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Page 6, Whitby Fre Press, Wednesciay. December 21, 1994 The only Newspaper owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents! MEMBER 0F: ONTARIO COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION CANADIAN CIRCULATIONS CNA DIVISION AUDIT BOARD ISSN#0844-398X The Whitby Free Press s dlstributed free to 99% of the homes in Whtby, Brooklin, Ashburn & Myrtie as well as numerous public and commercial outets in Whitby, Oshawa, Ajax, Pickering & Port Perry. [27,000 COPIES DELIVERED WEEKLY j MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE Canada $32 + GST - Outside Canada $75 + GST Published every Wednesday by 677209 Ontario Imc. Box 206, 131 Brook St. N., Whitby, Ontario Li N 5S1 Phone: 668611il Out of town: 1-800-668-0322 Fax: 668-0594 Doug Anderson - Pubisher Maurice Pither - Editor Alexandra Martin - Production Manager Printed on newspnînt with minimum 20% recycîed content using vegetable based i nks. OAil written material, Illustrations and advertising contained herein ls protected by copyright. Any reproduction by any means for commercial purposes without the express perission of the newspaper ls prohibited and is a violation olCa nadian copyright law. Reproduction for non-commercial distribution should bear a credif uine 10 the Whtby Free Press- By Alex Shophord Durham rldlng MP Nothing upsets people more than the. ridiculous pensions members of Parliament receive. The pensions are far better than any received in the. private sector. Hopefulîy, by Christmas, Art Eggleton, minister of Treasury Board, s going to announce changes to the pension plan that should have been made years ago. The public is ted up seeing people collect .1 age 4.0 while working for government or as an elected off icial for another level of goverfnent. Clearly it Is wrong when taxpayers have to wait until they are weIl on in years. The f irst thing I asked when I was elected and got to Ottawa was how the pensions got so far out of touch with reality? The answer was thatd historically -people didn't run for parliament until they were close to retirement age. As a matter of tact, intîally MPs didn't get paid at ail. I think tha's stretching it. Anyway MPs got on a train and chugged off to Ottawa, stayed at the. Chateau Laurier and were paid out-of-pocket expenses. These men were also rich, at that time only the rich got involved in politios. It wouldn't occur to them that MPs under 60 would receive a pension because f 0w of them were below that age. Double dipping wouldn't occur to themn either since few looked for other places to roost in government ater they were defeated or retired. But as things stand now, MPs have six years to qualify for pensions. To get a 75 per cent pension you have to b. in the. house 15 years. And in spite of what people say, tewer than haif ever qualify for any pension at ail. -yn bu h rpsdpaepca,, hs Some MPs are cryn bu h rpsdpaepcaî hs elected in 1988 and earlier, because they wouldn't b. eligible to coîîect until they are 55. Their argument is that the rules are being changed in the middle of the game. They say the pensions were part of their election plans, a little something to shelter then when they lost an election. 'm not at ail sympathetic. Some MPs are also crying over the. indexing of the pension plan. Currently, once you have served in the Commons, pensions grow by 5per cent a year-__ not bad, ehî Combine that with government contributions and you have a mushrooming effect that isn't available to anyone else outside of government. ht is simply preposterous. The proposai is to-reduce the five per cent to 3.5 per cent. There is a lot of boohooing over thii, too. Personally they can eliminate the whole plan as fair as I'm concerned. I didn't even know what I was getting until I got my f irst pay cheque. Having said ail this. I still don't want to go back to a time when only the. rich could be MPs. I hope the electorate are pleased with the results. There hasn't been an mncrease in M'slaries for five yars. When you combine Draw the lune By Paul Pagnuelo Ontario Taxpayers Federatlon 'm f ipping through tiie pages of the federal Liberal's pre-election 'Red Book' and I can't seem to tind the part about sticking Canadians with $1.1-billion in new taxes. Vet, a Liberaî-dominated Flouse of Commons Finance committee recommends Paul Martin rais. a slew of new taxes from increased prices at the gas pump to a temporary 'deficit reduction surtax' of one per cent on ail corporate and individual income. *Temporary taxes is an oxymoron if there's even been one. We're still reeling from the last "temporary"' tax. Remember? Incomo tax was Introduced In 1917 as a temporary measure to help fight the w ar effort. S.venty-seven years later, Canadians suffer under the heaviest *temporaryn tax burden of ail major industrialized nations. Even more absurd is the committee's contention that tax hikes help to reduce aur deficit. Remnember the Was time w. were Spon-fed tuis nonsense b