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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2013-08-15, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2013.Editorials Opinions Publisher: Keith RoulstonAssociate Publisher & Director of Sales: Ron Drillen Acting Editor: Shawn Loughlin • Reporter: Denny ScottAdvertising Sales: Lori Patterson The CitizenP.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; $130.00/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 August 17, 1961 Thousands of dollars were lost when the Holstein dairy farm of Eldon Wilson, just east of Brussels, caught fire. Lost in the fire were four dairy calves, four sows, a number of small pigs and between 3,000 and 4,000 bales of hay. Wilson also lost a threshing machine and a milking unit. Gail Wilson, Eldon’s 15-year-old daughter, however, was mowing the lawn when the blaze broke out. She was able to enter the upper portion of the building to rescue her 4-H show calf before summoning the fire department. The Brussels, Morris and Grey Recreational Committee opened a campaign to restore the flood lights at the community park. The initiative came after a storm one week earlier ravaged the community, destroying four of the park’s flood lights in the process due to high winds snapping the lights’ poles off at the ground level. The cost to replace the damaged lights was estimated to be approximately $1,000. August 17, 1988 Municipalities were urged to resist the amalgamation of local conservation authorities. A controversial interministerial report was released that suggested the province’s 38 conservation authorities should be reduced to 23 larger bodies. The report stated that the move would save the province as much as $5 million per year by making the conservation authority operation run “leaner and more efficient.” Andrew Y. McLean of Seaforth, former publisher of The Blyth Standard and The Huron Expositor, and local MP from 1949 to 1953, died at Victoria Hospital in London on Aug. 14. He was 80 years old. McLean also served as a squadron leader in the Royal Canadian Air Force. McLean’s funeral service was held at the First Presbyterian Church in Seaforth on Wednesday, Aug. 17. The Blyth Festival Board was feeling the heat of a deadline after committing to build a $1.8 million expansion for the Festival, both at Memorial Hall and the Garage on Dinsley Street. After making the announcement, the board was busy scrambling to find its half ($620,000) for the project by Sept. 7 in order to qualify for government grants. Audrey Bos of West Wawanosh Township was named Queen of the Dungannon Fair. Bos added this title to the Queen of the Furrow titled she earned earlier, where she would represent Huron County at the International Plowing Match, which would be held in Perth County the following month. August 17, 2006 The Blyth Festival marked its 100th world premiere on Aug. 11 with Leanna Brodie’s Schoolhouse. Artistic Director Eric Coates held a special reception to mark the occasion, bringing back past artistic directors to share in the accomplishment. Able to make the trip were Festival co-founder James Roy, Janet Amos and Katherine Kazsas. Unable to attend were former artistic directors Anne Chislett and Peter Smith. Organizers were busy making last minute preparations for the Global Battle of the Bands which was set to take place at the soccer field amphitheatre behind the Blyth and District Community Centre. The winner of the competition would move on to the global leg of the tournament, which would be held in England in December. The Huron County Health Unit warned of a drastic increase in West Nile Virus activity throughout the province. The record-breaking hot weather was being blamed for the sudden increase. August 16, 2012 The E.D. Smith salad dressing plant in Seaforth announced that it would be closing, effectively eliminating nearly 200 jobs from Huron East. The Chicago-based company TreeHouse Foods made the announcement in its second quarter report. Alongside the Seaforth plant, it was also announced that one of the company’s soup plants in Mendota, Illinois would also close. The schedule for the closure stated that the factory would remain open until the spring of 2013 and would officially close later that year in the fall. Meagan Dolmage was crowned the Brussels Fall Fair ambassador at the Brussels Legion. She was crowned by the previous year’s ambassador Hannah McCutcheon. Dolmage beat out Tori Kellington and Tilynn Ducharme for the prestigious title. Huron County officially dedicated County Road 12, which runs through Brussels and Seaforth, as the Police Memorial Highway to commemorate the county’s fallen police officers. OPP Commissioner Chris Lewis and Western Region Commander John Cain were in Goderich alongside the families of fallen police officers Bruce Crew, Dave Mounsey and Vu Pham for the ceremony. The thriller The Devil We Know starring Tony Munch, Tiffany Martin and Meghan Swaby wrapped up the 2012 Blyth Festival season on a high note. 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 Education goes both ways With summer winding down, Huron County students will soon be packing to go off to colleges and universities in cities across Ontario and beyond – many of them destined never to return to their home communities. But an announcement this week by Blyth’s Emergency Services Training Centre (ESTC) shows that the educational door can swing both ways. The ESTC’s Program Co-ordinator Stephanie Currie announced this week that a new agreement has been signed with Georgian College to provide fire training for students in the college’s Marine Engineering and Navigation program. Students from the college will be using the Blyth centre’s special facilities to learn how to fight fires aboard ships. They’ll join hundreds of other personnel from municipal fire departments, industrial firefighters and other emergency personnel who train at ESTC for short courses over the year. The centre has also entered partnerships with other colleges to host courses. Down the road in Clinton, the Regional Equine & Agricultural Centre of Huron Inc. (REACH Huron) has built a similar educational niche around horses and agricultural training. In Goderich, the Lake Huron Learning Collaborative provides a variety of continuing education courses, both credit and non-credit, through agreements with other educational institutions outside of Huron. Meanwhile in Seaforth, the Gateway Rural Health Research Institute provides another benefit educational institutions often provide: research. Gateway is Canada’s first community-driven rural health research institute, again, often partnering with Canada’s leading academic institutions. All these educational opportunities have one thing in common: they are the result of extraordinary vision and hard work by local people, sometimes backed by local municipal councils. They were not gifted to our region by provincial or national governments (although funding from senior governments has certainly helped some of the projects succeed). Projects like these are quietly helping to change the face of Huron County and prove again the readiness of local people to see opportunities and roll up their sleeves and get ’er done. –KR Hidden taxpayer support If the media and auditors for the Senate hadn’t blown the whistle, Canadian taxpayers would have been paying to support institutions they didn’t know they were funding. This week an auditing firm working for the Senate’s committee on internal economy revealed that at least $120,000 in travel expenses charged by Senator Pamela Wallin were not legitimate as Senate expenses. Wallin has promised to pay back the money, though she claims the auditing process was flawed and unfair. The auditors showed that Wallin charged for dinners and other expenses in Toronto and Guelph, where she was chancellor of the University of Guelph and where she was doing university business rather than Senate business. While some Canadians may not have been so bothered by a few thousand dollars helping the cause of a university, many of the other expenses might not be so acceptable. Many of Wallin’s claims were for travel related to fundraising events for candidates for the Conservative Party, back when Wallin represented the Conservatives in the Senate. While Wallin, the former CTV news anchor, and Mike Duffy, another former media celebrity, have resigned from their party affiliation, they were appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the Senate because their star power would help raise money to fill the Conservative Party’s war chest – so it could afford things like attack ads against any opposition party leader who seemed a threat. Thankfully for the prime minister and his party, the media focus seems to be on Wallin and Duffy as individuals making bogus claims, and not on them as representatives of a government with a tendency of finding ways for the taxpayers to support the Conservative Party. It undermines democracy when the governing party can tilt the playing field by charging its own expenses to the taxpayer. –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.