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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-04-15, Page 2 717 Post15 ,.N. in russels , BRUSSELS Established 1872 519-887,6641 Serving Brussels and the surrounding community Published at BRUSSELS, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning by McLean Bros. Publishers Limited Andrew Y. McLean, Publisher Evelyn Kennedy, Editor WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 1981 Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of Circulation. Subscription rates; Canada $12 a year (in advance) outside Canada $25 a year (in advance) Single copies - 30 cents each Box 50, Brussels, Ontario NOG ll10 A I'll be drummed out Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Brussels Lions Tradefest gets under way this weekend on. Thursday, Friday and Saturday with plenty to offer everyone. " This is the second year the Lions have attempted the Tradefest and they hope it will be even more successful than the first. It's an event that can be beneficial to both business and the consumer.. Bus'inesses can display their wares and the consumer has an opportunity to see what area merchants have to offer. Not only that, but the Tradefest is something the whole family can enjoy, walking from display to display, taking advantage of the free draws and'whatever free fun items might be available to the children. If you are going to be around this weekend and looking for something to do, how about attending the Tradefest? Not only will it support the , community, but will offer some enjoyable entertainment for the weekend, too. Come out and have fun EXERCISE BOY CUB STYLE—Brusels Boy Cubs played with a soccer ball as part of some timing exercises at their meeting on Tuesday night. Any Brussels man who could volunteer some time to help out with Cubs would be welcome. , (Photo by Langlois) Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston This is being written on the eve of the, provincial election in Ontario, but it could be the eve of any election in any province in this far-flung dominion. Going up against the incumbent govern- ment resembles very much a promising heavyweight fighter going up against the world champion. He has to knock the champ , out, or make him look so foolish that even the judges have to award the challenger the title. If it's anywhere near close, the champ wins. How does this apply to provincial politics? Well, in the first place, the party in power has its fingers in a stranglehold on the public purse. This means that it can run an over- whelming advertising campaign, conduct its own slanted polls, and throw grants and patronage in all directions, especially when a seat is in danger. Every nickel of this vast wastage comes out of: your pocket and mine. A provincial election costs you and me anywhere from ten to a hundred million dollars, most of it disugised in the form of government information, government announcements of ten million here, two million there, eight million elsewhere, and so on. • It means that the government, fighting a supposedly democratic election, is in with both hands to public money, scattering it wherever it might glean votes, regardless of the provincial debt, regardless of us, who are putting up the bucks. It means that the government can cynically hire clever people to write speeches, brilliant 'people to plan glossy ad campaigns, • brutal people to twist arms and remind of past favors, and opportunists to denigrate the opposition parties. The latter, without access to our money, can fight only with what they have, and it's an uphill battle. They can't afford the opulent advertising, the sybaritic sycophancy of a venal press, the bus ,or the plane with the free bar, the free buses to pack nomination meetings. But, lo, all is not lost. People are not sheep; not quite. Every so .often, a slick, glossy government campaign goes down the drain, as The People suddenly demand to know what the hell the government stands for, besides motherhood, prosperity, and a turkey in every seat in the legislature. It happened in B.C., when Dave Barrett • knocked out the right-wing government! of Wacky Bennett. -And in Manitoba, when right-wing Sterling Lyon knocked out the left-wing NDP. It happened in Quebec, when the PQ knocked off the smooth Liberal organization„ riddled with patronage and corruption and fear. And it happened before that in. Quebec when the Liberals, before they became rich and slick, bumped the Duplessis, right-wing Union Nationale, now a mere shadow on the Quebec horizon. Being of Irish extraction, I _always, without fail, vote against the government. By the time this appears in print, the Tories, in Ontario, who have a menage a trois with the NDP federals and the Liberal government in Ottawa (doesn't that boggle the mind?) will likely haVe formed another minority govern-, ment. How could they be defeated, with all that money, and a leader who epitomizes all the small-town, small-minded attitudes of traditional Tory Ontario?' But I'm in a quandary. Out on my front lawn is a sign, urging people to vote NDP. My wife, in a weak moment, allowed a friend to talke her into installing it, with my urging. I can't vote Tory, because detest and despise a government that has allowed Ontario to become a second-rate province, despite its enormous resources, and because I resent the manner in which the Tory leader, a fairly mediocre politician who squeaked into the leadership by about the same margin as Joe Clark, and only because the Northern Ontario voters had to get home by bus, rail and plane, and couldn't vote in the last ballot, and who chooses to scatter my money wherever it will buy a