HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-04-13, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 1988.
Opinion
Having it both ways
Robert Campeau became an American corporate superstar
last week when he successfully completed the takeover of
Federated Department Stores Inc. for $6.6 billion dollars and
immediately made Americans feel proud whenhesaidhe
preferred the “more wide-open private enterprise system
where there is less interference by government than there is in
Canada.’’ How soon he forgets.
In her book “Controlling Interest: Who owns Canada’’
business writer Diane Francis says that Robert Campeau was a
major beneficiary of the official bilingualism policies of the
government of Pierre Trudeau. Campeau became the federal
government’s biggest landlord in the Ottawa-Hull area
sometimes getting contracts to provide office space without
competitive billing. In fact investigations by Auditor General
Kenneth Dye showed that the federal government was involved
in some rental agreements that were too expensive by $417.5
million over 10 years, the book says.
The grade 8 dropout French Canadian kid from Sudbury
hasn’t done too badly in a country that is supposed to be too
government dominated, and to a large extent it is the tax dollars
ofordinary Canadians that helped put him in a position to
invade the U.S. in a big way, taking over Allied Stores a few
months ago and now buying an even bigger chain of stores. Mr.
Campeau thus has followed a long line of other Canadian
million and billionaires who managed to rise from poverty to
wealth in this country then suddenly talked about what an
unfair country it was to people trying to build private
enterprise. E.P. Taylor was once synonymous with wealth until
he took his millions off to a tax haven in the Bahamas. K.C. Irvin
built an empire in New Brunswick that gave him the rank of one
of the world’s richest men but he, too, took his millions to a tax
shelter in the Carribean. Canadians like Roy Thompson and
Garfield Weston liked the idea of having a title so much they
gave up their Canadian citizenship and moved to Britain.
One might wonder if Canada is so hard on free enterprisers
how these men ever became so wealthy? If Canada is so hard on
big business, how come we have so many really big businesses
that pay absolutely no taxes? If Canada is so hard on big
business how come we have, as Ms. Francis points out, the
most concentrated economic power of any western nation. If
Mr. Campeau continues to expand in the U. S. he may discover a
government intervention they have in that free enterprise
nation that we don’t have here: laws that prevent restriction of
competition by too much corporate concentration.
If this country has too many government regulations it is
perhaps due tothefactthat our big business men have not
particuarly been good corporate citizens over the years. Our
major businesses, for instance, give far less to charities than do
big businesses in the U.S.
When a man can rise from a poor kid in Sudbury to being one
of the biggest business moguls in North America the country
can’tbeallbad. Whenthatman can then turn around and
denigrate his country perhaps it is the businessman that is the
problem.
Who s backward now?
Aw we in Huron County and other rural parts of Ontario have
provided many humourous moments for our cousins in the big
city of Toronto with our backward ways. The urban press loves
to come to Huron to cover meetings where people want to ban
books from libraries. They love to comment on the ‘quaint’
dress of local theatre goers when they come to Huron to review
the plays at the Blyth Festival. But with the decision of Toronto
politicians to reject market value assessment one more time one
could ask who’s backward now?
The decision Toronto politicians made to turn down market
value assessment means that assessment on some buildings in
the city dates back to World War II levels. The city hasn’t even
reached the progress Huron county politicians made a decade
ago when they voted for market value assessment for local
taxes, let alone the recent move local politicians made to have
1984 market values apply for county and school taxes as well as
municipal taxes.
Statistics showed that 60 per cent of property owners would
benefit from market value assessment but many of the people in
the most affluent areas of Toronto would be hurt most. Given
those facts Toronto politicians didn’t have the courage to make
the changes.
Compare that to Huron politicians, many of whom voted in
favour of tax reform even though they knew that some of their
taxpayers (particularly rural residential ratepayers) would be
hit hard. Councils with large cottage populations may have
made themselves candidates for lynching when cottages get
their tax bills (cottage taxpayer revolts have already taken place
up north). Our politicians voted for what they thought was a fair
system overall, despite the consequences for some people,
despite the possible consequences on their own political future.
Toronto politicians could learn a little about political courage
from our backward people in Huron.
iZWO
I MUST REMIND you FORTIER.
OF THE TWO OFFICIAL
LANGUAGES IN CANADA
THE TRUTH IS NOT
ONE OF THEM/
Mabel’s Grill
There are people who will tell
you that the important decisions in
town are made down at the town
hall. People in the know, however
know that the real debates, the
real wisdom reside down at
Mabel 's Grill where the greatest
minds in the town [if not in the
country] gather for morningcoffee
break, otherwise known as the
Round Table Debating and Fili
bustering Society. Since not just
everyone can partake of these
deliberations we will report the
activities from time to time.
MONDAY: When Tim O’Grady
got back from his vacation this
morning Billie Bean was waiting
for him with that story of the
chicken farmer from Clinton who
got a bill from his lawyer for
$99,000 for fighting to prevent his
wife from divorcing him. “I guess
now we can see how you lawyers
can take vacations in Mexico,’’
Billie needled.
Tim said he guessed he was
unlucky because he’d never known
anybody who got divorced who had
that kind of money in the first
place. All the rich people I know
stay happily married, he said.
Ward Black said that with lawyers’
bills like that one, it would be a hell
of an incentive to stay married.
Julia said that obviously the
guy’s wife was a better head for
business because she got a lawyer
who only cost $71,000. But the
silliest thing, she said, was that
after they went through all this
mess they decided to go back to
living together before the final
divorce decree came out.
Yeh, said Hank Stokes. You’d
think if you’d paid that much
money you ’ d want to have at least a
few days of freedom before you
movedin again. Besides, you could
live in sin for a while just in case you
changed your mind and had to go
through the whole thing again.
WEDNESDAY: Julia was saying it
makes her feel old this morning
when she looks in the paper and
sees it was 20 years ago that Pierre
Trudeau was elected leader of the
Liberal party. Could it really be 20
years?
Tim said if you look at how the
public mood has changed, how
everybody went from idealism to
cynicism, you’d think it was a
century or two. Yes, said Ward
Black, looking at the other two with
all seriousness, he thought they
should declare April 6 an annual
holiday after Trudeau. Only pro
blem was, he said, they already
used the theme for the day for
Remembrance Day: “Lest we
forget” what that socialist million
aire did to the country for 15 years.
THURSDAY: Hank Stokes said
thismorningthat sometimes he
has to agree there are more
problems being rich than being
broke. He pointed out the story in
thepaper aboutthe poor (or is it
rich) slob from Toronto who bought
a $45,000 yacht, left it at the
boatbuilders over the winter then
had the boat seized by the
Continued on page 5
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