HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-12-14, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1988.
Editorials
NTA favours railways
Business leaders were pleased to see the government of Brian
Mulroney returned to office for more than just the Free Trade issue.
There is the feeling that the Progressive Conservatives have turned
the country around to being more business oriented. Local
experience in the closing of the CP Rail line would appear to prove the
point.
When the new NationalTransportation Act was passed in 1987 few
people in rural areas realized just how much it had changed the whole
ball game for things such as railway service. The process used in the
closing of the CP Rail line from Guelph to Goderich shows that the
emphasis under the NTA has been turned from public service to
serving the railways.
The onus, under the NTA is not on the railways to prove that a rail
line can’t be profitable, the onus is on the users of the line to prove
they'll make the line profitable. The onus is not on the railway line to
prove that closing the line won't hurt the communities served by the
line,communities thatoften subsidized the building of the railway in
thefirstplace. Infact publicgood isn’t included in the new formula at
all. The public, in the cast of the CP Rail closing, wasn’t even
informed the railway was in danger of being closed.
Despite the fact nearly everyone along the railways agrees that CP
(andCN inthecaseoftheListowel toWingham line) hasn’t made any
real effort to make the lines profitable, the officials at the National
Transportation Agency aren’t allowed toeven take that lack of effort
into the equation. At the Agency hearings in Wingham over the CN
application to close the Listowel to Wingham line, CN spent most of
its time maligning the customers who have used the line, trying to
prove they hadn’t been good customers all the time and that any
claims they had that they would increase their use of the line weren’t
true. Instead of a company being glad to get more business, CN
lawyers demonstrated the last thing in the world they wanted was to
be put in a position where they could make a profit.
The railways w ant out of the railway business. There’s more profit
to be made in real estate in downtown Toronto and other large urban
areas. No doubt the railway executives are quite pleased with the
terms of the National Transport Act brought in by Mr. Mulroney’s
government but what about all the small towns businesses across the
country that will suffer because of this bowing to the wishes of big
business:
Free trade for all?
While there was plenty of squabbling about the Canada-U.S. Free
Trade Agreement during the election campaign, no one questioned
the concept of free trade itself, only the details of this deal. Will free
trade become such a motherhood issue, however, when Third World
countries come knocking at our doors.
If we really believe all the rhetoric about free trade, what was said
about the benefits of free trade with the U.S. should apply even more
with third world countries. Consumers would benefit greatly if they
had free access to items such as clothing from countries where
workers get paid only pennies a day. If, as free trade proponents said,
competing in the U.S. would make our companies more competitive,
just think how lean and mean Canadian business should be if it had to
freely compete with the sweatshops of the Third World.
On the other side of the coin, if we really believe in the free
enterprise system rather than socialistic handouts through foreign
aid, what would be a better way of helping the Third World out of its
crisis than throwing our borders open to unrestricted imports from
Third World countries. If all North American clothing items, for
instance, were made by people in third world countries, the balance
of payments of many of those countries could be improved greatly
overnight.
But when it comes to free trade, we don’t practise what we preach
when it comes to the Third World. Last week’s talks in Montreal of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) for instance, spent
plenty oftime talking about the problems of Europe and North
America, but little attention was paid to freeing up trade from Third
World countries into the rich countries. While the rich countries
worried about more free trade in services and protecting their patents
in poorer countries, nobody seemed to spend much time thinking
about the fact imports of Third World textiles and clothing a re
regulated under a voluntary quota system called the Multifibre
Arrangement in most industrialized countries. Nor was there much
at tention paid to the fact that those items that a re imported a re
subject to heavy tariffs. In Canada for instance, w e have agreements
with 18 different countries to limit clothing and textile imports and we
have tariffs of 17 per cent on outerwear and 25 per cent on shirts.
If our government really put into practice the theory it has
preached over free trade, the cost in Canada would be devastating in
some industries, but the benefits to Third World development would
be to help the economics of the poor countries to get turned around.
.jc
gK -
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
morning coffee break, otherwise
known as the Round Table
Debating and Filibustering So
ciety.
MONDAY: Hank Stokes was saying
this morning that he was feeling kind
of guilty on Saturday because he took
the wife shopping in a shopping mall
in the city. “Kind of felt bad I didn’t
keep my money at home,’’ he said,
even though with what we farmers
have to spend, it wouldn’t make a
drop in the bucket in the local
economy.’’
Ah, said Ward Black, the way
farmers like Hank are always crying
the blues it’s a wonder they couldn’t
have had enough tears to irrigate
their crops this year and get a
bumper crop.
Well, Hank said, he didn’t feel so
bad when he got down to the big mall
and the first person he ran into was
the wife of one of the local
merchants. “I can’t wait to see if she
reports me for not shopping at
home,’’ Hank said.
WEDNESDAY: Billie Bean was
telling Ward Black that town council
really missed the boaton this one. He
was pointing to the article in the
newspaper that Ferdinand and
Imelda Marcos had bought a
condominium in Montreal. “We
could have turned this town com
pletely around if we could have got
them to move here,’’ Billie was
saying.
“Yes,’’ said Julia Flint, “it would
have been like getting a major
industry to get them here. First of all
they’d havesomany servants the
town’s population would soar. Then
we could suddenly have our own
tourist industry from all the people
coming to see where they lived.’’
And, Billie said, we could have the
best shopping area in 100 miles with
Imelda to keep it going. Billie said
he’d take dibs on operating the shoe
store.
THURSDAY: That report that insur
ance rates might go up 35 or 40 per
cent certainly had people talking
around the table this morning. Julia
was upset because she figured her
insurance was going to go up but Tim
O’Grady said the women were to
blamefor all this. Julia asked how he
could possibly come to that conclu
sion. Tim said it was true, that
women had been making so much
fuss about not discriminating on the
basis of sex that men were bound to
get mad and when young men found
out they were paying more in
insurance than young women they
thought it was unfair and the
government agreed and so now
everybody else has to pay more
because the young men, who had
more accidents than anybody else,
had to pay less.
“Makes discrimination look pret
ty darned good doesn’t it,’’ Hank
Stokes said.
Draw winners
named
Mary McGlynn of Wingham was
the winner of a baby’s afghan when
the draws were made at the St.
Ambrose Church bazaar and bake
sale in Brussels December 3.
Marg Vanderburgh of Listowel
won a $50 bag of groceries while
Hope Prior of Brussels won a tote
bag.
Other prize winners were: Rita
Deitner, Helen Albers, Sandra
Bridge, Mrs. Harold Thomas, Rita
Deitner, Mrs. McGlynn, Alice Bro
thers, Mary Davidson, Pam Nolan,
Kathy Oil, Isobelle Craig, Karen
Bowles, Mary McGlynn, Melissa
Blake, Isobel Alcock, Cathy Bridge,
Lara Parker, Irene Blake, Mrs.
Hetherington, Clara Haig, Freda
Pipe, Verna Tunney, Karen Parker,
Lara Parker, Alice McArter, Vera
Hastings, Noreen Eder, Melissa
Blake, Angela Nicholson, Irene
Blake. Alice Brothers, Bessie Mil
ler, Helen Albers, Rita Deitner,
Alice McArter, Veronica Golerink
and Lisa Parker.
The
Citizen
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