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The Citizen, 1988-05-03, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 1988. No fun being a Liberal The revolt of the federal Liberal Caucus last week shows what a predicament the Liberal Members of Parliament are in in Ottawa: revolt and they may end up looking like traitors; let the party stagger along under John Turner and it’s likely the party won’t win the next election when it looks like nothing should stop them. As a leader, Turner doesn’t really have one single victory to his credit in four years of leadership. He led the party to one of its biggest defeats ever but supporters could claim he was the victimof hangover from the Trudeau years even though opinion polls showed the Liberals leading until Turner started making mistakes. He promised to rebuild the party but it is now millions of dollars in debt and just about as bankrupt of new ideas and new imaginative people. He started out to take the Liberals to the right of centre then took a detour when he realized the Progressive Conservatives had firmly staked out that territory. Now he proposes more interventionist policies. The public never warmed to the man they had been told was the great white-haired hope of the Liberal party during the latter years of the Trudeau government. The public hasn’t found anything to change their earlier opinion as Mr. Turner tacks vainly this way and that trying tofind popular policies. Incredibly when many Canadians question the credibility of the prime minister they have, they are even less confident of the credibility of the opposition leader that they might like to turn to. TheonethingthatMr.Turnerhasbeenabletodoisto survive. Various insurrections have been beaten back. Each time Mr. Turner’s supporters say the healing process has begun but then another problem surfaces. HE has alienated his own M.P.'s by the same charge that was once levelled at the man he detested, (his predecessor Pierre Trudeau): aloofness. It’salmostfunny toseeTurnersupportersblaming the whole mess on Senator Keith Davey, (and less openly on Jean Chretien), calling the opponents traitors after all the years Mr. Turner sat on the sidelines, criticizing the Trudeau government and making it known that he’d be glad to come back and rescue the party from that left-wing usurper Trudeau. It would be funny if so much weren’t at stake. As long as the Liberal party remains in its current mess Canadian voters are denied a creditable alternative, a party that can field strong candidates in every riding of the country. How much? How much is a president of a major corporation worth? In 1987, Lee Iacoca, president of Chrysler Corporation last year earned$18million (US). Mr. Iococca says he’s embarrassed by the salary, but he’ll take it anyway. Meanwhile the CBC TV program “Fifth Estate’’ last week had Chrysler Corporation shown a sone of many U.S. and Japenese companies that have opened plants on the Mexican side of the U.S. Mexican border. The corporations, many of which don’t use their familiar name and trademarks on their Mexican factories, make use of labour at $3.50 per day to make goods which are sent back into the U.S. and sold at regular prices. The industries argue that the $3.50 per day is more than many of the young people could earn in their home villages but even in Mexico the wage is so low it means many of the people who move to take the jobs must live in barrios of huts made from scrap materials. Promoters of moving factories to Mexico say that companies must do it vo compete in a new world-wide market. Companies that move to Mexico do so, not for profits, but for survival, one spokesman said on the TV show. Yes, it might be possible for Mr. Iacoca to survive on $18 million a year. The current takeover fever where big companies swallow medium companies and are in turn swallowed by huge companies, puts the emphasis on a global economy where companies will move wherever they can get workers for the least money. It brings back visions of the worst of the excesses of the industrial revolution. The militancy of unions during the 1970’s drove the general public to wonder why we had unions in the first place. The sight of those Mexicans in their shacks reminds us that the high salaries paid by North American companies weren’t given out of a sense of fairplay but were won in hardfought battles against big business. The recent growth of government, and government regulation, made people ready to listen to those who claim that we have too many regulations. We forget the history that would have kept children working in mines if not for government action. Surely, we say, companies are more enlightened today and even if we abandoned all regulations companies wouldn’t go back to those abuses. Those Mexican barrios show otherwise. Recently a business leader speaking to a class at a business school wondered aloud how much sense it made to teach ethics in business schools. Did ethics have any place in business, he wondered? In an ideal world there would be no need for unions, no need for government regulation of business and industry. That can only happen, however, when there is a sense of morality and fairness in business. If business leaders use the bottom line as an excuse not to act responsibly, they promote government legislation and union activity. Business without morality and humanity isn’t business, it’s greed. Clean up time 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 rhe country] gat her for morning coffee break, otherwise known as the Round Table Debating and Fili­ bustering Society. Since not just everyone can partake of these deliberations we will repori~the activities from time to time. MONDAY: Ward Black was saying this morning that it was nice to see in the paper that over in Italy the heroes that appear on the front pages of the newspapers and magazines are no longer the movie stars like Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren and Gina Lollo- brigida but industrialists like the president of Fiat. At last that country seems to be getting its priorities straight. Tim O’Grady said Canada had never put movie stars before business leaders because we never had any movie stars of our own to put on the covers of magazines. Julia Flint suggested we haven’t had many business leaders either, just managers for U.S. owners. No' Hank Stokes said, we just had politicians. Billie Bean said that the day we get business executives that look like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollo- brigida he’ll be happy to see them on the covers of our magazines too. Listen, Ward said, we’re hoping to improve productivity with free trade but if you have business leaders that looked like that, employees would spend so much time looking at the boss they’d never get any work done. Continued on page 6 [Published by North Huron Publishing Company Inc.] Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships Published weekly in Brussels, Ontario P.O. Box 152, P.O.Box429, Brussels, Ont. Blyth, Ont. NOG 1HO N0M1H0 887-9114 523-4792 Subscription price: $17.00; $38.00 foreign. Advertising and news deadline: Monday 2p.m. in Brussels; 4p.m. in Blyth Editor and Publisher: Keith Roulston Advertising Manager: Dave Williams Production and Office Manager: Jill Roulston Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968