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

PAGE 6 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE , WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 9 Second Class Mail Registration Number 5340 And now we are supposed to believe the latest scandal to hit Parliament Hill concerns the $800 a day former Liberal Finance Minister Donald Macdonald is tabbed to receive to work on a Royal Commission studying "the economic union and development prospects for Canada."‘ 1 1 on C uo l n 4t yc anikizam ©ATEME (CPC C Ne PRA BE EO URAIIE ARCs ME oOs From the man on the street to members of the Opposition in the House of Commons to Liberal backbenchers for crying out loud, the howls can be heard across the nation, citing exorbitant salary scales for Macdonald and his merry group with the threeâ€"year mandate to attempt to pull us out of our economic rut. A + Mabqi es e L ssAL CCUOIRTUIIRRL 2 MEEW Obscene salaries, $192,000 a year for a fiveâ€"day, 11â€"month work slate? Why? Because it‘s not you or me making it? Because it‘s an affront to taxpayers? What nonsense. The cryâ€"meâ€"aâ€"river types are aghast that Macdonald will pocket almost $70,000 a year more than Grand Chef Pierre or whoever else occupies the PM‘s residence the next three vears. So what, as long as the Royal Commission uses its expertise, does its job properly and comes up with valid recommendations to save this sinking economic ship. As Pierre pointed out to heatedâ€"up Opposition halfâ€"wit interrogators Tuesday, the bucks offered through the issue of an orderâ€"inâ€"council to the baker‘s dozen who will sit on the commission are perfectly consistent with those garnered by previous Royal Commissions. Maybe that doesn‘t in itself justify the stipend, but why the sudden outery over the supposed violation of our tax dollars? Just because Matdonald‘s salary has been analysed in layman‘s terms? It is a wage basically on a par with your average professional athlete. Top entertainers pay more taxes a year than that. Most of the commission members will bag about $300 a day, the same as the headline exotic dancer at the local strip joint. j If this Royal Commission can help solve the problems it is designed to, every red cent will have been wellâ€"earned. ' 2. us o Cauit l ue enc naaro P i. everything into a cocked hat, whalever that is. Do you have any conception of the effort required, when all you want to do is die and be incinerated, to have to call up about fifteen people, two weekends in a row, and tell them the party is off? And 80 per cent of them are out on the first, and second, and third call? But what the heck. That‘s :vhat this Letcaoucns e aite e p inss DEPRESSING, isn‘t it? And I‘m not talking about the weather. Although I could. Came home from work yesterday, midâ€"January, in pouring rain. Didn‘t even bother to plug in the block heater. Got up this morning and it was below zero. Guess what didn‘t happen. Twice in the last two weeks we have scheduled a party for friends. Everything set: fire laid; glasses polished; booze bought; rug vacuumed almost to death. And twice Ole Mistah Floo has knocked evervthing into a cocked hat, whatever [ 11 ; S _ i elfbcbrctenit But what the heck. That‘s what this country is all about in winter, and it is only then that I curse me ancestors, not loud but deep, for setting forth from the peat and potatoes and deciding they‘d go to Canmada. Why not Australia, or South And how about that rampant ‘flu that is striking down huge, burly men as well as little old ladies. I fall somewhere between the two, and it has certainly stricken me down â€" about four times. vnbchidet n ihiitcatiibdt Aibih ie "Aladbcvnlnnine n rarr c And even if it‘s a flop, the most it can be accused of is following in its predecessors‘ footsteps. It doesn‘t exactly have a hard act to follow. Tahiti? Quit crying BILL SMILEY published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterioo Record Ltd., owner 225 Fairway Rd.S., Kitchener, Ont. Watertoo Chronicfe office is located in MIC 170" Law Office Buiiding (rear entrance upper floo of the building Open Monday to Friday 9.00 45 Erb St 6 hronicfe office is located in the Harper address correspondence to Waterloo office