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4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Wednesday, November 13, 1985 Editorial Comments The Little Things The trials and tribulations for Brian Mulroney and his federal Con- servatives continued last week when Liberal MPs dug up some In- voices showing that former environment minister Suzanne Blais- Grenier rang up a bill for more than $4000 for limousine service on two trips to Europe earlier this year. The question that Liberal MPs raised about this is not so much that money was spent on limos for a Minister of the Crown but whether the minister was using the limos for official government business or simply for her own pleasure sight-seeing trips. Blais-Grenier has had more than her share of woe as a Cabinet Minister over the past year. In fact, she was "demoted" from Environ- ment Minister to a junior Minister of Transport. A bill for $4000 for limo service is not going to push the Cana- dian government further into bankruptcy, but from the point of view of the Canadian people who have to shoulder the costs, it is yet another small example of something very wrong in Ottawa. The immediate question that most Canadians might ask themselves is 'what's wrong with a taxi.' Does a cabinet minister really need a limo to get to meetings while in a foreign city? From the point of view of appearance and public relations, it looks like someone simply living high on the hog with the tax-payer footing the bill. Especially when it comes on the heels of many recent reports which indicate that hundreds of thousands of Canadians are living in real poverty, and there are. a lot of kids who go to school hungry each morning. Wine Inquiry The Ontario government was right last week when it decided to launch a judicial Inquiry to find out exactly why several brands of wine were kept on the shelves when LCBO chemists apparently knew for six years the wine contained a chemical that could cause cancer. The chemical, ethyl carbamate, has been found to cause cancer in some laboratory animals. Incredible as it seems, the potential problem was first discovered back in 1979 and nothing was done to take the brands off the shelf. Again in 1982 warnings were issued, but nothing was ever made public. Something is very smelly here and judicial inquiry may be the best way to get to the bottom of this and come up with some answers. At least one of the brands in question was tested and found to have three times the accepted level of the chemical. The inquiry was ordered by present consumer minister Monte Kwinter. Previous Cabinet ministers who held the portfolio in 1979 and 1982 indicated last week they had no idea the warnings had been raised at that time. As proven by the deluge of outrage surrounding the tainted tuna affair this fall in Ottawa, Canadians take more than just a dim view of any kind of shenanigans that could even have the remotest chance of putting their health in danger. And let's be honest. The potential of cancer causing agents in wines is more serious than tuna that may have just smelled and tasted bad. Governments and their agencies which have been given the responsibility and authority to keep consumer products safe must do their job religiously and without compromise. Consumer confidence took a beating over the tuna affair. It may take a further beating over the tainted wine business. Let us hope that the judicial inquiry can get to the bottom of it. The public didn't get a lot of answers over why tainted fish was allowed to go onto the shelves across the land. The public deserves to know just what the heck 1s going on. (ech SORT F108 A TAR (O (PNTTO C )) the 1 Qasim A Toy #0 #04 0 C 10) SORT MOE ONTO ~-- | "0 wo 3 "ae % 'WM) J PETER HVIDSTEN Publisher Advertising Manager Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Associaton and Ontario Community Newspaper Association Published every Tuesday by the Port Perry Star Co Ltd Port Perry Ontario JB McCLELLAND Editor Author 2 3s seco' | class mad tb, the Pos! Otfice Department Ottawa and tor cash 5 CATHY ROBB payment of postage n cash News & Features Second Cass Ma Registrar on Number 1.65 Subscription Rate In Canada $15 00 per year Elsewhere $45 00 per year Single Copy 315 COPYRIGHT -- All Layout and composibon of advertisements produced Dy the adver tising department of the Port Perry Star Company Limited are protected under copy gh! and may not be reproduced without! the written permission of the publisher ~ WELL, THERE. GOES ANOTHER OF LIFES Otic LEASURES ! Chatterbox by Cathy Robb They're going to come for me any minute now, those men in black coats. I shiver, each time the door opens, wonder- ing 'Is it Them?" I refuse to answer the phone, afraid it might be Them. And the phone rings on. On and on. And on. And then it gets too much to bear, the rings, the incessant ringing, so I snatch up the receiver in a moment of foolhardiness and bravely shout "Alright! I'll return them tomorrow!" But it's never Them. It's always some bloke wanting to place a classified ad. So I relax a bit and just when I think They've forgotten about me, They call, They catch me off guard. And I die a trillion deaths at Their mercy. Oh, God, how I fear The Library Police. I've got these overdue books, see. About four of them. Only one of which I've actually read. I took them out, oh, about six months ago and now find myself too guilty to even look at them, never mind read them. They're stashed safely away somewhere where I don't have to think about them. Sort of like the bills I see in my maibox. If I see any of- ficial looking document in the box that might be a bill, I leave it there for awhile to see if it'll go away. Of course, it never does. Neither do the library books. With bills they just send heavy-set bill collectors. With library books, They send The Library Police. Or so I've been told. I haven't actually seen the men in black coats but I've heard rumours of the nasty things They've done to people who don't return overdue library books. Horrible things, like taking away your library card, stamping it to bits and making you eat it Or torturing you with it, strategically placing paper cuts all over your body Worse, | heard once about some professorial type who was tied to a straight-back chair and forced to read Danielle Steele's entire collection of romantic fiction. More common is Their threat of making sops like me go through Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z in poor reading hight, thereby ensuring the victims will wear pop bottle bottom glasses for the rest of their lives It's scary stuff. that's for sure When | think about all the havoc they could wreak [say to myself "Why don't you stop being such a geek and just return the books where they belong?" But then | think of the money | must owe on four books long overdue And the flak [ will take from the library staff when I go in to return them. And the look on my face, and the crow I will eat, and ..... It's just too horrible to deal with. I feel much more comfortable burying my head in the sand and pretending the books and the library don't exist. The only problem is The Library Police. If I could somehow, some way, just eliminate the men in black coats, I'd have nothing to worry about. Or maybe I could just disappear in some small South American country and live in a mud hut or something. That would be alright. Maybe not the Hilton, but I could fix it up with some nice cur- tains. I hear paisley"s in this year, and it could be quite quaint. South America, though. Wouldn't the bugs be bad at this time of year? Perhaps I should just give myself up. Plead guilty, appeal to Their sense of justice. Maybe even sneak the overdue books into that silver box outside the library at midnight when nobody's looking. It's all such a dilemma. But it has given me something to write about this week. Actually I got a message from the Scugog Library a couple of weeks ago, saying, sar- castically I might add: "Cathy ---- why don't you do a Chatterbox on overdue Library books?" So there you go. ARRGH How many times has this happened to you" You're in your car, sitting at the corner of Queen and Water Streets, waiting to make a left onto Queen. You've been waiting for your turn to make a move for, oh, five minutes or so, and it looks like it's going to be your turn to go, when all of a sud- den. a great big green truck makes a U-turn right in front of you At first you think this truck is merely going to turn and head south along Water Street, but no It swerves within feet of your front bumper, cuts its wheels so tight, they squeal and makes a cumbersome U-ey Right before your very eyes Point Whenever | have to make a U-turn at the bottom of Queen Street | always, always make it right at the very bottom. hike right next to the Latcham Centre so all the people waiting at the intersection can make their move (Turn to page 5) I Ca TRS Ee i hts BEA) erm ny ra 0 ba edb a dai h