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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2009-01-29, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2009.EditorialsOpinions Publisher, Keith Roulston Editor, Bonnie GroppAdvertising, Ken Warwick & Lori Patterson The CitizenP.O. Box 429,BLYTH, Ont.N0M 1H0Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152,BRUSSELS, Ont.N0G 1H0Phone 887-9114 FAX 887-9021E-mail norhuron@scsinternet.comWebsite www.northhuron.on.ca Looking Back Through the Years 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 thecondition that in the event of a typographical error,only that portion of the advertisement will becredited.Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth.PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40050141PAP REGISTRATION NO. 09244RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 152 BRUSSELS ON N0G 1H0 email: norhuron@scsinternet.com Letter to the editor Jan. 28, 1965 Morris Twp. School Board met in the public school at Brussels. J. Elston, G. McCutcheon and R. Elliott were elected as trustees for a two-year term, while J. Stewart and C. Haines will serve for one. James Shaw was chairman of the school board, while Ralph Shaw would serve as secretary- treasurer. The Brussels Horticultural Society elected its new slate of officers: president, Mrs. Carl Hemingway; vice-president, Mrs. D.A. Rann; second vice-president, Mr. A. Knight and secretary- treasurer, Mrs. E. Shurrie. Dorothy Elliott, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. O. Elliott of Brussels, won first place in the Grade 7/8 public speaking competition sponsored by the Wingham Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. Seven new Brownies were enrolled in Brussels by Captain Gertie Kellington. They were: Kim Sullivan, Susie Speir, Julie Hanna, Lori McCutcheon, Joyce Pearson and Dianne Thomas. The new president of the Morris Twp. Federation of Agriculture was Ted Fear. There was dancing every Saturday night at the Legion Memorial Home, formerly Parkview Gardens in Listowel. This week, music was by the Ken Wilbee Orchestra. At the Lyceum Theatre in Wingham the feature was Captain Newman, MD, starring Gregory Peck, Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson and Bobby Darin. Due to increased costs, Cousins Dairy found it necessary to raise the price of milk. Also they were advertising a new product 2% homogenized. A quart of regular milk would now cost 25 cents while 2% was 22 cents and skim was 18 cents a quart. The design for Canadian’s Centennial symbol had been chosen. The stylized maple leaf was composed of 11 equilateral triangles arranged to form a symbolic maple leaf. Robert Weigel was the new Fuller Brush man for Brussels and area. Jan. 23, 1974 Doug Lawless, former principal of Walton Public School was appointed director of the Educational Resources Allocation System by Education Minister Douglas Thomas Wells of the Ministry of Education. Lawless was a former inspector of public schools in Norfolk County and served as superintendent of public schools and assistant director of education for the Burlington board. He moved to Ottawa in 1970 where he became director of education. Lawless was married to the former Dorothy Turnbull, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Turnbull. Residents who looked closely at The Blyth Standard would notice a difference in appearance. The difference was due to the latest addition to the staff, Myrtle. Myrtle weighed about 400 puonds and just sat in the corner humming, all day. The computer went into operation at the newspaper the beginning of the week and its real name was Compuwriter. The machine was a computerized photographic typesetter. Jan. 22, 1986 Optimism for the future dominated the Brussels council meeting with a number of agenda items pointing to economic growth. First was the purchaser of the former Master Plastics building who planned to renovate the building for stores and apartments. Another local businessperson was looking to create space in an existing commercial enterprise to rent to small businesses. Council also heard a request regarding the purchase of property for an industrial park. Hessie Kipfer was the new postmistress at Blyth. County council was considering construction of a road to take traffic around Ball’s Bridge. After two years off, Kevin Wheeler of Brussels was back skating and with his new partner Michelle Menzies of Halifax, placingthird in the central divisional skating championships in Sudbury. The pair began skating together in August, 1985. Jan. 24, 1996 Brussels Neighbourhood Watch was underway. Through the fundraising efforts of the Blyth Snow Travellers, the Blyth Fire Department had a rescue sled for use in rough terrain, summer and winter. The sled could be towed by snowmobile or ATV with wheels attached, to areas not accessible by larger vehicles. A very familiar stop along County Road 25 in Auburn had taken on a new look and name. John and Heather Verwey and Teresa Godfrey were the new owners and managers of Stickers, formerly Sabos. The Huron County Board of Education approved motions to change the boundaries for area secondary schools. F.E. Madill’s boundary would be expanded to include all of Brussels, Lots 1-0, Conc. 11 of Grey Twp. and the Graham