HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1991-03-06, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1991. PAGE 5.
What did I do
to deserve this?
“Life is just one damn thing after
another".
Hugh Garner, the old Cabbagetown
scribbler had that right - but he neglected
to add what wonderful and preposterous
damn things those damn things sometimes
are. Life has a penchant for shuffling the
cards and dealing you a hand you couldn't
have imagined if you'd gobbled five sheets
of blotter acid.
Take my hand for instance.
If you’d asked me a year ago what I’d be
doing in the middle of February, 1991, I’d
have grumbled “The usual -- shovelling
snow, performing mouth to mouth on my
car battery, hunkering, shivering, waiting
for spring."
Instead, the middle of this February
found me standing on the deck of the MS
Nieuw Amsterdam, watching a large
orange ball plunge into the blue-green
bosom of the Caribbean.
Me. On a luxury liner. Who’d’a thunk it?
The Nieuw Amsterdam is a sleek, svelte
triumph of iron, brass, teak and mahogany.
It is just eight years old and cost $165
million to build. Your correspondent is a
bald, pudgy, Canuck commonly decked out
in T shirts and old running shoes. I was
The International
Scene
Shopping
across
the border
BY RAYMOND CANON
Every time I cross the border on
business, it seems that I see more and
more Canadian licence plates on the other
side. The reason for this is not difficult to
find; it is simply that Canadians within
driving distance of the border are attracted
by the lower prices and are determined to
do some of their shopping in the U.S. to
take advantage of these prices. It is also
not surprising that 1 am asked a number of
questions about these prices and how much
of an advantage they are.
First, let’s start with the most frequently
asked question - the price of gasoline.
What formula do you use in order to
determine how much you save by buying
American gas instead of the Canadian
version? The answer is that there are any
number of ways that you can calculate it
but to save you the time and trouble of
getting out your pocket calculator, let me
say that the easiest way is to say that gas is
about two-thirds the price in the States that
it is here. If you know, therefore, how
much it costs to fill up your tank in Canada,
it will cost you about two-thirds that in the
U.S.
Now for the question of prices in
general. The thing to remember is that not
all things are cheaper in the U.S. than in
Canada; just some of them are. For this
reason, if you are determined to shop over
there, make sure that you know the price
here of the things you want to buy so that
you can benefit when you get there. It is
worth pointing out that, when 1 am in
Sarnia, I meet Americans who are over
here because some of the things they want
are less expensive here. As I have said
before, such situations work both ways.
Another thing to remember, if you are
buying something American with a warran
ty on it, is that the warranty may. not be
valid in Canada. If you feel that you want to
take a chance, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The same observation, needless to say,
holds true for replacement parts.
middle aged when the Nieuw Amsterdam
was still in blueprints. My list price might
run $13.95.
With the running shoes thrown in.
The Nieuw Amsterdam and I were not
exactly made for each other, yet there we
were, hand in hand. Or foot on deck, or
something. The Heart and Stroke Founda
tion of Ontario had chosen me as a kind of
cruise mascot. In so doing, they plucked
me out of the depths of an Ontario winter
and onto the deck of a Caribbean cruise
ship.
Life the Dealer had dealt me a full house,
ace-high. 1 was happy to stand pat for at
least seven days.
Here then, some random observations
from a week spent bobbing around the
Western Caribbean:
Key West, Florida.
Ah, Key West! I have long believed
North America’s southernmost gobbet of
coral to be the last remaining outpost of
true, unplasticized magic in that geograph
ical pudenda that droops off the southeast
corner of the continential U.S. Eighty miles
from Cuba and far enough off shore from
the mainland to resist the Chick’n N Grits,
the Gator Worlds, the glitz and the kitsch
that infests the rest of Flordia like some
fungal blight.
I was wrong. Key West is a mess. A slow
shuffling biomass of tourists from Omaha
and Oshawa grazing on shoals of store
fronts selling shell jewellery, conch
burgers and simian dolls made from
lacquered coconut shells.
I found myself wandering the streets
dodging tourist trolleys and peep show
barkers, muttering to myself: “Heming
Now for the really important question. 1
am also asked if I do my shopping in the
U.S. whenever 1 am over there on
business. Unless it is a case of a necessity,
the answer is “NO.” “What?" you will
ask, “Don’t you want to take advantage of
the fact that you are over there anyway?"
I’m glad you asked; here is my rationale for
not following the crowds.
Frankly, I prefer our way of life in
Canada, including the benefits of our social
welfare system. These benefits are paid for
by the taxes which are levied on us, not
only by income taxes but by those which we
categorize as indirect taxes. These are, to
cite a couple of examples, the provincial
sales tax as well as the much maligned
GST. We avoid paying these taxes if we
buy in the United States but, if there are
any American taxes on the goods we
purchase there, we are contributing to
their system and not ours. Frankly, 1 like it
here better, much better and 1 say this as a
person who has lived in the United States.
In order to liven up the conversation at
times, I ask a person two questions. One is
whether or not they like the free trade
agreement which our country has with the
United Nations. As often as not, I am told
in no uncertain terms that they hate
People sai
Pornography dangerous
THE EDITOR,
1 am writing in response to a letter to the
editor in this paper on Feb. 27, 1991
entitled “Violence goes deeper than easy
solutions".
In that letter Doug Trollope indicated
that violence by women against men has
risen 100 per cent over the last 10 years. Is
there any wonder? 1 agree with one of
Doug’s ideas: that is working together,
male and female to eliminate or lessen
violence, period. But if I were a female it
would take all the restraint I possess to
keep from becoming violent. If any other
group in society was subject to the hate
literature that is contained in pornography,
that is directed at women and children they
way lived here. Hemingway ... lived
here?”
He didn’t, of course. Hemingway lived
in quite another Key West, back in the
days when it was a low-budget out of the
way haven for part-time fishermen, full-
time dreamers, poets, artists, writers and
other snow-weary vagabonds. Heming
way’s home is still there, a big, gracious
wooden house, festooned with cats and
nestled in a cool green oasis of shade trees.
You can even walk in and pet the cats. And
like everything else in Key West, it’ll cost
you.
But the beauty of a cruise is, tomorrow
means another port. After leaving Key
West we steamed across the Gulf to the
Mexican island of Cozumel where the
water comes highly recommended for
snorkeling, but not drinking. Then another
zag across the waves to the sandy beaches
of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, where th 3 emerald
green hills produce everything irom baux
ite ore to coffee beans. From the kaleido
scope cacophony of Jamaica another
overnight cruise lands us on the flat, clean,
teddibly British island of Grand Cayman,
where income tax is unheard of, plutocrats
hide their millions in unnumbered bank
accounts and store clerks slump, elegantly
bored, over display cases of diamonds,
emeralds and $5,000 Rolexes.
Tampa, Key West, Playa del Carmen,
Cozumel, Jamaica, Grand Cayman. Six
ports in seven days. Wonderful food.
Spectacular scenery. Great people to enjoy
it with. But you know the very best thing
about my trip?
For a solid week I didn’t hear the initials
G, S or T.
everything the agreement stands for. 1
then pass on to the next question. Do you
or would you shop in the United States to
take advantage of the lower prices. Almost
100 per cent of the same people who are
against free trade agreements would
answer in the affirmative. 1 then ask them
how they can be so strongly against it when
it is the same agreement that has given
them much of the advantage provided by
over-the-border shopping? At least I give
them something to think about, or at least 1
hope I do.
I hope, too, that you see that, if you shop
in the U.S., you are doing so at the expense
of other Canadians, not to mention
yourself. If our governments cannot raise
sufficient revenue under existing levels of
taxation, and if this is partly due to the
massive amount of shopping going on in
the U.S., they will simply raise existing tax
rates or introduce new taxes. The severity
of the situation can be seen that, when you
add the federal and provincial deficits in
the current year, we are spending almost
$40 billion more than we are taking in.
Those who are supporting the current fad
of tax revolts are barking up the wrong
tree; they had better concentrate their
efforts in getting our country to live within
its means.
would surely become violent.
I find it hard to understand how anyone
that knows what porn contains can sit back
and think that it has nothing to do with the
attitudes of those men who rape and molest
women and children.
Being a one-time collector of porno
graphy, I’ve seen first hand what this
material contains. I have never seen one
pornographic book or movie that was
produced by someone with a mentality that
should be considered normal, especially in
searching out one’s identity sexual or
otherwise. For anyone that doesn’t know
what this material consists of let me say
Continued on page 6
Letter
from the
editor
We need to
put our best minds
together
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist, but
despite all the problems that face rural
Ontario these days, 1 have great faith that
if we can only put our most important
resource, the minds of our local people, to
work, we can find most solutions.
1 got a small taste of what it’s like to put
inventive minds together the other day
when 1 was invited to take part in a
gathering of rural leaders from across
Perth and Huron sponsored by the Ontario
Ministry of Agriculture and Food in
Seaforth. By leaders, the conference
organizers didn’t mean the leaders we
normally think of, the politicians. There
were a few township councillors there,
even a reeve or two (Hullett’s Tom
Cunningham for one) but for the most part
these were people from various walks of
life who were assembled and asked to look
at what were the challenges of rural life
that had to be met in the next few years
and were asked to think about possible
solutions to the problems we faced from
the lack of farm income to environmental
problems to rural revitalization.
Truthfully, there weren’t a lot of
solutions found in that one-day session.
There was a hint, however, of just how
many fine minds we have in this part of the
world if we could only get them together
more often to look at our problems
collectively. The 50 or 60 people present
were only a fraction of the intelligent,
inventive people who are in every town and
village and every township. The problem is
we seldom get people together to work on
problems. We generally either try to tackle
problems on an individual basis or leave it
to various levels of government to find
solutions for us.
I worked with a group of fascinating
people on a study group looking at rural
revitalization. There was a United Church
minister involved in Milverton’s commun
ity effort to find new ways to stimulate the
economy after a major industry closed.
There was a banker with an abiding faith in
rural Ontario. There was a female township
councillor and rural activist and an OMAF
employee.
Generally we seemed to agree that the
answer to the problems of our community
lay not in government or business but in
ourselves: that if we could find ways of
getting people to discuss our common
problems, to work together on finding
solutions, we could make our communities
better places.
What we were really doing, I suppose,
was looking backward to find solutions,
looking to the days when people solved
problems by community action. There was
a time when communities pulled together
to get things done that individuals couldn’t
do themselves. It began, I suppose with the
bees helping pioneers erect their log
cabins, and carried on to barn raisings,
quilting bees, wood cutting bees and beef
rings. People turned to their neighbours
for threshing gangs, to build community
halls and arenas, to start fall fairs. Later
came the co-operative movement that
started things like the Belgrave Co-op and
the Blyth cheese factory.
Many of us at that session had fond
memories of the Farm Radio Forums, even
though we were too young to have taken
part ourselves. We remembered the com
bination of intellectual stimulation and
community social event those winter
evenings used to provide. One of our
recommendations was that some modern
equivalent should be found.
Huron County still has more of co-opera
tion than most places in Canada. We still
have examples of community support like
the Belgrave Community uses to keep its
arena going, like the Brussels. Morris and
Grey catering group provides at the arena
Continued on page 27