The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

t the tkibune thursday dec 13 1jj3 4 cna whw 45s pr established 1ss 41 chakies ii nolan publisher j isv jamks thomas associate publisher and editor robebt mccalsland advertising director published every thursday by inxairi publishing co liaiied at 54 main st stouffvjile ont tel 6402101 toronto phone 3611680 single copies 15e subscriptions s600 per year in canada 1500 elsewhere menber of audit bureau of circulation canadian coaaunity newspapers association and ont ario weekly newspapers association second class mail registration nunbe 08s6 editorials shortages good are we becoming shortage conscious we think so not a day goes by than the matter is discussed in homes offices on the street and to help it along the national press radio and tv brings up a continual stream of new products now in short supply surprisingly too not everyone thinks this is all bad lets face it we are spoiled in the area of eating and driving some reduction is certainly not going to hurt anyone in fact it might even add a few years to our lives we have gadgets running out of our ears we keep two and three cars on the go we pour heat into our homes much beyond necessity and we eat like there was no tomorrow lets face it we want for nothing many of the cutbacks which appear to be in the offing may actually help us rather than hinder us maybe it will become apparent that weve gone too far too fast one result that just might be a blessing will be that a great many people will be forced to stay home something they havent done for years family life could be in for a revival tax long overdue in a world in which the ordinary citizen believes he is already burdened down with taxes to say that a new tax is overdue may seem strange however the new tax to be imposed by the federal government for the use of airports is just that to those of us who have used many airports outside this country such a tax is nothing new the majority have been making such a levy for years its the old case of the users having to pay at least some portion of the cost more than the nonusers it might be placed in the same editors mail class as toll bridges while both are public services which must be provided by the public at large it is only fair and equitable that those who make the most use of the service should pay a little more for its upkeep the amount is minimal to the individual user and will have no effect on the numbers of persons using the service but to the govern ment which must come up with the millions required to provide these large complexes the benefit can be substantial channelization challenged dear sir we are the solicitors for woodbine realty limited and mr and mrs ronald femson woodbine realty limited is a corporation owned by mrs femson all three parties are nthe registered owners of real property in your town and as such are taxpayers it was with concern that mr femson learned of the proposed channelization project reported in the tribune thursday nov 1 1973 mr femsons concern stems from his feeling that the money being spent on the project could be better applied to more urgent projects and if an allocation of this magnitude is being made at the apparent sacrifice of other projects the allocation should not be made without at least public hearings being held and at best a referendum projects of greater community urgency include the need for a water tower additional sewage plant facilities new library facilities new park and recreation facilities to com pliment existing facilities and improved roads the report in the tribune makes no reference to any studies indicating a need for the project nor the technical basis upon which a decision of council will be based if studies have been carried out they should be made available to the public and the public should have an opportunity to make comments if a study has not been carried out then surely such a study should be undertaken before an allocation of funds of this magnitude is made it is mr femsons intention to oppose the spending of such a large sum without the taxpaying public having a reasonable op portunity to study and make comments on the proposal mr femson has instructed us to engage counsel to take such steps as may be necessary to ensure such an opportunity l milton hess 390 bay st toronto teachers should unionize it would seem as if the school teachers who are preparing to use resignation as a bargaining weapon would find more public support if they became an out and out union the guise of a federation backed by ex clamations of professionalism to use a man- inthestreet term simply turns people off crowd catcher as a crowdcatcher the santa clause parade on saturday was tops those in charge must be congratulated for the abundance of musical units provided in the long procession credit card world we live in a credit card world but a chap made the following comment to me the other day how can all these people enjoy their christmas trips when they know theyll have to spend months paying for it i think you should save for it you should let the reward come after in payment for the effort rather than have the effort come after in punish ment for the reward sugar and spice by bill smiley perhaps someone who has gone the whole course can tell me when ones children stop depending on their parents when it comes to the clutch is it in the forties fifties sixties cer tainly it is not in their twenties recently we received a note from our son hugh to tell us he was taking some holidays and would be home for a few days visit i thought good hes saved some money and wont arrive broke as usual he had some days later in a telephone con versation with daughter kim we learned that hugh had dropped in to see her and had drifted off muttering something about going to chicago that is a slightly roundabout way of getting to our place and a few days later there was a collect call from houston texas you guessed it hugh flat broke could we wire him money for bus fare to get home he was crafty enough to call when i was at work i would probably have refused the collect call and regretted it later or id have shouted no i will not send you the price of one serving of kentucky fried chicken and slammed up the receiver but he sweettalked his mother for five minutes before he popped the question she was not only affronted but taken aback and didnt think quickly enough to tell him we were just off to florida or the west coast or anywhere she waffled a bit and eventually said shed see what ills dad said but not to expect anything he sighed with relief and told her where to send the money i came home from work on a friday after a hard week all i wanted was to get my shoes off have a quiet drink before dinner and read the latest