The Citizen, 1990-04-18, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1990. PAGE 5.
Manipulating
nature to extremes
“We manipulate nature as if we were
stuffing an Alsatian goose. We create
new forms of energy; we make new
elements; we kill crops; we wash brains.
I can hear them in the dark sharpening
their lasers.”
A fellow by the name of Erwin Chargaff
wrote that in a magazine called Columbia
Forum. What amazes me is that he wrote it
more than 20 years ago, long before he
could possibly have heard of:
Somatotropin.
Square trees.
Egg advertising.
Nope, I didn’t make any of those three
things up. Scientists did. And stories about
their discoveries turned up in recent
editions of my newspaper.
Not on the front page, you understand.
These aren’t important stories like Bill
Vander Zalm’s latest Meech Lake pipe
dream or an update on the ongoing Harold
and Yolanda Soap Opera. No, these stories
merely threaten to change the way you and
I live - hence their regulation to Section C,
Page 37, right next to the Truss ads.
Since we’re in the ad department, let’s
take a look at the last phenom first: egg
The International
Scene
There are plenty
of good things
about Canada
BY RAYMOND CANON
I have been lamenting from time to time
the tendency of Canadians to criticize their
country for faults real or imaginary; I have
also not held back in deploring the serious
financial difficulties in which we find
ourselves. Perhaps now is as good a time
as any to look on the positive side of our
nation and see what it is that attracts
immigrants from so many different areas of
the world.
While I will (as always) try to be as
objective about it as possible, I have to
admit that there will be some personal
feelings creeping in. Perhaps I should get
them off my chest right at the beginning.
When I finished my studies in Switzerland,
I was interested in finding a job and
starting to earn some money for a'change.
Hardly had I packed my notes away than I
got my first serious offer - a job from a
wood processing company near Berne, the
capital of Switzerland, to work in the
management side of the business and, in
addition, to be the playing coach of the
local hockey team.
It was shortly afterwards that I was
walking down the Champs Elysses in Paris
when I came across a Squadron Leader in
the R.C.A.F. who was over there to help
set up the N.A.T.O. air training program.
He informed me that they had great need
of people of my qualifications and ended up
offering me a job in the program - in
Canada. That I ended up choosing the
latter job says a lot for my feelings about
Canada.
A few years later when I decided to stay
and become a Canadian citizen, I had
nobody to sponsor me. To my rescue came
a service club from the town in which I had
lived and thus it was that I appeared before
the citizenship judge who just happened to
be from the same town and who made a
delightful little speech about how glad he
was to see me become a Canadian.
Having given you a little bit of my
background, you can understand how I can
relate to the hundreds of thousands of
people who every year choose Canada as
their future home. What is it about our
country that they find attractive?
advertising.
This brave leap forward comes to us
from Golden Eggs Inc., an Israeli Company
that claims to have perfected a method of
imprinting advertising slogans, brand
names - even commercials -- onto the
shells of regular, everyday store-bought
eggs. Rafi Orel, president of Golden Eggs
is ecstatic. “You can’t ignore it when you
open the refrigerator. It’s shouting at you,
‘Here I am!”’
Indeed. Just what I need when, blood
shot of eye and baggy of bathrobe, I
groggily wrench open the fridge door in the
pre-dawn gloom: a chorus line of Grade A
medium ovoid Rockettes doing a Can Can
rendition called ‘Here I Ami’
How to find relief from my strident eggs
- a quiet walk in the woods? Not likely.
Robert Falls is busy in there, growing
square trees.
Well, sure ... just good business sense,
when you think about it. Round trees are
wasteful. When you turn ‘em into straight
ened timber, about 40 per cent of the log
winds up on the sawmill floor. Scientist
Falls has been monkeying around with
saplings, Stimulating them to grow extra
wood cells at four points of their growth
rings - squaring the circle, as it were. Says
Falls “even if there’s only a five percent
increase, that would translate into millions
of dollars.”
