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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1979-09-26, Page 29114111114 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1979 ONTARIO 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 N ew'spaper Association Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a Year. Others $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each. oi401•01 COmm u.,,t • 40 BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1979 Brussels Post Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley 1 It's unique Something unique is being established in Huron County. That something unique will be the improved Hullett Wildlife Management Area. The benefits of having such an area are obvious. People will be able to enjoy seeing nature first hand by observing the ducks in sanctuary. The wildlife area will also be a hunter's paradise but it is to be hoped that hunters will not spoil the area for others by trying to shoot more than their limit. It will also be educational for school students to learn about the area's water control method and for them to see the ducks in their natural habitat. Providing a place for hunting could prove some threat to rural land use and atmosphere but perhaps things can be adjusted to the lifestyles of both hunter and farmer. Areas like this one can be of benefit to everyone as both educational and entertaining. When it has been completed it is to be hoped that people will treat it as such and not use it as just one more place to abuse. gqS,S, Brussels Public School students were first prize winning marchers Boy, the world is in some mess today, isn't it? With two world wars in this century, and the oceans of blood shed in them, not to mention the limited wars in Korea and Wet Nam, you'd think mankind would come to its senses, sit back and say, "Hey, chaps. Enough is enough. Let's sit back, cultivate our own gardens, and have a few centuries of peace and friendship. Let's relax a little, try to make sure everybody has at least two squares a day, stop burning up irreplaceable energy, and make love, not war." Not a chance. All over this planet people are starving, shooting, burning, blowing up, raping, mutilating, and demonstrating, all in the name of some non-existent ideal, such as freedom, or nationalism, or language, or religion, or color. And nobody is making a nickel out of it all, except the purveyors of weapons. All over the world, in vast areas of Asia, Africa and South American particularly, there are probably 300 times more refugees, orphans and just plain starving people than there were at the beginning of this century of enlightenment. World War 1, with its millions of dead, produced a bare decade and a half of peace. It also signalled the beginning of the end of the fairly fair and benevolent British Empire, allowed the beginning of the massive international communism, and by its punitive peace terms, laid the foundations for World War 11. That one produced as little, or less. It vaulted Russia and the U.S. into the great confrontation that has been going on ever since. It wrote finis to the British Empire and reduced that sturdy people to a drained, impoverished, third-class power. It split Europe down the middle between two philosophies, communism and capital- ism. It launched on the world the final weapon by which mankind could write kaput to his own species. Has it smartened anybody up? Not exactly. Today we have Iranians beating on Kurds, Chinese glaring at Russians, Cambodians hammering Laotians, blacks fighting blacks all over Africa, Jews and Palestinians toeing off, dictatorships in South America, India in turmoil, revolution in Central America, Irishmen blowing up each other with giddy abandon, old Uncle 'rom Cobley and all. We don't seem to learn much, do we? The United Nations, a noble idea, conceived with a touch of the greatness, man can aspire to, is a joke, albeit an expensive one, merely a political sounding- board for every new pipsqueak nation that wants some publicity, along with plenty of foreign aid. The U.S., which emerged from W.W. II as a great, powerful and wealthy nation, has been terribly weakened, chiefly by its external affairs policies, or lack of them, and the meddling in foreign affairs of the notorious CIA. It had its shining moments; the Marshall Plan to put devastated Europe back on its feet; Kennedy's showdown with Kruschev over the Cuban missiles instalment; an attempt to make a better deal for blacks in their own country. But these were flawed by other events and attitudes; the backing of right-wing dictators around the world; the loss of face in Korea; the treatment of Cuba; the meddling in the affairs of other nations;, the fairly indiscriminate supplying of arms to anybody who could pay for them; and finally, the abortive, badly-burned-fingers mess of Viet Nam. At home right now, the States has a rattier panicky President, growing inflation and unemployment, belligerent blacks and hardline unions, and a recession on the horizon. Abroad, 'it has lost a great deal of credibility, and seems to be pushed around by anybody who has plenty of oil. American imperialism is coming home to roost, and there are a lot of vultures among the roosters. Cuba is an out-spoken enemy. Mexico, sitting on a huge oil deposit, is cool, considering past grievances. The Philippines are gone. Japan and Germany, the losers in W.W. II, are the winners in the economic war. The U.S. dollar is no longer the international monetary stand- ard. The Panama Canal is going.. But let's not forget the tremendous power that lies in the great, half-stunned nation of the Western hemisphere, the U.S. of America. The giant may be slumbering, having nightmares, twitching in his sleep. But he's far from dead. There is still a great, latent vitality in the States. With strong leadership, and a renewed sense of purpose, the Yanks can make a tremendous comeback, as they have proven more than once. For our sakes, they'd better. Despite what our ubiquitous nationalists blather, Canada is riding on the coat-tails of the U.S., and you'd better believe it. If they suffer, we suffer. If they bleed, we hemmorhage. Let's not give it away: our gas and oil and water and hydro power. Let's trade shrewdly, like a Yankee. But let's not get mean and stingy and narrow, either. Let's be neighbourly. For the simple fact is, that if Canadians get all upright and righteous and miserly, refusing to share, they could walk in and take over this country and help themselves. And nobody, nobody in the world, would lift a finger to stop them. End of Sermon. Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston Excitement in Newfoundland ' There's a new air of excitement in Newfoundland these days we're told. Even though the reports of the oil strike when announced last week were not as optimistic as the rumours Newfoundlanders for the first time in many years are feeling confident about the future. ' The easterners may finally have their day of glory after three 'decades of being nothing more than Newfie jokes. Despite the official statements on the oil find rumours persist that it may be the biggest find in Canadian history. Likewise people in Nova Scotia are also looking forward to good news from offshore drilling. People here in Ontario, long used to being the most prosperous part of Ontario are suddenly feeling a little left out. ,If one takes the pronouncements of the Provincial government here in Ontario as indicative of the feelings of the people of the province, one gets the impression that Ontarians are not too thrilled at being left behind. We hear Premier Davis and members of the Cabinet lamenting regu- larly that Alberta should share the wealth just as Onthrio did in years past. One can olmost hear the gales of laughter echoing _ down from the West where for years they have felt that the odds were stacking in favour of the rich east and the easterners weren't about to change them to give their western brothers an even break. The switch in the economic geography of the country seems to be one. Peter C. Newman, editor of Maclean's Magazine said in an. interview last week that Montreal is nothing but a branch office city instead of the once-powerful metropolis it once was. Even Toronto' is losing to Calgary as the.financial giant of the nation. As one of those from Ontario who's supposed to be getting left behind in the economic dust, I'm not at all in agreement with Premier Davis in his view that these are dark days (I haven't agreed with him on anything else so why start now.) While I'd hate to see Premier Lougheed turn Alberta into a country within a country, hoarding all the wealth to himself, I think it's in the best interests of the whole country that Edmonton and Calgary now are as import- ant in the economic scheme of things as Toronto and Montreal. If an east coast off-shore oil boom can do the same for St. John's then so much the better. As long as one area of the country has a huge advanthge economically over another the country Can never be strong. Petty jealousies and even hatred can brew when. the havenots do without for long periods of time. Sharing the wealth is much better and not in terms of handouts from one province to another but in terms of natural cycles of economic history where one section of the country has the economic clout for a while and then another has it. As long as southern Ontario is the .ultural and economic leader of Canada the chances of the country developing a true identity are small. It takes only a glance at a map to show 'how little relation we in our part of the country have to the rest of Canada. We're a little island nearly completely surrounded by the U.S. The country as a while is northern although southern Ont- ario, so long the dominant section of the country, has little of the same climate as the rest of the nation. While Edmonton and Calgary have perhaps even stronger Amer- ican influence than Toronto, a shift to the north, away from the American border may help give Canadians a different outlook on their own country. Likewise Newfoundland with its unique culture can add a great deal to the country if the offshore oil strike give the province more economic influence in Canada. The prospect of momentum shifting away from the golden horseshoe are Around Toronto should be welcomed by, those concerned about preserving agri- cultural land. That land .is Ontario's greatest asset. As long as we have the best farmland in the country we need never fear being a havenot province. Yet as long as urban growth continues we are under- mining that security -by eating up the most precious resource, one that can't be replaced. If industry and business begin to locate in Edmonton, Calgary and St. John's because of the new economic realities of the nation it may do what farm groups and conservationists have failed to do, to save Ontario farmland from urban encroach- ment. Ontarians have no reason to resent the new prosperity that Alberta is enjoying and Newfoundland May have coming. We've had, our turn at the top. Even if we're passed by there isn'st much doubt that things will still be prosperous enough here that we won't be on the dole. We have too many things going for us in Ontarid to become one of the poor provinces, We may not be the richest but we'll be far from the bottom of the heap even if Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia join Alberta in oil riches. Mr. Davis and others should stop grumbling and celebrate what may be the healthiest development in the country in this century.