Loading...
The Brussels Post, 1981-04-29, Page 2 Brussels Po'st \zi,c,s,sitsf 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 Box 50, Brussels, Ontario NOG 1H0 Subscription rates: Canada $12 a year (in advance) outside Canada $25 a year (in advance) Single copies - 30 cents each Authorized as second class mail by Canada Post Office. Registration Number 0562. Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of Circulation. Behind the scenes by Keith R.ouiston Let's have some perspective Listen to some of Canada's more prominent civil rights advocates like June Callwood and you would think that Canada was right up therewith Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in terms of the inhumanities perpetrated on its citizens by government. There are three ways of getting to. Moosonee. You can fly, which is expens- ive. You can walk, which is lengthy, or you can take the train, which is something else. . I took the train because f was a bit broke after a major decorating job, because my gout was acting up and I couldn't have made it walking in two years, and because I wanted the experience. It was an experience I will never forget. Or repeat. When I think that my daughter made the same trip two years ago, with two small boys, my heart bleeds for her. It's almost twenty-four hours from Toronto, and she refused to get sleeping berths, against my advice. But she's a very adaptable, strong-heart- ed and generally clear-headed young woman, and has made not only a go of it, but a success of coping with a frontier town, if there's such a thing left in Canada. At Cochrane, you Change from a fast transCanada train to the self-styled Polar Bear Express. somewhat of a misnomer, as it has, nothing to do, even peripherally, with polar bears, and is the exact opposite of an ( 'Tress. It stops whenever it feels like it, backs up for a while, sits for a while, then ,ogs off again. Sitting in a coach surrounded by fat. middle-aged Indian ladies who chuckled and gossiped in Cree, I felt much like a Russian aristocrat who had been'banished to Siberia for supposedly plotting against the Czar. The train rolled on hour after hour through the taiga, skinny evergreens too useless even for pulpwood, burnt-out patches every so often, snow out both windows, and no sign of human life. All we needed was a samovar at the end of the coach, and the Siberian image would have been complete. But a warm welcorge, with some hugs and kisses from grandboys dispelled the first impressions. There seems little real reason for Moosonee to exist, except that it is the end of steel. Yet it's a thriving little town, with all the requisites; liquor store, post office, police station, ,churches, The Bay store, With a monopoly on most food and clothing, a meat Market, two hardware stores, one garage, a Mac's Milk sort of place, a Chinese restaurant, magnificent schools, a' really splendid, small art gallery featuring the works of Indian artists and three taxis. What more could a than want? Well, maybe a poolroom. Or a massage parlor. Or a movie house. But these are sybaritic southern frills No violent movie could take the place Of a • dash across the mighty Moose River just before break-up, with the water flying as though you were a ship in a stiff gale. Ms. Cawood in particular, often writes or speaks about the flaw in Canadian national character which has people accept the authority of the government, our wish for law and order that makes the population in general accept government and police action It's an odd community, geographically. It looks as though God or somebody had flown over the place, dumped out a few handsful of buildings, and let them fall where they might. I can find my way around in most major cities, but I was constantly getting lost in Moosonee. Something else that made me wonder was what people did for a living. There is no industry, yet everybody seems to have money. Nobody looks even vaguely hungry. Perhaps it's a matter of taking in each other's washing. But I have a suspicion that if all the government money, railway, liquor store, schools, police, welfare, old age pensions, baby bonuses and so on were suddenly withdrawn, the place would collapse, and, be remembered as a sort of rough-hewn Camelot. There is, of course, the tourist industry, but that's pretty negligible except for a couple of months •in sunnier, and during goose-hunting season. On the other hand, the government was left with a pretty sizeable investment, and has used it with some common sense. The town used to be an army base, and many of the buildings have been put to use as schools, housing, administrative offices. Better than leaving them to rot. For example, the houses on the base are now rented to teachers and other officials. The barracks are used to house the Indian kids from Moose Factory, across the river, in spring and fall, when it's unsafe to cross the river. The recreation building is used for school-rooms. It still has a bowling alley. There is a curling rink, where kids also learn to skate. At the school there is a fine cafeteria, with food that would make the habitutees of our school cafeteria drool. But this is beginning to sound like a travelogue, not my intention. I had a grand visit with my only daughter, without the constant interruptions of her mother. I played chess with my grandson, 7, and barely escaped with my hide. Twice he .forced me to stalemate, instead of check- mate, a humiliating experience. And I played without mercy, regardless of age. Most days I picked up the other little guy 5, at his daycare, and he gave me directions for home when I got lost. I got through six novels in six days, and didn't mark a single