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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-11-16, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1988. Opinion When in doubt, throw it out No matter how much people deplore the emergence of passion over reason in the current election campaign, in the end each Canadian, no matter which party they vote for, will have to be in touch with their own emotions in making a decision in the privacy of the polling booth next Monday. Despite all the other issues that have been discussed, it is the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement that will decide where mostvoteswillgo. After morethanayearofdebatetheonly thing that becomes clear is that the Free Trade agreement is not a clear issue. There has been an excess of rhetoric on both sides as politicians tried to make a complicated issue seem clear for confused voters. And is it any wonder the issue is confusing for the voter? For every expert dragged out by the pro-Free Trade side, there has been an expert found bv the anti-Free Trade side to say the opposite. For every Simon Reisman who will tell you that he knows what the agreement says and it is nothing but good for Canada, there is another trade negotiator like Mei Clark who will say the treaty is not what it claims to be. not even delivering the protection from U.S. protectionism that it claims as its key victory. Both sides played on fear. The pro-FTA side played on fear of American protectionism as the reason to enter the trade talks in the first place and now play on the fear of Canadians that if we tear up the agreement two million jobs will be lost. The anti-Free Trade side has taken giants leaps of logic to put our health care system in danger from the agreement. While the business community has lined up to support the deal, environmental groups, unions, some farm groups, even many churches have lined up against it. It has become obvious that any vote cast will be taken on the kind of “leap of faith" former-Liberal Finance Minister Donald Macdonald advocated when he first proposed Free Trade. You will either show your faith in the government’s vision of a country benefitting from larger markets with businesses prospering and the results trickling down to ordinary Canadians, or you’ll show your faith in the opponents to Free Trade who say the agreement would see the erosion of what we know of as Canada and a gentle, certain slide into American dominance. The voter will have to decide what is to be gained and what is to be lost from the agreement. Even supporters of the agreement say the gain is liable to be only 250,000 jobs over the next 10 years. There’s something more subtle that many supporters see as a gain. They see a Canada that is more competition oriented, less dependent on government intervention to try to smooth the peaks and valleys of the freeenterprisesystem.IfCanada should become a touch more American in being, more pro-business and more anti-government, it might be the biggest gain of all for them. Against that must be weighed the cost of what might happen if it is the pro-FTA supporters who are wrong and the opponents who are right. If the deal’s supporters are right, we may gain jobs. If they are wrong we could lose some of the freedom to act as we like. It will be American big business lobbyists, th rough their fights to cl aim various Canadian programs are unfair subsidies, that will determine what rules Canadians live under. Despite the claims, this is not just a commercial agreement. It will effect the heart of this country for good or bad. Countries are not built on commercial decisions but on emotional decisions. Patriotism, nationalism, are not coldly logical decisions. If pure rationality counted the great neighbour to the south would not have become an independent country by fighting a revolution over a few taxes they felt were unfair. We wouldn’t have remembered the deaths of more than 100,000 Canadians last week on Remembrance Day for wars in far off lands that didn’t affect their daily lives if they had stayed at home. Canadianshavea clear choice Nov. 21: theycanvote for the reasonable goal of possible new jobs against the possible risks, or they can say that safety comes first, that if there is confusion over what the deal will mean to the country’s future they can’t afford to take the risk and the deal must be turned down. Leaps of faith are fine if you have some idea of what’s below you. but there is no clear answer as to just w hat we’re jumping into. Given the uncertainty, is there really any choice but to reject the deal? Enchanted forest The International Scene Pity poor Belgium BY RAYMOND CANON Thereareafewcountriesinthe world besides Canada that are officially bilingual. Some have been able to handle their bilingualism quite nicely but others, like Bel­ gium. have a real fiasco on their hands. It cannot be said that the Belgiums have not been trying but whatever they have done, it has not worked out well. A little history is in order. The country was formed in the 19th century but ran into linguistic problems right from the beginning. It all started out when the southern part was informed that from then on their national language would be Dutch. Thisdid notgo down with them very well si nee they we re all French speaking and so a new country was formed which contained the Dutch of the southern part of the Netherlands as well as the French speaking people to which I have just referred. The ironic thing about this creation was that the British guaran­ teed the newly created Belgium perpetual neutrality, a move which was designed to reassure the Germans that the French would never again march through Belgium against them. This guarantee, how­ ever, failed to prevent the Germans from marching twice through Bel­ gium on their way to France. What is Belgium like today? If you take a look at the map and imagine a line drawn sloping upwards from left to right, the northern and western parts of the country are Dutch speaking while the southern and eastern parts are just as solidiy French. .Just across the linquistic dividing line in the Dutch sector is Brussels, the capital but it has been designated as a bilingual city. It goes without saying that there are very few Belgians who are totally Continued on page 21 Citizen P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont NOM 1H0 Phone 523 4“92 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont NOG 1H0 Phone 88’-9114 The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc Subscr'ptions are pavable in advance at a rate of S17 00 vr (S38 00 Foreign; Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event or a typographical error only that portion of the advertisement will be credited Advertising Deadlines Monday 2pm - Brussels. Monday 4pm - Blvth e are not responsible for unsolicited newscriptsor photographs Contentsor The Citizen are I Copyright Serving Brussels. Blyth. Auburn. Belgrave. Ethel. Londesborough. Walton and surrounding townships. Editor & Publisher. Keith Rou Is ton Advertising Manager. DaveWilliams Production Manager, Jill Roulston Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968