vote. Why not vote, then, for the NDP man, a good man, a man of intellect and integrity? Because, while he is a good man, and would make an excellent representative, his party can't win. Thus, I'm going to vote liberal, even thought I don't know a thing about the Liberal candidate, except what I hear: As a result, I will be drummed out of the teachers' union, which has urged all teachers to vote against the Liberals. Why? Because the Liberals have chosen education as one of their sacred cows to attack. And not a bad choice. The public, as well as many teachers, is fed up to the ears, with the present'educational system. Include me in. I think the system, which by the way *was architectured by the present provincial premier when lie was Minister of Fducation, niether knows where it has been norIvhere it si going. It is full of brilliant young. people with new ideas, old fogies who fight the new ideas at every turn, and miqdle-aged nycrps who can't see past salaries and pensions. Bury me not on the lone prairie. Bury me instead under a heap of frustrated young people who are getting neither an adequate education for a job, nor an adequate educafion for life with a capital L. Canadians are Americans who live in a colder climate; so many cynics who question the sense of Canadian identity will say. Recently in Washington Canadians saw again how different we are from Americans. The gun shots rang out again and another famous American came within inches of death. Visions returned. Depending on your age you thought of a miss on Roosevelt, a hit of John Kennedy, the stunning deaths of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy within months of each other, the shooting of John Lennon; 'They were the celebrated cases but every year thousands of other Americans die in gun incidents. More people die every year in the streets of the United States from gun shots than died in Vietnam in a year. ' Canadians come generally from the same ethnic stocks as Americans: the English, Scots, Irish, Germans, Italians and so on and so on. We have lived much the name experience that saw our forefathers battle against the elements and the primeval forest to carve out a new life. Where then did the road fork and take them to what they have today and us to a very different experience? There are some who claim that gun control legislation is the difference. People don't own handguns in large numbers here while they do there. Gun controls would perhaps make a start on correcting problems down there but it goes much deeper than that. Canadians have never been as interested in guns as Americans. There are so- many different signs here than in the U.S. I recall driving through Detroit a few years after the riots in 1967. Blocks of buildings had been leveled. The stores that remained stood like fortresses, protected by huge iron grates that seemed cold in the. warm Sunday afternoon sunlight. I was living in Toronto at the time, in the heart of the city. •I had never once seen the Ugly steel bars or iron mesh that was on every building in this part of Detroit on even one building in all my wanderings of the streets of downtown Toronto: There the expensive batibles of modern, urban, af- t fluent society sat safely day and night !behind the protection of only a fraction of an inch of plate glass. On this side of the border another reminder of the difference in our sister societies. It was the October crisis, 1970. For the first time CanadianS were shocked with the reality of organized political terrorism in Canada. The FLQ had kidnapped a British diplomat. A few days later a Quebec cabinet minister followed. No one apparently knew how well organized, how large, this group was. The government declared the War Measures Act. Working on the weekly newspaper in Clinton at the time I had to go out to the air base 'to cover something. I wheeled up to the guardhouse and prepared as usual to give my casual friendly wave to the security guard and drive right through, barely slowing. This day was different. There were two guards, the barrier was down. Each car was stopped and the identity of the occupants acertained. As a search' went it wasn't much, or at least it wasn't much for me since I was reasonably familiar. It was however, the shock of it all. It was something that just wasn't seen in Canada just as the pictures of those soldiers in the streets of Montreal with guns wasn't something seen in Canada. Those television pictures must have been misdirected from the southern U.S. where we were used to seeing the national guardsmen ringing universities to let blacks enter. . The realities of our lives are quite different than the Americans! When was the last time you sate a shop Tilled with handguns? When was the last time you saw a convoy of army trucks roaring down the highway? When was the last time you even saw a soldier in uniform? When was the last time you saw a policeman like the American policeman with his : space-helmet hat: dark, impersonal sunglasses and gun swing- ing at the ready on the hip like an old-time gunslinger? We may watch Three's Company along ' with the Americans. We may be as fascinated with who shot JR, as the Amerieans, we may drive American cars, wear American-styled clothing and yet when it comes right down to it. Canadians are very different from Americans. fi Advertising it accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error the advertising space occupied by the erroneous itein, together With reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. While every effort will be made to ensure they are handled with care; the publiahert cannot be responsible for the return of •unsolicited manuscripts or photos.