Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 13, 1985, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free May Winnipeg free press Freedom of Tracte Liberty of religion Equality of Chi rights published seven Days a week at 300 Canton Winnipeg r3c 3c1 by Canadian newspapers company limited Telephone 9439331 free press 6st Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Donald Nicol published John Dafoe editorial Page editor Murray Burt Man Figg editor Rudy Redekop cent Fuller a member of the Manitoba press Council him Power customers galore last weeks announcement of a possible Hydra Sale to Ontario is the fourth time Manitoban have been told of a finding Sale which could trigger the Stan of a second multimillion Dollar generating station on the Nel son Energy minister Wilson Tarasiuk and Hydro chairman Marc Liesen obviously like to remind Manitoban of the number of people who Are lining up to buy our the message is that More buyers mean a better such a of works better in a Market in which electricity is rather than As it is at the this the beginning of talks aimed at Selling millions of dollars Worth of electricity into Southern Ontario is said to have the potential of triggering construction on the Conaw Apa last it was the release of a feasibility study completed by a consortium of utilities in sin and that was to trigger last there were two potential triggers one based on talks with another the Minnesota Wisconsin Power suppliers group and the other on talks with the Western area Power the clearest message to come from these ments is one Way or Conaw Apa will be built and its Power will be the Manitoba Hydro chairman said last december that Manitoba Hydro is prepared to spend billions of dollars to rebuild its Nelson River generating system solely to sell at that time he said solely to sell Power to the United but the Ontario announcement May indicate a change of Eli Sens exact words on Power sales were if you can get a Good Price on by All Liesen has yet to explain How he intends to determine in 1985 what will represent a Good Price by the year because that is the kind of Deal he is attempting to it is to be hoped that the Price will be somewhat better than was negotiated by a former of which Liesen was a senior employ which agreed in 1975 to sell surplus electricity until the year 1992 at a Price which is already close to 30 per cent below Hydro system the Price of the next Batch of proposed sales will have to be Good As to meet the sound require ments Liesen himself set out in Ifft when he was advising against building Power plants to sell electricity outside of the Liesen says that his main objection to Hydro building plans in 1913 was that there was no firm if the Price is the sky is the Manitoba has already announced that it intends to Start building Limestone at a Cost of about while it claims that its Sale of billion Worth of Power to Minnesota will produce billion in this does not take into consideration the Cost of the Plant it is is needed starting Conaw Apa will commit the province to an other plus the estimated billion Cost of building a new Northern transmission this will represent a capital construction program totalling More than when he is negotiating the Price at which the Power is to be would do Well to reread his own thoughts on such a massive not Only because of its Cost but because once be used to create jobs within the Back in Liesen of a More modest capital construction program the very heavy capital and construction expenditures of the size envisaged by Hydro will make it difficult for the government to maintain stability in the Manitoba Economy and balanced growth in other he also said that if the Overall capital requirements were not related to the provinces borrowing Manitoba could be on a sure Road to the exhaustion of its of is using its credit a Good Deal More now than it was if Manitoba cannot invest in the human conditions of health resource development and the elimination of poverty because Hydro dams have exhausted the credit of the prov people can and will rightly question the integrity of a government which promises greater Equality and pursues profitless Liesen pointed the key of is Eli Sens main task is to negotiate a Price that will withstand the test of 30 produce a and still be Low enough to tempt at least one of his Many Reagan gets it wrong ust As he did in March 1983 with his Star wars president Ronald Reagan has stood on its head traditional strategic this time by claiming in his Strasbourg speech that the ssx24 soviet missile is a first strike weapon because it is his Star wars embrace of the concept of an impenetrable shield in the heavens against intercontinental Ballis tic missiles eliminated the prevailing orthodoxy of Mutual assured this had kept the world from global thermonuclear War for Many years on the sensible theory that a nuclear attack by either Side on the other would be pointless because the other Side would have sufficient warheads left to inflict unacceptable casualties on the his Buck Rogers scheme set that if Star wars could really be built then All soviet nuclear would become the United states might be Able obliterate the soviet Union in a first strike but the soviets would never be Able either to launch a successful first strike or to retaliate for any first his Strasbourg claim about the ssx24 is equally this is an icbms with independently targe table nuclear warheads that is not yet in production and has not yet been it has been test fired several once from a railway that is enough evidence for Reagan to announce that this is to be a Mobile missile being designed for use in a preemptive nuclear strike on missile silos around grand Forks and for a Quarter of a arms control experts and the government have argued that mobility in an icbms automatically involves a reduction in the accuracy of the missile that is crucial to first strike mobility for an icbms is costly and the sole Point of it is to make it possible for the missile to survive a first strike by the other if the soviets Are planning to base the ssx24 in a Mobile fashion by they see it As a second strike or retaliatory weapon for response to a first highly accurate icbms capable