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The Citizen, 1991-05-15, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 15,1991. PAGE 5. Arthur Black Victoria was quite a lady She dressed in black. Invariably in black. I've never seen a portrait of Queen Victoria in white or blue or even gray — just black. Well, she came by it honestly enough. Queen Victoria dressed in black because she was in mourning all her adult life. That wasn't hard to do for a British woman in the 19th century. They lived in a world of bad hygiene and poor nutrition, ungraced by antibiotics, miracle drugs or organ transplants. In the Victorian Age, folks were popping off all the time. Which meant that dying, death and mourning were major growth industries. The Victorians divided mourning into three distinct periods. For six months after a death in the family, Heavy Mourning was in effect. Wives and daughters of the deceased were expected to pack away all jewellery and swaddle themselves in thick, scratchy black woollen dresses that muffled them from chin to instep. Their faces too, were hidden behind a heavy black veil worn at all times in and out of the house. After six months of this, the women GST: the tax we love to hate BY RAYMOND CANON I have had a rather amusing time watching the e countdown and implementation of the GST in Canada. I use the word "amusing" advisedly since there is really nothing humorous about the introduction of yet another tax on top of all the ones we have already. However, for me the GST is old hat since I have been dealing with such a tax in Europe for some lime; these taxes which are called VAT (for value added tax) were hit upon some time ago as a means of raising large sums of money. To cite one example, whenever I stay at a hotel in Germany, I have to pay 14 per cent VAT or twice what I pay here. At the same time that we were coming to grips with our GST, the Swedes got up one morning toTind that their government had introduced a 25 per cent (yes, twenty-five per cent) VAT tax to help pay for the climbing costs of their extensive social welfare program. Just to show you that such taxes are not confined to either Canada or Europe, the New Zealanders introduced one in the 1980's that is both higher and more extensive than the 7 per cent here. In fact, to anticipate one of your questions, our 7 per cent is one of the lowest of any VAT tax in the world. Most of them are in double digit figures. In any case my say-so isn't good enough, let me give you more precise figures. To get back to Sweden, it was back in 1969 that they introduced their first GST; it was 11.1 per cent. It is now 25 per cent as I indicated above. Right behind is .Denmark at 22 per cent, followed by Norway and the Netherlands at 20 per cent. France is relatively modest at 18.6 per cent while the tax that I referred to in New Zealand started out at 10 per cent is now 12.5 per cent. Great Britain is satisfied for the time being with 15 per cent although it started at 10 per cent. In Italy whose fiscal graduated to Middle Mourning. Black was still the colour of the day, but a slightly fancier black. Velvet, satin and silk were now permissible and the huge crepe veil was replaced by a shorter, lighter one. In Middle Mourning it was okay to wear jewellery — as long as it was black. Women were expected to stay in Middle Mourning for one full year. Eighteen months after they'd followed the coffin to the graveyard, women were permitted to adopt the trappings of Light Mourning, which meant they could add a trace of white lace to their cuffs and collars, and even trade in their black bonnet for a white one. Of course by this time, given the high Victorian mortality rate, chances are somebody else in the family had gone to their reward, so the whole Heavy, Middle, Light Mourning cycle would start all over again. It’s ironic that the Victorians who saw so much of it, doted on death, while we, who have done our level best io eliminate that final destination, still fear death and avoid it and speak of it in euphemisms such as "passing on", "expiration" and "negative patient outcome". The Victorians met death head on. They embraced it in a symbolically grandiose way. When children died, as they often did, their tiny bodies were follies are even more serious than ours, the GST is 18 per cent (it started at 12 per cent in 1973). Why do so many countries use such a tax? The simple reason is that it is a user tax and as such can be increased whenever it is deemed necessary. I have given you some examples above of countries that started out at one level and are now at a higher level; most countries have followed that route and it is a safe assumption that this will be followed in Canada at some later date regardless of what the politicians tell you and regardless of what party they belong to. Once such a tax is in place, the chances of it being removed by a subsequent Liberal, N.D.P. or Conservative government are only slightly better than zilch. Why do governments resort to such a tax, given the above scenario. The reason is there for everybody to see. In the post­ war period all western governments, some more quickly than others, have been busy putting into place a comprehensive social welfare program. Such a desire came understandably out of the lessons learned in the Great Depression of the 193O's when the unemployment rate reached 20 per cent plus and there is little in the way of welfare to help out. Never, it was argued, should Give to help Red Cross keep helping THE EDITOR, I am writing to inform you and your readers of the upcoming Blood Donor Clinic, and the vital importance of the Canadian Red Cross Transfusion Service. During the Second World War, the Canadian Red Cross Society collected blood from volunteer donors to supply its Armed Forces with dried plasma. As a result, the lives of many war victims and soldiers were saved. The Red Cross continued to provide this service' the war, to military establi even