Then there’s somatotropin - a growth
hormone Cornell University researchers
Well, for one thing there are few if any
countries that have a greater amount of
political freedom. You don’t realize how
important this is until you experience a
dictatorship or a country where political
liberties are restricted.
I lived in Spain for a while under the
dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco; it
was an object lesson the likes of which I
will not soon forget. We had to be
extremely careful what we said in public
and one of the things I recall most vividly
was the guaranteed entry of a member of
the secret police into every train compart
ment whenever I made a trip. They
checked identification papers very care
fully and hauled out anybody whose papers
did not seem to be in order. Imagine that in
Canada!
In spite of all our complaints about taxes
and the like, Canada is still an excellent
place to set up a business and many
immigrants have done just that. Of all the
ethnic groups that we have here, I know of
none who has been a net burden on the
economy. Most of them settle right in, find
a job or set up a business, reaching a
standard of living in the process that they
would never have been able to do in their
country of origin, even if they had had the
chance. Our streets may not be paved with
gold but the’ opportunities here are almost
endless.
By and large there is considerably less
Mabel’s Grill
Continued from page 4
“Yeh,” said Billie Bean, “and if
you know which half was going to go over
your tax return you’d know whether it was
the stupid bunch you might be able to put
one over on or if you were getting the smart
ones who might catch you.”
WEDNESDAY: Hank Stokes said one of
the things he likes about watching sports is
getting away from all the troubles of the
world. “I was so looking forward to the
beginning of the basebal season so I could
forget Meech Lake and the GST and acid
rain so what happens? I turn on my
television and there’s Mulroney and Bush
throwing out the first pitch at the Blue Jays
game. The Blue Jays should have thrown
out the politicians instead.”
THURSDAY: Leave it to the government to
find a way to tax everything these days,
Tim was saying about an article in the
paper on how the GST is going to apply on
books and newspapers. “At least you used
to be able to relax while you read your book
figuring they weren’t dinging you for tax
say will do for cow’s udders what Stanazdol
did for Ben Johnson’s hamstrings. Soma
totropin increases a cow’s milk production
by a whopping 25 to 30 per cent.
There’s an interesting double standard
in play here: athletes caught using growth
hormones are in disgrace. When Elsie the
Cow shoots up we feed the result to our
kids.
Interesting economic theory is in play
here too: dairy farmers are already failing
because of a glut of milk on the market. So
we plan to goose the volume another 25 per
cent?
Square poplars. A hard boiled egg in my
breakfast egg cup with “BUY KODAK!”
stamped on its shell. Weary Holsteins
gushing milk like so many black and white
fire hydrants.
You know, ‘way back when eggs were
tasty,' milk was rich and trees were in
charge of themselves, a cartoonist by the
name of Al Capp invented an animal called
the Shmoo. The Shmoo was about the size
and shape of a bowling pin. They were
friendly, bred like minks and best of all,
could become any kind of food you wanted,
from flapjacks to filet mignon.
We’ve been herding and breeding and
pruning and cross-pollinating plants and
animals for millennia. I think it’s the
Shmoo we’ve been after all along.
Of course, the Shmoo is nothing more
than a fantasy. A cartoon invention.
So far.
prejudice here than elsewhere but there is
no denying that there is some and it seems
to be getting a bit worse. There is some
co-relation here between our prejudices
and declining economic growth but, having
said that, we are still not too badly off.
Let’s just hope that we can keep an open
mind on the subject of our racial likes and
dislikes.
One thing that you cannot help but
notice is the amount of space here
compared with that elsewhere. We, along
with Australia, have to be one of the last
great open spaces of the world and do not
think that it has gone unnoticed. Even in
such beautiful countries as Switzerland
people are crammed together much more
tightly than they are here and it is indeed a
pleasant feeling not to have neighbours
breathing down your neck as they are in so
many other places.
Finally we permit immigrants to retain
some of their ethnic heritage instead of
throwing them all into some big melting
pot. It is difficult to make the transition
from one country to another and to be able
to keep some of the positive things of your
past is not all that bad.
