CONCRETE KIMONO MAY REAPPEAR 

Although born in Toronto I spent my first 16 or so years in Philadelphia. During prohibition in the U.S., that city was well known for illegal liquor outlets. So even at an early age I knew the term "concrete kimono", which referred to gangsters of the day (they would have switched to crack today if any remained alive -remember Elliott Ness?) who would take an un-cooperative competitor trying to move into their territory and place his feet and lower torso in a barrel of wet cement. The police sometimes found the victim, after the cement had dried, later at the bottom of a local river.

My mind flew back to those days when I recently perceived another concrete kimono that's immobilizing most governments and many modern corporations: they too are encased in wet concrete that is rapidly drying.

After recently receiving "bionic" lens implants (detailed in earlier column) in both eyes, my vision is better than ever. So to renew my driver's license, I went to do the paper work at the provincial government office. The fact that this case wasn't the usual off-thestreet-walk-in didn't go over too well. Wasn't in the book, you know. I used to wear thick glasses: how come now I needed none? Took the test under the suspicious eye of the government employee. It seemed funny to me. Victoria finally saw the light. The staff time involved certainly wasn't covered by my lowly licence fee. More than a month later the licence came through. Why does it take so long? They are stuck in dried concrete, probably with paper pulp added.

Subsequently I applied to renew my pilot's licence of 40 years' standing. I obtained the required documents from my opthamologist, passed the medical through the office of a Ministry of Transport approved physician (himself a pilot who understood easily what had occurred) and the forms, medical reports, etc., were duly sent in. Two months went by. I phoned. Since no one my age had ever had this operation and applied for a pilot's licence renewal, only some highly-placed potentate in Ottawa, on the National Medical Board, could approve it. Two more months passed. I phoned again. The staff clerk was friendly and efficient. Yes, "they had approved it, but the licence has a restriction". Glasses are "flexible". "What does this mean?" "That you can wear them if you wish." "I don't wish." "Don't wear them." Great restriction. Governments do not know what is going on.

Joe Clark blames an underling because his appointed assistant on a sensitive immigration case was a klutz or knew Clark wouldn't touch the matter anyhow. Clark talks to and favors the wrong minority tribe (with fewer than two million members) in South Africa and snubs the tribe with more than seven million members. He wonders why things get worse. This is happening everywhere. Things are moving too fast for oldfashioned governments. Laws are passed without thinking, using decades old industrial age education and training, and without obtaining all the information required. Meanwhile, under their very feet the ground is shifting and the environment is radically changing. No government or political party is immune.

These days of bureaucratic concrete and GST offer wonderful territory for the innovative. Thousands are taking the obvious cross-the-border route for purchases. Much more ingenious methods abound. Orders for something sent electronically, like fax letter subscriptions or software programs come in over the phone line. No government has yet found out how to tax something that travels at the speed of light. So no GST can be garnered either. Computers and their peripherals are totally duty-free so any shipment under $100 would only gather a maximum GST fee of $7.00. The government can't process any import under $10. So not only is the taxpayer paying $7 in GST tax, but he is indirectly paying another $3 towards the $10 internal cost for billing the $7! (in just checking with a Canadian Customs official at the U.S./Canada border I was told that their policy is to charge GST on all purchases $2 or over. That means that the government is now losing $9.86 on all such transactions as it costs them $10 to process the paper and they only collect .14 cents in GST! Brilliant). And, thus no GST funds ever surface to pay off the national debt or increasing medical costs. In reality, many such shipments are being let through without being stopped. My man in Quebec says almost nothing coming in there under $40 is being processed at all. If you believe federal laws are applied equally across the country I got a bridge you need.

Many U.S. Companies see the GST as just another big plus the Canadian government has given to them during these tough times. Sort of a reverse CARE package. They sell and deliver the package to Canada cheaper than a Canadian can buy it at home. Buying at home you have to pay taxes. The fall-out from all of this is going to make any Japanese volcano look like a tea party candle.

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