Survey. Busing to CHSS would now include Lot 34, Conc. 2 and Lots 28-35, Conc. 1, East Wawanosh and Lots 36-44, Conc. 14, Hullett. THE EDITOR, The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), speaking for Ontario farmers, is reminding the federal government of the industry’s needs as final preparations are made for next week’s federal budget. We have contacted Agriculture Minister Ritz outlining funding promises from recent months, including the last election campaign, and we expect a favourable response from the budget. Agriculture in Ontario makes a huge contribution to the country’s economy and we need sound and prudent investment by the federal government to grow that contribution.” A recent letter to Minister Ritz referred to the annual payment of $100 million to address increasing production costs. Those costs continue to increase, and farmers are still waiting for the government to meet its commitment. There is also a need to extend emergency advances to the cattle and hog sectors for another year; Canadian society is awaiting needed revisions to food labelling regulations so consumers can determine where the food they are buying is produced. The letter to the minister reminded him that the final payments under the CAIS Inventory Transition Initiative and the Kickstart Initiative, $900 million and $600 million respectively, have not been provided to farmers. OFA knows the government has been hearing from municipal leaders about the need for infrastructure funding. Our farm businesses rely on sound infrastructure to help drive the rural economy, The OFA wants assurance that rural Ontario gets its fair share of needed infrastructure spending. Betty Jean Crews, OFA president THE EDITOR, I would like to commend our village workers for doing such a superb job regarding snow removal. They start at 3 a.m. and sometimes work until 3 p.m. We are very fortunate in having this excellent service. They should not be taken for granted for a job well done. The streets in other towns don’t look as good as ours. Lois van Vliet We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs. We are not responsible for unsolicited newsscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright Do we trust democracy? Come Remembrance Day every year, many words are written and spoken about the young people who gave their lives to preserve our democracy. Yet for the rest of the year one has to wonder if we really believe in this right we thank them for. First of all, of course, there’s the fact a large proportion of our popu- lation doesn’t think democracy is important enough to inconvenience themselves for a few minutes in order to cast a vote in national, provincial and local elections. But it goes further than that. Last Thursday night Huron County Pork Producers quizzed Elmer Buchanan, interim chair of the Farm Products Marketing Commission, about why his commission didn’t hold a plebiscite of all producers before it decided to strip the Ontario Pork Producers Marketing Board of its right to control all sales of market hogs in the province, a right that was a hard-fought victory for producers way back in 1946. Buchanan said a startling thing, when you consider he’s a former agricultural minister in the NDP government of Bob Rae. Who, he asked, should have the right to vote if there had been a plebiscite. Was a person with three sows or who raises and sells a few feeder pigs a year a real producer? Was it really democratic to let people who don’t make their living from pork production have a vote? Shocked producers questioned whatever happened to the concept of one person, one vote. Buchanan, however, was expressing opinions that have been heard at pork producers’ meetings for years: the sense that there are “real” producers, a minority of the total number who produce a majority of the pigs, and then there are the other producers who shouldn’t really be given the same weight in decision-making. There’s also the reality, never spoken, that if all pork producers got to vote, the majority might not have yielded the desired result: reform of pork marketing to please the large producers and the processing industry. This same kind of thinking has also been behind the federal government’s unrelenting attempts to get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board. In elections last fall, the majority of producers elected wheat board representatives that were clearly in favour of continuing the wheat board’s monopoly, frustrating yet again the federal government’s attempt to deliver change requested by a minority of producers. Then there’s the never-ending attempts of municipal and county governments to “streamline” their councils, always by reducing the number of representatives. It’s much easier to come to a decision if there are fewer points of view expressed, but what if those viewpoints that are no longer being heard happened to be the right ones, the ones that can save a council from making a terrible mistake? You want efficiency? Why not go to a one-person council? There will be very little time wasted in debate, even if the dictator is making a wrong decision. Democracy is messy, often inconvenient and, yes, sometimes inefficient. But as Winston Churchill once said, it’s the worst form of government except for all the others. — KR &