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Home My WebLink AboutTimes-Advocate, 1978-08-31, Page 4Times-Advocate, August 31, 1978Page 4 r-w-rg ♦ -g1 hink small Hlext logical step Beggar your Neighbour What about seat belts in school buses? There has been a recent murmur in the Ontario Legislature to have regulations made requiring the in stallation of seat belts in school buses and making their use compulsory. As most of us know, substantial reductions in deaths and injuries on the highway have taken place as the result of seat belt legislation passed more than two and a half years ago. Now the question is being asked: should not these benefits be extended to the 600,- 000 school children in Ontario who are transported each school day in buses? There is no doubt that school buses have had a good safety record across One of the hardest things with which a graduate of a community college or university has to cope is the prospect of not finding a job. The practice of a student selecting a course simply because it suits his or her fancy has resulted in large numbers of graduates in areas where there are very few jobs. The teaching profession is one which has had its ups and downs. In the past decade or so, large numbers of general arts students at universities have opted for the world of teaching, citing excellent pay and good working conditions as reasons for their choice. The time has come, however, when there just isn’t the demand for teachers that there once was. The On tario Public School Men Teachers’ Federation knows this and is looking out for its members who can’t find work in their profession. At its annual assembly, being held this week in Toronto, the federation will debate a resolution that would see establishment of a service to provide legal and employment assistance to jobless members. The service would also distribute information on teacher vacancies across the province and would help teachers trying to relocate in another area. Experience should help There’s an old saying that used to hound Richard Nixon - the famous, “Would you buy a used car from this man?” It’s a saying that Frank Miller, Ontario’s new provincial treasurer, has also heard on occasion before he entered the legislature, Mr. Miller used to make his living selling used cars: The used car business is credited with teaching Mr. Miller something about survival in the real world. Sur vival skills are probably the major prerequisite for anyone who tackles the responsibility of handling the government’s pursestrings, on either the provincial or federal level. In the past, finance ministers have tended to have shorter reigns than their counterparts in the other portfolios. Remember the Honorable John Turner, the man touted as Canada’s next prime minister? Well, although his political career is hardly totally eclipsed yet, Mr. Turner’s stint as Minister of Finance led to his withdrawal from the political arena in order to salvage some of his populari ty. Then of course there was Donald McDonald, another veteran member of the House of Commons who decided to retire from politics after a period of handling Canada’s finances. Only time will tell whether Jean Chretien will be able to survive the cabinet post any Times Established 1873 ( I inies - SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C.W.N.A., O.W.N.A. CLASS ’A' and ABC Published by J. W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind iPhone 235-U31 (♦CNA SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 the Province; but it is pointed out that safety habits, including the use of seat belts, are formed at an early age. The absence of belts in these buses breaks a habit which may contribute to in difference concerning their uses when the young later become drivers and passengers in automobiles. Seat belts and padded safety seats in school buses would appear to be the next logical move in the advancement of highway safety in our Province. It seems unfortunate that the segment of our population being by-passed in this regard is the young and im pressionable. Let us hope that action to over come this is introduced and adopted soon. Federation president George Meek doesn’t feel entirely comfortable in his new role, but knows something has to be done. “We have a responsibility to all our members, not just those in the classroom now,” Meek says. “Obvious ly we would prefer that this type of ser vice wasn’t necessary. But surplus and redundancies are a fact of life and we have to help teachers cope with them.” And while the men’s federation is doing its part, the ministry of colleges and universities is taking action to en sure that student numbers are limited in programs for which there is limited employment potential. “Enrolment quotas are being strictly enforced for these popular programs while places remain un filled in other programs,” according to a committee reviewing college ad missions, policies, standards and selec tion procedures. We can only say that the actions by the men’s teachers’ federation and the ministry are moves in the right direc tion. After all, its a waste of a valuable resource to have a qualified, trained person in the unemployment line when a little foresight might have prevented the situation. Peterborough Review better than his predecessors. On the provincial level, Darcy McKeough has fared a little better. The Chatham-area politician managed to survive a conflict of interest scandal some years ago and bounced right back into politics. He was the man most peo ple hailed as the successor to Premier William Davis. In the last two years however, even things