(Editor’s note: Martha and Henry — Ralph Klein’s imaginary Albertans — have changed roles this month. The Alberta government has suddenly made a change to the Employment Standards that will now allow 12- and 13-year-old Albertans to work in restaurants. Now children can go from working at their elementary school’s School Patrol straight into working at their local McDonald’s. This new rule came into effect June 3, 2005 but did not even warrant a news release from the Minister of Human Resources. Weren’t they proud of their decision?)

Greetings people. It’s not Martha. It’s me, Henry. Martha’s been visiting the relations in Saskatchewan for the past few days. Her sister’s sick. She got herself a bad case of the shingles. I’m laid up too. My hip’s acting up again. Still don’t know when that operation is. Anyway, turns out her sister’s shingles trump my bum hip, and Martha picked up and went.

Now, the TV keeps me company at night. I like the quiz shows and I can actually watch them now. You see, I can’t when Martha’s around: she doesn’t like the quizzes, or the stories even, imagine that — all she likes to watch is the news, then she gets all fired up. Let me give you a for instance. For instance, the other day, she was watching something on the CBC, and it was about some law in Alberta being changed that would let kids as young as 12 be allowed to work in restaurants. Let me tell you, smoke was coming out of her ears.

Well, for the life of me, I couldn’t see why Martha got so worked up about that. And now that she’s gone, I got to thinking more about it, and because I’ve watched what she does when she gets all worked up and thinking, I’ve decided to do likewise. So, I’m writing this on her computer and I’m sending it to you people, like she does, don’t know why. Whoever wants to read it, go right ahead. Pass it on if you like, if you know how to pass things like this on. I sure don’t.

Here goesâe¦

What Mr. Klein and his good people want to do is a modest proposal, really. Getting 12-year-old kids to work in restaurants seems to be a good start as far as I’m concerned. There are too many kids in this province who are a burden to their poor parents, just playing in parks all day, hanging out in malls, going to school ten months of the year to make them believe they’re smarter than the rest of us — losing all that earning potential in the meantime. That’s got to stop. And it would be a way of making all these kids beneficial to society.

I read somewhere — in the Reader’s Digest, I think — that in England almost 200 years ago, kids were allowed to work in factories. They were in great demand, actually, because they were smaller than regular people and had small hands, and they could reach way into the machinery and fix things that regular size people couldn’t. So, they must have been well paid, and I can just imagine the benefits packages they got: teeth, eyes, fingersâe¦

I’m sure that there are jobs in restaurants that only little kids can do too, like scraping gum from underneath tables — the smaller the better for that one — checking for gas leaks in crawl spaces, and really, really cleaning the inside of greasy ovens by climbing inside them. That would be beneficial to society as a whole too, because all that extra grease on food would be gone and everyone would have lower cholesterol.

Kids in restaurants could also solve part of our garbage problem: I know my grandkids aren’t fussy eaters, they eat food right off the floor sometimes, even when it’s not theirs, so why not let them eat table scraps as part of their wages?

I really can’t see why Martha thinks this is such a big deal. I think kids should be allowed to work anywhere, not just in restaurants. It’s all a part of growing up. The sooner they realize what makes the world go around the better. For goodness’ sake, in many countries, kids are allowed to make shoes and clothes for big companies to sell to us over here. They learn very early in life the value of an honest day’s work. Sometimes, these kids work right alongside their parents, so it keeps families together, which is very nice too. Nowadays, families don’t do enough together. They complain about not having “quality time.”

In some places, kids are even allowed to do the greatest thing of all — to fight and die for their country. They contribute a lot to society and their parents must be so proud. Sure, working in restaurants isn’t as glorious as that, but it is still a way for kids to participate in something greater than themselves, to be a small part of a bigger, more important system — or scheme — or something like that. Martha always says to “think globally, act locally,” and I think this is what she must mean.

Well, that’s all I have to tell you, whoever you are. I could go on, but I’m sure you see my point. Mr. Klein and his good people should be congratulated for taking such a leadership role on this. They rushed right ahead and they didn’t even waste taxpayers’ money by having a silly old debate in the silly old Legislature. That’s what I call a real take-charge, “can-do” attitude. And that‘s what this good province is all about. You people should all write your elected representatives and tell them how great you think Mr. Klein’s modest proposal is.

It’s getting late. It’s Jeopardy now, and I have to watch it because I may not get to watch it next week. I think Alex Trebek is a good-looking fellow, but he should never have shaved his moustache. I really liked him when he had that full head of hair too, like when he hosted Stars on Iceâe¦ Which reminds me, I have to remember to take out a casserole tonight, otherwise I’ll be eating beans right out of the can again tomorrow.

Henry