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p4 tribune may 12 1993 brad wards message not quite enough o rad ward minister without portfolio in the finance department at queens park toed the party line into stouffville last week at a poorlyattended chamber of commerce break fast he said his government is committed to holding the deficit and offered these three cures to what ails the debtplagued province in the new budget 1 expenditure reduction the ndp will cut 24 billion in pro grams and 15 billion reviewing ministry operations 2 social contract with 900000 public sector employees 3 tax increases ward calls them fair but necessary ward also said his departmen ts goal is to maintain a aa- credit rating what is missing is a true job creation program jobsontario is a start but mpp ward was speaking of the ontario training adjustment board as if would be a cureall in fact the board has not received its mandate yet and likely wont be running until the fall more government job initia tives are needed now not more rhetoric join the newest lobbygroup aargh ju e are being gouged and i t for one am tired of it in fact i think i will start a lobby group to protest this gouging i think ill call it aargh the association against ridiculous gas hikes our mission will be simple to stop people from buying gasoline from thursday evening to tuesday morning i was in a store across from a gas station last thursday i saw the price sign outside the station extolling a 4990 per litre cost at the pumps i thought to myself dont forget to fill up on your way by i was in the store for five minutes when i came out the sign had miraculously changed to 5550 per litre i was livid in what other business do prices jump by five cents in five minutes that five minute lapse would cost me more than 2 were i to fill up every weekend gas prices shoot up to snag unsuspecting travellers on their way to the cottage or out for a sunday drive the oil companies all know we are on to them so they jack the prices on thursday and leave them up there until tues day to ensure they get every one who drives more than 10 kilometres a day minute with mair and re w ma i r imagine the stink raised if grocery stores upped their prices between the time you picked the items off the shelf to the checkout line so why do we put up with it from gas sta tions the oil companies state the price hikes are due to fluctuat ing oil prices hogwash the price hikes are due to our laissezfaire attitude about our cars and what well pay to make them go if we stopped buying gas from thursday to tuesday and instead bought gas at mid week and filled spare gas cans to tide us through the week ends we would soon see prices iemain stable of course the alternative is that the gas stations would boost their prices throughout the week the ultimate solution would be to legislate fair pricing but that would be a lot to ask with the government serving the oil companies breakfast in bed so thats where aargh comes in membership is free to join just follow this initia tion ritual whenever you see price jumps at the pumps fill up walk into the kiosk and as you pay yell at the top of your lungs aargh if enough people did this the oil companies would get the message soon enough this ones for kfiii chris stouflville tribune publisher general manager editorinchief advertising director business manager operations manager patricia pappas andrew mair jo ann stevenson debra weller vivian oneil pamela nichols stalt reporters tracy kibble julie caspersen roger bekjrave photographers sjoerd witteveen stavs somerville real estate joan marshman classified doreen deacon debbie amundson uxbridge retail sales joan marshman doreen deacon heather hill gibson uxbridge distribu tion anene maddock canadian publications mail sales product agreement 439010 published every wednesday by metroland printing publishing and distributing at 9 heritage rd markham ontario l3p 1m3 tel 2942200 the stouffville tribune published every wednesday at 6244 main st stouffville is one of the metroland printing publishing and distributing group of suburban newspapers which includes ajaxplckerlng news advertiser aurora banner barrle advance brampton guardian burlington post colllngwood connection etoblcoke guardian georgetown independentacton free press kingston this week undsay this week markham economist sun midland expross milton canadian champion mlsslssauga news newmarket era banner north york mirror northumberland news oakvllle beaver orlllla today oshawa- whltby this week peterborough this week richmond hlllthornhlluvaughan liberal scarbor ough mirror end uxbridge tribune national sales representative melroland corporate sales 4931300 6402100 6405477 fax m il il il i hp hey told me it was inevitable that one day i should find myself writing this column when the great white space on the screen matches the great white space between the ears you know its time to write about the difficulty of finding anything to write about one of the biggest problems confronting this scribe is that a rich source of material is rapid ly becoming inaccessible my children have undergone the transformation from being flattered at seeing their names in print to looking up lawyers in the yellow pages every time i mention them any minute now theyll pick up an article about voice appro priation and ill be left with the old man and the cat as my sole sources for literary lampooning and even my husband must surejy haye hi jimit althpugh x kates corne thus far he has suffered in stal wart silence as i reflect on devices to fill my allotted space it occurs to me that even if i should finish this piece in time for my dead line there is no way i can transfer it onto a disk since all my disks have mysteriously vanished into the tribunes edi torial black hole then again lots of topics these days are offlimits if you dont want to offend people race sex the demon alcohol or the latest activist group are subjects its not wise to pontifi cate about unless you can afford extremely expensive legal advice thats what so useful about my husband i know we cant afford the lawyer he so desperately needs to keep his name out of the paper sometimes i even have to cross the atlantic in a literary sense and use my extended family as foils as luck would have it our cir culation in essex england is zero still theres always a ray of hope out there somewhere when the muse fails to strike the other day i was sitting at a meeting trying unsuccessful ly to contribute some meaning ful morsels of wisdom when a friend asked me what she had to do to get a mention in this column well chris now you know just catch me during a lull in the proceedings at chateau gilderdale and your wish is my command