The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, August 12, 2010 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by 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 advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Guest Columnist Liberals are unstable Ted Chudleigh, Halton MPP he government is increasingly desperate to find something that will grab the attention and support of Ontarians. They are not finding it. Instead they are creating unstable government, which further scares away business and growth from Ontario. Ted Chudleigh In their desperation the McGuinty Liberals have recently moved toward, and then wobbled away from, the eco-tax, secret police powers granted for G20 protests, a plan to create a SuperCorp, privatizing LCBO, a plan for rural solar power and sex education for young children. If these ideas have the whiff of desperation among them, the excuses for dropping the projects smelled even worse. The eco-tax will be fixed within 90 days. The program was poorly organized on every level -- tax rates and the products affected were not defined, there was no public input or notice, and the tax did nothing to help remove used products from the waste stream, which was allegedly the purpose of the program. And that's when they had lots of time to get it right. Nowhere is there any evidence that a blue box-like program or a deposit system like the one for glass that is already in effect, were considered. The government has not been clear about its involvement in creating secret laws for the G20. It appears to have wobbled back and forth on the question of their existence. The public has a right to know what transpired, how it was applied and what occurred during the G20 protests. The McGuinty Liberals trashed André Marin the Ontario Ombudsman, and then reappointed him. They raised flags regarding the creation of a SuperCorp and a public sale of the LCBO, but backed down when union workers raised objections. Some months ago they made a big show of getting farmers on side with solar energy only to arbitrarily break their contracts on the amounts they would pay for solar power that was generated. Some people invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the projects. I guess those people forgot that the McGuinty Liberals have a special relationship with the truth. In the spring the government backed away from changes to sex education in public schools when parents protested. For months now every idea or plan of the government has been met by an increasingly hostile public. The main function of government, as a stabilizing force for necessary, predictable and incremental change, no longer exists with the McGuinty regime. NEIL OLIVER Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager The Oakville Beaver is a division of WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America Media Group Ltd. T RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville ATHENA Award NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER CAR WASH FOR CONCERT BAND: Drummer Joshua Garcia (left) and clarinet player Christina Goulart help wash cars during a benefit car wash to support the Filarmonica Lira Bom Jesus Marching Concert Band Saturday morning on Speers Road. The car wash is one of numerous ongoing fundraising efforts. It, alone, raised approximately $1,100. Space is a valuable treasure not available at a garage sale y wife and I have always had a fascination with space. I'm not referring to the activities of NASA or reruns of Star Trek. No, it's the ongoing challenge of how quickly it seems to disappear when we get any where near it. We only have to enter an empty room and immediately it seems to feel smaller. A prime example is our garage. We've lived in our house for more than 25 years, but I can't remember putting one of our cars in the garage. I think there was one weekend in 1987 when we squeezed a compact into a corner of the garage (it was actually a mid-size when we put it in). Our garage has truly given new meaning to the expression, "in the fullness of time." It is so full of our worldly belongings that in the autumn, the local squirrels often gather on our driveway and stare in admiration at the contents. I think the older squirrels use it as a kind of training ground for the younger ones. "See here son...this is how to really store food for the winter." Once upon a time we kept a reasonable turnover of stored items moving in and out by holding garage sales. That was when we could actually get into the garage to sort out what we wanted M to sell. It helped us to get rid of (sorry, "sell") some of our unwanted possessions and it was always felt rewarding to see someone head down the driveway, having found that elusive bargain. Now, during the spring and summer months I occasionally hear a nostalgic sigh from my wife when she looks through the weekend list of garage sales Keith Spicer in the Beaver. Alas, we have garage gridlock, so her garage sale activities are restricted to going to other people's sales. This, as you can imagine, is a dangerous trend. (My own theory is that garage sales are just another form of recycling. I strongly believe that one day my wife will bring home something from a garage sale that we sold in the distant past.) I should at this point give an honourable mention to our three children, for their ongoing efforts to ensure our garage maintains its track record of voluminous holdings. Their dedication to the pursuit of a truly mobile society has ensured the restocking of our garage at times when it looked like we could almost get a foot in the door. Whenever one of them moves, there always seems to be a request to drop off "just a few things for a short while." As you may have realized by now, the garage is not our only storage challenge. There are other `no go' zones in our house, which require some serious extradition surgery. Our rec room and crawl space are the main culprits and are aptly named. My wife and I are both recently retired baby boomers and one of our goals for the first year of retirement is to reduce the congestion quotient in our house. The garage is our most pressing challenge and we're definitely going to get started soon. But we need some inspiration to kick-start our good intentions, so I wracked my brains to see what we could learn from history about the challenges of congested living quarters. With apologies to Winston Churchill, I think a phrase that describes both the wonder and dilemma of our garage might be, "Never in the field of modern garage space, has so much been crammed into so little, by so few." So, with those sobering words, let the clear out crusade begin. All we need to get started is a giant shoehorn.