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The Citizen, 2012-05-24, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2012.Editorials Opinions Publisher: Keith Roulston Acting Editor: Shawn Loughlin • Reporter: Denny ScottAdvertising Sales: Ken Warwick & Lori Patterson The CitizenP.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1H0 Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. N0G 1H0 Phone 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; $115.00/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: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 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 June 3, 1965 The Huron Historical Society was set to hold an open meeting at Howick Central School where an antique fashion parade would take place. The Tri-County Men’s Intermediate Softball League was set to begin its season with the first two games of the year being held in Walton and Brussels. To kick off the season Walton would host Millbank and Jamestown hosted Monkton in a game played in Brussels. The Cranbrook Gracious Gardeners held their third meeting of the year, with group President Nancy Strickler presiding over the meeting. May 27, 1987 The Brussels Legion Pipe Band celebrated its 35th anniversary on May 23 with a large group of members past and present there to honour the band and all it had done for the community over three and a half decades. Special presentations were made to Tom McFarlane and Ross Bennett, the only two remaining charter members of the band. Over 300 children signed up for swimming lessons in Brussels. Lessons would take place throughout June, July and August under the instruction of Listowel’s Sharon Scott. Const. John Marshall of the Goderich division of the OPP was in Blyth on behalf of the Huron County Board of Education teaching pre- kindergarten students how to keep safe around school buses, both while riding them and while walking around the village. Producers were actively seeking extras for the movie Blue City Slammers that was in the process of being filmed in Blyth. Raymond International and Shatalow Productions needed 200-300 extras for Saturday and Sunday film shoots on the upcoming weekend. The extras would be part of a crowd attending a baseball game being played by The Slammers, a local women’s team. May 25, 1994 Keith Courtney took over the position of publicity director at the Blyth Festival. Courtney came to Blyth after working as media manager for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Wingham OPP officers recovered two abandoned vehicles in the area that were believed to have been stolen. The first was a 1991 Plymouth found by Blyth Village Foreman John Rinn at Blyth Public School. The ignition had been removed from the car after being hotwired and taken from Goderich earlier in the morning. Police believed that after stealing and ditching the first vehicle, the same thieves stole a 1994 Dodge Shadow from a driveway outside the home of Peter Smith. That car was recovered days later in London. The police had no suspects at the time. Joanne King of Brussels was given The Citizen’s Citizen of the Year Award for her never-ending ability to give to her community, despite personal trials she had endured over the years. King was recognized for her many years of community involvement and work with the Melville Presbyterian Church. King also volunteered with Wingham Palliative Care, the Brussels Thrift Shop and the Blyth Festival. The Auburn Lions Club was in the process of working on new parkland that would soon become Manchester Riverside Park along the Maitland River. Members of the club said they planned to spend the next two or three years fixing up the two- acre stretch of property. Award-winning author Alice Munro accepted an invitation to be invested in the Order of Ontario. The announcement was made on May 18 that Munro would be the 20th person to receive the honour that year. May 24, 2007 Former MPP Paul Klopp had been elected to lead the Huron- Bruce NDP once again in the next provincial election. Klopp beat out Blyth’s Stephen Webster to win the nomination at the May 17 meeting in Goderich. As a result of a meeting between Huron East councillors from the Brussels and Grey wards, a public meeting to discuss the future of the Brussels Library was set for May 29. Only two options remained for the library and Huron East Mayor and Brussels resident Joe Seili was eager to hear what members of the public had to say. “Yes, we’re elected to make decisions, but there are times when you need input, and at our level, this is the only way of getting input from the public,” he said. A storm ripped through the area leaving many residents without power for as much as 20 hours. A shed on Orville Storey’s property south of Winthrop was destroyed and several large trees were ripped from the ground throughout the course of the storm. Kim Phuc, a living piece of history, was set to speak at Huron Chapel Evangelical Missionary Church in Auburn. Phuc is known as the young girl running down the middle of a war-torn street in Vietnam as her flesh burned with napalm in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from the Vietnam war. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. We are not responsible for unsolicited newsscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright We’ll know when it’s too late Ontario’s apple crop will be virtually non-existent this year, a victim of March’s extraordinary weather which saw a week of mid-summer heat, followed by normal, March-like cold which froze the blossoms that had developed far beyond the stage they should have been at. Meanwhile, some Ontario beekeepers have reported catastrophic losses of their bees caused, they think, through a combination of pesticides used for crop planting and this spring’s unusual dry weather which filled the air with clouds of pesticide-laced dust behind planters. Are these serious side-effects of climate change? Who knows? Even scientists and climatologists who believe human activity is changing our climate say that any individual weather event cannot be attributed to climate change. The problem is, we will never know for sure if there has been climate change until the climate has changed. These individual events like the loss of the apple crop can be put down to aberrations that don’t indicate long-term change. Everyone who has a vested interest in not changing their habits, from consumers, to manufacturers and energy companies, to governments, can brush them aside as sad events for someone else but not a reason to change. If we accumulate enough evidence of climate change – if, for instance, we can no long count on certain parameters of weather that allow us to reliably grow our food – we will then demand government to do something to fix the problem. Distressingly we’ll find out the changes needed to return the climate to what has been “normal” in the past will take a lifetime or more to put in place.— KR What’s the bottom line? If you care about government getting things done quickly, then the 452-page omnibus budget bill of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is efficient. If you think that democracy is the real bottom line, the bill is a travesty. The budget bill mixes in huge changes in government policy which have nothing to do with the kind of monetary issues a budget should deal with. The government, for instance, included plans to change legislation to reduce the scope of environmental hearings in the budget. The effect is to produce a tsunami of legislation to overwhelm the opposition parties so they can’t examine all the details. Harper is well aware of this. Back in 2005, as Opposition Leader, he complained about a 120-page budget document of Prime Minister Paul Martin (a record in length to that time). “How can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote on a block of such legislation?” he asked. Back then, Harper cared about the importance of democracy. Today he wants to get his government’s agenda through parliament quickly. Most Canadians, for whom the nation’s business, as carried out in parliament, is a nuisance are quite contented to have as little noisy debate as possible. They just want the government to get on with things. They are, to an extent, like people in Italy who praised Benito Mussolini for making the trains run on time, not paying attention to the fact he had abolished their democracy. — KR Mission not accomplished As NATO leaders met in Chicago last weekend to plan their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the sad fact is their mission has not been accomplished. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Canada wil contribute $110 million a year after the last troops, who are helping train Afghan National Army, are withdrawn. Other NATO partners also made plans for withdrawal, and continue to provide money to the Afghan government. Perhaps it was naive to expect the kind of cultural change optimistic western governments went to Afghanistan hoping to make. But women are still being persecuted for wanting simple things like an education. Corruption is still undermining public support for the government. Sadly, we’re tired enough not to care. We just want out. — 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.