exam paper. That's what I call a holiday, We had music, and read poetry, and played dominoes, and ate like kings. I ripped off three graceful Moosonee geese. handcrafted by the natives. And I came home with a better sunburn than confreres Whos gone south for their holiday, that would, she feels, bring open rebellion in a place like the United States. To listen to her one would think there were soldiers in the streets with guns five days a week in Canada.. Certainly democracy is such a fragile thing that we must stand on guard for it at all times. But on the other hand there is a certain quality of crying wolf' on the part of Ms. Callwod and others that if anything endangers den4cracy even more. There have been very few incidents when human rights were generally in danger in Canada. Certianly the internment of Japanese. Canadians and German Canadians during the war is not something to be proud of and yet it is easy, 40 years later to condemn those who did it. War, however, does funny things to people's minds, .Far worse atrocities were committed by the Germans and Japanese. While that does not make what Canadians did all right, it does put things in a little better perspective. One of the few other real occasions of government action to quash civil rights came with the mass arrests under the War Measures Act at the time of the 1970 F.L.Q. crisis. In the clear light of hindsight, police and government certainly did overreact. Civil rights upholders often claim now, that the government knew all the time there was no serious danger, or they claim, if the government didn't then the RCMP wasn't doing its job in getting the government the • information it should have had. At the same time they complain about the actions the RCMP did take to gather information on People it considered dangerous . Whether right or wrong a government which has used -the War Measures Act only once in peace time and that for only a short period hardly is an. ogre just waiting to turn the country into a police state. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS Freedom of the press is another of our rights we are constantly being warned is in danger. Every time a -politician, particularly the Prime' Minister, refuses to answer a question or say something a reporter finds insulting, or every time someone talks about the irresponsibility of the media, media people start screaming about the threat to freedom of the- press. A look at other countries adds a little perspective. You don't have to look to the Soviet Union where all the preSs is a government propaganda machine, or South Africa where the government has closed down papers that don't support government policies and thrown journalists in jail, Take a Wk. for instance at France, one of the bastions of democracy. An article in the Globe and Mail on the weekend gave a picture of government control of the media. them. While the media in Canada strenuous- ly attempts. to give equal coverage to all parties during an election, in France statistics showed that during the recent election campaign incumbent President Giscard d'Estaing received three times more air time than other candidates.- government in France controls most radio stations and all three television networks; gives subsidies to the newpapers which are said to be the only thing that keeps many of them alive; owns an advertising agency that doesn't place ads in papers hostile to the government and provides 60 per cent of the revenues to Agence France- Presse, the major news gathering agency in the country. The president 'has also been known to call the editor of a newspaper which prints something he -doesn't like to register •a personal protest. The list goes on. Defenders of civil rights and of freedom of the press are right when they warn that there is not something special about Canadians that means we don't have to worry about people abusing .their power in government or police. We have seen instances where people have gotten carried away in their zeal and trampled on people's rights and we must stand ready to fight to keep our rights. All things however should be looked at in perspective. Despite the temptation some people feel to describe our current Prime Minister as a dictator (fascist or communist depending on your' own political viewpoint) Canada is one of the most free countries in the world. The new charter of rights will jibbed some of those rights even more strongly than in the past. Canada is .not a utopia overseen by angelic governors who would never think of,going against our right but neither is Run the edge of dictatorship. The greatest danger may be from the overreaction from civil rights activists WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1981 Sugar and spice • By Bill Smiley Getting to Moosonee ONTARIO'S FISH TESTING PROGRAM Ontario is famous for its fishing, The Ontario government constantly checks this valuable resource through its continuing research and testing program of fish. Testing has now been done in 1036 lakes and rivers: "GUIDE TO EATING . ONTARIO SPORT FISH" The results are published in the three booklets "Guide to Eating Ontario Sport FiSh" (Northern Ontario, Southern Ontario and Great Lakes editions). NOW AVAILABLE FOR 1981 You can get your free copies from your nearest office of THE ONTARIO MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT THE ONTARIO MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES THE ONTARIO MINISTRY OF NORTHERN AFFAIRS Copies are also available in vacation area Brewers' Retail Stores and LCBO Stores during June. Ministry of the Ministry of Environment Natural Resources HON. KEITH NORTON HON, ALAN POPE MINISTER On tario MINISTER