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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1976-12-16, Page 30Farmers aren't cry babies They get accused of being cry babies. They get slammed for being one of the most subsidized industries in Canada. In recent years, farmers have learned to complain in places where the complaints are heard. Thus, the agri- cultural sector of this province has been lambasted by every two-bit politician and armchair legislator in the country. ' But if anyone in this province has cause to protest the treatment he is getting, it is the farmer. People laughed at Walter Miller a few years ago when he was president of the old Ontario Farmers Union. His biggest threat seemed as hollow as a shout down a rain barrel when he talked. of farmers withholding produce until they got a fair deal in the market place. I always admired Walter for his"daring threats. It is most unfortunate that this articulate man has had to take a back seat since the Ontario Farmers Union be- came a part of the National Farmers Union. Roy Atkin- son has been president for too long in my humble opinion. He has become jaded and useless to Ontario farmers. It is obvious to most farm observers that the farmers union has lost its credibility in Ontario in recent years. Only a handful of people know exactly how many mem- bers the national union has in Ontario today because the NFU has never felt it necessary to reveal membership, even in the days when they may have had as many as 20,000 Ontario members in good standing: I hope recent estimates of membership are not true. I heard one farm writer say recently that he doubted if the NFU has any more than 4,000 members in this province today. Be that as it may, farmers have good reason to cry these days. Organized labor has had pay increases of • less than 10 per cent by the anti-inflation board. The con- sumer price index has risen by approximately 6.8 per cent since the controls were implemented. Eipmentary mathematics indicates that most workers are slightly ahead of the cost of living index. But farmers are not. Net farm income is expected to drop by about 25 per .cent this year. Although gross income may increase, the net figure is the important one. Dairy farmers have had to cut back production by at least 20 per cent and this cutback comes when production costs continue to rise. Beef farmers are still reeling from an unprecedented three years of low prices. The expected increase in beef prices predicted -for last summer just simply did not materialize. Beef farmers are quite likely to suffer net losses this year. Grain farmers, too, are in for a tough year. Wheat prices, for instance, are down at least $1 a bushel. Barley, oats and corn prices are in the same category. Corn farm- ers watched helplessly last month while prices dropped almost a dollar a bushel in four or five weeks. Hog farmers are in a mess, too. After a couple of years of amazingly high prices, the hog market slumped con- tinuously since the summer months to a low as this is written of around $52 a hundredweight compared to $77 a year ago. Chicken farmers are under pressure from low-priced imports from the United, States. Net incomes for turkey and egg producers are down and fruit and vegetable farm- ers are still recovering from a disastrous spring. Cherry growers were almost wiped out in May. Even grape growers with a bumper crop this year are battling for reasonable prices simply because they were too success- ful, They have had. to accept government aid in marketing their crops, • Pea crops, sweet corn crops, cucumber and tomato crops were all down in production and/or acreage this year so those farmers will have less net income. In short, farmers have every reason to complain. They have spent the entire growing season producing the abun- dance of food that keeps the food price index going down and union wages rising faster than the cost of living. Jack's Jottings xpositor -;,_-_,•• ;;;;:f...--/ 0- .0.•-••----_,.. -_-.,-,,------.; .."•; _, . ,,. ,- "-.- --/- --4. , ...---2 ..-,---%• "0- 0----...-_, SEED CORN TROJAN Tx90 T795 UNITED" RX30 106 NORTHRUP KING PX20 PX442 BARN AND CATTLE SPRAYING • Barn washing and disinfecting and spraying with carbola catfle spraying for lice and warble control. HYLAND SEED GRAIN • C.I.I. FERTILIZER Trace elements available if desired HOEGY FARM SUPPLY LTD. BRODHAGEN 345-2941 :THE HURON EXPOSITOR, DEgga40ER 16, 1976 a t Report from Queen's Park .,ne foot in tho furrow' 'ow Marriage --age may rise Litters lore appreciated by Bob Trotter Wale Rd Elmira.Ont N38 (From Jack Riddell, M.P.P.) Both Oppoiltion Leaders called upon the Government to have an emergency debate on the Greyhound/Gray' Coach con- troversy, which they considered to be a matter of •urgent public importance, which should take precedence over other matters. • After strong and growing pressure in the Legislature. the Ontario Cabinet has told the Ontario Highway Transport Board to reconsider the decision to allow Greyhound Lines of Canada Ltd. to compete with the publicly owned Gray Coach Lines Ltd. As Stuart Smith has pointed • out, this would be equivalent to Ontario handing over a $10 million public asset to a U.S. controlled company, The Minister of Transportation and Communications has asked the OHTB to re-examine the economic impact of the decision, and determine how this will affect bus service to ° smaller communities and Gray Coach, The Provincial Secretariat for Social' Development, The Honourable Margaret Birch, told the Legislature this week that Family Court Judges will no longer have the power to send children. who have committed no crime to training schools. On January 1, 1977, an amendment repealing Section 8 of the Training Schools Act, will be proclaimed. Section 8 of the Training Schools Act, allows a Family Court judge to commit a so-called unmanageable child to training school if no oth er programme was appropriate and if training school was thought to be 'needed. The Legislature voted to repeal Section 8 in May, 1975, but proclamation was delayed to 'allow the Province of study the implication of the repeal and to allow the PrJuince to establish alternative placement for the children in training schools under Section 8. As of December 3 of this year there were 786 children still in the wardship of the Minister of Correctional Services under Section 8 of the Training Schools Act. Of this total 103 are in training Schools. Others are in group homes, foster homes, special treatment centres and their own homes. Mrs. Birch said that after