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Here we go again. Joe Clark and the boys in the Conâ€" servative party landed on top of the Canadian elecâ€" torate with a resounding thump last Thursday night and we‘re going to be battered black and blue with more election promises until February 18. But what does it all mean? It means the economy and leadership will be the taain issues again just as they were last May 22. That as the election in which Joe Clark was given a slender 36 per cent mandate to rule the country on a minority basis ... he didn‘t seem to realize his party‘s situation and went on to govern as would a majority government. When in a minority situation you must take into acâ€" count the policies and objections of the opposition parâ€" ties. Just being in a minority situation should have told Clark that the electorate wasn‘t satisfied with the way things were going under the Liberals; but they weren‘t dissatisfied enough to give the Conservatives complete run of the House. The sudden fall of the government meant the Liâ€" berals had no choice but to ask Trudeau to stay on as leader. They couldn‘t legally, under the party‘s charter, call for a leadership convention early enough for ; tion Trudeau is unlikely to face the strong rejection from Englishâ€"speaking voters he suffered at the polls rst spring. But whether he will be able to lure many oters back to the Liberal party remains to be seen. As for the Conservatives, we now have their record This column is no doubt going to make me sound like the infamous Christmas grinch. My wife has said that‘s the case on many occasions. I deny it up and down, but since she has a good deal of intuition about such matters, she‘s probably right. You see. I‘m one of those who figures Christmas needs some modification. You‘re no doubt thinking "Aw heck. another Christmas is too commercial" nut But commercialism is only part of the problem. I fear we‘ve lost something that made Christmas the climax of every year. Problem is, I‘m not sure just what it is we‘veâ€"or E‘veâ€"lost Certainly it‘s hard to get elevated about the festive season when one conâ€" siders the state of affairs in the latter part of 1979. We‘re saddled with an election we don‘t want. and didn‘t ask for_ Around 50 relatively innocent souls are in the balance in some Godâ€"forsaken nation. while two governments play power politics. The souls are the poker chips The editorial pages of various newspapers In this ’r(-a are filled with letters and columns about the horâ€" fror of abortion and the pain of unwanted children Meanwhile thousands of babies are dying in Camâ€" ISNT IT strange. in modern times. how families can grow apart and be little more than wellâ€"acquaintâ€" ed strangers when they do meet. with nothing more in common . nothing more to talk about. after the family gossip has been exchanged, than their physical probâ€" lems partial piates. dursius, nign 21000 pFesaU‘t. piles? I These are the very people who slept two or three to bed when they were growing up. fought bitterly. had the same parents. endured the same ups and downs of the family fortune Weird In most of Canada today. the old family unit has pretty well disintegrated Those of us who were brought up with grandparents. legions of aunts and uncles. too many sisters (or brothers). and dozens of cousins. are scattered into thousands of tiny. oneâ€"cell units. with little or no connection with the other old family cells except for the occasional phone call or Christmas card I find this a little sad. but it doesn‘t really destroy me. The times they are achangin‘ Our onceâ€"warm, onceâ€"large. onceâ€"close families broke into fragments and we just had to accept it. as we did the pill. deoâ€" dorant and ringâ€"aroundâ€"theâ€"collar commercials, woâ€" men‘s hib a new leader to play an effective role in the elecâ€" ;afi(riflr:thor great steps forward by mankind Stewart Sutherland Bill Smiley of performance, short as it may be, to compare alongâ€" side the Liberals. Remember those huge deficits the Liberals rolled up? Can‘t forget them, can you. But I‘ll also bet you can‘t forget the long list of Conservative election proâ€" mises and Clark‘s refusal to keep most of them. He promised to move the Canadian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He promised a $2.5â€"billion tax cut that somehow metamorphosed into a $750â€"million tax increase. He promised to purchase two types of fighter aircraft instead of one. Our second election in seven months is going to cost Canadian taxpayers an estimated $65â€"million. There‘s nothing like throwing money like that away when just about everyone in the public sector is tightening their belts. Getting tired of all the televised Christmas comâ€" mercialism? You might as well prepare yourself for a bombardment of election hype that will be mixed in with all the ads for holiday spending sprees. The election could prove to be an expensively futile effort that would do little to change the status quo, or a strong reaction by impatient voters that would see the Liberals returned to power. I‘m hedging my bets on the latter. bodia. And the way they die is horrible. Now, you‘re thinking ‘"Aw heck, not another doom and gloom destruction nut"‘. I guess that‘s close to the truth, but in fact I‘d like to be able to appreciate the festive season more. You wouldn‘t happen to have a Satcom III tucked® away in your garage or lying around your back yard would you? S . I suppose I‘m too idealistic. I really think Christmas should be like a Norman Rockwell painting. 