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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2010-11-04, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2010.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; $105.00/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 November 3, 1948 The Nov. 3 issue of The Blyth Standard began with an official proclamation from Franklin T. Bainton, reeve of Blyth, declaring Nov. 11 a public holiday, calling on all village residents and businesses to observe it as such. The Blyth Lions Club welcomed the District Governor, Clayton Rawling of Windsor to the Blyth Lions Club for his annual visit. Bainton, also president of the Lions Club, oversaw the meeting, with Rawling and Deputy-District Governor Bert Gray also in attendance. The Blyth Lions Club also held its annual children’s Halloween party. Games were played and treats were enjoyed and prizes were awarded for best costumes in various different age groups. Mrs. Mansel Cook of Colborne Twp. was hospitalized after a motor vehicle collision Oct. 29. Cook and the members of her family were travelling in the car when the car “turned turtle” on a road turn. Cook was cut behind the ear and received 15 stitches as a result of the incident. Mr. Cook and the couple’s son Raymond were injured, but not seriously, while the couple’s infant child, who was sitting on Mrs. Cook’s knee, escaped injury completely. The veterans’ parade and Memorial Day service in Blyth was scheduled to take place on Nov. 11. It was requested that veterans wear berets, while medals were optional. November 14, 1968 The Warden’s banquet was held to honour the retiring warden of Huron County, Calvin Krauter of Brussels. Nearly 300 people attended the banquet. Krauter was presented with a painting of a scene in Paris in appreciation for his year of service. The following morning, Mr. and Mrs. Krauter entertained guests at their home for a family breakfast party. The Brussels Legion helds its annual Remembrance Day service at the village cenotaph on Nov. 11. The service’s address was given by Rev. D. Docken of Duff’s United Church in Walton. November 14, 1990 Slippery conditions and several motor vehicle collisions were blamed on the first winter storm of the season, with incidents in the area on Nov. 11 and Nov. 12. The first collision occurred when a Wingham man was driving eastbound on County Road 16 on the west edge of Brussels when his car slid into the opposite lane, striking a pick-up truck that was being driven by a Teeswater man. The second incident took place in the early morning hours as a tractor-trailer, driven by a New Hamburg man, jack-knifed on Hwy. 4, just south of Belgrave. The Huronview North project, scheduled for Brussels, received verbal approval and The Citizen reported that it would only be a matter of time until it received written approval for construction. Debate was taking place at the Huron County Council table in regards to raising the county speed limits to 90 kilometres per hour. People on both sides of the argument made their cases at the Nov. 8 meeting of Huron County Council. Representatives from Grey Twp. Council and Clinton Council wrote letter opposing the change. The issue was then raised that police officers in the area wouldn’t stop a vehicle for going 10 kilometres over the speed limit, resulting in several councillors stating that a move like this would effectively raise the speed limit by 20 kilometres per hour. November 6, 2008 Blyth Festival Artistic Director Eric Coates announced that he would be honouring the past for the Festival’s 35th season, bringing in some of the old and some of the new, both on stage and behind the scenes for the Festival’s 2009 season. The Mail Order Bride would return to the Festival, along with its original Blyth director, Katherine Kaszas, who directed the 1980s production. Coates also planned to bring back the previous year’s runaway hit Innocence Lost: A Play About Stephen Truscott. Brussels native, Corporal Blair Davidson, son of Doug and Linda, began his six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, leaving just a few weeks earlier for Kandahar City. In his last communication with his family, he told them he was working in the medical records department, but a message to his sister indicated that he may have moved to the hospital. Former Huron-Bruce MP Paul Steckle took the time to look back on his years of service in Huron- Bruce, after retiring from the political ranks just weeks earlier, giving way to the newly-elected Ben Lobb of the Holmesville area. Steckle said he was proud of what he had accomplished over the years and wouldn’t take anything back. He said he still had some issues that he would have liked to work on, but that it was time to step aside. Collection points were closed as of Nov. 1 for Bicycles for Humanity, as the group had reached its target of 400 bicycles and was ready to move onto the next phase of fundraising. The target for the shipping costs was $12,000. 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 Participation sadly declining It was a sign of the times last week when the Huron County Federation of Agriculture held its annual meeting in Holmesville and several of the directors’ positions went unfilled. Those with long memories can remember when there were elections for executive posts with this organization with more than one candidate seeking each office. Then came the time when it took a nominating committee to fill the slate. Now even the nominating committee is coming up with blanks. It’s not just the Federation of Agriculture, of course. Lack of participation is a common problem in both urban and rural parts of our community. The same people end up rotating through the offices of many organizations, not because they desire power, but because if they don’t take the office, it will go unfilled and the organization may die. We can’t go on this way. Our rural society has been based on the willingness of a wide sector of our people to take their turn in shouldering the responsibility to take leadership roles. Somewhere along the way, we’ve adapted a city way of thinking that someone else will do the work and we’ll just be consumers of the services other volunteers, or our governments, provide. The problem is we won’t have those services if everybody adopts the same “let the other guy do it” attitude. It starts with you. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. Get involved to make your community a better place. If you don’t, things will only get worse. — KR High expectations are costly As the cost of providing healthcare (estimates put the annual cost at $5,600 for every man, woman and child) takes up more and more of government resources at the expense of other programs, attempts to cap costs become more and more desperate. Last week a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information suggested that the fee-for-service method of paying doctors was driving up costs without necessarily improving care for patients. The thought is that doctors may recommend more appointments, more tests and more surgeries because they get paid for each consultation or operation. But doctors must get paid somehow. If they don’t get well enough compensated in Ontario we’ll see a return to the brain drain of doctors seeking big paycheques south of the border. As big a part of the problem is the growing sense that the health system should right all the wrongs that happen to people’s bodies. There are calls for expansion of free treatment of all kinds of medical conditions. For these people, medicare should pay for things like fertility treatments or the very best drugs, no matter how expensive. Medicare was invented to save people from economic disaster if they became ill and to give people better overall health care. If we want to expand its reach beyond these basics, we need to be prepared to pay more taxes. Nothing comes for free. — KR How quickly things change There’s a game television pundits like to play whenever there’s downtime in election night coverage. “Experts” are asked to look ahead and predict how the election results will shape the future. Two years ago amid the euphoria of Barack Obama’s election as U.S. president, the talking heads were speculating on the dismal future of the Republican party. Two years later, on the heels of a massive swing toward the Republicans in both houses of the Congress, they’re predicting dire things for the Democrats. Public opinion can change so quickly, particularly under the constant bombardment of attack ads and negative commentary that’s become part of life in the U.S. Caught in the sticky web of a recession that began under his predecessor but won’t go away, Obama’s popularity quickly eroded. The foolishness of those predictions should remind us all not to be tempted to project current trends too far into the future. — 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.