â€" Waterloo. Ont N2J 1L7, telephone 886 2830 The only smart person in my entire family collection (connection? That‘s The Floo) is a nephew who went to Costa Rica, started a small business, made a happy marriage, and has three little girls. We had a happy Christmas card from him. He probably couldn‘t even pick up his glasses now, let alone a glass. But I hope he has some of the old esprit left. He was a Canadian Ukrainian and coached us in a few words of Russian, because we knew The Russians Were Coming. All I reâ€" member is, "Nistrali," meaning ‘"Don‘t Everybody else in the family is sick or stupid or broke or old or having marital problems. And that includes yours truly. Why didn‘t I go to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, as Roman Woychuk and I planned to do as soon as â€" and if â€" we got out of prison camp alive? And 1 wonder what has happened to Chuk. He was a brilliant cartoonist, but had an eccentric streak. Last time I saw him, we were out at a nightclub with our ladies. Toward the end of the evening, he picked up his glass, pretended it was a grenade, pulled the nonâ€"existent pin out with his teeth, and hurled it through a mirror that must have cost twenty grand. But what am I doing in the Yucatan Peninsula with a crazy Ukrainian? A Publisher: Paul Winkler Manager: Bill Karges Editor: Rick Campbell established 1854 Harper, Haney and White floor) Parking at the rear" )00 a m to 5 00 p m 1983 "With Jesus the healing process dealt with the laying on of hands â€" for ultimate relaxation might be staring for an hour at a bow! of goldfish." It is written r 2e +‘14 LAT im ALRIGHT, LM NQT IMAGINING THIS, MY CHAIK 15 WARM AGAIN, SOMEABODY:S BEEN TRYING iT quT ... SOmEeOonE 5 BEEN S1T [ING: in M\lu!m(! °C T PM columnist is supposed to have a theme, state it, defend it, and leave the reader in a state of serenity, a problem solved, a difficult dilemma made clear as crystal. What 1 really wanted to talk about was The Depression. And don‘t talk to me about a recession, a slowdown, a shake down or any other of the cant phrases used by economists who are able to tell us, in doubleâ€"talk, and at fifty thousand a year, that things are tough all over. And all I‘ve done so far is muddy the waters, obfuscate the obvious, and leave the reader with raised eyebrows that indicate Smiley should be put out to pas ture. We‘re in a Depression, and note the capital D. How do I know? Well, gentle reader, I‘ve been there before. I know the territory. A few years ago, in my youth, I stated that we could never have another Great Depression, like that of the ©30s. After all, we had unemployment insurance, a reaâ€" sonable Old Age Pension, medicare: all sorts of buffers against poverty, hunger, humiliation, raggedyâ€"asses, and the like. I was wrong, and though I hate to admit it, as everyone does who is wrong, I was. Oh, we‘re not quite back to the thirties, but we‘re on the way. In the town where I live, roughly thirty per cent of the people are without employment. In the town where I lived during the Great Depression, the figure grew to about forty per cent. That‘s why my Dad lost h_h business. He was a softy, and gave credit People couldn‘t pay their bills. He wen! broke. What‘s going to happen in this country when the unemployment insurance wha! ever runs out of money? When there isn ‘t enough left in the government coffers to pay the doctors? When there isn‘t enough money to pay the interest on the massive deficit we‘ve acquired by borrowing on the future? When there isn‘t enough mone} left to pay old age pensions, and childâ€"care subsidies, and welfare, and look after all the prisoners and retarded people and in sane? Well, itll be interesting, at any .rat‘:’é There‘s going to be a lot of bitterness in t! land. Personally, I‘m going to buy myself a doubleâ€"barrelled shotgun. And when I go down to collect my oldâ€"age pension, and the twerp who still has a job tells me there‘s no money left, I‘m going to throw down on him, and make him extract it from his own hip pocket. And then I‘m Vgoing to go out and ;‘I;figt up some metric signs, just for the vit. /4 Registered massage therapist Ann Ruebottom. â€" for some people today, the I SEE PAGE 5