WHITBY FREE PRESS,WEDNESDAY.DECEMBER 4, 1985, PAGE 5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson Uni rn1 THE CROW'S NEST by Michael Knell Eighteen months ago I was listening to a man named Brian Mulroney talk about Canada - how he felt about it, the hopes he had for it, the visions he saw of its future. And I was impressed. This man, I thought to myself, has got something. Maybe, for the first time since Diefenbaker and the heyday of Pierre Trudeau, this country will have a leader with a vision of the future, a man who's prepared to lead this country into the next century. That man has been Prime Minister of Canada for almost 16 months now. His vision was nothing more than wishful thinking. He gave us a child's soap bub- ble, that had floated away and burst. I suppose what really did it for me was Monday morning's announcement that the Mulroney government agreed to sell DeHavilland Canada for a pultry $155 million to the American multi-national aircraft manufacturer Boeing. This man has sold a piece of Canada and the future of 4,500 of his fellow Canadians to a foreign interest for nothing more than a few pultry pieces of gold that will, in no way, repay the investment this nation has made in it. It's not the privatization of Crown corporations that I find distasteful - in fact it's a sound policy that I support readily - but it should have been sold to a Canadian company or to a Canadian consortium. The Government of Canada bas no business selling something that belongs to the people of Canada to a foreign corporate interest. Now, I know that DeHavilland has cost the Canadian taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars. That investment was beginning to show some promise of a return. The development of the Dash-7 and Dash-8 short take-off and landing commuter aircraft is complete. It even shows poten- tial for making solid gains in the aircraft and air transportation service marketplace. These two aircrafts are also on the forefront of technology. They are the state of the art. To compound the government's other sins in this situation, they are also guilty of the most blatant and shortsighted stupidity. Now was not the time to sell DeHavilland Canada. Mulroney and his supporters have talked frequently, and I thought sincerely, about developing Canada has a high-powered, sophisticated, technical in- dustridi nation that was at the forefront of research, development, growth and prosperity. One of the most important of the emerging high technology in- dustries is aerospace engineering. Canada has proven its capability in this field through the development of the remote manipulator arm (the Canadarm) that is used aboard NASA's space shuttle. Only 23 years ago, another Tory government put the boots to the emerging Canadian areospace industry by shelving the Avro Arrow project. At the time, the Diefenbaker government scrapped the project, the Arrow was already acknowledged as one of the finest medium-range jet fighters in existance. In fact, it was a decade or two ahead pf its time. It paved the way for some of the advancements in areonautical engineering that we take for granted today. And, do you know where all those brigbt young scientists who worked on the Arrow work-now? In the United Stateš, for th'e most part, with organizations such as NASA, McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed - you fame it. So when they scrapped the Arrow, they scrapped more than the plane, they scrapped the brains that built the plane. . . Mulroney has done exactly the same thing. The bright Canadian talent that developed the Dash-7 and Dash-8 are now employed by an American company that will have no qualms about exploiting and rewarding the brightest and best innovations these people can devise. That is what Mulroney has really sold to the Americans, a Canadian braintrust. The major national media have already reported that there were Canadian companies interested in acquiring DeHavilland. What I would like to know is why the government didn't offer these companies some sort of incentive to follow through on their desire to acquire the company. The media reported Monday that Boeing.may end up paying as little as $90 million for DeHavilland if it agrees to purchase certain Canadian goods and services. There are many Canadian companies who were more than able of meeting or bettering that arrangement. So,'the question remains. Why would Mulroney do it? I don't know. I used to have a lot of respect for this man. I used to think he was a pretty sharp operator. A man who knew what was going on. Boy, oh boy, was I ever wrong. The sale of DeHavilland to Boeing was contrary to the national interest. It is not in the best interests of Canada to sell high technology companies - especially those heavily involved in research and development - to foreign interests. And when a Canadian alternative could have been found with relative ease there is simply no excuse for the Mulroney government action. But, then again, what do you expect from a man who doesn't know whether he wants free trade, enhanced trade or no trade with the United States? This is also a government that sank hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars into a bankrupt bank in an effort to save it from the junk heap. Yet they don't have the insight to save and preserve a company that is leading the way in aviation technology. I don't understand it. This government has done so many stupid things in the last 12 months that it really boggles the mind. From the de-indexation of old age pensions to Mulroney's pathetic performance at last week's First Ministers' Conference in Halifax this government has shown that it is not only confused, but lacks leadership and direction. It obviously has no plan for the implementation of its desired and stated objectives. They have not been able to preserve Canadian technology, they have not shown any real direction when it comes to economic planning, job creation or long term industrial strategies. And the sacrifice of DeHavilland Canada to Boeing is just another shining example of confusion and lack of insight. Letterstotheeditor FROM PG. 4 Vote hundred and ten and only handed out seventy pamphlets! i Frankly speaking 66 percent of their time going around their rural route was wasted! I realize some were sick, very busy, couldn't get a ride or had another good reason, but the point is, most just don't bother. Personally, i can't wait to vote. If you don't