O

pinion

TheReview Wednesday, January 17,1990 — A7

In 1956, following a tumultuous 21-year
engagement, I came of age. Immediately, Canada
and I were legally married.

It was a shotgun affair. I had no choice. From_
my birth, it had been an arranged marriage.

Now, after 33 years of supporting an avaricious
partner and not receiving so much as a pleasant
nod in thanks, I want out.

You think I’m making a hasty decision? You
think I should take two Aspirins and look at it
again in the momming? For over three decades I’ve
wakened in the morming hoping Canada would
perhaps like me, even a little. Not a hope!

Listen to this and tell me what you'd do.

My partner has gone wild with my charge cards
and won’t give them back. The annual bill is in
the billions every year and the interest alone is
killing me. And she won’t stop spending.

She hasn’t even been. faithful.

Since our marriage, she and her lunatic provin-
cial friends have raped the landscape, jumped into
bed with every corrupt dictator who crooked a
finger at them and slept almost constantly with
our muscular neighbor to the south.

I don’t think I’ve had even one night of pleasure
with the old broad. That'll teach me to marry
someone who was 87 years old at the time and
still tied to her mother’s apron strings. Perhaps if
I’d thought to check out her mother’s habits, 1
might have guessed what was coming and at least
attempted to set limits before it was too late.

Now old Canada is in her 123rd year and she’s
completely senile. According to my National
Citizens’ Coalition accountant who has crunched
some numbers for the years between 1985 and
1988, the following is just the tip of the proverbial
iceberg.

During those four years:

1. She gave away in the form of humanities
grants, to such worthies as someone studying the
anatomy of a seance, $169,771 every single day.

2. She handed out $161,095, every single day,
in aid to foreign governments.

3. She gave $218,173, every single day, to the
arts community plus $193,881, every single day,
to cultural groups.

| want a divorce

4, Every darn day for four years she gave

$32,328 to radical feminist organizations, $4,452
to anti-defence groups, $19,269 to big unions and
$48,858 to support a plethora of multi-cultural
programs.

(Have you thrown up yet? Are you Besimnine to
see my side? There’s more.)

5. Every day for four years my Canada spent
$666,575 to promote official bilingualism.

6. She has friends in business too. Total planned
DAILY handouts by the Atlantic Canada Oppor-
tunities Agency between 1987 and 1993 are
$479,452: by the Western Diversification Office
$547,945. Plus, between 1986 and 1989,
$581,735 was given away EVERY SINGLE
BLOODY DAY by something called the Indus-
trial and Regional Development Program.

Next year, my accountant says, she wants at
least a nine per cent increase in her allowance.
And this from someone who has hasn’t stopped
cheating and fibbing since we met.

No bloody way! I say.

I hate to leave, but I’m broke, miserable and
sick to death with hearing promises of a better
year or decade ahead only to face more lies and
another hike in my taxes to pay for her pleasures.

You know, in a way, in spite of all I’ve said, I
don’t feel as badly for me as I do for our kids. I
mean, all along we’ve both told them how much
we loved them and we gave them subsidized
education, subsidized health care, subsidized this
and subsidized that and said their future was
secure.

What a crock.

What she wouldn’t admit, and I hadn’t the guts
to come right out and say, was that really what we
were doing was living a “Stick-it-to-Our-Kids”
life. I mean, they’re going to be left with the final
bill after we’re gone, aren’t they?

So I say, she can keep the house, the car, the
bank loan, even my collection of penny match-
book covers. Just leave my skin intact and enough
clothes to keep me from being picked up for
indecent exposure.

And please, set the maintenance payments
within reason.

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NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE AUXILIARY TO
THE SAANICH PENINSULA HOSPITAL WILL BE HELD ON
FEBRUARY 713, 1990 AT 10:00 A.M. IN THE SAANICHTON
BIBLE FELLOWSHIP HALL, MT. NEWTON CROSSROAD,
SAANICHTON, B.C.

AUDREY HARPELL
ACTING SECRETARY

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UNISEX

THE JAZZ FESTIVAL Society needs new
blood — and you don’t need cheeks like Dizzy
Gillespie’s to help out, says board member Clive
Tanner. “It’s easy to find people to sit around and
talk about New Orleans’ jazz,” Tanner says. “But
its harder to find people who'll do the wor
The society runs the summer festival, held each
year in conjunction with Sidney Days, the July
long weekend. ‘What we’re looking for is
workers,” says Tanner, who invites anyone with
the right stuff to drop into to Tanners A Bookstore
and More for a chat. ““They should be interested
in jazz — but they should be more interested in
doing organizalional Wor!

*x * x

MISSED IN THE Christmastime rush of ack-
nowledgements was the Save the Children Fund
of B.C. contribution of $150 to the Lions/Review
Christmas Hamper Fund. The local group
meets the second and fourth Wednesdays of each
month at 2 p.m. at the Margaret Vaughan Birch
Hall, 9697-4th St., Sidney. Everyone’s welcome
to drop in and join members for tea. The next
meeting is Jan. 24, if you want to know more. Or
call Bunty Watt at 656-4037 for more informa-
tion. Or read the next paragraph.

* x OX

SIDNEY Save the Childrenis part of a British
and British Columbia organization that turns 75
years old in 1994 and is presided over by Her
Royal Highness Princess Anne. The group is
dedicated to helping children and their families
around the world. The Sidney group was started
46 years ago by seven local women who head
worked for the Red Cross during the Second
World War. The women helped many children
whose lives had been ravaged by war. Later, the
group began helping children in Asia and Africa.
And when the need rose locally, Save the

Children was here to help. Today the local group
sponsors eight children and their families in
Korea, Pakistan, India, Swaziland, Sri Lanka and
the West Indies. Donations help sponsor families
and go to other projects. The group holds an array
of events in Sidney each year — among them a
spring tea in April, a film night and mini-bazaar
in October, a Halloween fundraiser, and a Decem-
ber shipment of quilts, sweaters, baby clothes and
other items to Watson Lake, YT.
* * OK

WHERE DO left over toys go from the
Kiwanis/Review Toy Drive? Kiwanis member
Ted Parsons says about three boxes go to the
children’s hospital, and two or three more are set
aside for Timmy’s Telethon. And some go to the
toy lending library in Esquimalt. Broken toys —
which the Kiwanis club can’t send to homes of
the needy — go to the Salvation Army for repair
and sale. This year, the only shortage was in gifts
for 11-and-12-year-olds, Parsons said. “All in all,
it went very well,’ he said.

* * *

ERIC WILSON, a popular author of mysteries
for children, visited Grade 4 and 5 students at
Keating Elementary School, Jan. 9. Students
prepared posters promoting Wilson’s books to
welcome the author.

KOK Ox

KNOW OF a disabled child who needs help?
Well, Ed Newman.,, president-elect of the Sidney
Shrine Club, intends to make sure you know who
to call. The club plans to put an awareness
campaign into action to let the people of the
Peninsula know what services the club offers,
reports member Frank Wrightson. The Shriners
of B.C. recently gave the B.C. Children’s Hospi-
tal $300,799 to establish a new burn unit.

* * x

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