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Liberals thoughts smell of hypocrisy he Liberal suggestion that I Canadian parents would rather spend child care money on beer and popcorn than their kids is the height of hypocrisy! Isn‘t this stole money this country? We get the government we deserve, let‘s remember that when votng this time. They now want us to believe that they will manage your family‘s money better than you? It‘s time to send a clear message to the Liberals that Canada is no longer buying their lies. Election day will be interesting just watched the English debate and, was there a winner? The answer is yes, unfortunately. And so circumstances have brought us up to And you see in the multiple agencies that have Christmas again. lent a hand how they have assumed a piece of the The glitter and excitement once more. burden. The fuss and the bother again. Many hands make light work and today you can If the thrill is about all you can stand, remember _ see that the community burden has been shoulâ€" that it will soon be over. dered by many helpers. The cetebration seems to last longer than it used Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo and area are doing well this to. _ It has extended by weeks over what it holiday and they serve notice they‘ll used to be. râ€"â€"â€"; pick up any need that arises. Granted, it‘s not that the celebration is ONCE O\rFR OUne point is that folks expect too as wild as it used to be, particularly as it s i much of Christmas. relates to alcohol ingestion. # LIGHTLY x You‘d think it solves every prob Come to think of it, the religious aspects tem and provides every need. of Christmas have been getting more * ‘ It doesn‘t of course. but does emphasis. 3 K meet some needs you didn‘t expect Even though. in recent veats some 1 to be met. It‘s safe to say that the wildest part of the celebration was in the immediate postwar vears. Even though, in recent years some naysayers have deleted the name of Christâ€" mas from the title of the observance. The vets, more or less arrived back home fairly recently, took to celebrating in the style to which the services had accus tomed them. Back then there were fewer campaigns of one kind or another to assist the needy. The community didn‘t come down in the same way to aid. Folks just didn‘t have the maney to spare. Money was used mostly to eke out a slim liv ing. The wives and girlfriends, I guess, got used to it. i Although the custom declined over time it took some years to do it. Times sure have changed since our boyhood d Our cities made it through the depression and today they have more prosperity to share around. Local companies have aided in the big project. Instead of sponsoring dripping wet parties mast kept the Christmas hullabaloo much more restrained ays It‘s hard to keep up with the season‘s many names the same party who from the taxpayers of Craig Mason Waterloo These highâ€"powered leaders and their super slick campaign teams are hard at work to let us know what they have done, and what they are going to do for our country. Let‘s view some of the points presented during the debate. Prime Minister Paul Martin claimed there was a free vote on sameâ€"sex marriage (1 don‘t think there was, and a simple question on the voters batlot would tell them how the Canadian people feel about the subject), he initiated the Gomery Inquiry to clean up the mess (they have a number of guilty parties and no one is in jail}. He then wants to give everybody a tax break; I guess the plan is to move the Canada Steamship Line and other holdings back to Canada so these companies can pay the proper taxes, â€"â€" It was also nice to hear that Mr. Martin is behind all those who have lost their jobs over the years. Regarding health care, I know if we had a faulty furnace, my wife wouldn‘t wait 12 years to have it fixed! Mr. Harper: "Elect all the senaâ€" tors." An excellent point and they would be representatives from all over Canada equally. ONCE OVER LIGHTLY " we ho " I ;‘ !‘I .’s SANDY BAIRD COMMENT And you see in the multiple agencies that have lent a hand how they have assumed a piece of the burden. Many hands make light work and today you can little one saved. There are gaps, to be sure, but these days our medical care is light years from where it used to be. So are other devices and rules and regulations to make life a heap less hard to live than it used to be. Irue, it‘s a bit late for the older folks who passed this way even a few years ago. Just ponder the raising life expectancies and you‘ll see we‘re all living longer than they were even a few years ago We‘ve been more blessed by things which make it possible for us to think of spending more years on this planet. And no doubt you heard about the casy going guy who was given three weeks to live He took the last two weeks of July and the week between Christmas and New Year‘s And particularly if one of our younger folk is involved. Of course, the media lets us know of some accomplishments in healâ€" ing. _â€"_ Usually, the treatment is billed as a minor miracle, or even something larger if the patient is smaller. In any case, headlines or not, we seldom make enough of a fuss over a GST rate decreased to six and five per