in Canada’s wealthiest province haven’t been quite so rosy. Mr. McKeough had to withdraw his original proposal for a hefty O.H.I.P. increase and the municipal tax reform he had been advocating for some time has been temporarily abandoned, ap parently at the urging of Premier Davis. McKeough, who might easily have waited another decade in the wings before William Davis steps down from Ontario’s top job has decided to pursue his fiscal policies in the private sector. Frank Miller is a brave man to step into the breech. The finance portfolio, even for a former car salesman, can’t help to create headaches in these days of inflation and a shaky economic out look. If Frank Miller can survive the • duties of Treasurer of Ontario, then he’ll prove himself a better man that many of the other veteran politicians who havetackled'the job. Huron Expositor Advocate Established 1 881 Advocate J Amalgamated 1924 Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Clan Mail Registration Number 0386 BATT’N AROUND .......... with the editor There is a place to stand A place to stand and a place to grow...and they call that place On tario! If you happened to be among the throngs at the Toronto CNE or even the Zurich Bean Festival over the past week, you may dispute the words of the provincial song, but for those of us who spent the time roaming around through the hills, lakes and forests near Elliott Lake, there certainly was plenty of space in which to stand. One’s inbred pioneer instinct rises to the surface in the wilderness and you soon reach the conclusion that while you are not the first person by any means to set foot in the northern bush, you no doubt walk on ground over which no other person has traversed. It’s a great place to get away from it all, despite the fact we were only 30 minutes from Ontario’s fastest grow ing community. However, there were no telephones, no newspapers and perhaps best of all, no television. This naturally required some pre trip planning in view of the need to entertain five kids for a week, but it was found that some lively games of cards, Monopoly and a couple of good books did suffice to pass the evening hours and even one full day of rain when getting out of the cabin was im possible. An added treat was the discovery of a nearby blueberry patch and meals were finished off with a large bowl of the sweet delicacies in amounts that are impossible at the going rate of 99<t per half pint. * * * From the foregoing, readers no doubt will assume that the Battens and Fullers had nothing short of a great time in the bush. Well, not quite. First of all, our cottage was equipped with a humus toilet. The technology in volved is supposed to break down the refuse through the introduction of bacteria and heat. We say supposed to, because our humus toilet was nothing less than an outdoor toilet sitting in one room in the cottage, which unfor tunately could only be entered through a doorway which also provided an es cape for the odors. Our 10-year-old summed it up quite well when he said it had all the advan It's been a losing battle For the past three years, I’ve been fighting (and losing) a war which I call the Great Battle of Necktie. I believe in a neck unfettered by the choking confinement of a chunk of silk or polyester. These useless cloth appen dages cramp my style, not to mention my fragile esophagus. They drag in my goulash at dinner, flap in my face while I’m humming along on my ten-speed, and offer an open invitation to whichever one of my 6’5” students wants to garroutte me for the E-term test I’ve just returned to him. Unfortunately, my employer and his superiors don’t agree with my views on the liberated neck. I walked naively into work on the first day, collar open, spirits high, and was promptly in formed of the Eleventh Commandment — Thou shalt not offend mine eyes by allowing thy throat to appear ungar nished in my presence; nor shalt thou sport turtlenecks, which vex me sore ly; and lest thou wish to feel the fiery lash of Unemployment, thou shalt not allow the blashemous blue denim to adorn they person. This accompanied by the roar of thunder, the slash of lightning, and a horrifying vision of my lovely contract in flames. The score after the first skirmish: Haberdashers a », e e tages (??) of an outdoor toilet except the benefit of the fresh air that keeps those one-holers tolerable for their oc? cupants. When we arrived home, everyone quickly headed for the john and spent several happy moments merely flushing the toilet. ’ * * * Another near catastrophe was a visit to Cobre Lake, a spot where we had been assured the speckled trout would be eagerly awaiting our bait. What we found were a large number of minnows who delighted in stripping worms from our hooks in quick order. After a fruitless hour of feeding min nows and snagging fallen timbers, it was decided to continue the march along the path around the lake. That appeared to be a reasonable suggestion at the time, but the problem was that it was soon determined that the path in fact did not lead all the way around the lake.. The happy band of hikers was soon confronted with the slippery Terrain of a northern bush, being forced to slip and slide through, around and over dense vegetation. To say that the task was made more difficult by carrying seven-foot fishing poles, tackle boxes and cans of worms would be un derstatement. It wasn’t lpng before our seven-year- old rebelled. He politely sat down and announced he was going no farther. While father suggested we tramp on and force him to follow, his kind- hearted mother decided she would not force the