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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1980-12-03, Page 2Ontarians, scorched by the fires of separatism from the east for nearly two decades can feel the heat coming from the other side these days as a new separatist movement grows in the west. Throughout the western provinces old grieVances have been fanned by new anger over actions some westerners feel, are a declaration of war against them by the economic and political powers in the wicked east. • Mistrust and hatred of the east goes back as far as western settlement itself. Some Of it is real, some of it elaggerated. In Clearing In. The West, Kellie McClung recalls an incident in her family in the 1880's shortly after the family had moved to Manitoba from Grey County in Ontario. A great' piece of progress had come to the farm, An agent from an eastern machinery company had visited the neighbourhood and offered a _ special price on binders if the neighbour- hood would order six. Six farmers, including Mrs. McClung's family scraped together the $340 to purchase each of the marvellous machines and looked forward to the ending of some of the backbreaking work of cutting the grain by hand. • The binders arrived and so did trotible.• On the third round of the field the knotter broke and from then bn it was one part after another breaking, men always on the run to Brandon for' parts, costs increasing. One part broken was the wooden tongue of the binder which had an old crack in it that had been sanded down and painted over by .the company. All the neighbours had the same problems 'but the company denied any responsibility. One of the letters read: "Every part of our machine is tested by experts, but no machine can do good work in the hands of a bungling operator, and unfortunately we cannot supply the brains, our business is, machinery." ' SNEERING LETTER If someone said that to a farmer's face, the farmer would be tempted to pop him one. But thousands of miles separated the frustrated western farmers from the sneer- ing letter writer. In their isolation the westerners could do nothing but commiset- ate among themselves and with no outlet for frustrations the ill feeling can only grow. After a century of bitterness, the westerners can see the shoe being put on the other foot now. They are the ones who control the most important resourses of eastern Canada. One can hardly blame them for looking for a little revenge. Westerners see government oil policies as an attempt of the eastern establishment to shaft them agian, to hold on to power at the expense of the west. How much of this is real and how much imagined is hard to know for sure. With 100 years of old grievances gathered 'like a chip on the •'Shoullder, westerners may be overly sensitive. Their Sensitivity is fanned by westetn politicians who have a goid deal to gain by playing west agianst east.. The situation isn't helped by idiotic statements from the Prime Minister such as the one that there iS absolutely,no chance of independence in, the west. • But, as in so many of these movement, the western separatist movement is led, so far at least, by 'little people. Little in this sense doesn't refer to the little guy, the ordinary man, although many of the ordinary people are glad to jump on, the bandwagon,' urntmems The littleness is,in the minds of the people who have been turning out to the meetings, and more so in the minds of the people who have been stirring up unrest. Their cam- paign has not 'been a campaign of Positives but of hate. In order to get their .andience .riled up they often turn, not to the inequities of freight rates, the oil pOlicy and such justifyable complaints, but to hate• propa- ganda that appeals to people with a lot of pettiness in them. The discourse goes on about French on the cornflakes box, about how the Prime Minister doesn't want a bilingual country but a French one. They bring up. the lack of a war record by the Prime Minister. They bring ups everything that, appeals to the baseness of the audience. ; GLAD TO HATE There are people who are glad to hate everywhere. They were the people Hitler whipped up to 'hate the Jews and give him power in Germany. They are the people 'who were encouraged to don white headgeat,and . terrorize the blacks in the U.S. from a century after the American Ciyil War gave the blacks supposed equality 'with whites. They are the people willing to listen -to the Klu Klux Klan today here 'in Canada. 'They ' are the petty minds who complain to store keepers in our own towns around here if the French side of a soap can is left showing out on the grocery shelf or if they haye to suffer the incredible hardship of listening to half their national anthem sung in French. They are the people who gruble about "Pakis" or inveigh against Boat People being brought into the country. They are the people who built the separatist movement in' Quebec through hatred of the Anglais. But hate is no way to build a country. .Whether they choose to be united with the rest of the country or independent, the west must stop these little people with their message of hate from running their affairs. 11172% gBrusselsost \ BRUNEI • Osi • Established 1872 Serving/Y=0s and the surrounding community Publiihed at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every ‘iciedneaday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited. Andrew Y. McLeaq, publisher Evelyn KenneciEditor , Pat Lang lois, Advertising .Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of Circulation. 519-887-6641,• A movement hate 014,the.seonos"... - by Keith RoulstOn: How do you tackle your work today? Are you scared of the job you find? Do you grapple the task 'that comes your way? a With a confident,easy mind? * * * * This Saturday, December 6, Santa is - coming to Brussels with goodies for the .children. There will be a parade with bands,, and floats and free skating at the B.M. & G. arena after Santa's visit. While the children enjoy this, parents can visit the business places. Stores are bulging with things you will need to prepare for holiday, festivities as well as a wide variety of lovely and useful articles for Christmas gifts. Why not take a look around and find the things you want right here in your own home town. Do this before you burn up extra gas travelling elsewhere to shop. Give your business to your friendly home town merchants, not to strangers somewhere elie who do not ;care one whit about you. All they are interested in is how much money you spend. * * * * * * If you enjoy watching figure skating you should have seen Toiler Cranston on "Stars on Ice" last week. It was evident that the audience in attendance were knowledgeable enough about figure skating to appreciate his performance. During the presentation of other skaters the audience applauded every movement they found exciting. This was not their reaction to Toller Cranston's solo