cent, but I wonder how this money is going to be made up? More free votes in the house, but again, will they be free, or the norâ€" mal party line free? s Mr. Layton had his tie on straight, and wants more of his members elected. _ He would also like the balance of power in greater numbers, to hold the elected government more accountable. Who would want that position and how could that be done? A good point, no members would be able to cross the floor to another party; they must sit as an independent member. Good idea, but I think these young people are on top of the situâ€" ation and don‘t want to get involved with truth benders who don‘t listen to the questions and answer someâ€" thing completely unrelated. Trust is another key point. I have no idea who I will vote for right now, but I will vote! He wants to get the young peo ple out to vote. Gary Jenkins Kitchener Il was stupid of me to think that it wouldn‘t be brought up at all in this election. It also may have been my naive expectations, wishing it would be an ignored issue on the election trail, but I didn‘t at all expect it to be one of the first big issues to make the top news stories in newspapers and on TV two days after the federâ€" al election was called. ‘To make it sound like it was a dirty deed that needed to be fixed, Conservative Party Leader Steven Harper vowed that his party would allow a free vote on sameâ€"sex marriage if the fories were to form the next federal government in the new year. Isn‘t Harper bringing up issues that have already been resolved? He seems to be moving backwards with this country on an issue that everybody else, from the sounds of it, appears to have moved on from. _ If the free vote appealed Martin‘s bill, Harper would then reâ€"instate the "traditional" meaning of marriage exclusive to a man and woman. Prior to this election, 1 will admit that I‘ve never been that intrigued or interested in even stepping foot into politics. I was always one of those skeptical Canadians who didn‘t think it was worth it to vote because there really was no form of "good government" in existence. _ But the general platform I keep hearing from all of the parâ€" ties is that they want to take Canada forward into future prosâ€" perity. n "It is the responsibility of the prime minister to defend the Charter of Rights, and the prime minister cannot cherryâ€"pick among rights that he hapâ€" pens to like or ones that he doesn‘t happen to like," Martin defended. And that‘s pretty much what Prime Minister Paul Martin said during the federal election debate last Friday. "Mr. Harper wants to reopen the n LUONWELL n issue, the charter issue of sameâ€"sex marriage, and he would take away a charter right. "I believe it‘s wrong to take away people‘s rights." Ding Ding. Martin hit the bullsâ€"eye. It shouldn‘t be about technicalities of whether it is an open vote or not. Every Canadian is entitled to the same rights and the passion that Martin expressed â€"â€" and Harper lacked, as was evident in his speech. â€" "Obviously the issue of marriage, the definition of marriage is an emotional and contentious issue," Harper prefaced in his response. addressing an Ottawa citizen‘s question to the canâ€" didates where she asked how their parties would "justify disâ€" criminating against a Canadian for an aspect of their identity that is comparable to race, sex or religion." Harper continued, "Most Conservatives support the tradiâ€" tional definition of marriage. Our party position is to support the traditional definition while supporting similar rights and benefits for all other equivalent relationships." Harper even tried rationalize what his party would do. "We‘ll simply hold a free vote in Parliament. Even if Parliaâ€" ment adopts to proceed with traditional definition of marriage, we will make sure that all existing marriages, all existing sameâ€" sex marriages must be protected in this law," he said. So in other words they‘l shut up all the married homosexuâ€" als by not taking their marriage away. They‘ll just make sure the "mistake" of wedding any others will never happen again. Does this sound fair? I didn‘t think so. As Martin said during the debate, the essence of the Charter of Rights is to protect minorities against a majority which may want to take away those rights. If you‘re the prime minister and you‘re unable to defend the rights of Canadians â€"â€" why do you want to be prime minister to begin with? Essentially, Canadians have moved past the discussion of changing gay rights, whether they agree or not with the deci sion that was made. It‘s a decision that has been made, the legâ€" islation has been set in place and by trying to bring the debate back to the table is just moving this country backward instead of forward. Withholding rights of citizens is a downward spiral the world should be able to understand all too well. Americans are fighting for the rights of Iraqis overseas while we have citizens fighting for their rights here on our continent When will our politicians move on? It‘s just one more issue that they spend their time on when there are many other matters that deserve the attention. After all, they do have a whole country to run here. Are we still talking about sameâ€"sex rights?