issue and would retrace her steps back to our original point of departure. Father reluctantly joined in, climbing a mountain along the way in the hope of finding a track. There’s nothing like mountain climbing to prove oneself to be extremely out of condition. So, we trudged the three miles back along the lake, while our more adven turesome chohorts continued the other way, ending up traversing a two-foot path along a rocky 30-foot cliff that led to some rather white faces. Their reward was a tour of a deserted mine shaft, where an abundance of ice was discovered along with a few interesting rocks that weighted them down on the — 1, Roger (bloodied champion of human rights) —0. This whole thing smacks of the re appearance of the great god and teller of falsehoods, Outwardshow. I thought that the bluejeaned, longhaired troops of the Youthandtruth Army had laid his hideous corpse to rest after the hard- fought Battle of Hippie Junction, in the late 1960’s. But it appears that he has risen, phoenix-like, and is slinking about the land, appealing to the conser vative and the normal in all men. His insidious message is simply this: Clothes make the man. He of the neatly-coiffed head and the smartly- tailored-for-today’s man-on-the-go- three-piece vested suit is superior and preferable to he of the unkempt mane and tieless torso. The multitudes will respect the former, and he shall rise to dizzying heights; the latter will be as loved as a pint of prune juice in a dysentary ward and he will go nowhere fast in the world of Big Business. Pardon me, but— bunk! Let’s follow that linfe of reasoning for awhile. Imagine the following scene: Adolphe Hitler and Jesus Christ show up one night at your house, uninvited, for dinner. Adolphe is handsomely at tired in a new $300 pinstripe wool final leg of their journey. Father’s lone reward was the knowledge that he had not died, although he was looking about for some birch bark at the top of the mountain on which to write his last will and testa ment. * w ★ Another of the problems encountered was during a stop-over in Sudbury, when the family van was broken into and the thieves made off with Lossy Fuller’s luggage, as well as Jeff’s. This wasn’t discovered until we reached our destination and Lossy started looking for a change of clothes. Actually, readers would assume that such a misfortune would be a terrible blow, but strange as it may seem, Lossy has a penchant for losing her un derwear in Sudbury. On a trip a couple of years ago, her son dropped a few unmentionables while they were leaving a laundromat and the loss wasn’t discovered until it was too late to retrace their steps. However, most of their belongings were located this time by police and the daily chore of heading for the pile of rocks in front of the cabin to rinse out clothing was ended. To top it off, the fish weren’t biting very well (our lone entry was tossed into the minnow bucket and actually dwarfed by some of them) although Jack and the boys did manage to get us one bountiful feed that made the trip worthwhile. * * * The north is truly a place to stand...to stand and enjoy nature’s bounty. Even on rainy days, the clouds drifting on the tree tops and the mist rising, from the distant hills is a spine- tingling sight. The sunsets are colorful and ever changing, heralded by the woeful cries of the loons and the gentle lap of the waves upon the shore. Perhaps the loons aren’t really as crazy as their name implies! A long time ago, the well- known Fathers of Confedera tion agreed that, in future,all of Canada would stand to gether, sharing equally in the good and the bad. But some thing went wrong along the way and now the impover ished Maritimes are part of the same Confederation as wealthy Alberta and Ontario. Increasingly - and quite aside from the well-known sovereignty issue in Quebec — Confederation has become a matter of every province for itself. The noble concept of one for all andvall for one has gone by the boards. One example of the course we’re taking can be found in Quebec where, by provincial decree, it has been specified that construction workers from outside Quebec will not be permitted to work in that province unless it can be de termined that workers with similar skills are not available locally. Quebec’s action invited immediate response from Ontario which has introduc ed legislation barring Quebec tradesmen. Other regions can be expected to follow suit. But let’s not dump ail the blame on one province. Last year, for example, Ontario went shopping for new pub lic transit vehicles. The lowest bid came from MLW Worthington, a Quebec-based outfit — but the contract went to Ontario’s Hawker- Siddley at a higher price. Alberta, meanwhile, gives preferred status to its own contractors for pipeline con struction. Outside contrac tors get work only when there aren’t any local firms available. Manitoba stipulates that only Manitoba-based consult ing engineers be employed on nuclear generating plants there. Competent engineers from anywhere else in Cana da are out of luck. Thqn there are the inter provincial trucking wars where vehicles with out-of province license plates are pulled off the road by police. The examples of beggar- your-neighbour policies with in Confederation are almost endless. It’s impossible now to ignore the fact that Con federation just isn’t working out the way the Fathers plan ned it. The provincial leaders are to blame — but so is Ot tawa, which has failed to de- velopa comprehensive na tional development policy. The provincial ploys are bom out of frustration with an economy that has stagnated. There