vote it's like saying, "I don't give a damm about the country" and you have no right to complain about the government. You've been given the privilege to vote and if you give up that privilege it's your choice, but I still think it's wrong. Danny Mink Meadowcrest Public School Grade 8 student. FROM PG .4 ReiSf decision ta appoint the thirdregionai councîlior is saund, as the writer of the column might un- derstand had she been there to hear the debate there to hear the debate instead of getting her in- formation second or third hand. And as far as the people of Whitby "deserving" the oppor- tunity to elect someone, 66 percent of these people couldn't care less. Then there is the cost, estimated at $45,000 - no small potatoes - to give 34 percent or less a chance to go to the polls again, a little ludicrous if you ask me, to elect one person. Now if the 66 percent had to pay $3 each for not voting and the 34 percent were paid $3 to vote again, and only those who voted on Nov. 12 be allowed to vote, which only seems fair since they were the only ones interested in the first place, the election could be held for nothing. Which is exac- tly how much it will cost to fill the seat in the present circumstances. Makes a lot of "cents" to me. Albert Keith. [ R OM PG. 4 Mail box am a disabled pensioner and have great dif- ficulty walkin g. 1 devote much of my time to writing and being able to walk to a letter box is the only way I can per- sonally mail out my let- ters. I explained this to the person at Canada Post. He assured me that the letter box would be returned. A month later it was brought back, but it was placed on the opposite of the street where there is no sidewalk. This meant .that anybody wanting to use the letter box would have to cross a very busy thoroughfare. The position of the box created a hazard for both pedestrains, and drivers. After the box was there for a month it was taken away again. I phoned Canada Post asking if it would be brought back and placed where it would be less of a hazard. The reply I received was a "definitely not". The reasons given- by Canada Post for its removal was that the mayor of Whitby, and the police had com- plained that it was a hazard where it was Iocated. 1 asked if il could be relocated at a safer corner. I was in- formed by the person at Canada Post that it would not be returned, ever, and there was nothing I could do about it, and nothing anyone else could do about it. On the same day that 1 phoned Canada Post I later phoned the mayors office to complain about the matter. Later the mayor returned my call. I explained my reasons for wanting a letter box within a reasonable walking distance from my home. I related to him the con- versation I had had earlier that day with some at Canada Post in which I was told that the letter box would not be replaced and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The mayor told me that he at no time discussed the matter with Canada Post, and my phone call was the first he knew of it. He asked me to leave the problem with him. The following mor- ning I received a call from the Oshawa office of Canada Post to assure me that the letter box would be replaced on a safer corner near my home before the end of November. Today SEE PG. 7 WITH OUR FEET UP By Bill Swan American astronauts have been busy this past weekend, building temporary frames out of tinker toys, 190 miles above the earth. And at the same time, space promoters adver- tised the special of the decade: an eight-orbit trip around the world for 20 or so passengers. for the bargain basement price of $50,000. With that in mind, I thought this week we would go back in time 30 years and reveal how it came that i hold reservations on the first commercial trip to the moon. Two-way, I hope. The reservations arrived with membership in what was then known as the Science Fiction Book Club, which worked out of 105 Bond St. in Toronto, and which was simply a Canadian agent for Garden City Books in New York - if 30 years have not clouded my memory. Book clubs then as book clubs now were heavily into promotion. A devoted science fiction reader in the 50s, I joined, glad to find that others shared my reading tastes. (I currently have a project under- way to re-recollect the volumes that were thrown out in one of many moves in more mature life.) You will recognize the usual book club tactic: if you don't send the coupon back by the cutoff date, the monthly selection automatically comes your way. In the 1950s, each volume cost $1.80 plus ship- ping and handling - or $2.05 c.o.d. Coming up with two bucks was not always easy. One monthly special offered free reservations to the first commercial flight to the moon, predicted at that time to be sometime about 1990. Perhaps what imore interesting is the book so promoted. The title was Across the Space Frontier by Werner Von Braun. It described the coming assault on space: the theory behind orbit, the need for three-stage boosters, the dangers of space. But the book also outlined the advantages to Ear- th orbit: Astronomers could view stars better from space than through a hole darkly on Earth; com- munications would be improved worldwide; weather forecasting would become more scientific. But to do all this, the author argued, some nation would have to build a station in space: a permanen- tly peopled space platform from which all the above could be performed. In addition, the platform would be ideal from which to launch other space ships to the moon and to other planets. That, of course, still holds. Unfortunately, politics often plays a bigger role in history than science or reason. The assault on the moon was made in the sixties - successfully, you will recall - from Earth. Each ship was blasted off from Florida, into space, and then aimed generally at the moon. What each of us science fiction readers of the early 50s knew, which no one talked much about, was the great inefficiency of that effort. Achieving orbit costs more than any other part of the voyage. To reach the moon from Earth cost more than doing it correctly: putting a station or platform in space, preparing the lunar vessels from there, and then gently nudging the ship off to Luna. But the original moon shots were Earth-based simply because the main aim of getting to the moon was political, not scientific. Lunar landings were very e-pensive public relations events. The dark side of space platforms? Militarv uses. SEE PG. 7 w 40 90 silaIsÉn..dt