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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-01-08, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2015. Editorials Opinions Publisher: Keith Roulston Editor: Shawn Loughlin • Reporter: Denny Scott Advertising Sales: Lori Patterson & Amanda Bergsma The Citizen P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1H0 Ph. 519-523-4792 Fax 519-523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. N0G 1H0 Phone 519-887-9114 E-mail info@northhuron.on.ca Website www.northhuron.on.ca Looking Back Through the Years CCNA Member Member of the Ontario Press Council The Citizen is published 50 times a year in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $36.00/year ($34.29 + $1.71 G.S.T.) in Canada; $160.00/year in U.S.A. and $205/year in other foreign countries. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Mon. 2 p.m. - Brussels; Mon. 4 p.m. - Blyth. PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40050141 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 152 BRUSSELS ON N0G 1H0 email: info@northhuron.on.ca January 4, 1962 The festive season was marked with tragedy in Brussels when Mrs. Donald Currie died in a house fire on New Year’s Eve. Donald was able to escape the burning home, while the couple’s three sons, Barrie, John and Douglas, weren’t at home at the time of the fire. The fire was first spotted shortly after 5 p.m. Firefighters attempted to keep the blaze at bay, but it was worsened by the explosion of two oil drums that were being stored in the woodshed. Over the Christmas weekend, two break-ins were reported throughout Brussels. The first was at the Brussels Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, where a small amount of cash, cigarettes and beer were stolen. The second incident was discovered when R.B. Cousins returned to the Cousins Creamery to find that a window on the north side of the building had been smashed. In that incident, however, neither the cash drawer, nor the safe, had been tampered with during the attempted robbery. A newly-formed club in Brussels, the Hi-T Club, received one of its most essential pieces of equipment as a gift from two other local organizations. The Western Star Lodge and Morning Star Rebekah Lodge presented members of the club with a high fidelity record player as part of a ceremony that took place at Brussels Public School. January 3, 1979 The total value of building permits issued in Brussels doubled from 1977 to 1978. The Brussels Town Clerk’s Office said that permits with a value of over $361,000 had been issued in 1978, which was just over double the $180,625 that had been issued in 1977. Nearly all of the permits that had been issued, the statement said, were for private homes, with residential permits only accounting for just over $66,000 of the permits. Clerk Bill King said he felt the figure was higher because more houses had been built in the village in the past year. “Overall we had a pretty good year for building permits,” King said. The Maple Villa Club was the willing recipient of a New Horizons grant for $3,933. The grant, which was issued to the club by the federal government, was to go towards the Brussels club’s health and fitness club. The grants, The Brussels Post reported, were set aside for groups of retired people throughout Ontario. Dec. 30, 1978 marked the end of a 50-year flour milling career for Blyth’s Charles Johnston. To help mark the occasion, Johnston’s two daughters, Marilyn Craig and Nancy Daer and their families planned a surprise retirement party at the Wingham Golf and Curling Club. Johnston had worked at Howson and Howson Limited for a number of decades before retiring at the end of 1978. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival announced that British actor Peter Ustinov would be playing the title character in the Festival’s 1979 production of King Lear. January 3, 1990 Fred Stephenson of Brussels was the recipient of a modern medical miracle as his hand, which had been severed by a hydraulic wood splitter, had been re-attached by doctors at University Hospital in London. The procedure took 11 hours to complete and included the intricate use of microscopes to re-join tendons and nerves that had been cut. At the time of the incident, Stephenson, who worked for the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority, was working at the Falls Reserve Conservation Area. He told The Citizen that the incident happened very fast. “It all happened so quickly that by the time I realized what was going on, it was too late. I could only stand there and watch [the wood splitter] lop my hand off,” he said. Stephenson commended his co- workers, who didn’t witness the incident, but had him medical help within 20 minutes. January 4, 2001 The Blyth Festival received a grant of $18,000 from the Canadian Creation Program through the Canadian Council for the Arts. The application was submitted as a request for funding for the Festival’s production of The Outdoor Donnellys, a collective directed by Paul Thompson. At Huron East Council’s first meeting of 2001, councillors announced that a time capsule was already in the works. To ensure that all communities within Huron East would be represented, and not all “melt” together, materials for the capsule would be drawn from throughout the newly-amalgamated municipality. Mayor Lin Steffler announced that the capsule would be opened on Jan. 1, 2050, the 50th anniversary of the incorporation of Huron East. At that time, she said, new items are to be added before the capsule is resealed. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage. We are not responsible for unsolicited newsscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright Let’s start planning the party Now that 2015 has begun it’s only two years before Canada marks the 150th anniversary of Confederation and, with the federal government showing no sign of promoting cross-country celebrations, maybe it’s time for communities to pick up the ball at the local level. Landmark occasions like the 150th birthday of our country don’t come along often. Most people in our communities today don’t remember the year-long celebration of Canada’s Centennial in 1967. Today’s younger people deserve to experience their own version of that incredible event that shifted Canadians’ sense of themselves and their country and inspired decades of confidence and innovation. By two years before Centennial Year, there had already been two years of planning for the event by the Centennial Commission, set up by the government of the day on Jan. 1, 1963. Spurred by grants from the federal government, cities, towns and villages were organizing to create special projects to mark the Centennial. Parks, theatres, concert halls and fountains were being planned to mark the special event. There was a mobile museum that went coast to coast, stopping off in towns and cities to tell the Canadian story. There were music festivals featuring Canadian artists, who had much more trouble getting attention then than now. There was even a catchy national song: Bobby Gimby’s “CA-NA-DA”. Besides the immediate impact of communities coming together to build Centennial projects, or at the very least to hold parades and dances, the country’s psychic landscape was changed in a way that led to other successes. There’s a good case to be made that the increased interest in our Canadian stories led to the birth of institutions we still enjoy today such as the Blyth Festival. Canada’s healthy music and theatre scenes are an outgrowth of the sense of pride Canadians adopted after Centennial. So far the federal government has spent, according to recently- released documents, about $12 million in creating and broadcasting 150th-anniversary-themed advertisements but nothing has been done to mobilize ordinary Canadians and communities to prepare for this landmark event. Time is flying by. We can’t afford to wait any longer. Our communities need to take the lead in making Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017 as memorable and country and community-changing as its Centennial in 1967. –KR Once we helped refugees Last week, while Canadians celebrated the holidays, life was much different for more than 1,000 Syrian refugees who were aboard two decrepid freighters which were set on a collision course for the Italian coast by people smugglers and abandoned. Such was the desperation of refugees who had fled the brutal civil war in Syria, that many of those on board the two ships had given the smugglers every penny they had and trusted they would be given a home in Europe. Who can blame them? It’s estimated nine million people have fled their homes during Syria’s civil war. Refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are home to three million in primitive conditions. Once this was the kind of emergency that would have inspired Canadians and their government to take action, but last week’s news, indeed the refugee crisis as a whole, gets little more than a shrug. We’ve shown none of the urgency that was demonstrated to accept refugees from the Hungarian revolt in the 1950s or the Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s. In July, 2013, our government made a rather feeble pledge to resettle 1,300 Syrians by the end of 2014, yet by early December it had accepted only about 700. The plight of the desperate Syrian refugees brings to mind the situation for Vietnamese who took to rickety boats of all shapes and sizes to escape the Communist government there. The scope of the problem was small by comparison to Syria: about 350,000 desperate people. The Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark, however, leapt into action, opening the doors and urging Canadians to sponsor refugees. Individuals, churches and community groups came forward. In 1979 and 1980 some 60,000 Vietnamese refugees were welcomed to Canada. Has Canada become hard-hearted? Given the scale of the Syrian tragedy surely we can do better. We need to tell our government we want Canada to help solve the problem. –KR & Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise.