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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-06-01, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 1988. Opinion Who's on which side? Trying to watch the changing positions of Canadian politicians on the two major initiatives of the government of Brian Mulroney (Free Trade and Meech Lake) is enough to give an observer whiplash. Federal government supporters, including several provin­ cial premiers, seem to be proving the impossible: that you can walk on both sides of the fence at the same time. Take the Mulroney government for instance. With Meech Lake the Prime Minister seemed to signal that it was time for a decentralization of power. He bought the support of Quebec and the western provinces for his plan to get Quebec to sign the constitution by offering more provincial government auto­ nomy. With Free Trade, however, with the opposition of at least Ontario and possibly one or two other provinces, the federal government has shown it is willing to step in and legislate in areas of provincial jurisdiction such as the pricing of wine, in order to get its trade deal with the U.S. One province, federal trade minister John Crosbie said, must not be allowed to stand in the way of the will of the majority. But wait a minute! Wasn’t that what Meech Lake was all about? Wasn’t the whole Meech Lake give-away designed to buy the support of one province, Quebec, because it was supposed to be too dangerous having one of the biggest provinces opposed to the rest of the country? And how about the worries that the amending formula of the Meech Lake agreement, which made it necessary for all ten provinces to agree before a constitutional amendment could be accepted? When critics said it would lead to future constitutional crises because you wouldn’t be able to get provincial unanimity on many issues, Mr. Mulroney dismissed these people as doomsayers. Now we have an issue where all the provinces can’t agree, an issue that could have as profound a change on the country’s future as any constitutional change, and suddenly unanimity doesn’t matter. Provincial premiers from the west and Quebec who are always concerned about provincial rights, naturally welcomed the decentralization of powers that the Meech Lake proposals offered. Now when the federal government is crossing the line, interfering in provincial jurisdiction in order to get Free Trade approved, the ministers are expressing concern but not enough concern to defend provincial rights if it could mean putting the trade deal at risk. Part of this is that they believe strongly in both the Free Trade deal and the philosophy behind it. Part of it seems to be the feeling that if Ontario is against Free Trade it must automatically be good for everybody else in the country and so they’ll bend over backwards to support the deal. Ontario Premier David Peterson has been backed into a corner on the issues. He continues to support the unpopular Meech Lake proposal because it will bring Quebec into the constitution. On Free Trade, however, he finds himself the odd man out and looking very picky in his suggestion he will try to block the Free Trade bill with a constitutional challenge to protect a few dozen grape farmers in the Niagara Peninsula. He has made himself a target for all those in the rest of Canada who see Ontario as the greedy pig that will ruin things for everybody else to get its own way. Yet at least he has been consistent. He argues for provincial rights in Meech Lake and he argues for provincial rights in opposing the Free Trade bill. Consistency on these two issues is a rare commodity. A small price to pay It was ironic that the study that showed Canadian artists have the lowest incomes in the country (even lower than pensioners) came out just a few days before the members of the Senate last week voted to refer the proposed copyright bill back to a committee that recommended amendments that would strip the bill of many of the aspects most favourable to artists (amendments rejected by the House of Commons). The Senators have been holding up the bill, worried that provisions to pay artists for exhibitions of their work will hurt bodies like schools and libraries. There are few people around whose work can be borrowed, pirated or copied without any form of compensation as artist’s work can. How can they ever be expected to have better incomes, to depend less on government grants, if Senatorswon’tevengive artists the simple protection of not having their work used with no payment? P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1H0 Phone 523-4792 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont NOG 1H0 Phone 887-9114 The old swimming hole Mabel’s Grill There are people who will tell you that the im port ant 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 morning coffee 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: Ward Black had clipp­ ed a little item out of the paper and he plu nked it down in front of Hank Stokes and asked him who he was going to leave his millions to. The item was about a retired farmer from Guelph who left a million each to three charities plus $500,000 each to two neighbours who helped himwhenhewassick. “Typical farmer,” Ward said. “Probably groused all his life about how hard times were then left a bundle when he died.” Billie Bean pulled over the clipping and read it then wondered out loud how come he can never get neighbours like that. Julia Flint said that Billie would probably have been so busy scheming to get rich he wouldn’t have had the time to help the old man so he’d be out the money anyway. Tim O’Grady read the clipping over slowly then said he’d figured out what Hank was doing wrong. It wasn’t just that the old farmer made a killing on the stock market after he retired, it was because he never got married so he had the money to invest in the stock market. But Hank reminded him that if most farmers didn’t get married, they’d be doing some­ thing else other than farming in a hurry because if they didn’t marry teachers or nuses, they’d never have enough money to keep the place going. TUESDAY: Tim said he was getting tired of all the hassle going on about free trade. Even though he hated the idea of free trade he wished Premier Peterson would just give in instead of threatening to take the feds to court over who decides how much booze should cost in the province. Yeh, said Billie, pointing to a story that said the price of 24 bottles of beer had just gone up by another 50 cents for taxes, the way the price of booze was going up there wouldn’t be any booze trading at all by the time free trade came in anyway. WEDNESDAY: There was a few jokes around the table this morning over the big blackout at Boston Gardens last night with Billie suggesting the Bruins had finally found a way to keep the Oilers from beating them. Well, said Hank, at least the Boston fans were awake enough to notice when the lights went off. If it had been someplace like Toronto where the fans seem to be asleep most of the time, they’d probably still be in the seats. “Heck,” said Tim, “turning off the lights at Maple Leaf Gardens so nobody can see the Leafs might be the best thing anybody could do for hockey.” FRIDAY: “Who says we can’t learn something from the Rus­ sians”, Julia said this morning. She was talking about the vote in the Supreme Soviet the other day where one member even voted to get himself fired from the Prese- dium, putting his hand up with all the other 1500 members so the vote would be unanimous. Whoknows, shesaid, apoliti- cian honest enough to vote himself out of office might be a politician worth keeping around for a while. The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario, by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $17 ,00/yr. ($38.00 Foreign). Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth We are not responsible for unsolicited newscriptsor photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright. <*cNa BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1987 Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. Editor & Publisher, Keith Roulston Advertising Manager, DaveWilliams Production Manager, Jill Roulston Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968