of use As first strike weapons Are More Likely to hit close to a target most of the time than Les accurate achieving such accuracy requires that those firing the icbms know its exact launch which is easiest when it is in a fixed hardest when it is on a rail car or it also requires that there be a minimum of shaking up of the icbms delicate guidance Cooling sys tems and links Between integrated moving the icbms around on a on a railway in an aircraft or in a submarine involves the risk of damage to these instruments and reducing the certainty of missile research is under Way on methods of making mid course corrections to wobbly Mobil based missiles but it is not yet there Are two other problems with reagans designation of the soviet ssx24 As a first strike one is that the latest Pentagon assessment of soviet strategic called soviet military says categorically that the ssx24 will probably be silo deployed at the estimated deployment Date is 1986 and the using the same Intelli gence information available to Reagan about a rat car test deployment and says Railimo bile deployment could follow by one to two that does not sound like some sudden first strike the second problem is that the United states has a known As the that is virtually identical to the having the same number of warheads and similar target striking Reagan plans to put the my in silos currently filled with minuteman which should make them have a steady aim of the kind that is generally regarded by weapons experts As providing a first strike the my will have a better first strike ability than the which unlike the thinks will be placed on unsteady rail cars in the first it looks As if Reagan has stumbled into unfamiliar using terms and concepts of which he is abysmally ignorant to make a false accusation against the soviet the silliest aspect of this erroneous description of the ssx24 is that the soviets already have in silos hundreds of namely the ss18 and that have the the explosive Power and the steadiness of Blastoff Point to qualify As potential first strike the concluding question that must be asked is Why have the soviets not launched a first strike before if they already have the capability the answer is that even in the unlikely event that soviet icbms could wipe out every last land based the United states would retain the retaliatory capability of thousands of nuclear warheads carried in b52 bombers and in virtually Invulnerable Dee Ocean this mouse 15 not a Home pension Reform up in the air by Leonard Shifrin special to the free press Ottawa the dust from Ontario inconclusive election finally it May Complete an ironic Triangle for this year of decisions on pension a year the Federal govern ment published its action plan for pension a few months later the liberals were on the opposition benches and their position paper was no guide at All to Ottawa stance on pension irrelevant the Quebec government has now released its pension Reform policy paper in anticipation of the Federal provincial negotiations expected to take place Over the coming but with Rene Levesques parti Quebe Cois trailing Robert Bourassaw liberals by almost two to one in the the pcs position on the subject will Likely be As irrelevant by the time the decisions get made As the Trudeau governments View now and what of the third of the key actors in the process the positions set out in last years White paper by Bill Daviss conservative majority government May or May not be those of a Frank Miller minor Ity administration dependent on nip certainly there is no reason to expect that paper to reflect the views of a Liberal government under David if that turns out to be what the future under other that might add up to the likelihood of a lengthy delay for any pension but there is a target Date for the reformed system to be in and the provinces Are particularly anxious that it not be Post Quebec minister of Man Power and income Pauline claimed when she released the Quebec paper that the Federal government and the provinces have already agreed to increase the que Bec and Canada pension plan contribution rates As of january Ottawa officials insist there is no such and that increases in contribution rates will be tied to settlement of All the rest of the issues in the pension Reform pack age but unless the current contribution rate of per cent is raised by january the provinces will have to Start making substantial repayments on the Money they have borrowed from the pension fund Over the past 20 changes in his May 23 Federal finance minister Michael Wilson is expected to set out part at least the position of the Mulroney government on pension All that is known at this Point is that last year the conservatives praised the report of the parliamentary commit tee on pension and that during the election they included its proposal for homemaker participation in the Canada pension plan cup among their Campaign prom the newly released Quebec paper makes Clear that the Levesque governments chief concern is that contribution rates be substantially it describes an increase of two tenths of a per cent a year for each of the next five years As an acceptable absolute mini but says it thinks the hike really should be four tenths of a per cent a rate increases these rate increases would be solely to expand the fund any improvement in pension benefits should be financed by additional contribution the paper con its major proposal in the Benefit improvement category would double pensions for those earning less than half the average while in creasing them by lesser proportions for higher income cup and App retire ment pensions Are 25 per cent of pre retirement earnings up to the average wage a pension of roughly this year for those who had been earning or under the Quebec benefits would be increased to 50 per cent on earn Ings up to half the average wage and remain 25 per cent beyond a earner would thus get a 000 pension instead of while a earner received in Stead of because Low income workers Are least Likely to have private this weighted approach to expanding the Public plans makes a lot of whether anything further is heard of probably depends on what Robert Bourassa thinks of the new department i greeted with mixed