is an important les son here for Canadians. Al though we operate one of the world’s most open economies (more than half the goods coming into Canada pay no duty whereas the U.S., for example, taxes more than 90% of its imports), our trade representatives in the Geneva trade negotiations are talking about cutting ta riffs even further in exchange for non-tariff concessions from other countries. But agreement on tariffs is a relatively easily attained state, being nothing more than a matter of arguing over easily defined numbers. Non tariff barriers, on the other hand, are far more subtle and less readily defined. So, if we can’t cope with trade barriers within our own borders, how can our naive “boy scout’1 approach to international trade in Geneva accomplish anything of value? There’s a lesson on international trade to be found in our own inter provincial affairs. "Think small" Is an editorial , message from the Canadian 1 Federation of Independent * Business^') /—:------;-------------------------------------------- J ® ctown memory lane worsted suit, a pair of neat suede shoes, and an expensive tie with a tidy Windsor knot. Jesus, in contrast, sports only a simple cotton caftan, has dusty feet and open-toed sandals, and has (gasp — call the cops!) long hair and a beard. With me so far? If you adhere to Outwardshow’s dictum-orna ment is everything, character nothing — Jesus will end up eating burgers at McDonald’s and you’ll have a dinner guest who admires your lampshades and seems ungrateful when you tell him you don’t like pork. Can you conceive the idiotic situations the Appearance Is Reality belief might spawn? To be considered a worthy cleaning lady, Mrs. Magoo would have to do your hardwood floors in an evening gown. Local sanitary engineers would sling festering piles of refuse into the back of their Rolls Royce, being very careful not to get any on their tropical-weight leisure suits. The mechanic at your favorite garage might be adverse to fixing the transmission in your jaunty jalopy for fear he might sully his velvet tuxedo. 55 Years Ago Mr. Ed Harness left Wednesday for Windsor where he is opening up a retail produce business. Workmen are engaged in making alterations and redecorating the interior of the Jackson Mfg. Co. Mr. D. Watson & Son, of Wingham, are opening a grocery store in Exeter North in the old McTaggert store on the Lake Road. Mr. Fred Wells had the misfortune to have the middle finger of his left hand come in contact with a saw at the Ross-Taylor factory on Saturday last. He will be laid off work for a couple of weeks. 30 Years Ago Exeter Rutabaga Com pany’s new $80,000 plant at Exeter north will be ready to handle turnips this fall. A new four-cent stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of the achievement of responsible government in Canada has been issued. Elmer Campbell, R.R. 1 Exeter, of E.D.H.S. was awarded the school tuition scholarship up to $125 a year for two years for the County of Huron. From a 75-Ib. bag of potatoes sown in the spring, Aljoe Sanders has harvested 17’/2 bags. Aistubborn bushjire which for three days menaced thousands of acres of choice resort property in the Pinery has been quenched. 20 Years Ago Over 60 applications for subsidies on construction of farm ponds have been received by the Ausable River Conservation Authority, secretary Hal Hooke revealed this week. So far 30 have been constructed. Sixty children at Huron Park, RCAF Station, Cen tralia passed their “tadpole” test recently. Grand Bend Reeve James Dalton says the summer resort is “definitely in terested” in the city of London’s proposal to build a pipeline from Lake Huron. Town Council moved Monday night to meet the Ontario Water Resources Commission to begin an investigation into a sewage system. 15 Years Ago Frank Sheere, tailor at Walper’s Men’s Wear, was’ back on the job Monday following a dinner which' marked the completion of 60’ years at his craft, and all of; them in the same shop. He started learning the trade when he was 14 in the haber dashery then owned by W.W. Taman. The SHDHS board finally approved culottes but only after considerable difficulty. The board had a ruling requiring that all girls musti wear skirts so when some students showed up with the split skirts, Principal H.L. Sturgis requested the girls not wear them again until the board had a chance to discuss the matter. f The summer’s crisis over a shortage of nurses at South Huron Hospital is “more or; less” over but the situation will continue to be difficult, Superintendent Alice Claypole reported. She revealed at the Hospital I auxiliary meeting that the) four beds which had been , closed due to the shortage, would be reopened. I Bill Tuckey, Exeter, was : driving merrily along on his I tractor pulling a load of , baled straw to his farm. A . neighbour tried in vain to call to him from a field: alongside. But it wasn’t long ' before he felt an unusual » warmth on his back. The ? load had caught fire; how, no one knows. Firemen were J called to extinguish the blaze: and the grass fire which« resulted. (A positive offshoot — schools which were troubled by vandalism would have only to hang a tie in every window and not only would vandals not destroy the place, they’d rake the lawns and trim the hedges.) y Yes, folks, as much as I hate to admit it — it brings a lump to my throat to say it - old Outty is alive and Well. I do however have a new battle plan for the upcoming round of hostilities — my friend Chenier, the artist, is go- ng,it0 sijkscreen a tie on my hairy chest. No problem really, I’ll just pretend it’s mohair. 4-1."