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4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, March 27, 1984 ditorial comments Ae SUCRE SO tr, RA Hii i AN» \ "A "AS SECOND -OWNER CURIOSITY -.. 45 17 JORY- PROOF ? * chatterbox by John B. McClelland QUICK THINKING When the British Government recently announced it was sla a 15 per cent tax on hot take-out foods, ane fish and chip vendor promptly came back with an idea of his own. He began charging one cent for an order of fish and chips. He then charged $1.49 (approx.) for the salt and vinegar which he rightly claimed are not hot take-out foods and this should not be taxable. t on, guy. Good thinking. But we have a sink- ing feeling the tax man will soon find a way to plug this loop-hole. Boy, the Thatcher government must be hard press- ed for money to slap a tax on fish and chips. In Britain, that's like taxing motherhood and apple pie. Oh, well, we'll muddle through. HE'S RIGHT Bobby Hull (remember him) made a comment last week that today's NHLers don't play the game with the same intensity as they did back in the 1950's and 60's when he was tearing up the league. Hull says the lack of intensity is cheating the faving customers. He's right, of course. the reason is simple. Hockey today is a very lucrative profession. Back in the old days, a pro hockey player made a decent living at it and if he was lucky could put away enough bread to open a car dealership in his home town when he retired. Today's players can make so much money, that if they play cards right, they don't ever have to work again once the career on ice is over. I can tell you this. If I was 19 or 20 and signed to a pro contract at $150,000 and up per season, do you think I'd play game in and game out with total ferocity? Not on your life. Why chance a permanent injury, or burn- out? Heck, even a mediocre player who spends ten years in the NHL will make more money than the average joe in a life-time. Can you blame them for going at less than full speed all the time? I can't. And let's not forget it was Bobby Hull who signed that million dollar contract with the WHA which open- ed the bidding war and the floodgates for the mega-buck salaries. I don't think he mentioned that. POOR JOHN John Turner found himself in a jar of hot water last week for his statement that the Manitoba language issue should be settled politically in that province, rather than the courts which might impose a settlement. ell, the critics jum all over poor John, especially those within the Party who don't want to see him crowned as leader this June. I shudder to think the Liberal race might be f on language issues; or Heaven f: , the next federal election. Sure, language rights are important. But when all the flap was going on last week over Turner's statement, I noticed that the Canadian dollar was slipping more and more. One bank big shot thought it might drop to 76 cents U.S. We all know what that would do to interest rates. When is Canada going to sort out its priorities? We 'have had an on-going language crisis in this country for the last 15 years. I'm getting a bit tired of it. THE SCHOOLS I must admit I agree with Scugog Township coun- cil that the safety issue at Prince Albert School might be greatly alleviated if the Durham Board of Education would take steps to provide more parking and a proper turn-around for buses to relieve congestion in front of the school. Cars now parked in front of the school are hamper- .ing kids' vision when they cross the street. Surely, the Board of Education can expand the parking lot at the south, and find some way to get the buses into a designated area to pick up and let off students. Seems simple enough to me. And speaking of schools in Port Perry. Is it just my imagination or are they over-crowded? There are several portables in the back-yard of Cornish and Prince -Albert. They may be fine as classrooms, but to my way of thinking, if a school has grown to the point where new portables are popping up each year, the rest of school ---- gym, library, resource centre, music rooms, etc., etc., must be over- ' And what about the growth in this community? My rough calculations indicate Scugog Township has grown in population by about 4,000 people over the last six years. A lot of those are school kids. I know there is a lot of pressure in numbers on minor sports programs in the community. I can't help but wonder if the schools are feeling the same pressure. My guess is, they are. What I would like to know is if this pressure is hurting the overall quality of education in our Township schools. STILL WAITING By my calendar, spring arrived March 21 in this part of the world. Today, as these lines, the calen- dar on the wall says March 22. Yet, I look from the win- dow to Queen Street in beautiful downtown Port Perry and the scene is anything but -like. Wet snow, lots of it, is f again. The sky is sullen, with not a sign of the sun anywhere. The air is and cold, the wind raw. ter, it seems, just doesn't know when to call it ts. Most people, myself included, are looking a tri- ios ont: Jujodlh included, ate Making 4 io. (Turn to page 6) Oh No, Not Again it has been said many times in this country that when the American economy catches the sniffles, the Canadian economy comes down with pneumonia. ~The case of pneumonia Canada caught just a cou- ple of short years ago almost became terminal for many 'sectors of the economy (auto and retail sales, housing starts, primary resources, manufacturing of all kinds, just to name a few) and the recovery period has been slow but gradual. Just when it seemed like the patient was well enough to be released from hospital, the signs are on the wall that the illness may return. Interest rates are on the move, upwards, as the Bank of Canada raised its lending rate to 10.76 per cent last Thursday, with several of the major charter banks following suit with hikes in their prime, mortgage and consumer rates. In explaining the hikes in interest rates, Bank of Canada Governor Gerald Bouey and Finance Minister Marc Lalonde pointed their fingers south of the border to pin the blame on the size of the U.S. federal deficit, and also ironically, on the strong U.S. recovery which is forcing up the cost of money in the United States. Canada, said Mr. Bouey has no choice but to raise the cost of money here. . It was a disturbing case of deja vu. Didn't we see this movie back in 1981-82 when interest rates climbed through the roof? Is this just act one? Mr. Lalonde said he doesn't believe that an increse of half a point in the rates will choke off the recovery here. That's right, but he has also told us that Canada is powerless to do anything on its own, except follow the American lead. So where will that lead us in the next few months? If the rates continue to inch upwards, the uncertainty alone is going to batter our economy. If they approach the sky-high levels of a couple of years ago, the patient will end up back in the intensive care unit. The words "recession and 'depression' will be back in our every- day vocabulary. Layoffs and plant closing, bankruptcies, more lost farms and homes, massive welfare spending and related social ills will again dominate our lives. While most reasonable and thinking Canadians have come to accept the fact that restraint and caution are necessary in everything we do, the fact that Canada is 80 tightly tied to the American economy to the point where our destiny is not in our own hands, is a difficult pill to swallow. Masters in our own house? Not a chance. We rise and fall on the coat-tails of the American economy, on decisions made in Washington and on Wall Street. When times are good, of course, nobody pays much attention to this fact. When things begin to turn a little sour, we hang our heads and wonder why. Don't Hold "Your Breath Ontario treasurer Larry Grossman will be in Port Perry this week listening to business people, farmers and other individuals about what measures they would like to see in the Provincial budget he'll present to the Legislature in about five weeks. Mr. Grossman is conducting these 'listening ses- sions" with Ontario residents in several areas of the province. We have a sneaking suspicion that one thing these private citizens are going to tell the treasurer is that the size of the Ontario deficit is too high at $2.7 billion in 1983-84. It takes 10.3 per cent of the government revenues just to pay the interest on this debt, almost as much as the direct contribution by Ontario to schools (11.8 ner cent) and to municipalities (11.3 per cent). And servic- ing this debt now costs more than the province con- tributes to the institutions of higher education in Ontario. Little wonder that boards of education, municipal of- ficials and colleges and universities are lamenting the level of support they are receiving from Ontario. In simple terms, governments have just two ways to increase revenues: lower spending or hike taxes. The latter is most unpopular and highly visible to the voters, especially when it comes in ihe form of higher sales tax or the mark-up on liquor or gasoline. We suspect as well that Ontario citizens are going to tell Mr. Grossman to avoid at all costs hikes in taxes of any kind: income, retail sales, gasoline, corporate, OHIP premiums. So where does that leave him as he sets about (Turn to page 11)