emotions the information that the government will be taking part in the administration of prostitution in our province and this alone shows the High priorities of the government when More than two million youths Are perhaps the possibilities emanating from this Are mind boggling and will be a future Model for All coun tries of the if the government handles prostitution with the same vigor and efficiency As it is now handling Canada possibly the prostitutes and their consorts will flee to Mexico in panic or even be admitted to Russia on humanitarian if the government Dies the situation with envision great prospects for Cana Das with governments responsibilities in the new depart ment the department of love and it will require staggering increases in Manana woman literally thousands with governmental will in crease logarithmically so in Side of five up to two million or More can be employed and sustained in the thereby eliminating employment the requirements to House and administer the department of love and affection will mean a Hundred fold increase in requiring Interior office supplies As Well As huge purchases of typewriters to Bill various Johns for their thousands like myself Are waiting for the doors to open so that we can personally attest to being present at the opening and initiation of this new unhindered by and absolved of All common Roy Price Winnipeg Promise kept usually i pay As much attention to Campaign promises As j do to one liners at a cocktail during these tires when president Ronald Reagan is getting a lot of cheap shots directed to him about farm Price supports or i remember clearly one election Promise he made in his first Campaign to wage fallout War against dope we knifed crime a publicity in such a War is not sought by any of those involved but it is Clear that Reagan and is intrepid men of the coast be Fri and police letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and names will used and letters Are subject to have mow Tor humanity than any other presiden tial Russell misleading in her column Saskatchewan Flat tax is a big step backwards free april 27 which purports to Deal with the new Flat rate tax just introduced in Saskatchewan on a trial Frances Russell continues to rail against what she perceives to be a tax system which favors the Rich at the expense of the i do not question her right to editorialize about tax but it would be helpful if her comments were based on fact rather than pre for she claims that people who work for a wage continue to pay the full freight and those who clip coupons often pay nothing at she also complains about shelters and fast which shield investment sell then goes on to claim wans Flat tax will continue to allow the wealthy taxpayer to deduct his his country club his contribution to his retirement his car expenses and his business trips to name a All of the above statements Are wrong or first of the tax rate for people who clip coupons is exactly the same As for the person who earns As a matter of the wage earner is better because he is allowed an expense deduction without substantiation and Bis wages qualify him to contribute to i my plan or invest ment income qualifies the recipient Lor no taxpayer can Deduc Gus invest i Clui ments unless actual loss has been sustained the deduction of country club dues has not been permitted since 1971 after a lifetime in the income tax i assure Russell that Revenue Canada looks very closely at the Cost of operating cars and business trips if the taxpayer cannot satisfy the tax col Lector that such expenses Are Neces sary for the conduct of his they will not be Russell did not see fit to complain about the most blatant abuse of our tax system which resulted from the introduction of legislation by her former finance minister Marc which permitted Purchase and immediate Sale of scientific re search tax resulting in an estimated Cost to the Treasury of billion in m socialists like who Are so enthusiastic about a further shifting of the tax Load from the poor to the would do Well to study an analysis by the Fraser Institute which reveals in my persons filed tax returns reporting income of or total income of this group amounted to 143 if the government had taxed away ail income above total tax Revenue would have increased by redistribution of this increased Revenue to the million people with incomes less than would yield an average annual pay ment of for each person filing a tax John Ca Paiper m no problem Why is the present Federal govern ment so concerned by our National debt ninety per cent of the debt is owed by the government of Canada to the people of Canada in the form of Treasury it is a situation where the people of Canada owe Large sums of Money to the people of i find it difficult to think of this As a serious there appears to be a common misconception arising from the at tempt to compare personal debt to National there is Little Ity except that both Are measured in personal debt must be settled in the Short space of a persons lifetime we cannot pass our debts on to our National debt can pass from generation to there is no Rush to get it we just pay the interest to the people of the nations the government has the right to tax canadians to pay the interest on the where is the problem the course being advocated by our present government is to reduce the debt under present economic can Only reduce reduce goods and services and reduce the real wealth of the toe time to reduce the debt and slow Down the Economy was in the when inflation was the damage from that Era of mismanagement is we been of our now is the time to expand the to get people producing and sharing in the National now is certainly not the time w put More people out of work by cutbacks in government Hanson pee bittersweet you featured a whole Page on debating War crimes free May the two opposing viewpoints were Winnipeg Israel Ludwig Demon once that he has a narrow perspective and is brimming with los presented a perspective that was historically compassionate and who was born after the second world wants to continue but for those of us who lived through it is a bittersweet after 40 years it is time to forgive and Winnipeg birthday Agnes Winnipeg born May ;