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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 ..,••111101101111.19111110.11151A1r. 00' 114. 0 0 • 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?