In short there are a great many positive
aspects to our country as it is seen in the
eyes of an immigrant. It might pay some of
us to keep in mind if we are to avoid
sinking into a world of recriminations and
complaints where the bad guys are
everybody but our own group.
on that.”
Well what do you expect, Julia was
saying. They found a way of taxing you
when you die now with the GST on
funerals. Yes, said Hank, and even hookers
are supposed to charge the GST.
“Sex is sort of like food” Ward
chuckled. “If it’s served at home it’s tax
free but if you get take out you have to pay
tax.”
Next, said Tim, they’ll be putting a tax
on thinking.
“Hey,” said Billie, “that would be a
great idea for the Tories. Sort of like
raising the tax on cigarettes when you
don’t smoke.”
FRIDAY: Hank says that after watching
the hockey playoffs he’s about ready to
write to Crime Stoppers about that little
phrase they have about crime not paying.
“When it comes to playoff hockey they
seem to throw away the rule book,” he
said. “I haven’t seen so much clutching
and grabbing since I got too old to fool
around in the back seat of a car.”
Letter
from the
editor
Are we wasting
MPs’ minds?
BY KEITH ROULSTON
With all the pressure they’ve been under
in their own constituencies over the Goods
and Services Tax, it’s understandable that
the Progressive Conservative Members of
Parliament turned on a couple of dissidents
and kicked them out of the party but it’s a
sad commentary on Parliamentary demo
cracy as practiced in Canada.
The two Alberta MPs had refused to
support the party when the GST bill came
to a final vote in the Commons and their
colleagues had had enough. Pointing to a
Canadian tradition that party members
support the party when it comes to
important money bills, they told David
Kilgour and Alex Kindy they could no
longer represent the Progressive Conser
vative party.
It’s not the first time party discipline has
been brought down on rebellious MPs over
the years. Political parties, Liberals and
New Democrats too, don’t exactly enjoy
seeing members go against the party
position. One of the delightful things about
this current Conservative government is
that some independent-minded members
have refused to toe the party line on every
issue.
This expected party solidarity is some
thing unique to Canada among its closest
democratic allies. In Britain party mem
bers often vote against the government and
may get some unpleasant looks from their
colleagues but aren’t banished. In the U.S.
congressmen regularly cross back and
forth over party lines to vote on individual
issues.
In Canada, however, although we elect
independent MPs, when they get to Ottawa
or Queen’s Park, they’re supposed to leave
their opinions behind and stick with the
party through thick and thin. Some people
will say backbenchers have a say in
government policy at the caucus level but
this is more in theory than in practice.
One of the more poignant moments at
the recent Members of Parliament dinner
held by the Huron County Federation of
Agriculture to update local legislators
about farm concerns, came near the very
end of the meeting. When one speaker
suggested to Jack Riddell, the former
Ontario Agriculture Minister, that he had
to take responsibility for the actions of his
government he gave her a somewhat
emotional lecture on the lack of power of a
backbencher. Mr. Riddell, obviously still
hurt by his demotion from the cabinet, said
that the backbencher doesn’t really have
much power under our system. Sure the
caucus is supposed to have some say on
bills, he said, but in reality things are
pretty cut and dried before the bill comes
to caucus.
It seems a waste to seek out what are
supposed to be the best minds from among
the thousands of voters in each of the more
than 200 ridings across the country and
elect them to office, then turn the running
of the country over to a handful of
ministers and their advisers who make the
decisions and expect the backbenchers to
give unqualified support.
In theory, private members can still
introduce bills of their own but these often
find it hard to get debating time when the
government has its own agenda of bills to
be passed. Unless the government agrees
with the private members bill, it will likely
be turned down anyway.
Through the greater use of parlimen-
tary committees there has been some
attempt to get those not in the cabinet (or
the opposition party shadow cabinet)
involved in the parliamentary process but
the backbencher still remains on the
sidelines when it comes to the formulation
of government policy.
And so the backbencher remains on the
sidelines, impotent to get his or her own
ideas into action. He can do good
constituency work for his riding, helping
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