proclamation, some will remain where -they are. She said she would place herself in an unconscionable position .if all of these children were to have their wardship terminated on January 1st, with no regard for their care. Many of them are responding positively to the care and treatment they are receiving and it would-be irresponsible to move them from their community placements. Of the 103 children still in Training School 42 are expected to be returned to their own homes. Another 15 children will be placed in the Ministry's group homes and 26 will go to ministry-super- vised foster homes Twenty others will be placed in boarding homes, treatment centres and • special facilities. The' aim of the Ministry of Correctional Services is to have By Murray Gaunt M.P.P. — - Attorney General Roy McMurtry is propOsing to raise the minimum age for arriage from 14 to 16. **). The age needs to be raised, he said, because the main reason for' its being so low is to permit marriages as away to avoid births of illegitimate children. There are those who are pushing to have the age raised to 18, but the Attorney General feels the age cannot be raised above 16, at which point children have the right to withdraw from the family home. This matter is part of a package of family law currently before the Legislative Committee on Justice, and will become law before Christmas. Liberal Leader Stuart Smith said this week that Ontario is handing over a $10 million public asset to a U.S. controlled company, The Government recently issued licences to the U.S. controlled Greyhound Lines of Canada Ltd. -for direct routes between Toronto and Sudbury, and Toronto and Buffalo. moved all Section 8 wards from Training Schools by September 1, 1977, and to terminate wardships under Section 8 just as soon as suitable alternatives to wardship can be found. Some administrative steps have already been taken. On November 23rd, the Minister of Health issued a directive restricting the circumstances under which a psychiatric hospital can lay charges against children in their care. Charges cannot be brought simply to relocate a child who .is difficult 'to manage and each case !Mist be reviewed by the Minister. The Minister of Natural Resources, Mr. Leo Bernier, has stated that his Ministry is seeking ways of easing the Province out of the camping business. He has Previously these routes were handled exclusively by Gray Coach Ltd., a company owned entirely by the Toronto Transit Commission, and were the most profitable routes the company had. Because of this Gray roach was able to subsidize service on other routes that a were less profitable or showed losses, such as service to Owen Sound and other• parts of Western Ontario. Since Gray 'Coach now has competition on its most profitable runs, it said it could no longer provide the same service to Western Ontario. The Government has come under severe pressure to reverse the decision, with the Liberal Party asking for an emergency debate fin the matter. Meanwhile, following the Cabinet meeting in. mid-week, Transportation Minister James Snow announced that he was asking the Ontario Highway Transport Board to reconsider the decision. Mr. Snow said the Board would not conduct a re-hearing of the case, but would extend its previous hear ing to deal with two important factors it apparently didn't take into account before. These are the financial impact on Gray Coach if it loses the profitable routes, and whether Gray Coach would have to cut service on shorter routes to smaller centres as a result. On the latter point Gray Coach has already announced cuts. A bill to regulate funeral directors and their services in Ontario received approval in' principle this week. The bill would set up committees to deal with complaints from the public. The Ontario government is planning to close most of its provincially operated campsites and lease the rest to private operators. 10975, 1,617,707 people used the 21,000 campsites in the 122 provincial parks. The n ew policy, announced by Natural Resources Minister Leo Bernier, will start taking effect next summer. Want emergency debate on Greyhound said the Government would like to drop the financial burden of the • 21,000 campsites in 123 provincial parks, which last year attracted more than 1,500,000 campers. It is estimated that the campgrounds lose something like $9.5 million annually, and the government would like almost ail provincial campsites to be in' the hands of private enterprise companies. However: it would seem that it could take approximately 20 years to hand over all the campsites. The Minister' made it clear that any new provincial parks would not have campgrounds in them, and he indicated that no campgrounds are under construction at present. '40 6.4 • Ill YEAR END SPECIAL Save Now On Upholstering Everyone wan to reduce new home costs. • l•-• Here's a new repor that suggests how it can be done. 4I SPECIAL WE ARE NOW AUTHORIZED • Ontario's present uNk development standards are among the highestin the world. However, the standards set by our municipalities vary considerably, a fact which in some instances adds greatly to the cost of new housing: Your Ontario Government believenbat realistic development standards throughout the province would lead to continued high quality new housing, but at a lower'cost. This case is strongly presented in a new report, "Urban Development Standards: A Demonstration of the Poteptial for Reducing Costs," issued by the Ontario Ministry of Housing. The report points out how more realistic standards coul&significanty redOce home mortgage p'ayrrierits, and indicates that adoption of such standards would in some areas lead to more economical use of land, energy savings, reduced pressure on agricultural land, and greater feasibility for public transit. • If you would like a leaflet summarizing the main features of the suggested new standards; write to: Communications Branch Ministry of Hou'ing 56 Wellesley Street W., 2nd Floor Toronto, Ontario M7A 2N5 Ministry of Housing John Rhodes, William Davis, Minister PreMier • Province of Ontario -ar VELVET TOZIC Applicators and we carry a full' line of Refinishing Products FOR A PROFESSIONAL JOB LET THE PROFESSIONALS DO IT 4,7;00Par 'fiff,i•d0 // • //// ',-fiforawolfxrif.ows" idM'V 1:Prereirp,VAMNOWV/V/# S, a 7.07.401074 3 / /7 ../IWZ/M/7/Ae/.///40/0). ,v7/ /AMMOJINVIS60A‘.*Ovir,060W40 /4 Hwy. 83 "across from Acme Signs. tptritIll 2 54131 or 2624648 OWNED AND OPERATED BY EUROPEAN TRAINED APTSMAN 'WITH 24 YEAM,ExpeottNo IN FURNITURE REST t IINQ I ,-.11140411G-6 4 ,