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The Citizen, 2012-11-01, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 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 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; $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 November 4, 1965 A Halloween dance was held at the Brussels Legion, sponsored by the Legion Ladies Auxiliary, and the winners were: Jean McDonald of Wingham, best dressed lady; Jack Shiels, best dressed gent; Mrs. Frank Rutledge, best Halloween costume; Cal and Jean Davidson, best comic couple and Mrs. Gordon Stephenson, most original costume. The Majestic WI was set to hold its monthly meeting on Nov. 11 where the guest speaker would be Cliff Robb, CKNX Radio’s farm editor. At the Lyceum Theatre in Wingham, Cat Ballou starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin was playing just ahead of Help!, a film by the Beatles. October 28, 1987 A fire gutted a Brussels home on Oct. 26, leaving a family of four without a home. Members of the Brussels Fire Department were called to the home of Ken and Linda Smith shortly after 11:30 a.m. that day and they remained on the scene for over five hours battling the “stubborn” fire. Fire chief Howard Bernard said the damage to the house was “very heavy” saying that the floor in the kitchen was completely burned out and the rest of the floor was cut away by firefighters who needed to access the fuel stored below the floor when it caught fire. No accurate estimate of the damage could be made. Bernard said the fire, which took hundreds of gallons of water to eventually extinguish, likely began in the heating system. The Canadian Transport Commission Railway Transport Committee was set to hold a hearing into the Canadian National Railway’s application to close the Listowel to Wingham rail line, which included portions running through Brussels, Grey and Morris. Canadian National cited losses between $210,000 and $379,000 in the years between 1983 and 1985 as its reason for wanting to close the line. Residents of Ethel and the surrounding area rallied to save their post office after Canada Post began discussion into privatizing 5,200 rural post offices across the country. A grassroots lobby group, Rural Dignity, was behind the rally, saying they would travel to Ethel from Toronto to help support the fight. Rural Dignity was founded in the Maritime provinces and led the fight against Canada Post’s plan to close and privatize its network of rural post offices, which would have cut approximately 10,000 jobs across the country. Evalena Webster was named The Citizen’s first-ever Citizen of the Year for the Blyth area and the UCW’s new cookbook was dedicated to her in a ceremony that was held on Oct. 24. November 9, 1994 Blyth Public School was set to have an addition built on to accommodate junior kindergarten classes. The decision was made by the Huron County Board of Education at its Nov. 7 meeting. The board approved the tender from GdL. Construction at the cost of $173,488 for the initial phase of the addition and then an additional $31,316 for the second phase, which would begin in January. Two arrests had been made in connection with a rash of break-ins across Huron County. Two 14 year olds from Auburn were arrested in connection with the crimes. During the robbery spree, the pair were alleged to have stolen numerous cartons of cigarettes, cash, sports cards, lottery tickets and snack foods. OPP representatives said the suspects gained access to the businesses in question by smashing their windows with a hammer. The Village of Brussels took its first step towards implementing natural gas service when council gave a motion at its first two readings to give a natural gas franchise to Union Gas. Indications told councillors that it wouldn’t be until 1996 when the line running east from Hwy. 4 along County Road 16 to Brussels would be operational. November 1, 2007 The debate over the Brussels Library was raised once again ahead of Huron East Council’s meeting with Morris-Turnberry Council on Nov. 5. Huron East Councillor Bill Siemon said that while the majority of council was under the impression that Morris-Turnberry would be contributing 20 per cent of the costs of the library on an annual basis, he felt they were planning a one-time payment of 20 per cent of the building costs when the new library would finally break ground. Ena Cook of Clinton won the 2007 Blyth Festival raffle, which earned her three minutes to go crazy in Scrimgeour’s Food Market, grabbing as much as she could off the market’s shelves in that time. By the time it was all tallied up, Cook had cleared just over $350 in groceries thanks to her shopping trip. The Huron County Federation of Agriculture honoured the McGavin family with its annual award for an outstanding contribution to agriculture in Huron County at its annual meeting on Oct. 24. 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 Being prepared With tropical storm Sandy battering eastern Canada this week and a large earthquake hitting the coast of British Columbia, the emergency preparedness branch of government, which we normally ignore, suddenly becomes important. From municipal governments on up, emergency plans are in place for such crises, though most of us don’t know it. In fact many cynical taxpayers would look on the expenditures involved (such as providing generators to back-up power for buildings designated as emergency shelters) as wasteful. Really, how likely are they to be used? But when a crisis hits, we want these measures in place. The government of British Columbia, for instance, has been heavily criticized this week for delays in warning citizens of the possibility of a tsunami after the off-shore earthquake. In fact our attitude toward emergency preparedness is much like our attitude to government, period. We grouch about government, but when we need it we expect it to be there to help us through. — KR Political cynicism pays As the U.S. presidential election approaches next week, the outcome will determine just how much voters reward political cynicism. Both incumbent President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney have told people what they want to hear and avoided subjects that should be talked about (like how to solve the national debt) but would risk turning off voters. Romney, however, has twisted his beliefs like a pretzel as he made the journey through winning the Republican nomination to trying to defeat Obama. The former Governor of Massachusetts was seen as too moderate by the savagely partisan Tea Party faction of the Republican party so throughout the primaries he tried to convince these voters that he was a tough right-winger that they could support. Having won the nomination, Romney was faced with the reality that the majority of Americans wouldn’t support the policies the Tea Partiers demanded of their candidate. For the last several months he has tried to play himself as a moderate again to win votes from moderate voters. This is only possible, of course, because the vast majority of voters don’t do much homework before deciding who to vote into the most powerful position in their country, and the world. They studiously ignore the political process until a few weeks (or days) before the election. Because of this, they don’t see the contradictions in politicians’ statements. The trouble for Romney is that there are lots of incriminating news clips of his previous statements for the Democrats to resurrect, such as the one this week showing him, back when he was trying to please Tea Partiers, being against federal emergency disaster payments. As billions of dollars of damage was being done by Hurricane Sandy in some of the largest cities in the U.S. this was not helpful. We’ve seen this kind of political cynicism in Canada too. In fact it sometimes seems necessary. After Pierre Trudeau’s reduction to a minority government in the 1972 election, for the first time he became interested in the game of politics instead of what a Prime Minister could do to change the country. In his memoirs he admitted he engineered his own defeat in a non-confidence motion in a 1974 election and then promised not to impose the wage and price controls that Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield proposed – then brought in the same controls after winning the election. After Premier Dalton McGuinty resigned, a Globe and Mail columnist wrote about the changes he underwent after he was humiliated in defeat by the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris in the 1999 election. Suddenly he embraced political strategy, which he had disdained the first time around. He won power in 2003 and again in 2007 and then, with the odds against him, managed to hang onto a minority government in 2011, using some truly cynical strategies. In many ways we, the voters, teach politicians to be cynical because we reward their manoeuvering. If we want politicians to play it straight with us, we have to pay enough attention to reward their good behaviour, not their bad. — 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.