HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1979-06-27, Page 2WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1979
Serving Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
By McLean Bros. Publishers Limited
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising
Member. Canadian Community Newspaper Association and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
Subscriptions (m advance) Canada $10.00 a Year.
Others $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each,
Cam
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READY FOR TAKE-OFF—Entrants in the chariot races at Brussels
fairgrounds on Sunday lined up for the races and the horses were off and
running almost before the starter said they could go.
(Brussels Post photo)
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston What does it mean?
July 1 is almost here, and with that Canada Day celebration should
go a spirit of patriotism, happiness and good will toward fellow men.
But, in a country that is increasingly divided, especially over the
issue of Quebec separation, it seems as if Canada is splitting at the
seams instead of unifying its differences and becoming the peaceul,
neutral country it once was.
That spirit of patriotism seemed to be here in 1967 when Bobby
Gimby had little children singing Canada, We Love Thee bilingually.
And nobody seemed to mind the fact that the children spoke some
rench in the song. It was just a pleasant part of Canadian culture.
Today some parents rush to yank their children out of school if they
think the poor things are going to be forced to learn French. And doing
so could be detrimental to that child's chances of getting certain types
of jobs in the future. Do these parents think of the consequences of
such an act or do they care only about their animosity towards
Quebeckers?
When Lee Trevino won the Canadian Open Golf Championship on
Sunday the man presenting the award did the courtesy of speaking
both French and English and was booed for his efforts. And usually
when people speak both French and English in Quebec they are booed
as well.
Whatever happened to that spirit that built this country as province
after province joined until the total of all the provinces became known
finally as the country of Canada? With the provinces bickering back
and forth that spirit seemingly has disappeared with the sentimentality
of 1967.
Just what does July 1, Canada Day, 1979 mean in Canada now?
Brussels Post
Those who study these things say that
every system holds the seeds of its own
destruction and one can't help wonder
about the future of our Western society
which periodically seems bent on destroy-
ing itself.
Our western European and North Amer-
ican societies have been built in the last
few hundred years on conflict. Our judicial
system, our political system, our economic
system are all designed around the
adversary system. Given these circum-
stances it's a wonder we have survived and
prospered as long. as we have.
C.B.C. television Sunday night present-
ed a look at the labour situation that
explored this adversary system in labour
relations. That labour and management
should have grown into enemies is only
natural. The labour movement grew out of
a need for united action to fight appalling
working conditions imposed by employers
who had grown too big and too powerful.
These bosses didn't want to co-operate
with their employees. They enjoyed their
power and their huge incomes that allowed
them the lifestyles previously enjoyed only
by royalty. The workers had to fight, often
physically, to get a decent break.
But that was for the most part a half
century ago. Times have changed and one
might have expected labour relations to
have changed with it. In Canada, however
we're in a time when we have more strikes
than ever in history and one of the worst
labour relations records in the world.
Labour leaders are never so happy as when
they get an opportunity such as the Fleck
strike at Centralia to prove that the bad old
days really haven't gone and there's
justification for sticking with the old
"Them against Us" thinking of the past.
And many company managers are just as
bad.
Union-management relations aren't that
way everywhere, in fact not even all
relationships are like that in Canada.
There are cases where union and manage-
ment do co-operate. There are cases where
the workers have a say in the running of
the business through special committees.
There are places where workers are also
shareholders. There are places where
workers have taken over failing companies
and put them back on their feet.
Yet despite the apparent attractiveness
of such arrangements most unionists look
on them not as something to work toward,
but as something to run away from.
They're used to the old adversary system
and they'd like to keep on those familiar
grounds. Likewise they don't want to get
into co-operative ventures like apprentite
ship programs to allow us to train more
skilled workers in. Canada instead of having
to import them. Unions, in short, were a
solution to a short-term problem that have
become a long term institution.
There's danger in the farming commun-
ity of this history being repeated. Farm
marketing boards were a very necessary
tool for farmers to get a decent break in the
market place. Marketing boards however
are not a long term solution. They have
problems not just for angry consumers but
more importantly for farmers, particularly
younger farmers trying to break into the
business but hampered by not only high
land and equipment costs but rules that
Make it necessary to buy quotas to be able
to produce in many commodities. They also
limit food production at a time when many
people in the world are going hungry.
Our economic system is based on the
adversary system, on the premise that the
smartest bargainer will get the best deal
and that we're all sharp bargainers. Thus
we have the day of huge sellers being met
by powerful consumer groups and a
constant fight being waged between the
two.
Our legal system is also an adversary
system with each side having lawyers
ready to go out and argue a point just for
the sake of taking sides. Often lawyers
don't even have to believe in the case
they're fighting, they do it because it's the
nature of their profession.
And of course we're all only too familiar
with the workings of the adversary system
in our government with one side being
given the title of the Loyal Opposition. It
often seems that if one patty in Parliament .
said that the world was round the other
side would force an emergency debate for
the next three days to argue it was flat.
All of which has been going on for
hundreds of years, of coursei so it's nothing
new. But in this age of mass communi-
cations all this hostility is given a higher
profile. It often seems that we're sur-
rounded, submersed even, in conflict. It
exerts a pressure on those of us in modern
society that can't help but affect our lives.
Given long years of this kind of conflict-.
induced ppessure things have got to start
going wrong In out society. We've seen
that in recent years with the "nie
generation", a generation that says "to
hell with everybody else, i°u1 going to look
out for number one."
The Solution, of Oast, Is to change out
Y , sloWly but surely to Involve lobs
Conflict arid rnOre to-Operittlon. The prob.
lem is, do we have the will to change?