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N { A? 4 J. iz 43 \ oa < $e Be mm. SOY > ok So a2 Ee editoriol ea The Election Canadians can be excused if they awoke Wed- nesday morning suffering from more than a slight touch of political hangover and feeling confused and apprehensive about the future. The hangover comes after an eight-week election campaign; the confusion from not knowing just how long the Conservative minority government of Joe Clark can remain in power; and the apprehension over the fact that Canada is clearly divided into two linguistic and cultural camps, one in Quebec and the other in the rest of the country. While the pre-election polls were almost bang-on in their predictions of the outcome of Tuesday's battle, the actual results are nothing short of stunning for they show a country that is floundering, unable to agree, some of its people pushing one way, and the rest pulling in the opposite direction. Canada is on the horns of a serious crises. We have on the one hand a major party that has been in power for the past 16° years led by a-man who is clearly despised by a substantial number of Can- adians. This party under Pierre Trudeau has made some monumental blunders over the past decade, has seen some of its finest members desert the ranks in frustration, and yet despite all the shortcomings still managed to win close to 120 seats, including all but eight in the province of Quebec. Our other major party, the one elected Tuesday toa minority government, is led by an inexperienced and untested leader. While the Conservatives swept the east, central and western regions ef the country, the party again failed to make any kind of a dent in the province of Quebec. Indeed, during the election Mr. Clark did not come forward with any kind of firm policies regard- ing Quebec, an ommission which no doubt has separatists chortling with glee. Despite the fact the Liberal party has been digging its own grave for the past decade, the Conservatives were unable to muster enough support in all areas of the country for a clear majority in the House of Commons. The question that begs to be answered now of course, is can Mr. Clark and his minority give this country some kind of effective government over the next year or so? Where will he get the necessary support; from the NDP, from the handful of Quebec- Socreds? While some Conservative campaign policies such as cut-backs in federal spending deserve to be implemented at this time to try to shake this country from its economic slump, how will that party deal with a referendum that is expected in Quebec next year? And what about the NDP? Despite an attractive leader, despite policies which seemed to make a lot of common sense on prices and energy, despite the open support of the Canadian Labour Congress, the party was still not able to galvanize an appreciable pPOoe Unfortunately, at this time there are more questions than there are answers. And this uncert- ainty, this lack of a sense of collective will, of common direction among the Canadian people, was reflected at the polls on Tuesday. Hopefully, Canada is strong enough to weather the storm that is coming number of the electorate. ; in the weeks and months ahead. R52 5 DO os %. 25458 2 2 ACR ESR: SRK OEE 0. --- WHAT ABOUT SUMMER RERUNS --- OF JHE FEDERAL ELECTION cAmpa-A-A-A-A P N bill smiley YEAR OF THE CHILD So this is the Year of the Child. Well, your can have it. And them. Our society is breaking up fast. First, in the 60s, the teenagers took over. They got into drugs and politics and violence and dropping out and communes and health food and free love and ripping-off the government and driving their parents to drink and depression. Then we got intqs Women's Liberation Movement. Raucous and intelligent women trying to upset a perfectly good system that has been working well, on the whole, for about 20,000 years. We should never have given them the vote back in 21 or whenever ® They have wrecked family life, population growth, and the economy by their ridiculous demands. They have psychologically castrated their husbands and turned the occasional kid they had into a whining brat who thinks that love and whatever else he wants are more important than a good whack on the bum. They have sent the unemployment rate soaring by sailing into the job market in their hundreds of thousands. Just because they have high skills or a university degree, they think and say, quite openly and without shame, that they should be considered on the same level as, or even higher than, a Grade 10 dropout male who can barely tie his shoelaces. Sheer arrogance. They have wrecked the educational system by refusing to remain baby fac- tories. This has caused rapidly falling enrollment in our schools and a lack of jobs for male teachers, who wives are among the worst examples of tiny families and hitting the job market. And now it's the year of the kids. There are series on child-battering in the papers, articles about one-parent children, and even child symposiusms in which the little turkeys are asked to comment on how their parents should behave, what's wrong with the world, what freedoms they should have, and any other inane question a smarmy, patronizing interviewer can think up. We are smothered by stuff from the media about children: day-care centres, inner city schools (slums), special education, gifted children, obscene T-shirts for kids. We are harassed and harangued by priests who have never had a child and social workers up to their ears in stale, psychiatry, and politicians who know thal kids can't vote, but grab the coat-tails of any issue that receives media attention. And what good is all this going to do the kids? Not much. They'll go right on doing what they've always done: dreaming, fighting, playing; being the happy, morose, belligerent, shy, cruel, gentle, brilliant, slow, and utterly delightful little animals they've always been. In Canada they'll be overfed, over-spoiled and over here. In Africa they'll be over-starved, over-populated and over there. And in both places they'll be over-loved with that weird, irrational love of children that prevails throughout the world, civilized or uncivilized. - Oh, a few laws might be passed, and many resolutions approved. But the drunken mother or father who beats a child will go on doing so. The ultra-permissive parents will go on turning out monstrous teenageys. The over-protective parents will go on turning out still more monstrous teenagers. But the great mass of kids in the Year of the Children will be much like every other generation: curious, resentful of things that they don't understand, ready to fight to death for ideals, gradually conforming and compromising to the realities of life, and going on to become monstrous parents themselves. Now I don't speak from the seat of the Old Philosopher, or any such hypocritic eleva- tion. T recently had a visit from my Grandboys. 1 speak firsthand. It was Easter weekend, and we're still scraping chocolate off the woodwork and picking up squashed jelly-beans and ripped rabbits' ears. But it was a great weekend. That marvellous alchemist, Time, has wrought a great change in them. They are becoming personal friends, instead of sibling rivals. The destruction was down about 800 per cent. True, Nickov kicked the ball into a collection of Doulton figurines, but nothing was broken, I took the ball away, and he didn't even have a tantrum. But the TV is still working. A few doorknobs are missing, but not all of them, as on previous visits. They can eat without bibs, though Balind did get about 80 grams of relish and ketchup down his front when mangling a hot dog. However, he's only two and has a grin that would disarm the devil. And he said something that so shook me that I went down in a faint, and my old lady had to pick me up. I'd plunked a peanut-butter and honey sandwich in front of him, and he said, "Thank you, Grandat", as casually as though I were a waiter. I'd never heard either of them say 'Please' or "Thankyou" before. They didn't sprinkle even one can of powder, mixed with toothpaste, on the hardwood floors. They didn't break a single window. They didn't anoint the TV with cold cream. They took off their muddy boots when they came in, instead of marching over the Indian rug. And when 1 said, "Don't wreck my typwriter,"" or something of the sort, they didn't blurt, "....... you," ; they said 'OK, Grandat," or something of the sort. Maybe this Year of the Child has some- thing going for it, a whole lot more than Sixties Sulks or Women's Lib Nerve- Wracking. But when is the Year of the Man? I hope I'm around long enough to enjoy it. The Argyle Syndicate Ltd. &