rvm p4 weekendermarch 27 f993 st or fax us numbers at right regional blunder passed on to taxpayers to present a balanced budget york regional council would have had to cut 6 million from its operating budget instead it approved a 49 per cent increase for 1993 we paid on average 360 to the region in 1992 and owe 41674 in 1993 costs of the palatial new regional headquarters which a majority of taxpayers will never see rose from 20 million in 1986 to the present 635 mil lion the budget alone rose to 47 million and the remaining 16 odd million is for complet ing the headquarters 14 mil lion is for furnishings and equipment 34 million for architects fees 14 million for legal claim costs which could be liyiewpoint jo ann stevenson redeemed should fired archi tect douglas cardinal reim burse the builder hindsight is a skilled economist and granted back in the affluent 80s when this pro ject was conceived few would have predicted the recessionary climate of the 90s wise govern ments should be socking away savings during boom times so they can spend when labor and construction costs are lower this didnt happen fine regional government is not alone in making this error in judgement but the project got way out of hand who is accountable for the runaway costs for the con tinued dedication to the original lavish plan the curved struc ture with a mirrored exterior is an affront to the unwilling tax- payer were we the people who are being asked to pay for this anachronism asked whether we backed the project york region presently rents or leases about 11 buildings the new headquarters will pull the tardy 911 system the police and regional staff under one roof did any of the politicians con sider renting or purchasing some of the readily available commercial space in the south of york region if they had to contruct a headquarters building why arent there significant cost sav ings for locating it in newmar ket where land is cheaper rather than where the majority of taxpayers live we taxpayers deserved a zero per cent increase markham economist and sun stouffville tribune uxbridge tribune weekender edition a metroland community newspaper patricia pappas publisher jo ann stevenson efltorinchief paula crowell editor andrew hair editor debraweller director of advertising barry goodyear director of distribution vrvtanomeil business manager pamela nichols operations manager markham 2942200 sales 7987624 classi fied 2944331 stouffville 6402100 uxbridge 8529741 2948244 distribution and administration 9 heritage rd markham l3p 1m2 fax markham 2941638 stouffville 640- 5477 uxbridge 8524355 the markham economist and sun stouuvide tri bune and uxbridge tribune published every wednesday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distributing group ofsubur- ban newspapers which includes ajax pickering news advertiser barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post collingwcod connection etobicoke guardian the liberal georgetown inde pendentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week milton canadian champion mississauga news north york mirror oakville beaver orillia today oshawawhitby this week peterborough this week scarborough minor the era banner contents not to be reproduced without written permission from the publisher only in britain eh thank heavens you read a lot of sad stuff in the newspapers these days but one of the saddest things ive read of late was a statistic it came from a survey published in a london newspaper last month gallup pollsters asked 1030 adult britons a simple question would you like to settle in another country if you were free to do so fortynine per cent of the respondents said yes if they could theyd leave fortynine per cent how is it possible that virtually half the native inhabitants of great britain would emigrate if they could this is the green and pleas ant land this is the country that colored twothirds of the world imperial pink on my old grade nine geography rand mcnally map the empire on which the sun never set the entity that ruled the waves the cultural fountainhead that gave the world chaucer shake speare milton blake the beat les the birthplace of burns and yeats churchill and cecil rhodes whose advice to young britons was always remember that you are an englishman and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life how can something as magnif icent as all that be to cop a phrase from the bard shrunk to this little measure well the recession helped here in canada we felt the eco nomic downturn pretty bad but the brits really got clobbered at last count the uk had more than three million unem ployed on its rolls british busi nesses and factories are still sloughing off employees by the thousands as they struggle to stay afloat in a sea of red ink margaret thatcher helped to scupper the operation too she swept to power like a metaphor ical new broom promising to set the british economy to rights with some good oldfashioned housecleaning survivors say that in fact she gutted the joint replacing the old british ethic of fair play with a rah rah chant of me first she privatized everything in sight and left northern ireland scotland and jhenorthqtepglarit economic wastelands europe she basic black arthur black cocked a snook at europe pre ferring to cash her chips at the bank of america through her good pal ronnie reagan sound familiar the 12 years under margaret thatcher were a bit like a hit from a crack pipe heady and exciting at first but ultimately a massive downer leaving the victim not much more than a basket case it didnt help that the undeni ably vibrant margaret thatcher was replaced by the undeniably dishraglike john major a nice man perhaps even competent but not a man to inspire a confi dencestricken nation to follow him over the top john major is rather as the london times described him a wellinten tioned chap the sort you would like to see marry your problem daughter and then there were the royal troubles one thing that has long distinguished great britain from the rest of the world is its veneration of royal ty regrettably the british roy als chose this moment in history to become publicly unglued firrft there was fergie plas tered all over the front pages of the tabloids having her toes sucked by her texan financial advisor then chuck and di called it quits and the selfsame tabs got hold of their private cellular phone calls and enough small wonder really that 49 per cent of polled britons say theyd up stakes and move off the sceptred isle in a flash small wonder that more than 75 per cent of those interviewed said they expected things in the uk to get worse before they got better we have our share of problems here in canada but i doubt very much that anything like 50 per cent of us would emigrate to paraphrase the old tea commercial oirly -in- britain- you say thank heaven