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The Citizen, 2011-02-24, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 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 22, 1950 The musical Randolph Ranch was set to have a three-night engagement at Brussels Town Hall on March 3, 7 and 8. Funds raised from the admission costs of the play would go to benefit the Hall Repair Fund. Tickets were 50 cents for adults and 35 cents for children. The play would feature a company of over 60 young people from throughout the Brussels community and a story told largely through song and dance. A dance for St. Patrick’s Day was also being planned at the Brussels Town Hall. The dance would feature the music of Eric Scott and his orchestra. The party was organized under the auspices of the Morning Star Rebekah Lodge. A community garage sale was organized by the Brussels Lions Club to help the Boys and Girls Band buy new uniforms on March 11. February 20, 1974 Ace, the cat reporter was featured on the front page of The Blyth Standard as a potential new recruit to the Standard’s staff. Apparently working the typewriter proved to be too difficult for the little guy, who eventually packed it in by the fourth picture in the series. Stanley Chellew, a long-time Blyth merchant, passed away. Born in Blyth, Chellew followed in his family’s footsteps, taking over a furniture and undertaking business before retiring in 1947. Chellew was an active member of the Blyth United Church and a 50- year member of the Blyth Masonic Lodge. Hullett Township Council began to make preparations for spring, calling for tenders for the supply, application and inspection of warble fly spraying. Tenders were also called for gravel to be applied to township roads in the spring. A delegation of ratepayers appeared at West Wawanosh Council to discuss dust in the St. Helens area. Members of the delegation stated that residents were coping with higher-than-normal levels of dust in the hamlet due to increased gravel truck traffic. The issue was to be discussed further at the March 5 meeting of council, which was to be held at the home of clerk Joan Armstrong. February 19, 1986 Brussels Village Council approved a bylaw to sell the historic Queen’s Hotel to McLaughlin- Inland International Inc., a London- based group that planned on developing a 6090 square foot supermarket. The sale was scheduled for closure on Feb. 21. The sale price for the hotel, which had been empty and deteriorating for years, was $13,682. The village had purchased the property at a tax sale for $11,183 in 1983. Councillor Betty Graber voiced some of her concerns, saying that she didn’t like the “great China wall” that would result from the new building having no windows or doors on the main street of Brussels. Other councillors, however, were just thankful to see the deal go ahead after being held up with legal strife for months. Another Season’s Promise, a play co-written by Citizen publisher Keith Roulston and Anne Chislett, opened the 1986 Blyth Festival. The play followed a family that had been farming for four generations, but now found itself in financial trouble due to the current farm crisis. Other productions to be featured in the 1986 Blyth Festival were Drift,Gone to Glory and Lilly, Alta. The season would end with a remount of Cake-Walk by Colleen Curran. March 5, 2003 Blyth native Justin Peters stopped 94 per cent of the shots he faced in the Canada Winter Games and came back to the village with a bronze medal for his efforts. Peters, who had been playing for the OHL’s St. Mike’s Majors, sat out the first game, when Ontario beat Manitoba, but played in the second game, an Ontario win over Nova Scotia. Ontario lost the third game to Alberta by a score of 4-2, but came back roaring with a 9-2 rout over Prince Edward Island. Peters’ final game of the tournament in net came in the bronze medal game against British Columbia. He stopped 94 per cent of his shots in leading his team to a win. Despite having over 200 participants each year, Brussels Minor Soccer was experiencing major staffing issues at some of the association’s key positions, including president and vice- president. Montina Hussey, a Grade 8 student at East Wawanosh Public School placed first in her school’s public speaking contest before going on to win the contest against Wingham Public School. She then won contests against six other area schools, as well as a competition in Clinton. She was set to speak in Meaford on March 22. Award-winning sausage makers Guy and Cheryl Stroop opened Stroop’s Meat Market on the main street of Brussels. The pair held an open house to introduce themselves to the community on March 6. 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 Healthcare’s impossible math Get used to the doctor shortage. It seems here to stay for a long time. In the mathematics of the doctor recruitment, 1+1+1/2=1: it takes two and a half doctors to replace one long-time doctor who retires. That was the troubling reality revealed by Jan McKague Weishar, recruitment co-ordinator for the Wingham and Area Health Professionals Recruitment committee, when she spoke to Morris-Turnberry council last week about her efforts to fill the existing physician vacancies in the Wingham area. While there’s already a shortage, she said things will get worse when current doctors retire because a typical long-time doctor has 2,000 patients. New doctors, conscious of better life/work balance in their lives, only want about 800 patients. Nobody can begrudge young doctors for not wanting to work the long hours the older generation has – as long as they are willing to make an the income proportional to their lower patient load. This trend, however, adds to the challenge of finding enough doctors because two and a half doctors must be found for every doctor who retires – and that doesn’t even include dealing with population growth. It means that we’ll need many times the number of doctors who have been graduating from medical schools in recent years if we’re ever to hope to solve the doctor shortage. With such a short supply, doctors can be choosey. Rural areas are at a disadvantage. Many want to practice in the city where there aren’t additional duties like helping out in the emergency room of small community hospitals. Many have spouses with professions of their own who may not find a suitable job in small towns. With a short supply, the cost of recruiting doctors goes up. Not only do rural areas hire recruiters whose full-time job it is to fish for doctors who might come to their area to practice, but the list of incentives keeps increasing as areas try to outbid each other. An incentive package that could reach $130,000 in cash and services, is used to try to interest doctors in practicing in Wingham. It’s a system that’s broken, but finding a solution to fixing it seems a long way off. — KR Tired of these guys yet? Seldom do voters consciously decide to vote for opposition parties – they just get tired of the government and vote it out. According to lots of polls, people aren’t tired enough with Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to boot them out yet. One wonders how much it will take. Canadians don’t seem to mind that they have a government that supports a minister like International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda who authorized altering documents then lied about it to Parliament. Canadians don’t seem to mind that the government’s answer to any opposition is to attack: such as the inaccurate portrayal of the church group KAIROS (which Oda cut off from government funding) as anti- semitic. The character assassination of Richard Colvin, the dedicated Canadian diplomat who blew the whistle on the government coverup of the fact Canadian troops turned prisoners over to Afghan authorities who tortured them, has long since been forgotten. Canadians don’t seem to mind that Harper’s government is addicted to secrecy. When the Parliamentary Finance Committee recently asked for the cost of implementing the government’s legislation to lengthen prison sentences and reduce parole, so that MPs could have information on what it meant to support the bill, the finance department replied such information was “a matter of cabinet confidence and, as such, the government is not in a position to provide such information.” Whenever Harper’s government does start to slip in the polls, the Conservative Party releases some new attack ads that suggest opposition leaders aren’t really patriotic, and Canadians fall meekly back in line, supporting this government. They say we deserve the government we get and Canadians seem ready to accept a petty, secretive, mean-spirited government. Is this who we have become? — 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.