THE HERALD Wednesday October 3 Page Partisan politics does not serve the country If political events in Ottawa last week confused you join the club It was not a week I was proud of as the Senate and the House of Com pulled out their equivalent of nuclear weapons to fight each other The situation is this The Liberal senators wanted to kill the GST and other things the Commons has passed Why Because the government is un popular and Jean Chretien sniffs power The prime minister appointed a mess of new Senators so the legislation would pass 3 The Liberal senators then walked out so nothing could pass 4 I came home in disgust This is what s called partisan politics That s when it t matter really what best serves the country Rather it s what serves the party you belong to For the Liberals they are deliberately blocking legislation that MPs have voted for or the Tories it s patronage appointments to stack the Senate and get on with the next phase was to reform the Senate In fact a meeting to do that had been scheduled for next month with all the premiers Now that we are in a national unity crisis nobody can know what happens next Quebec will be com back with a new list of demands and they are sure to be more than was in There are a lot of people in this community who still think Meech was a bad deal that it gave too much to Quebec There are peo ple who tell me Quebec can take a hike at any time and that s fine with them I don agree and think Canada without Quebec is not Canada anymore But beyond that if we bust this country up then we II never change the Senate We 11 never be able to put rights for native people in the constitution either After Oka well that s also a national priority And now about private property rights that should be enshrined too You and I deserve some pro tection against governments tak away what we rightfully own But without all the provinces agreeing the constitution stays the way it is flawed and stilted I don know what will happen next I hope the Senate gives me my vote back although I don t like the way the joint had to be stacked with more Tones to get it On the tnp back to Ottawa 1 be holding my nose Thanks to all the kind people who wrote me over the last few days about my resignation as a House of Commons committee chairman Yes the decision was tough in Ottawa having a title is all anybody cares about But I think it was the right thing to do I m en joying putting together new policies which will work for families and middleclass tax payers I think because we pay so much of the freight in this country we deserve to call a few of the shots More next week Out of it all we get symbols For the Liberals Senator Allan is a symbol of the unelected and unaccountable For the Tones Senator John Buchanan is a symbol of political patronage that so many people find offensive Nobody can win this battle and it should never have taken place The Senate should be reformed or abolished It should certainly not have the power that it does Right now there are a number of things that I voted for which are being held up by the senators Besides the GST there a new law which would make large corpora tions pay their fair share of taxes There s a law to reform the unemployment insurance plan so that instead of paying people not to work we retrain them And there s a package of govern restraint measures to reduce federal spending I support those things I voted for them I think the people who sent me to Ottawa as an MP wanted me to work for com mon sense in government To my mind corporate taxes UI reform and less spending are what you want As for the GST well lots of peo ple are afraid of it I know that But I also know that if we take the invisible taxes of today and make them visible tomorrow then politi clans will have a harder time rais ing them The real point is that the Senate has taken my vote away There s not much point my travelling to Ot tawa every week if these partisan appointed people can just wipe it all out So things have got to change The irony is now that Meech Lake failed the Semte may have to stay the way it is for a long time Meech was to bring Quebec back into the constitution And then the Special guest speaker Dr David is the schedut ed guest speaker for the first in a scries of seminars on and the Environment presented by Baptist Church The first seminar is scheduled for tomorrow Thursday at 7 30 in Georgetown District High School Dr will also be speaking at Baptist Church at Saturday at 7 and Sunday at 11 a 7 p m Further information on he seminars on be lined by ton tiding David Caldwell or 1iur I F llison 1 PEOPLE DO READ THE HERALD CLASSIFIEDS CALL TODAY TO PLACE YOUR AD NutriSystem helped me lose 52 lbs and cared about my wellbeing This is the first weight loss program I tried where I let the staff really cared about me The counselors treated me like an indiv dual not just pan of a crowd They made me feel Thanks to I care about me too I watch what I eat so I can stay a size My pride really 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