goodies about the energy crisis and all i got was a family crisis a scramble to the bank and a dash to get to the telegraph office before it closed for the weekend at first i stood my ground not a penny let him starve in houston at least he wont freeze to death hed airily told his mother it was 90 degrees down there and she agreed with me he doesnt deserve a cent he was told he was never to do that again ungrateful young pup why doesnt he hitchhike home well i said some of those southern states are pretty tough on hitchhikers throw them in jail for a month i could just see her thinking of her first born slaving on a georgia chaingang or something of the sort after a heated half- hour we agreed that money isnt everything that you cant take it with you that hes the only son we have that it would be nice to see him and that id better hustle if i wanted to get to the bank in time it cost me about 115 counting the bus fare and grub to get home the cost of the collect call and the charge for sending the money thats what i call sending good money after good of course hugh wouldnt dream of accepting a gift it was strijtly a loan ac cording to his figures he now owes me 38000 without interest and will have the whole thing paid off any time now according to my figures he owes me 88046 at eight per cent interest and hell never pay it off this has been happening to me for years first the kids go to their mother and soften her up then she comes to me and softens me up then i go back to the kids and practically apologize for being so slow with the loot of course i reason hughs only a kid practically a baby he wont be twenty seven until july you cant expect him at that decktheall6 l4ttibougl 4 hlolly fa la la la la la la la la tender age to know enough to save some money for bus fare home but that other kid shes a different matter shes almost a mother and she pulled a swifty on us this week another collect call on sunday nice to hear her asked how big the tummy was all very matey and maternal then came the punch don her husband was on the way up from the city with their cat to put in our care he had to hitchhike because he couldnt bring the cat on a bus her mother nearly blew a cork the danged cat isnt trained so we have two additions to the household this week two fat cats one in the backyard yowling to get in the other watching tv sleeping till noon and waiting to put the bite on me for more bus fare back to his job in quebec i shoulda been a cranky old bachelor on election situation it would now appear that there is little chance of a winter federal election being forced on the canadian people while some 4 may believe the liberals are floundering there is little sign that the leadership in the other parties would be any better able to cope with present problems on the other hand an election would delay positive action by the government would cost a tremendous amount of money use up a great deal of hard- toget fuel and possibly end up as it started with another minority government by don bernard death of an airport winter settles over creek and woods winter came with stunning reality sunday blanket of snow does much to turn a small ami the small creek west of rlngwood shows creek into a wonderland of white itself to be fat between the two seasons the don bernard recent developments in the pickering airport saga leave one very much uncertain as to the future of that project which has brought loud protest from the people that are to be displaced by it many things have changed since the project was announced almost two years ago subsequent events have shown that the air port may not be quite as necessary as the federal government assured us was the case even last year the appointment of an independent board of inquiry was a small victory for the anti- airport people in that the final irrevocable decision to build the thing is postponed until the inquiry has done its work well what about the inquiry the inquiry under justice hugh f gibson has yet to start hearings or even set up offices the judge was named sept 4 to head the board even he judge himself refused to comment when asked about it by the globe and mail last week strange behaviour indeed considering the timetable must be rather tight for the work on the airport to begin at least a final decision must be made soon still no inquiry but there are some other factors that indicate that the call for an airport will peter out the assumption that toronto will need an airport to serve supersonic airliners is painiy nonexistent in fact the demise of the us project and the trouble the british and french are having selling their concorde shows that quite clearly that is further inforced by the energy crisis that kind of airplane would not be economical and in all likelihood will never enter commercial service the energy crisis makes another strong argument against the airport air travel uses more fuel per passenger than any other form of travel trains buses and cars are better on our depleting energy supplies a proper rail service between toronto and montreal for instance would all but eliminate the busiest airroute in canada a fast electric train built along european models could compete easily with the present air service between those two cities the airlines are finally learning to con serve energy they are not scheduling as many flights and thus carrying more passengers on each trip fewer flights tends to diminish the need for a new airport ex pansion of terminal facilities at malton would probably be sufficient the old phrase that any development is good development is starting to sound hollow to people who insist on the quality of life but in fact works the opposite there is also a persuasive argument that valuable farmland will be destroyed if the j airport is built in the overall scheme that may be the most significant fact in future considerations the fact is that farmland is notorious short supply for a world of 4 billion people countries like india are actually falling behind in being able to feed their rapidly in creasing population the time will come when farmland and food will be more important than oil or gold value always increases on a scarce com modity what is he getting at you might ask taking all things into consideration the federal government will abandon plans to build the pickering airport or at least scale it down beyond recognition that airport will likely never see the light of day it is ironic that events beyond the control of either the federal government or the displaced airport people have brought this about citizen protest has stalled final ap proval if it is only a partial victory for democracy then that is better than nothing editors note jim thomas and roaming around return in next weeks tribune