1 remember one of the first stories I ever wrote for publication. It was an interview with an old fellow who resided in an old age home in Kitchener. He was well past 80 as I remember, but very lucid. He reâ€" membered Christmases around the turn of the cenâ€" tury when the preparations started in November inâ€" stead of September like they do now. The $20â€"million satellite was supposed to transmit cable programming across the United States but the Oranges. cookies, the odd book and a new pair of boots or such were featured items in those days, he told me. And the highlight of the season took place when the neighbors pulled up to the farm in sleighs and everyone joined in carol singing before going off to church. I kn'o‘\;}t sounds hackneyed and idealistic, but I can‘t help but feel simpler tastes were better able to appreciate the inherent joy of the Christmas season. That‘s what I thought. In fact, I didn‘t mind it that much. Families can be a pain in the arm. An older sister who still thinks you are 12 years old and need straightening out. A younger brother who doesn‘t reaâ€" lize that under those dull gray socks of yours is anâ€" other dull gray â€" clay. That‘s the way I thought. But once in a while, for some reason. or no reason, the whole fam damily comes roaring out of the woodwork, all at once, and your phone is so hot the wires are melting, while Ma Bell sits back with a satiated leer. almost postâ€"coital. and you take out a third mortgage on the house to pay your telephone bill Families don‘t write any more. They telephone With the state of our mail service. it‘s no wonder. You could send two Christmas cards in a row to Uncle F4d. before you got the letter from Aunti Agnes,. mailed 13 months before. telling you that he was either dead, or had run off with a strip tease artist That‘s what happened to us recently. My kid brother had been taken suddenly and rather violently ill We had a couple of $34 conversations from his hospital room in Montreal He was to let me know of any chanâ€" ge Total silence After a month of this. I pponed my older sister Howard Elliott a new pair of and Waterloo Chroniclie, Wy, December 19, 1979 â€" executives at RCA are a little perplexed. The eye in the sky was launched over a week ago and hasn‘t been heard from since. If you have the little vagrant, please call RCA. It could make or break their Christmas. I didn‘t know Canada was supplying the world arâ€" maments market. . Canada has developed an airâ€"toâ€"ground rocket sysâ€" tem capable of being used to support infantry or desâ€" troy tanks. The system is being scrutinized by inâ€" terested NATO allies. The Canadian Rocket Vehicle7 (CRVâ€"7) is under serious consideration by the government of Norway which might purchase it for use with its fleet of Fâ€"16 fighter planes. The unguided but extremely accurate rocket system is presently being used with Canadian Forces® CFâ€"5 and CFâ€"104 fighters and will become part of the arâ€" moury available to their proposed replacements. The little beasties cost about $300 to build and the system has potential national and international sales of between $20â€" and $30â€"million. Research aimed at enhancing the system is being conducted towards the development of different warâ€" heads, a new launcher and an engine that gives off less smoke. I know that other countries have a booming arms business, but that doesn‘t necessarily make it right for us to join in. â€" Couldn‘t the armaments development money be put to better use? Does that make me a grinch? Naw. A hopeless roâ€" mantic maybe, but not a grinch. Look at it this way. Had the brilliant Liberals not defeated the evenâ€"more brilliant Conservative goâ€" vernment over that soâ€"called budget, we‘d all be payâ€" ing more for gas, booze and smokes. An election you say? Why not? We only had one six months ago. Hell, it‘ll only cost 60â€"million or so, and the Canadian tax payer doesn‘t mind. _ _ . Now we can take the money we saved on those things and send it off to the government in the form of taxes, to pay for a federal election and increase that national deficit. Oh, what fun. Do you know what the federal Liberals & NDP and the Waterloo regional police commission have in comâ€" mon? Neither can decide who should lead, neither will let anyone who is leading lead, neither knows what the hell the public would really like to see happen and both do things without thinking of the consequencesâ€"â€" which usually tend to give us meek and mild types a pain in theâ€"ahâ€"posterior asked whether he were dead. She hadn‘t a clue. Said he‘d just vanished. Fair enough. 1 wasn‘t going to phone. â€" Then my daughter began phoning from Moosonee, telling my wife about her troubles with beating off the bachelors, and telling me innocuous stuff like she was going to buy a snowâ€"mobile, and would we take the kids while she attended a weekend conference, and asking me how to cope with students who threatened to shoot the principal if she kicked them out of class Each of these calls was returned, almost nightly, by my wife, who had thought up more piercing questions and answers in the intervening 24 hours And I had to talk to the grandboys. find out what they wanted for Christmas. who had won the latest fight. and suchâ€" like Then came a call from my son. collect. as usual. who said he was in Florida, on the way home from South America. When he‘d arrive he didn‘t know Grind. grind. Teeth Then a close relative jumped through the window of a fifthâ€"floor apartment and was pronounced D O A. at the hospital. This spewed a frenzied round of longâ€"disâ€" tance calls to police. relatives. her son and so on It (Continued on page 13)