Mulroney during tiie GST dee At the time, our deficit stood at $29 billion. Today, f ive years after the "dot icit-bustingu GST was introduced, our deficit stands at: $40 billion per year and our national debt has increased 41 per cent. f politicians were prepared to impose balanced budget laws, then the talk of tax increases to reJuco the deficit might carry with it some credibility. But giving politiciens more money with no more than a nod and wink of assurance that our deficits wjll be curtalied i9 liko f ight ing a house f ire witii kerosene. Vear ater year after year governments have slowly ratcheted-up taxes -- a penny increase on gasoline here, a percontage increase on income tax there. Just a f ew extra dollars par person we're told. At some point taxpayers must draw a line in the sand and tell our polit icians were done -- put a fork in us! Fifty per cent of our earned income turned over to g-overnment each year is quite enotigh. As taxes continue to climb, more and more people are taking their protest beyond the. ballot box and voting with their feet by engaging in the. underground economy. Businesses, meanwhile. are taking their jobs and capital to lower-tax jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the United States in record numbers. These activities which threaten to hanîper economic growth, jobs and govemnment revenues are no cure for our f iscal cancer. Fortunately. the tax hikes as proposed by the Flouse of Commons Finance Commitee are not etched in stono. W. cari expect Paul Martin to test tiie winds leadinq up to uis budget in February. It s incumbent upon us as taxpayers to begin responding with every bit as much outrage and vigilance in defending the. f ruits of our labour as do the special lnterests who have declared open season on our wallets. Unless we send a clear message to Mr. Martin we can expect our wailets, once again. to be just a little bit lighter a year f rom now. To the edîtor: Re: Letter 'NDP dictatorship,' Fr.. Press, Dec. 14. Tom Doucette feft that h. deserved a public apology or -a written apology in tiie newspaper for an article in whicii h. clamed Drummond White criticized hum. Tii. article was pertaining to whetiier or not Mr. Whiite was in support of tii. peopl.e t Subway Trailer Park. Mr. White is a ful-time MPP who has worked conscientiously to represent and help ail of the. peoplo ein this area, not just tii prvleged. H. is not an MPP who holds down two jobs as do a number of MPPs who koep open their Iaw prectice or maintain otiier business nterests. Ater the. publication of Tom's original article,,I as a iong-term rosident of tii. Trailer Park where Mr. Doucette doos not live, wrote to Tii. Free Press to state the. tacts and try to clarify tii. matter. I said et thet timo tiietMr. Wite did, in fact, support Bill 21 and tiie Mr. Whiite and his staff were a grealii.elp to tii. people living in tiie park and tiie support is stilI present. It is ironic that Mr. Doucette did not congratulate Mr. White on tiie nassne of Bill 21 but. severel months leter, chose to criticize hum unduly in tiie media. I must state tiiet, if it w.re not for tii. persistent effort of Mr. Whiite, Gord Milîs, Paul Wessenger and anotiier NDP members, Bill 21 would not have been passed. W. now have greater protection under legislation, largely due to tii. efforts of Mr. White and tii. otiior three MPPs and weoOwO them a great deal 0f tiianks. I say to you. Tom, if you do not like to b. criticized for remarks you made in your articles, tiien don't write thom. Mr. Wiiito does not owe you an apology. And to use your own words, it was Mr. White who called y ou to seo if tiie metter cou Id b. straightened out. I say to you, Tom, if y ou don't want people to respond to your letters, et least get your tacts stralght. Bernîs Emotf Whftby Monitoring committee 9nonsense To the odltor: Re: Lynde Mersii monitoring committe. Does the Town of Whitby and those associated with wmonitoring the marsh not realize thet a sizabe portion of the Durham Region population wants a sanctuary for that area? Did the. election not give any hînt to elected officiais that the marsh was a major issue? Witness the. election and near election of candidlates wiiose views regarding the. preservation 0f the marsh were uppermost in their cempeigns. Recognizing that major development is sîeted does not mean il may happen. Do you know how hard the. Save Lynde Marsh committee, un conjunction with other environmental groups, has been working on b.half of tii. people to have a nature sanctuary established? Can this nonsense about torming a monitoring committee b. stopped now and $300,000 put to botter use elsewhere in the economy? Whi happons when the. sanctuary becomes a reaîity? Whose trne and money wilI have been sq uendered? Cari we not put back the. hands of time and realize a grave error was made in the decision to buiîd beside the. marsh and do something now to put it right? What a wonderfuî. positive way to begin 19951 Shrly Bee No apology neoessary CCNA