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The Citizen, 2011-02-10, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2011.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 norhuron@scsinternet.com 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 $34.00/year ($32.38 + $1.62 G.S.T.) in Canada; $115.00/year in U.S.A. and $175/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: norhuron@scsinternet.com February 8, 1950 The official reopening of the Brussels Town Hall was set for Feb. 15 with an opening ceremony and concert featuring local talent. On Feb. 16 there was to be a dance to the music of Ken Wilbee’s Orchestra to help break it in. Proceeds from the dance would benefit the Town Hall Repair Fund. The Brussels United Church held its annual meeting and it was reported that the church had a “splendid year”. Rev. Andrew Lane acted as chair for the meeting as reports were presented by seven different departments on the state of the church. The Township of Morris was looking for a new assessor for 1951. The starting salary for the position would be $600. Morris was also looking for a Spraying Supervisor to oversee the warble fly spraying. The applicant would have to have his own form of transportation and state that wage that he was expecting. February 6, 1974 Blyth Village Council voted to begin the process of attempting to bring a license issuing office to Blyth. The discussions began with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. It was said that revenue for such an office would be just $2,400 per year. Initial correspondence from the ministry stated that they could not see the benefit in bringing a licensing office to Blyth. Councillor John Manning said he felt the letter was meant to be a “rap on the knuckles” of Blyth Village Council, in hopes that after such a response, they would simply go away. He suggested that council continue to pursue the issue, saying that he felt many people in Blyth were interested in such a venture. Blyth native A.H. Wilford died in Kitchener at the age of 86 on Jan. 30. Wilford was nicknamed The Rutabaga King. One of the longest sessions of Blyth Village Council in years dealt with several delegations, including a delegation on the state of Blyth Public School. Morris Township Council was in the process of planning meetings, which involved Huron County Planning Director Garry Davidson. February 5, 1986 The Grey Township waste disposal site was set to begin a new era, not allowing the burning of waste at its site any longer. The issue arose from a “strongly- worded” letter from the Ministry of the Environment, stating that if the practice of burning all domestic refuse were to continue, that the site would be in violation of the Environmental Protection Act. Residents of Blyth, Auburn, Londesborough and Walton were no longer receiving postal delivery on Saturdays due to a new policy drafted by Canada Post. Because of a shift in hours, it was said that virtually no mail was making its way into the London office and therefore, even less mail was coming to the local post offices on Saturdays. An earthquake on Jan. 31, measuring a 5.5 on the Richter scale went largely unnoticed by residents at 11:46 that morning. The earthquake was centred around the American shore of Lake Erie, about 50 kilometres northeast of Cleveland, Ohio, but minor vibrations made their way to Huron County. Elaine Scrimgeour, who had been working in her antique shop at the time, said she felt the vibration when she began to hear glasses on the shelves of the shop begin to move. February 19, 2003 Brooklyn Wheeler of Brussels received a hockey scholarship to Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Wheeler, who began playing the sport in the Brussels Minor Hockey system, before attending the Culver Academy in Indiana and playing for the school’s varsity team. Wheeler, a goalie, had looked at schools like Harvard and Princeton before falling in love with the Colgate campus. The distribution of trustees in the Avon Maitland District School Board was to be discussed and a special meeting was going to be held in order to get some public input on the subject. Leader of the provincial Liberal party Dalton McGuinty was in Clinton to discuss farming with Huron County farmers and local Huron-Bruce Liberal candidate Carol Mitchell. McGuinty toured the farm of Paul and Ellen Gibbings along with Mitchell. McGuinty heard from local farmer Alex Westerhout who said that the cost of business had been rising and that there was too much paperwork that had to be done and that he had been spending too much time in the office already. Cartoonist for The Citizen, I.A. Nespolon was one of the top three cartoonists in the province according to the Ontario Community Newspaper Association. A cartoon from the May 22, 2002 issue had been submitted and he was now in the final three for Cartoonist of the Year with Tim Dolghan and Mike Inkol. 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 The high cost of conservation With an election this fall and Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government trailing in the polls, the opposition parties are understandably exploiting any perceived weakness in the hopes of unseating the government. Rising electrical bills seem to be one of the handiest weapons to use. None of us like to see our costs go up, so governments aren’t popular when they do. Electrical costs have been going up at a time when very visible changes like time-of-use metering and wind and solar generation facilities have been promoted by the Liberal government. People put two and two together and don’t like what they think it adds up to. It’s the dilemma a government faces when it makes changes with the long term in mind, while people are focussed on the short term. Nearly everybody agrees that the very best, very greenest energy is the energy you save through conservation. If people reduce their use of electricity, you don’t have to build expensive generation facilities. But only a few people conserve electricity for the sake of being good to the environment. Most people conserve to save money. The best way to convince people to conserve is for prices to be high enough they make the effort to change their energy use. As long as prices remain relatively the same, people will grumble, but they won’t change. So the only way to convince people to conserve is by having prices go up enough that people have an incentive to change their habits. Lowering the peak energy use, for instance, can have huge savings for Ontario taxpayers in the long run by reducing the need to build generating capacity for those high use times. In fact it could be argued that the worst decision the McGuinty government has made was the 10 per cent reduction in energy rates made late last year in an effort to calm public anger as the election approached. On the whole we’re like people who want to lose weight, but don’t want to give up sweets and fatty foods and don’t want to exercise more. We want the benefits without paying the costs to get them. If we want cleaner air, if we want fewer nuclear plants in the future, we need to conserve more energy. Unfortunately, if governments see that their future is in danger because people get angry every time electricity costs go up to encourage conservation, future governments are likely to give in and let us go on being wasteful. — KR Afraid of democracy Everybody should be free to do what they want – as long as they do what we want them to do. This seems to be the confused reaction of western governments as the people of several Middle Eastern countries rise up to demand freedom and democracy. With protesters camped out in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, refusing to leave before President Hosni Mubarak quits, western leaders have been divided in their reaction. Their greatest fear is that extremist Muslim groups could seize power and create one more source of terrorists, not to mention another danger for Israel. The revolution in Iran that saw the dictatorship of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last Shah replaced with a dictatorship of Muslim clerics, still strikes fear in western leaders. But even the prospect of the democracy that many of the protesters in Egypt and Tunisia say they want, makes western countries uneasy. Their worst-case example might be Palestine, where in an election people turned to Hammas, the Islamist political party which is classified as a terrorist organization in countries such as Canada and is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The United States in particular, which holds itself up as the beacon of freedom, has always had a conflict when it comes between the democractic will of the people and what the U.S. government sees as American interests. When Chile’s voters elected socialist Salvador Allende in the 1970s, the U.S. backed his overthrow by General Augusto Pinochet, creating a repressive dictatorship that saw thousands murdered. Democracy is difficult. We have to trust the people, even if we don’t agree with their choice. Western countries can’t pretend to stand up for democracy when we show ourselves afraid of its results. — 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.