Ontario Community Newspapers

Whitby Free Press, 27 Feb 1980, p. 4

The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1980, WHITBY FREE PRESS rwhifby C Voice of the County Town Michael Ian Burgess, Publisher. Managing Editor 'he only Whitby newspaper independently owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents. Published every Wednesday by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography Inc. Phone 668-61 Il The Free Press Building. 131 Brock Street North, P.O. Box 206. Whitby, Ont. Communlty EdItor Production Manager Pnt & Promotlonal Manager Clasaifled Ad Advertising Manager 10 o1 fT 1 (i oi virt Now the changes will begin to happen Well, it s all over and Canadians have rejected the Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark and swung their support behind former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and the Liberal party. Firstly, the Whitby Free Press would like to congratulate Scott Fennell on his re-election as Member of Parliament for Ontario Riding although this time he will sit ln opposition. The other candidates also deserve congratulations for their efforts and for running clean campaigns. The entire election, in this riding at least, was participated in by gentlemen and was run on a civilized basis. Now that the 65 day orgy of election promises is over it is time to get down to business. It will be interesting to follow the developments of the new government and to see whether or not they can make more progress with Premier Peter Lougheed of Alberta than did the previous gover- nment. We fear that this may not be so. Studying a map of Canada with a list of the new MP's and their home ridings makes an interesting study. The support of the new Liberal government is based in Quebec with a good show in Ontario and the Maritime provinces. Where the Liberals will have trouble is in the west. They secured only two seats west of the Manitoba border. Trudeau will not have the strength in his gover- nment in dealing with the west as did Clark. It is fortunate that the province threatening to break up Confederation is not the province with the oil. What changes can we expect to see? Firstly, the Conservatives will be much stronger opposition than in the past because they have power in times, however short, contemporary to the Liberals, they have a better idea of how the gover- nment functions and have been privy to a greater amount of information than ever before. We can also expect a change in the Liberal party especially in the cabinet. The Liberal cabinet will have many new faces, it has to, to hang on to government. It is possible that we will see a younger and newer cabinet than fias been Liberal tradition. There will also be a change in Canadian foreign policy, Clark's whole-hearted support of the United States will be tempered by the new Liberal gover- nment as they will focus their attention inwards. Their attention will be divided between Quebec and the spring referendum on sovereignty- association and Alberta and the debate over oil pricing arrangerments it is almost a certainty that the government will change the course plotted by its predecessor especially with regards to the Olympics and energy. The short lived Tory government produced many changes but the real changes should come with a re-vitalized Liberal government. A newpoliticalparty is needed Dear Sir: There are 3 major, urgent problems facing Canada (and indeed the Western World) today - inflation, unem- ployment and energy shortage. Fortunately solutions to all these problems exist, but un- fortunately none of our major political parties seems prepared to adopt these solutions. The first, inflation, can only be solved by imposing rigid man- datory wage, profit and price controls, that is, zero increase in the fir- st year, followed by in- creases in wages and profits in later years exactly equal to productivity increases. Provided the above f reeze is applied, unemployment can be solved by increasing our money supply. For example, to absorb 8% unemployment plus 2% productivity in- crease we need 10% money supply increase - .e. $25 billion. This must be done directly by the government - not via the banks - so the deficit will not be in- creased. Governments have been increasing the money supply in recent years, but without a freeze on incomes, etc. it is just gobbled up by inflation. Part of the in- crease in wealth generated by putting unemployed people and equipment to work, and the new money created as above, can be used to solve the impending Energy shortage. Namely, ail the oil and gas now used for heating, should be replaced by vastly expanded elec- tricity production, using nuclear hydro or coal depending on the location. For example, nuclear in Ontarlo, hydro in B.B., coal in Alberta. Also, to some extent, the "waste" heat from Electric Power Stations can be utilized directly. Moreover, mucn of the oil now used in tran- sport can also be replaced by electricity - e.g. electric trains, trolley buses, electric cars run by overhead wires or battery replacement stations at intervals along highways (GM will be selling a 100-mile range electric car soon). Such a program in- volves tripling our elec- tricity production over a period of 20 years, but this is quite feasible, costing about $14 billion a year, i.e. just over half the extra wealth generated by putting the unem- ployed to work. Electricity, if generated as proposed, will cost about 30 per cent less than tar-sands oil for heating purposes, and about three times less for transport. We badly need a politcal party - or perhaps a coalition - to follow the above policies. If properly ex- plained, they would be very popular, and the party adopting them could easily win any election. Yours sincerely, J. M. McNanee Assoc. Professor Atkinson College The Tories want to say thank-you to the voters Dear Sir: On behalf of the Whitby Progressive conservative Associa- tion, I would like to thank the many people involved with the recent election of our candidate Scott Fen- nell as a Member of Parliament for Ontario Riding. On the night of the election, Scott was quoted as saying he at- tributed much of his success to a par- ticularly strong cam- paign in Whitby. Without all the help of the Whitby volun- teers involved in this election I am sure the results may have been different. We can be proud of our Member of Parliament, I am certain he will represent all the residents of the Town of Whitby well. M.K. Beadle President, Whitby Progressive Conservative Assoc. .MIkOKWI1 *Mari Burgee .Robn Lyon *Karon ThOffPOO

Powered by / Alimenté par VITA Toolkit
Privacy Policy