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Ian Oliver Publisher Robert Glasbey Advertising Director Norman Alexander Edifor Geoff Hill Circulation Director Teri Casas Office Manager Tim Coles Production Manager Robert Glasbey Advertising DireCtOT Connection, Etobicoke Guardian, E i € lown | n 'Aoq Free Press, Norman Alexander Editor ifi ours: ic chavein, Neve Geoft milt Creutation brecior . en ons Teri Casas Office Manager In"|°n"‘n'}'e'f.դҤu"s‘u’éfi ?.":fifi"d"’é’?a‘i‘é"s’fl?v.‘f'; is protected by copyright. Any Tim Coles Production _ mpreduain in whols or in part of this materal is forbidden without the consent of the publisher. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of the advertising space oocur'ad the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize and reject advertising. In the event of typographical error, advertising goods or services at the wrong price, goods or services may not be sold. Advertising is merely an offer to sell and may be withdrawn at any time. year as head of the country‘s biggest electric utility. It has been a year of massive change at Hydro but many critics of the electrical giant say much more has to be done if Ontarians are to stanch the flow of red ink emaâ€" nating from the glass tower on University Avenue. It was, disappointing then, to hear Strong offer little in how he sees the future of Hydro evolving, during a visit here on Wednesday. Considering the economic sinkhole that has been the Darlington nuclear power plant east of Oshawa, Strong‘s comments that the plant is "a superb industrial achievement," ring hollow. That view is something like saying the operation was a technological miracle but the patient died. In the case of Darlington, the taxpayers of Ontario will likely never see the bills paid for the project in at least a generation. Hydro has been out of control for so long that it will take more than a year of staff cuts to drag it into the black again. Once the lowest cost power proâ€" ducer in Canada, Ontario Hydro is now on the upper end of electrical utilities and that‘s due to its massive debt load. They went on a building binge to keep the thousands of its engineers and support personnel busy. That‘s about the only explanation possible when you see how completely offâ€"base Hydro‘s energy projections have been for more than two decades. Cheap power was Ontario‘s ace in economic development but that advanâ€" tage is long gone so we‘re now left with nuclear power plants operating at a fraction of capacity and at efficiency levels that are disgraceful. P o e Te UBA Ontario Hydro chairman Maurice Strong last month completed his first Hydro is carrying $34â€"billion in longâ€"term debt and that means $1 of every $2 that it takes in goes out as interest payments. To try and combat this, Hydro increased its rates by 30 per cent over the past three years before freezâ€" ing them this year. Wce 2 NeA n e i PA nlane anrl Arcbanil How ironic that Hydro, formed 88 years ago to give Ontarians cheap and reliable power, has become the provincial government‘s biggest economic basket cases. es lb‘ s 2 Li You can almost hear Sir Adam Beck, creator of Ontario Hydro, The legacy year ago (Feb. 24th to be exact) that thenâ€"Prime Minister Brian Mulroney announced he was resigning after a decade as leader of the Progressive Conservative party and almost nine years as PM. One quote of the day should be carried by every politician who thinks he or she know anything about politics or the mood of the electorate: "I shall hand over to my successor a government and party in very good shape, ready to fights and win the next election campaign." y C URA and armnont: fi Ithough some would say the date should be forgotten, it was just one EME Om stt mds u. S ts ce d 9 B Kim Campbell took a chance, won the leadership of the Tories and promptâ€" 1y led the PCs to the worst election defeat in Canadian history. Mulroney left an undefeated leader, Campbell will be a footnote in history and the very future of the PC party is in doubt. Quite a legacy Brian, quite a legacy. Power broker 467 Speers Road, Oakville, Ont. L6K 354 845â€"3824 Fax: 845â€"3085 Classified Advertising: 845â€"2809 Circulation: 845â€"9742 or 845â€"9743 The Oakville Beaver, published every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, at 467 Rd., Oakville, is one of the Metroland linling,a ishing Distributing Lid. group of suburban newspapers which includes: Ajexâ€"Pickering News Barrie Advance, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Collingwood turning in Technomoron seeks offâ€"ramp from the information highway s I write this, my poor digital watch is crammed under the seat cushion of a chair in our livingroom, about seven thick pillows piled on top. My poor digital watch doesn‘t deserve this fate. It didn‘t really do anything wrong. It only did what it was asked to do...Last night, you see, I had rare reason to set its alarmâ€"â€"a job requiring considerable reading of a meaty manualâ€"â€"and this morning, when to my surprise the watch actually began beeping as programmed, well, I had no notion of how to turn it off. So now, three hours later, under a seat cushion and about seven thick pillows, my poor digiâ€" tal watch sits, smothered, and still beeping. Alright, already. I‘m up. The point I‘m driving home here is that when it comes to utiâ€" lizing the innumerable, incredible advanced technologies at hand, I‘m the lead character in a Dostoevski novel. I‘m The Idiot. Which might explain in part why every time I hear the ubiquiâ€" tous, inescapable, and horribly overâ€"hyped words "information highway," I want to scream, or vomit, or rip out my eyelashes, or simply take the technology curâ€" rently available to me and cram it all under the seat cushion of a chair in our livingroom. In case you‘ve been living in a cave, or you dwell in your own private time warp way out someâ€" where beyond the cyburbs, the words "information highway" are currently being overused to describe the infinite infoâ€"flow that futurists swear is soon going to be available to us all. Inexpensively. Universally. And easily accessiâ€" ble, too. Yeah, right. U.S. Viceâ€"President Al Gore likes to take credit for inventing the term "information highway." but, then, former VP Dan Quayle used to like taking credit for sinâ€" glehandedly upholding American family values, not to mention the ratings of Murphy Brown. Regardless of who should be blamed (and slapped silly with floppy disks) for coming up with the term, some futurists will have you believe this inevitable inforâ€" mation highway has us poised on the brink of an important New Information Age. Keep in mind, skeptics, that each January, experts will have you believe the Buffalo Bills are poised on the brink of capturing the Super Bowl. Various groups are vying to be the first to bring the new highway into our livesâ€"â€"indeed, into our homesâ€"â€"and become filthy rich and powerful in the process. Cable companies are advertising across their cables that they are really the only ones capable of properly plugging us all in. Telephone companies are adverâ€" tising everywhere that they‘re out connecting link to the future. And, of course, governments small and large are beginning to wonder aloud at how such a highâ€" way should be policed, mainâ€" tained and, who knows, maybe even taxed. _A twoâ€"day conference on the future of the information highway was held recently in Toronto. I read reports on what was said during those sessions, much of it merely more highway hype. Imagine, conference particiâ€" pants urged, if you could have at your fingertips access to what was described as "all the world‘s archives, libraries, film vaults, everything ever documented..." F tried to imagine, but I couldn‘t. Maybe I‘m just not a futurist, a visionary. Or maybe I‘m a little like William Esrey, chairman of Sprint Corp., who questions exactly who are these people who are demanding to have infirLi. info at their fingertips so they € grasp one pertinent piece of info And, more precisely, Mr. Esrey said: "Are these not the same peoâ€" ple who have trouble programâ€" ming their VCRs? Bingo. The same newspaper that carried Mr. Esrey‘s comments ran another story the very same day noting nearly one in five VCR owners in the U.S. is unable to set a VCR digital clock. Doubtlessly these are the same sad souls who would be bambogy‘ zled by the beeping alarm on a poor digital watch. The same sorry sorts who would be hopeâ€". lessly lost on an information highâ€"