number. Other than the music he skated t6 there was total silence. One could almost feel the hushed concentration as they watched his athletically artistic tion of the music. At the close there was explosive applause. They paid him 'the the ultimate tribute a: performer can receive- absolute silence during the number with a genuine outburst of appreciation at the end. * * * * Reading a book in which the story covered the years of Civil War in the U.S. stirred uneasy thoughts. That struggle to' unite the country shattered family ties, caused heart-rending decisions when sym- pathy was felt for one side but loyalty belonged to the other. What agony there must have been when brother, faced brother in opposing battle lines. A trace of bitterness between the north and the south lingers on with the unrest in our country at present, hard-core separatists bent On indepers .d- ence and vociferous bitter descendents busy elsewhere, is it possible Canada can be torn apart? Can it happen here? That horrifying probability is not inconceivable. Until every- one is willing to work, together for the good' of ,all, sacrifice for the good of all, we can never live in the certainty of peace. May cool heads and common humanity prevail. * * * * * * Does one ever get tired of seeing and hearing, "The Sound of Music"? Once again, last week, I watched that musical on TV. A titer all the clap-trap that invades the air waves these days it was a refreshing pleasure to enjoy that superb acting and delightful music. The joy of the children, the love story, without the intrusion of blatant sex, the tragedy of war that drove them int o exile, and the music make "The Sound of Music" a lasting favourite. Subscription rates: Canada $12 a year (in advance)... outside Canada $25 a year (in advance) Single copies - 30 cents each WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1980 Shart,,Shots by Evelyn Kennedy The old lady gets home and I get the flu Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Shotgun column coming up. Reason? I've just been through a real mother of a flu attack, and the little bit of brain matter still alive, inside a body that feels as though the Gestapo had been having a go at it, is not capable ,of the usual sustained, melodious, incomparable prose essay. Item. After looking forward to my old lady _getting home from two weeks in the north country, after laying on arrangements for her to be picked up at the airport and dropped at our door, after making the house look as thought I'd hired an expert housekeeper, I blew it. I was listening to a particularly noisy TV programme. I wandered downstairs about the time she was to arrive, just in time to find her opening the cellar door with an ,expression the Gorgon would have envied. She'd got in a bit early, rung the doorbell when she found the door locked. No response. She checked the garage. Yes, the car was there; he wasn't off somewhere carousing, unless on foot. Lights in the house all on. More doorbelf ringing. No answer. Finally she forced open one of the cellar windows and crawled in, dragging her best white suitcase behind her, across the woodpile beneath the window. I'd kept the door locked, because I'd become used to doing so While she was away. Hadn't heard the bell. Five minutes after she got home, I was wishing she'd go away for another two weeks. Day after she got home, I got the flu, which she took as a personal affront. Lay around groaning and hawking and spitting and drinking plenty of fluids, until she was wishing she'd stayed away for another two weeks. Item. • Doctors and weOtheaning friends urge you to take it easy, that you are not indispensable. Well, they're completely wrong. Some of us are indispensable. Like me. I took two days in bed, and returned to work to find chaos. Three members of my English staff off sick, one of them for good, eighteen pieces of admini- strivia to sort out, new timetables to be arranged, and, feeling like a wet rag that has just been wrung out, eleventy-seven essays and tests to mark, and four exams to set. I'm looking at those New Career ads in the paper. Can't seem to find anything suiting a venerable gentleman with no manual .or technical or organizational skills. I'm think- ing seriously of joining my son when he goes to Paraguay. Surely I could be of some use down there. I make a fine pot of tea, and could teach English as a Second Language, and I am an expert of dandling babies on my knee. • Item. Budget. Allan McEachin should be renamed Allan Mach MacKenzie King is chortling in his grave as he watches one of his disciples go through the old Liberal routine: you can fool most of the people most of the time; use the carrot as well as the stick; never let your left hand know what your right hand is doing; learn to speak out of both corners of your mouth at the same time; and energy taxes if necessary but not necessarily energy taxes. If the average household ran its budget as does the federal government, we'd all be on welfare. And that's just about where Canada stands now. On welfare. Borrowing from one finance company. Holding out its hands to the poor, with gall in one palm, and vinegar in the other. Item. The Consti- bloody-tution. Trudeau acting like a near- ' sighted lion, with his comfortable majority. Joe Clark and Ed Broadbent waving futile fists in the air. And the provinces, like so many jackals, each striving to tear off a juicy morsel of meat before the lion roars, Item. I'll never write another ode to October. This has been the rottenest (rotten, rottener, rottenest?) in many a year. Where are the Octobers of yesteryear, with their magnificant colours, their clear blue' skies and mellow sunshine, their opportunity to haul out the boat or get in a last few rounds of golf? It rains. It Sleets. It snows. And it's mightly cold, in our parts. The splash of brilliant colour has been turned a sort of dun, and the wind and rain have stripped the foliage before it had a chance to show its fancy undergarments. Item. Somebody is after me. Lost a filling. Twenty-one bucks. Caught not wearing my safety harness. Twneyt-eight bucks. Sink plugged. Fifty-two bucks. The Feds are after me for income tax errors. Somebody stole my wallet. Two hundred, Storm windows coming up. Aver a thousand, and at the rate we're going, it'll be April before they're on. Brickwork needs about three hundred. Whole house needs painting, inside and out. About two thousand. Oil and gas bills going up. Corn on sole of right foot killing me, Telephone bills exorbitant. Inflation far ahead of salary increase. Well, I don't have to fill any More details. We're all in the same leaky. boat. However, the only way to do it is.tt day at a time. Tomorrow, I'll be a day nearer the grave, but have done tremendous things; shaving my face, brushing my teeth, going • to work, marking some essays, sorting out a squabble among the Grade 10's. The possibilities are limitless.