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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-03-12, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 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 March 7, 1979 Morris Township Council heard from a delegation comprised of Bluevale residents who were calling for the paving of an entry road into the village. Those who had signed the circulated petition stated that they had to keep their house doors and windows closed in the summer due to the dust created by the road and associated traffic. At the same meeting, there was also a letter complaining that council had not gone ahead with a municipal drain in the area. In terms of the drain, however, Reeve Bill Elston said that the petition didn’t have enough signatures for approval of the drain. He told those at the meeting that if one more person had signed the petition, council would have gone ahead with the drain. Brussels Optimist Club President Herman Plas was on hand to drop the puck and officially start the club’s annual atom hockey tournament. Taking the face-off were David Wheeler of Brussels and John McIntyre of Thedford. The two teams would then square off to start the tournament. March 7, 1990 It was announced that Blyth’s first Rutabaga Festival would run from June 22-24. A group of interested parties made the decision at a meeting in early March to go ahead with the new festival. The group’s Acting Chair John Elliott said there was a good chance that the event could be successful, but that the key to that success would be participation from the community. He said that surveys had been distributed to those in the Blyth business community, which showed a high interest in such an event. He said that another positive for the new event would be that school would still be in session for local students, but because it was so late in the semester, not much would be going on, which should make for maximum student participation. Brussels Village Councillors heard about a proposed adult community for the village. The subdivision would include 31 lots and would be located in the north end of the community. Keith Mulvey of Clarke Holding Company sold the idea to councillors as being a “community within a community.” He told councillors that the development would be centred around a grove of trees, which would give the community a country atmosphere for residents. Brussels Girl Guides and Pathfinders were finding themselves busy at the Callander Nursing Home as they were “adopting” grandparents and spending time with them at the home. The initiative was part of the Resident Activation Program with which the Girl Guides and Pathfinders were involved. March 7, 2001 The issue of potential school closures again reared its ugly head with the Avon Maitland District School Board. The board’s director of education said that a new round of school closures could be coming to the area as soon as Christmas of 2002. The report presented to the board members came in the third year of a five-year cycle of which accommodation reviews were a part. The report was the reason that just the previous year, the board decided to close six schools in Huron County. Women Today was pleased to announce the hiring of Pam Hanington as the executive director of the Huron branch of the organization. A resident of Usborne, Hanington had over a dozen years of experience when it came to violence prevention and a number of other areas on which Women Today focused its efforts. March 10, 2011 Central Huron Council was in the midst of considering a new contract with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). The contract would provide the municipality with a higher level of service than it had been receiving. The contract on the table, said Sgt. Kevin Hummel, was a Section 10 contract that would greatly increase the amount of coverage in Central Huron. Hummel used the example of the recent G20 summit in Toronto, which saw local officers deployed to the Ontario capital for coverage. Under a Section 10 contract, Hummel said, coverage for the municipality would be up to 50 per cent, which would be up from 10 per cent under Central Huron’s current contract. Both the Wingham and District and Listowel Memorial Hospitals scored well in a recent patient satisfaction survey. The hospitals, the report stated, both were graded above the provincial average when it came to overall care in the emergency department and inpatient care. The Stratford Festival had another good year, posting a surplus for 2010 of over $315,000. That welcome number was added to a surplus of over $170,000 in 2009 as well. 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 Something’s wrong here Last week representatives of North Huron Food Share visited North Huron Council to ask for financial support. Earlier this year the Huron County Food Bank Distribution Centre approached Huron County Council for a $60,000 grant for each of the next four years to carry out its work supplying the county’s 11 food banks. While it’s great to have these services to help those who can’t afford food for their families, there’s something wrong that in a rich country, and in a county that’s a bread basket of the province, we still need these institutions. Originally set up as a short-term emergency solution years ago, food banks have become a permanent necessity. In fact, according to Gord Kaster of North Huron Food Share, use of his food bank is up 25 per cent in the last three years with 1,547 families visiting last year representing 2,900 adults and 1,700 children. Cynics will say some of the people using food banks are there to take advantage of free food rather than because of real need, and people being people there probably are some of those, but many people really need the help. Part of the need is due to a form of downloading by the province after welfare rates were slashed way back in the Mike Harris days and have never been returned back to a rate that can sustain families. In other cases, the cost of electricity, heating and rent has risen so much that food gets left to the last when people are trying to keep a roof over their heads. There are many generous donors to food banks and many dedicated volunteers but as the need keeps growing, food banks are turning to local governments for support – at the very time the province is cutting its grants to rural municipalities. It’s time for federal and provincial politicians to really examine why, in a rich nation, we still need food banks. Canadians should be ashamed when so many people can’t afford to feed themselves. –KR It’s bigger than government Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne last week announced the “It’s Never Okay” plan to combat violence against women through new legislation and a public awareness campaign centred on an ad depicting assaults and harassment designed to change a culture she says is “rooted in misogyny”. While any effort to protect women is welcome, this may be a problem that’s bigger than a provincial government can tackle. While the ads that show that keeping quiet about sexual assault or harassment is only helping the predators may have some positive influence, it’s trying to combat brainwashing at a much deeper level in popular culture. The most popular movie of the year so far, with more than $500 million in admissions, has been Fifty Shades of Grey in which a woman signs a contract with a rich man to allow him to dominate her. It has been women who have driven up that huge box office. Even more disturbingly, websites that arrange introductions between women and rich, dominant men, have seen the number of women signing up swell since the movie was released. The female side of this equation is relatively new but the male side has been going on for years. Women have been reduced to consumer goods by movies, from those starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in the 1950s and 1960s, to ones such as last year’s That Awkward Moment, where the idea is accepted that men should accumulate female conquests like hunters or fishers collect trophies, and that actually making an emotional commitment to one woman is to be avoided at all costs. The problem with the dominance of popular culture is that it’s often our way of peering into the lives of others. If, for the sake of making millions, movie makers return again and again to the storyline of men trying to get women into their beds then never seeing them again after their tryst, it can create a sense that this is the norm: that if you as a man aren’t living this lifestyle then you’re missing out on what the majority is doing. It can send a message to women that this kind of treatment is what you should expect from men. Against the pervasiveness of this popular culture, even a provincial government’s resources are paltry. Until movie and television creators show some responsibility, society will continue to send the wrong messages, but when they’re being rewarded with $500 million in movie admissions, they’re unlikely to change. –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.