4—--Manambora 1992—Page1S5 Halton Hills This Week, Wednesday, December 9, 1992 — Page 7 “Op Ed” — old time newspaper term meaning the page opposite the editorial page. This page has traditionally been held open for opinion pieces, letters, and comment from various sources. By Laurie Burns People think they have to offer food along with their hospitality. Actually, you can visit friends for an afternoon or evening and have a nice visit without consuming hun- ‘ldreds of calories in cake, nuts, etc...that neither of you would have had if you had not been together in the first place. We need to learn to be able to have a conversation without using it as an excuse for having calories at the same time. If you tend to overeat, tell your friends that you are coming for their good friendship and are watching what you eat. (This way the know ahead of time that you will be eating less, and will not be insulted if you eat less.) One of the reasons that most published diets fail over the long term is that they require you to have specific personal foods in the house — or else put the entire family on the diet. Such diets do not allow for most restaurant meals, or special events such as Activity Line Holiday health weddings and dinner parties. Another problem of these diets is they have you thinking about food all day long. : If you have success on a well balanced diet, stick with it. However, after you have been dieting for six month or a year, if you find that your weight tends to come back up to where it was orig- inally - or worse even higher - then the whole learning process is obvi- ously at fault. When you diet, you are not learning anything about yourself, your lifestyle habits, or your real problems. Once you stop dieting, you are right back to your old habits of eating the wrong foods, carrying out the wrong activities, and getting ready to buy your next diet book. This Christmas, give yourself a very special gift. 1.) Don’t use Christmas as an excuse to overeat. 2.) Eat well-balanced meals daily, and limit those fattening treats. 3.) Consume enough calories Gaily for all your activities. Too few GOOD calories will make your body store fat. ) Create Christmas parties that involve active participation so you can eat those extra goodies. 5.) Don’t use Christmas as an excuse to miss your regular work- outs. They help reduce stress and burn calories. What better gift could you give yourself this year than good health! For more information about exercise, feel free to contact Laurie Burns at 877-0771. Laurie Burns is an Exercise Physiol and operates Work That Body Fitness Programs Inc. in Georgetown. Parliament Thank You from Santa parade organizers Dear Editor: Santa arrived in Acton November 21 in grand style thanks to the enthusiasm, participation and support of many, many people. We would like to say a very spe- cial “Thank You” to all of the fol- lowing: Businesses, Industries and Churches for their donations; Steve Dawkins and the Olde Hide House for sponsoring the Guelph Royalaires; to Mike Manes, and Action I.G.A.; Dares Candies for supplying the candy for the children along the parade route; to Achilles Motors for supplying the cars for the dignitaries; to the Halton Regional Police Force, to newspapers for their cov- erage. Again, the Acton I.G.A. for sponsoring the live coverage on Halton Cable T.V. and Herb Dodds for his commentary; to the Acton Letter Carriers for collecting the letters for Santa along the way; to all who entered floats; to the float judges; to the many clowns; to all the workers behind the scene; and especially to all of you for such a tremendous turnout. The float winners are: Best Overall - Robert Little School Best School - M.Z. Bennett Best Service Club - Acton Seniors Centre Communit Best Other Commercial - Acton Junior “Y” We look forward to seeing you again next year on November 20, a We wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year. Sincerely, Acton Firefighters Association William R. Spielvogel, CMHA needs Acton volunteers Do you enjoy helping people? The Canadian Mental Health Association is looking for energetic and committed volunteers to assist with Acton’s Oasis social recreation program for people who have experienced mental health problems. Times are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 5 to 8:30 p.m. and/or every other Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. For details call Kim Peters at 853-4477. Garth Turner MP Halton-Peel Well, the finance minister didn’t accept all my recommendations, but he didn’t do a bad job, either, in his mini-budget last week. Don Mazankowski agreed with me on some key points: Big cuts to government spending: new ways of financing small business loans; extending the use of RRSPs for home purchases; simplify the GST; and lower personal taxes. Td asked for a tax cut of over $5 billion, and Mazankowski came in with just under $2 billion. And where I’d suggested ways to cut spending by almost $6 billion over one year, the finance minister man- aged to achieve $8 billion in cuts over three. As a result, the dollar seems to have steadied and interest rates have eased. Those are good devel- opments. But not so good is 11.8% unemployment and a deficit which will top $34 billion this year. Both are unacceptable and I can- not defend them. In fact, I stood in the House of Commons last week and made an apology to you - my constituents - for the government’s failure to achieve the deficit targets I said a year ago would happen. The recession’s been longer than anyone thought - and certainly not just in Canada. Ottawa’s revenues are lower than expected by $8 bil- lion. The GST has actually gone down by billions. Meanwhile the demands on government by unem- ployed people have risen. it’s a classic example of how countries For Pete's Sake by Roe TN" we THAT Fea from FORT ‘BEHIND. Have your Children's BIRTHDAY PARTY Ele Neu k@)\\ SIO) INR WYN ts) cal 853-0470 will look after your, pets/plants/home. Daily, weekly or| monthly rates. Bonded & reliable. Residential cleaning also available. Call 877-0950 GOING AWAY Hill report get crunched when they’ve got too much debt and too little skating room, So, Mazankowski cut spending to keep the deficit from rising so high that international investors would start dumping their Canadian bonds. He froze my salary again this year, cut all government subsi- dies, trimmed federal spending and made changes to the Unemployment Insurance scheme. Jobless benefits will be reduced slightly (about a $5 per week cut), the premiums next year will be capped at this year’s level, and businesses that hire new employees will have a payments holiday. And, there’s one other change - which last week caused a storm of contro- versy on the floor of the House. To curb abuse, unemployment insurance payments will no longer flow to people who voluntarily quit their jobs or are fired for miscon- duct. This should save about $800 million a year - money now con- tributed by both employees and employers. The critics immediately said this was cruel and unfair and that heart- less Tories were stealing money from the unemployed at the very worst time. They said now women would be afraid to quit their jobs if faced with sexual harassment in the workplace. As usual, the media focused on this rant, and failed to point out a few facts. For starters, anyone who quits a job for “just cause” will get UI benefits. Just cause can include sexual harassment, quitting to care for a child or leaving a job for other family reasons, like traveling to another city because your spouse has changed jobs. Nobody wants to make life tougher for jobless people. But, by the same token , I don’t think peo- ple who are trying hard to keep their jobs and care for their families want to be paying UI premiums that end up in the pockets of quitters. Finally, the economy is expected to grow by 2.5% next year. About 8,000 new jobs will come from public works projects. Exports are higher. And if we can come out of the recession with low interest rates, low inflation and a lower dol- lar, then Canada will have done bet- ter than most countries. Still, you can’t eat projections or promises. All governments must simply do better. APPLE AutoGlass 354 Guelph St, Unit 27, Georgetown, Ont. (416) 873-1655 SHIH HTHS 4 wy ee e z e e e e e ° - 7400 ° ° - 12348 : -9311° e AIRPORT SERVICE * PARCEL DELIVERY @ @ee00eeeeece Rk Ao