HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-05-20, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 1987.
Opinion
Have we been
missing something?
f
What’s going on here? Whether you believe last week’s
Angus Reid poll of public opinion across Canada that showed
the New Democratic Party at the head of the opinion polls,
ahead of the Conservatives by a wide margin and the Liberals
by one per cent, or the Gallup Poll the next day that showed the
NDP still a strong second, the fact remains the NDP is still more
popular than ever.
How can this be? We’ve been told that the mood of the
country has swung to the right, that people are worried about
themselves and their own pocket book not about the social
issues the New Democrats are constantly promoting. We’ve
been told the country hasn’t been so conservative in years.
John Turner believed all this and has practically given
himself a hernia from trying to straddle the move to the right
while keeping one foot planted firmly in the traditional Liberal
party territory of reform. Brian Mulroney and Michael Wilson
have certainly believed it as they tried to undo 20 years of
Liberal rule.
The media certainly believed that Canada would naturally
follow the right-wing trend that swept Ronald Reagan into
office in the U.S. and kept him riding high in the polls despite
embarrassments like the Iran-Contra scandal. The landslide
election of the Mulroney government confirmed in the mind of
media people that the country had taken a new direction.
But the steady growth of NDP support, first catching and
passing the sliding Conservatives, now, perhaps, overtaking
the Liberals, might be cause to reconsider our preconceptions
of the mood of the population. Maybe we have been so busy
taking it for granted that Canada was following the U.S. trend
that we failed to realize Canadians still cared about many of the
same subjects, the kinds of things the Liberals and NDP used to
compete to call their own. Maybe the NDP growth isn’t just a
blip, not just a result of an adverse reaction to Mr. Mulroney
and Mr. Turner but a signal that Canadians still care about the
issues that only the NDP is standing up for, issues like
protection of the underprivileged through strong social
programs and a worry that Canada is being bought out by
foreign investors.
More evidence on this line comes from a PC party secret poll
leaked last week that showed 77 per cent of Canadians want
government action to prevent foreign takeovers of Canadian-
owned oil and gas companies.
Perhaps the greatest irony will be if the Liberal party, in
jumping right-ward because if thought it was going to be on the
winning side of issues (as usual), has totally miscalculated and
let the NDP gain what it has always wanted: the undisputed
possession of reform issues and the “other party’’ position in a
two-party system.
Money well spent
Some months ago a small note appeared in this paper that the
Blyth Lions Ciub had made a donation to support the efforts of
the Central Huron Secondary School track and field team. In
this age when people talk about getting “more bang for the
buck’’ the donation couldn’t have been better spent.
With the success of Blyth area athletes on both the CHSS and
F. E. Madill track and field teams, it would be interesting to see
how strong a track team the village could field all by itself.
Maybe someone should be looking at more support for track
and field at a local level to give these young stars a place to train
without having so much driving to do.
Whatever happened
to conscience
Currently in France the trial of Klaus Barbie continues for
crimes against humanity in the slaughter of thousands while
he was a Gestapo officer during the Second World War.
Like so many before him at the Nuremburg Trials and since,
Barbie claims innocence because he says he was only following
orders. Society says that’s not good enough, that a man must
answer his conscience, not his superiors in such matters.
Currently in Toronto, police Constable David Packer faces
charges because he refused duty guarding the Morgentaler
abortion clinic because of his religious and moral beliefs.
Even pro-abortion supporters say abortion should be a
matter of conscience. Government officials have claimed the
abortion clinic is illegal but have not made another move to
close it. The only charge has been against a policeman who
stuck by his consience.
Men of conscience like Const. Packer should be honoured,
not prosecuted.
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, oth. rwise 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: Hank Stokes was say
ing this morning about how he’s
getting a little sick of everybody
throwing that figure of $1 billion at
him whenever they talk about all
the help the government is giving
farmers. “Sure $1 billion sounds
big, he says, until you divvy it up
among all the farmers across the
country. But heck, the govern
ment’s talking about spending five
or 10 billion on nuclear submarines
to make sure some ice bergs stay
Canadian.’’
Now, Tim O’Grady told him,
there were other uses for the
submarines than just guarding
icebergs. If the Tory government
kept sinking the way it has been,
the submarines may be the only
thing that can rescue the survivors
come next election.
TUESDAY: Julia Flint said this
morning that she thought that
Ontario was the only place where
doctors were hard up for income
after not getting the increase they
wanted from the provincial govern-
ment last year but she figures
times must be tough in the Yukon
too. Maybe that’s why a Yukon
doctor volunteered to be the next
executioner if capital punishment
is voted back in Canada.
Tim wondered if they do bring
the death penalty back and they
use an injection of lethal drugs and
they get a doctor to do the job would
the government pay the costs
under the justice budget, or the
health budget.
WEDNESDAY: Billie Beane said
he’d heard of a house warming but
that fire in Toronto that burned 105
houses that weren’t even finished
yet was a bit much.
Julia said she had heard the
housing market was cooling out a
little in Toronto these days and
maybe somebody was trying to
heat it up again. Billie said that
with the price of those houses
about $190,000 each, it might be
the closest some of those people
ever came to burning their mort
gage.
THURSDAY: Julia asked Mabel
this morning what she thought
about the debate about whether or
not to allow the sale of irradiated
food in Canada. Mabel said she
wasn’t sure she liked the idea of
having hot meals before you even
put them in the oven.
Hanksaidwiththis talk about
irradiation making food not spoil
he was against it. With all the
surplusses of food in the world we
need food to rot as fast as possible if
farmers are ever going to make a go
of it, he said.
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