after phments, decked out in white clothing and placed in a white coffin which was set in a white hearse which was drawn to the grave site by matched white horses. They also instituted the practice of The Wake in which family and friends of the deceased would get together with the corpse to eat, drink and raise a ruckus, just on the off chance that the dear departed wasn't dead at all -- just enjoying a particularly heavy snooze. Really pious Victorians never stopped mourning. In fact, Victorians never stopped mourning. In fact, Victoria's five daughters visited her mausoleum for many years on the anniversary of their mother's death. On one such occasion, as the princesses knelt in prayer, a dove flew into the mausoleum and fluttered about. "It's dear Mama's spirit!" the girls cried excitedly. "No, I'm sure it's not," said Princess Louise quite calmly. "It must be dear Mama's spirit" argued the other girls. Louise was adamant. "Well how do you know it isn't?" they asked her. "Because" said Louise, "Dear Mama's spirit would never have done that to Beatrice's hat." A pity Queen Victoria couldn't be there. I think, for once, she might have been amused. people be forced to suffer as they did then. The fly in the ointment was that these programs, with such things as OHIP being a prime example, became increasingly expensive to administer and this was taking place at the same lime as taxpayers were insisting on belter and better services without the concomitant increase in. tax revenues to pay for it all. To hard-pressed finance ministers everywhere, the GST or VAT came as something of a god-send. If I were the finance minister of a country whose economy has been run relatively successfully, and was permitted to address the Canadian nation on television, here is what I would say: "Canadians, stop acting like a bunch of crybabies and face up to the financial mess you are in. You started living beyond your means in 1975; in short you are borrowing horrendous amounts of money, both at home and abroad, to pay for this standard of living and it is getting worse, not better. Let me make a suggestion. If you don't like the GST, make a pact with the federal government to remove it in its entirety if you agree to spending cuts of 15 billion dollars within the next two years. You will be surprised what a dramatic and positive change it will make in your economy. Good Luck!" veterans and civilian hospitals. In this May of 1991, the year of "Operation Desert Storm", we further realize the importance of the Red Cross. Today's blood program is a co­ operative, national effort, involving federal and provincial governments, hospitals, and the Canadian Red Cross Society. What makes it work? Volunteers! Those who give blood, and those who donate their time to assist in the running of the clinics, are the backbone of the continued on page 31 Letter from the editor Spring brings optimism By Keith Roulston Economists and pundits are still busy trying to decide if the recession is over and just how big a recovery there will be if it is over but here in north Huron people are showing amazing signs of optimism. Maybe it's the spring that brings out the optimist in all of us as it seems to do with farmers. This spring we see, as every year, farmers working night and day to put in crops that in the last few years have lost them more money than they've made. Yet there's something about being a farmer that makes you think, as the warm spring sun shines, that this year will be different. Out west, where farmers were always being hailed out or hoppered out, they used to call it "next year country" because farmers, the eternal optimists, would always look to next year whenever tragedy befell them this year. But while farmers arc expressing their eternal spring optimism by working 'round the clock to plant their crops, people in town too are showing confidence that things arc going to turn around. Look around you; the signs arc there as sure as the tulips arc blooming. In Brussels a new 10-unit apartment building is going up at a time when housing construction is supposed to be in the doldrums. Brussels is also scheduled this year to sec construction start on the huge Huronvicw complex. New businesses arc sprouting up. In Brussels there's the new farmers market while in Blyth there's a new piz.za parlour about to open. A new floral craft shop has opened in Londcsboro. Other businesses are showing their confidence in expansion. Scrimgcour's supermarket in Blyth has just added a new bakery. The Blyth Inn Hotel has just spent a bundle renovating and the Radford Group Monday started construction of a new gas­ bar in Blyth al considerable cost. Here at The Citizen we've just installed a new computerized typesetting system which, by our budget’s terms, is a major expense. Franklin D. Roosevelt once told Americans they had "nothing to fear but fear itself', saying that if everybody just had confidence, they could get themselves out of the great Depression. There is a certain truth to it. If everybody starts holding back spending because they fear tough times ahead, they'll create the tough times they fear. Only when people overcome their caution and start to spend will they create prosperity again. It's difficult, in limes like these, to know who is the good businessperson. You're foolish to buck a trend and expand at a lime when the economic trend is against you because it can risk your whole business if you are wrong. Yet if you sit back and wait for proof things arc getting better and everybody else waits with you, then the recovery will never come. If you're clever enough to judge just the right time and have everything in place al the right lime to take advantage of the recovery, you're pulling your company in a position to make good gains. Whether or not the national economy is improving, local people arc showing confidence that better times arc ahead locally. If enough people think positively, only good things can happen.