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- - Er A 4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, March 22, 1988 Editorial Comments No tax on food Is the Federal Government seriously considering some kind of a direct sales tax on food? There is a lot of confusion and mixed signals coming out of Ottawa over this issue after a researcher apparently leaked a preliminary draft of a report by the House of Com- mons finance committee. What this preliminary and confidential draft copy report- edly suggested was that a sales tax on virtually all goods and services, including food, should be implemented. The report also points to the New Zealand system which imposes a multi-stage sales tax on everything, including food. And it suggests that if a food tax is put in place, steps should be taken to compensate low and middle income groups. Finance minister Michael Wilson has said publicly that there will be no tax on food, but the mere fact that the issue is being discussed in a report is cause for warning signs to start going off. The people of Canada should tell the federal govern- ment in clear terms that any kind of a tax on groceries at the check-out counter is not tolerable. It's all very well to say that cushions would be built into the sytem to shield low income families from such a tax, but this would no doubt be a complicated and cumbersome procedure that would need yet another layer of federal bu- reacracy to manage. If there is one thing this country does not need (aside from a sales tax on food) it's yet another government de- partment to handle the exemptions. Most average Canadi- ans now have enough trouble wading through their in- come tax return without trying to figure out if they qualify fo another exemption. | But that's not the real reason we should be squaking loudly about any possible tax on our food. We are already taxed to the hilt in this country on just about everything else Surely we don't have to go that final step and slap a sales tax on food at the grocery store check-out counter. Even a remote consideration of such a tax suggests that the government is failing in its efforts to cut expenses. After all, there are just two ways a government at any level can increase the dollars in the coffers: cut expenditures, raise existing taxes or slap on new ones. Surely the time is long overdue for the government to be more creative in finding ways to cut its spending, rather than forcing Canadians to dig even deeper into their pock- ets to pay for yet another tax. And while we are on the subject of sales tax, there have been ripples out of Queens Park that the provincial govern- ment may have a surprise for Ontarians in the not too dis- tant future in the form of an increase in the seven per cent tax to eight per cent.. Let's hope that Premier David Peter- son says no to that one as well. Isn't it time the average guy got a tax break in this country? Port Perry De Gon Cn = 235 QUEEN STREET - PORT PERRY, ONTARIO Phone 985-7383 P.0.Box90 LOB 1NO J. PETER HVIDSTEN Publisher Advertising Manager Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association . and Ontario Community Newspaper Association. Published every Tuesday by the Port Perry Star Co. Ltd., Port Perry, Ontario. J.B. MCCLELLAND : * Editor Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for cash CATHY OLLIFFE payment of postage in cash. News & Features Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 14 n A Subscription Rate: In Canada $20.00 per year. W Elsewhere, $60.00 per year. Single Copy 50¢ "w Wo 204 ens p3305ke © COPYRIGHT -- All layout and composition of advertisements produced by the adver- tising department of the Port Per: y Star Company Limited are protected under copyright and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. -- "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN - - - AS WE MAKE OUR TORONTO APPROACH, KINDLY EXTINGUISH ALL CIGARETTES hatterbox by Cathy Olliffe | Heck, | was fine all day Monday. Tuesday, | was plenty okay. Sort of started coughing a bit come sunset, but figured hey, it's only smoker's cough. Wednesday morning and | was so-so. Felt like I'd smoked a carton of unfiltereds the when | figured something was going on. Sure enough, by the time Wednesday after- noon arrived, some kinda weird flu bug was buckled up for a roller coaster joy-ride through my bloodstream, and | began to feel like I'd just come off a shift in a Kentucky coal mine. Figuring I'd nip this thing in the bud, | agsed Wednesday afternoon away in bed, oaded down with Vick's vapo-rub, Hall's, Aspi- rin; and a fresh roll of toilet paper (we were fresh out of kleenex). out despite a layer of Vick's thick enough to do a lube job on an old Chevy, the germs were winning. | couldn't sleep at all Wednesday night. Fe- ver had me up every hour, just about on the hour, and just before sunrise | got up for good. My head felt roughly 20 times as big as normal, and what seemed to me like a raging fever made me dizzy and weak. | was hot, then cold, then hot again. My chest ached--1 could hear it slosh as it filled with mucous. My head was following my chest, and my nose dripped more frequently than our kitchen faucet. Even my neck glands were swollen. | was so miserable. Too miserable to go back to bed, or even to lie on the couch, | shuffled around the house whining. Perhaps whining is too mild a word for what it is | do when | am truly sick. But | can't think of another adjective that de- scribes the pathetic noises that issue forth from my diseased lips. You see, when sick, | feel Sony for myself, right to the very core of my self. | feel sorry for every ailing part of my body, and even the parts that aren't ailing yet. | work myself up into a pitiful frenzy of sor- row, and as | shuffle listlessly from one room to another (leaving a trail of vapo-rub fumes in my wake), | mewl like a sick kitten. | don't actually cry, | sort of half-cry, like I'm building up to it. One-syllable cry-like grunts, "heh, heh, heh", that are punctuated by occa- sional moans. "Heh, heh, heh, 00000000, heh, heh, -waaaaaaa, heh, heh, oooooo, heh, oh, heh, | JOY-RIDING GERMS evening before, but | knew | hadn't. That's because I got tired of whining on my own, and oh, it's not fair, | don't wanna be sick, | wanna go back to sleep, make it go-away, Mama..." and so on, shutfling around the house in my housecoat and slippers. So anyways, this went on for hours before Doug woke up (the only reason he woke up is decided to whine in his ear), and when he did, I started moaning and groaning in earnest-- - after all, whining is so much more efficient when done in front of an audience. | just felt so awful! | mean, this was the worst set of germs to hit this tired old'body since | had the kissing disease (mono, not AIDS) back in high school. What | needed, besides the drugs from the Doctor, was some tender-loving care from my Mom. | obviously wasn't going to get -muc T.L.C. from Doug, who couldn't stand my whining (and in fact, later admitted gritting his teeth and clenching his fist everytime | shuf- fled by). What | didn't need was a cuff from Doug. What | needed was Mom tucking me in on the official sick couch, with a hot cup of milk tea and unbuttered toast. | needed her reassur- ing voice as she took my temperature, and checked on me every 15 minutes or so. So | went home to my parents' to be sick. Doug, who had no sympathy at all for me, wound up just as sick as | was, a day and a half ater. From a guy who wanted to cuff me for whin- ing, Doug turned into the all-time champion sickie. The words "kleenex, ginger ale, popsicle, ice cream, aspirin, a glass of water" were all pre-fixed by "| want" and boy, oh boy, did he want. Constantly. And what's more, he de- manded so much attention from my Mom (who likes him better anyways), that | didn't get hardly any at all. He even took over the official sick couch. And what's the point of being sick if you don't get any attention from Mom? There were, however, a few good things about being sick: | caught up on all the soap operas. I lost a couple of pounds. I quit smoking. I got my whining down to a fine art. | missed a couple days of work. I missed a couple days of work. | missed...