We don't throw garbage in our own backyard, do we? When individuals or groups own their property, they have a self-interest in maintaining it, for function, beauty, and to maintain the value of their investment. How much pleasure or resale value would a home or store provide if there were heaps of trash on a front lawn?

But the Ontario government, which claims domination (ownership) of most of the 'government' owned lands, forests, riverways, lakes, etc., did not buy it or pay for it, and, because governments are political entities, has no long-term strategy for maintaining and cultivating maximum efficiency from the lands and waters.

Property under government 'protection' is inevitably neglected property. After all what properties are polluted, ravaged by fire, poisoned, have undrinkable, are not swimmable, overlogged, or ecologically unsound? Why it's government lands. What properties grow produce in abundance? are cultivated, beautified and maintained? Why, privately owned land, of course.

To conserve the full value of the land, we must place it in the hands of private conservation groups (eg. Ducks Unlimited), private individuals who derive benefit and productivity from clean water (water providers, fisheries), and we must advocate privatization generally.

Ontario's main polluters are government agencies, Ontario Hydro and the Ministry of Natural Resources, but since government sets the rules, it turns a blind eye to its own mischief while taxing us exorbitantly to clean up the mess of its own failed policies. A government that cannot run a postal monopoly, railroad, or that fails to teach our children even the basic English in our schools cannot possibly be trusted to be an efficient caretaker of millions of square miles of land and water. Government be gone from the lands; lets put environmental responsibility in the hands of responsible and responsive owners - Ontario citizens.

Joe Byway... Freedom Party

Bowing to the self-interests of the insurance industry, the Peterson government has brought in No-fault insurance, which sets arbitrary sums on injuries received, and sets predetermined amounts that victims of accidents receive.

An impartial and efficient court system would deliver speedy justice with injury awards going to those who deserve it, but because of over- regulation, too many trivial laws, heavy bureaucracies, there is no such thing as speedy justice in Ontario. So rather than deal with fundamental problems of clogged courts and justice delayed, the Peterson government tries to eliminate the problem of injury claims by eliminating the responsibility of accidents and forcing insurance companies to arbitrarily blend risk groups, young and inexperienced drivers getting subsidized at the expense of skilled, consistent, more experienced accident-free drivers.

Any system of "justice" that does not recognize responsibility for careless behavior is not justice, but merely politics, and is another example of our society moving away from solutions and further towards avoiding responsibility for our individual actions. Freedom Party is founded on the principle of individual choice and individual responsibility. No-Fault is no responsibility. Freedom Party is against any kind of forced no-fault government schemes for anything!

Joe Byway - - - - Freedom Party

I reject, as does Freedom Party, the idea that government can arbitrarily walk into a business (or home, or anywhere) and tell someone what value they must place on the work of another. Should government dictate wages, salaries, the worth of an individual in the marketplace? I say NO! Or should the consumer, through their purchases, reward businesses, management and workers that provide them all with the goods they seek? That is equity. All businesses on the same level playing field, with all rules clear and understood.

Pay equity is a purely Marxist method of the state determining the worth of labor. I believe that the marketplace, through open, unrestricted competition, should determine this value.

Pay equity laws are another way the Ontario government is making it more difficult for businesses to continue to exist in Ontario. Already Ontario is the highest taxes province or state in North America, with 54.4 per cent of all our income going to the over 100 different taxes applied by all levels of government (Fraser Institute).