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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-07-05, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 5, 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 July 8, 1987 Brussels Village Council Reeve Hank TenPas tendered his resignation from the position for the second time. As reported in The Citizen, at the beginning of the July 6 meeting, TenPas asked for council to enter a closed session. Five minutes later, with residents and members of the local press waiting on the sidewalk outside of the municipal office, TenPas exited the building, wishing everyone a good night and leaving for home. The meeting went on with no mention of TenPas’s departure, other than a motion to appoint Councillor Malcolm Jacobs as presiding officer for the remainder of the council meeting. A letter from TenPas stated that he could no longer continue on as reeve. While he could not be reached for comment, acquaintances of TenPas said he had been “bothered” since the June meeting of council, which included several “acrimonious” debates. TenPas had resigned once earlier, in April 1986, but decided that as the village was without a clerk-treasurer at the time, it shouldn’t be without a reeve as well. At the time, he said he was going to resign because of continuous fights between councillors and he was growing tired of them. “I was dreading going to council, wondering what fight I was going to have to referee,” TenPas told The Citizen after his first resignation. Brussels Village Council opened tenders for the expansion of the sanitary sewer system to serve the Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Centre. The lowest tender received was from Lavis Contracting Co. Ltd. for the price of $106,258.18. July 6, 1994 Toronto-based musicians Moxy Früvus rocked Memorial Hall on July 3 after holding a workshop in the village. This was the third time the band had been in Blyth over the course of the year. Brussels Village Council agreed to call for tenders for a new fire hall, while awaiting word on approval of a grant for the project. Council had $78,000 to spend, but no one was able to give the go-ahead to spend the funds on a new fire hall for sure. Brussels businesses were in the midst of planning a Big Bargain Bash over July 8-9. The Brussels Bulls Junior C hockey team was hosting a slo-pitch tournament on the weekend and the weekend would be punctuated by dinners and the Brussels Lions Club’s sixth annual rubber duck race. Brussels Village Council said goodbye to the diesel engine that once powered Logan’s Mill. Councillors gave their blessing for the engine to be removed and restored. Representing the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority was Bruce McCall, who brought Ken Glanville to meet with Brussels Village Council. Glanville would be the one restoring the engine. Members of the Wingham OPP were in the process of investigating the theft of a tow truck from a property in Grey Township over the previous weekend. Police said the theft had been reported at 12:30 p.m. on July 3 after the keys had been left in the vehicle’s ignition. The truck was later found in a field in Morris Township. It had sustained some damage. July 5, 2007 The Blyth Festival launched its 33rd season with The Eyes of Heaven, written by Beverley Cooper. The play would be the 101st world premiere in the Festival’s history. Artistic Director Eric Coates accepted an award on behalf of the Festival from Stephen Thompson, president of the Huron County Federation of Agriculture, for the Festival’s ongoing commitment and recognition of rural life in Huron County. Notable plays celebrating rural life that Thompson highlighted were Another Season’s Harvest by Anne Chislett and Keith Roulston, He Won’t Come in From the Barn by Ted Johns and Death of the Hired Man by Paul Thompson. Huron County had put a consultant in place to hopefully take advantage of some of the $10 million being offered by the provincial government to held expand broadband internet in rural areas. Blyth’s Brock Vodden was hired to help spearhead the project, writing applications for both Huron and Perth Counties in hopes of obtaining some of the available funds. After a busy six months, the Centre for Applied Renewable Energy in Brussels had experienced a “tidal wave” of interest. “The appetite for renewable energy was far greater than we thought it was. We opened the doors and the tidal wave just came in, so it’s taken until now to get some of the mundane things like signs done,” said the centre’s David Blaney. Jim and Sylvia Parish’s dairy farm just north of Blyth was being featured on the Ontario Farm Animal Council’s website, serving as a typical dairy goat farm that could be toured virtually on the organization’s website. 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 A frustration shared The anger residents of Elliot Lake expressed last week when it seemed the team sent in to try to rescue people trapped in the collapse of a roof on a shopping mall was abandoning them, is an extreme version of the frustration people in rural areas of Canada are feeling these days. When it was announced that the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team (HUSAR) was calling off the search for survivors (in what is now being termed a “miscommunication”), Elliot Lake residents threatened to storm the building and begin rescue efforts themselves. If they were in a Third World country, they would have done that already. If this tragedy had happened in an Ontario town 50 years ago, volunteers would have been tearing through the rubble trying to rescue their neighbours immediately after the roof collapsed. But our “first world” life today has been professionalized. Emergency Management Ontario oversaw the rescue and called in the Toronto-based HUSAR team. Then an engineer from the Ministry of Labour pronounced the site “unsafe”, in a move that must have brought back bitter memories for Goderich residents who had buildings damaged last year’s tornado and were forbidden from entering to protect further damage from the weather. In Elliot Lake, the rescue work stopped, while relatives envisioned missing loved ones still alive beneath the rubble. In rural Ontario we’re getting used to decisions being made that change our lifes by people who don’t know our communities or our circumstances. Authorities claim their hands are tied by rules or political realities as they say “there’s nothing we can do”. Like the desperate folks of Elliot Lake, rural residents are left with a sense of powerlessness, having to sit back and let “experts” tell us how we will conduct our lives. — KR Lost in the trade-talk haze The announcement that Canada had been invited to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks brought unconcealed expressions of delight from those who think it will at last mean an end to the supply management system. Some of the existing TPP members, such as New Zealand, want Canada to scrap supply management which limits imports of poultry and dairy products in order to balance supply and demand. The usual critics like columnists Andrew Coyne of Post Media and Jeffrey Simpson of The Globe and Mail immediately renewed the calls for supply management to be scrapped. They were delighted to be able to quote a new study by Martha Hall Findlay, a former Liberal MP who is now an executive fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Policy and who’s widely expected to run for Liberal Party leader. She believes consumers pay more for grocery items because supply management keeps prices artificially high. All these people think of themselves as experts without ever really delving into the realities of farming. They take the words of university economics or processing companies but seldom talk to the farmers who are actually producing food. They also swallow the headlines without looking behind them. New Zealand seems to them to have an open system for producing milk yet they don’t realize that though there are no quotas there, farmers have to belong to the Fonterra Co-operative Group in order to ship milk, thereby creating a supply management system. Chicken Farmers of Canada, in discussing the new trade negotiations, has pointed out that supposed free traders like New Zealand aren’t as free as they seem while Canada is more open than reported. According to them, Canada imports more chicken than seven of the nine TPP members combined. New Zealand, blocks all chicken imports. Then there are the proposed solutions. Globe and Mail Report on Business columnist Neil Reynolds suggested letting large processing companies buy out farmers’ quotas, thus allowing them to have an integrated system from farm to the retailer. Apparently production monopolies controlled by farmers are a bad thing but food-system-wide monopolies controlled by corporations are terrible. — 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.