is the final arbitrator Opponents of this kind development proposal would argue it is irresponsible because the developer is showing no con for the neighborhood character They argue the apartments would be best suited somewhere else But where The developers didnt pick the original neighborhood without reason They know as well as anyone else this neighborhood is where pie would probably prefer to live TO credit the group invited those attending the meeting and anyone else developers included to help them design a long term residential and commercial industrial development plant that could be submitted to the town for con sideration But there is no time to waste That doesn mean drawing up a plan tomorrow It means con as much as possible to the town s current urban study review The town is holding an lion session Nov in conjunc tion with the review to get public input on the direction the town should take on the issue of development If members of and the rest of the public are serious about influencing the town atten dance at this meeting and those to follow is imperative If people noose not to attend the meeting and they don like the final outcome they have no one to blame but themselves Second half of fiscal year looks gloomy By VIC PARSONS Ottawa Bureau Thomson Newsservice OTTAWA Now that half of Ot tawas fiscal year is over lets take a peek at the Finance Departments books Just looking at the bottom line the situation looks pretty good In the April toSeptember period federal spending exceeded revenues by a mere billion Thats a lot of potatoes to be sure but its billion less than the deficit in the first six months of the last fiscal year You may not appreciate the reason for this improvement So far this year the government has taken 30 billion in income taxes out of the pockets of m dividual taxpayers That s a 24- increase over a year ago The Finance Department Fiscal Monitor a monthly publication says it could do this because there was strong growth in personal incomes m the half of A second factor is that tax refunds were lower than a year ago due to the impact of tax reform Moreover the col lected million in unemploy ment insurance premiums a 25- per cent jump from last year So far so good for those who like to see a shrinking of the federal deficit DISAPPOINTMENT DUE Unfortunately those who read too much into these sixmonth numbers will be disappointed They are like the optimist who fell from the top of a building So far so good he said after hed fallen 10 floors As the department itself points out things will get tougher toward the end of the fiscal year A key factor here is the miscalculation of interest rates by finance officials in last February s federal budget The government has had to pay 1 per cent more in interest on the national debt than a year ago Last February Finance Minister Michael Wilson predicted in terest payments single federal expenditure would tally only 4 per tent more this year over last The increase in public debt charges reflects the compoun ding effect of the higher than expected increases in interest rates since the February budget and the increase in the stock of debt the Fiscal Monitor notes glumly Finance has now abandoned its earlier guess of a 28 deficit for the fiscal year and is looking at a shortfall the end of next March Even that might be unrealistic Wilson has consistently rejected suggestions from many respected economists that this recession will be deeper and longer than previously an ticipated JOBLESS RISING Already unemployment rates have risen suddenly and sharply exceeding the rate of increase in the devastating recession of 1981 The recently released tober jobless rate was per cent a stunning rise from the per cent figure reported last Apnl This worsening situation is showing up in the Finance Department figures Unemployment insurance benefits paid in the first half of the year totalled billion up per cent from a vear ago Canada Assistance Plan payments Ottawa to the pro vinces and territories rose per cent to billion T hese larger welfare outs ere largely due to increased caseloads due to the current economic environment the Fiscal Monitor says he introduction of the goods and services tax GST will also have adverse effects on Ottawa bank balance this fiscal year Assuming the controversial tax becomes law the first GST credit to lower and middleincome families will be paid in December And rebates arising from replacement the GST of the old federal sales tax will be going out to manufacturers These together will put another SI billion hole in the federal before significant GST rt venues are collected Finally with the recession cor profits ill continue the fall that began in the first half of this year Lower profits means lower tax collections and though new federal corporate taxes have offset the decline to date there s no reason to be optimistic here either he second half of fiscal 199091 does noi present a picture Citizens forum a last minute undertaking By STEWART Ottawa Bureau Thomson News Service OTTAWA We don have refutable proof that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney an nounced his Citizens Forum on Canadas Future before he was ready but by golly all in dicators point in that direction It would be a pity if the forum under chairman Keith Spicer loses some of its credibility because of this but the dangers are clearly there Almost every day in the immediate aftermath of the minister s announce ment ihere have been new hints of government unprepared ness There is reason to believe Mr announced the forum to jump ahead of a similar initiative by a group of pnvate citizens This group com prised largely of I iberals had planned an announcement for the week of Nov According to some reports the prime minister even copied the name of the proposed group which would have had five or six members and like the commission would have travel the listening to ana dians talk about the future Officials close to Mr the connection They the Spicer forum was a prime ministerial initiative without outside prodding and had been planned for weeks Well perhaps so but it pass strange that everything was left to the last possible moment on such an important ready There were even apparent con fusions about the makeup of the commission when Mr Mulroney announced it in the At first we were led believe it would be a full fledged panel with the 12 members devoting all their energies to the task Gradually through a senes of explanations it seems to have become a oneperson commis sion with 11 parttime members who will take part in hearings and advise Mr Spicer Some of these are extremely busy people said the chairman a few days after assuming com mand Look at their jobs Not one is coming full time A couple have told me the most they can give is maybe half an hour an hour a week While Mr Spicer continues receiving his salary as chairman of the Canadian Radiotele vision and Telecommunications torn mission in the ballpark of a year the part timers will get up to a to help htm out Whether this per diem will be broken down to rates re mains to be seen Mr Spicer we are given to understand was asked to take on the assignment just three das before the announcement Other members were added after hat and some such as Sa John Mayor Elsie were asked less than two hours before the pnme minister stood up in the Invariably with the formation of such commissions the an is accompanied biographical sketches of members Not on this occasion time And for the first day or two no one seemed to have details of how the group would operate whether it would have a large support staff where it would go and what exactly it would do At last report no one knew the group s budget Mr Spicer now says he expects the staff to grow to by hnstmas Included will be 10 operators on a cross Stewart MacLeod era Liberals Also by giving the Spicer commission a July deadline Mr Mulroney has bought himself three months to The prime minister can verv well do much about these pro posals until he hears from his group Perhaps not planned but nonetheless convenient telephone hot line More change The initial impression that the group would spend the bulk of its time travelling across Canada to talk and listen seems to be as well Mr Spicer will be do ing much of this himself with his start in Tuktovaktuk tt T Sas the chairman I don think were getting a big ground swell of people wanting another road show circus tpe thing we would like to reach the people who are normally too sh and to come forward What will come out of the deliberations is anyone guess Mr said he didn t know except that the prime minister promised to take this very seriously One is left with the impression the two men spend a great deal of time discussing things deal with Quebec s Belanger commission w hose recommendations come down in March before the announcement was cobbled together Panel members spend even less time However the announcement did come in time to head off the private initiative bv the Trudeau Berrys World Of course if war DID break out Interest rates would ultimately go MUCH LOWER