The Brussels Post, 1981-08-19, Page 2 „:72 Brussels Filni9ssLst
Box 50,
Brussels, Ontario Established 1872 519-887-6641
NOG 1 H0 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
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario
Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of
Circulation.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1981
Authorized as second class mail by Canada
Post Office. Registration Number 0562.
DEDICATION PLANNED — Ethel's Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Sunday will"
be the scene of a dedication ceremony for the new gates and fence which
were donated by Lloyd Michel and Velma Vodden. The service starts at
2:30. (Photo by Langlois)
Behind the scenes
Short term pain?
by Keith Roulston
Short Shots
by Evelyn Kennedy
Continued from page 1
September 15 and 26. It is where town and
country folk get together. A day of friendly
competition in many areas, fun and visiting.
It is a show place for the results of work done
by men, women and children. You can visit
the Crystal Palace on Tuesday evening to see
the indoor exhibits and be entertained by Earl
and Martha Heywood. The school parade will
be at 12 o'clock with the two bands, BrUssels
Legion Pipe Band and Seaforth Truthpet
Band providing the music for the parade from
Victoria Park to the 'nirgrounds. The official
opening will take place at 1:00 p.m. For
added fun there will be Fairmount Amuse-
ments.
**aim*
How amazing I The provincial premiers at
their recent conference in Victoria,
B.C., actually agreed that Canada is in an
economic mess. They also agreed that
inflation, the value of the Canadian dollar and
what these are doing to the people of Canada
are major problems. there was no need of a
provincial conference to come to that
conclUsion, Any Canadian with ordinary
common sense could have assured then.' of
these prOblenis fot we all haVe to live With
them day to day. No doubt many Canadians
suffer more from them than do any of our
provincial leaders. However, it is nice to
know that with concerted efforts they
could do something effective about them.
*******
The Queen of the Fair Dance, at which the
eight lovely young ladies who will compete
for the title will be introduced and the. lucky
'young lady who is chosen winner by the judge
will be crowned. The contestants will speak 'at
8:00 p.m. and the crowning will take place at
10:30 p.m. After the 'excitement of the
competition is over you can dance to the
Music of the Ian Wilbee Orchestra.
**ow*
Now that the Postal Strike which affected
all Canadians more Or less, and disrupted
business, and the baseball strike which
interfered with the enjoyment of fans of that
sport, are over, perhaps we can get back to
mo re normal conditions be it at work or at
play. Of course one never can be sure when
similar interruptions will occur. They
°cenr mu ch too frequently.
*******
It seems that Rene Leveque of Quebec,
oddly enough, Was the mot popular
provincial leader at the conference in Victeria
B.C. He was beseiged by fans wanting his
autograph,
0.4444*
The editorial cartoon pictured what a lot
of Canadians feel. Three surgeons worked
over a "patient" labelled "the economy."
The three surgeons looked like Prime
Minister Trudegu, Finance Minister Allan
MacEachen and. Energy Minister Marc
Lalonde but it was hard to tell for sure:
their surgical masks weren't over their
mouths but over their eyes.
There is little faith in the government
these days. The dollar has been falling,
inflation -and interest 'rates have been
soaring and the government put us through'
a lengthy postal strike only to give in in the
long run and give ,,the postal union nearly
everything it wanted. And while people
hack home are sick with worry the Prime
Minister is in Africa vacationing and Mr.
MacEachen is vacationing back home in
Nova Scotia, both apparently unconcerned.
Back home Joe Clark has been con-
cerned alright: worry spread all over his
boyish face (except maybe at the corners of
his mouth which he tries to keep from
grinning at the mess the Liberals are in).
It's hard to take Mr. Clark too seriously
however because while he complains about
high interest rates he defended them only a
year or so ago when he was in power. He
got in to power of course because he was
blasting the governing Liberals for their
high interest rate and the Liberals got hack
in power by blasting the Tories for their
high interest rates. Perhaps the thing that
has Mr. Clark so concerned is that there's
not an election in sight so he can once -
again get a change in governments without
even having to rewrite his speeches from
two elections ago (perhaps he could also
keep the cost of the election down by
selling' copies of his speeches from the last
election to the Prime Minister who could
then not bother with a speechwriter.)
A CYCLE OF FEAR
A cycle of fear is starting in the country,
the kind of thing that makes a bad situation
worse. Every time a prime minister has
gone outside the bounds, Ties of the
country in the last decade people have Said
he should be staying home looking
after the Mess here instead. Most times
this is silly nonsense but now is probably an
exception. The governtnent has given the
impression it dOesn't really care and that
makes people vvorty, even More..
You can see the Signs of panic in the
press, not just in attacks by editorial
writers and cartoonists, but in longer and
longer lists of letters' to the editors, articles
from academics and business leaders.
The govern, went must do something to
give confidence back to the country
becatiSe if it doesn't, the panic will see
some of its necessary policies washed away
along with its' stupid ones'.
It is frightening to see the Canadian
dollar in such horrible shape and already
"experts" are coming up with solutions.
The dollar is weak, they say, because of the
huge number of dollars going out of the
country to pay for industries being taken
over here in Canada by Canadians. Their
"solution" is to slow, or even stop the
take-over of our industry by Canadians,
whether they be government agencies or
private business acting on incentives from
government. Instead they would make the
incentives good for foreigners to invest in
Canada and buy up even more of our
country.
These same "experts" from the financ-
ial community pile up praise on the actions
of Ronald Reagan down in the states with
his policy of short term pain for long term
gain. It seems from here that if Canadians
want to gain control of their economy they
have to be willing to pay the price in the
short term for the long term gain. During
the 1950 s we had the pleasure of seeing
out dollar stronger than the Americans'
but what did it get us? The dollar was
stronger because Americans were bringing
their money in to buy up the majority of our
businesses. We were fooling ourselves
with our smugness and we've been paying,
for it ever since. lf, as some experts say, it
doesn't matter who owns your industry as
long as they provide jobs, why are the ,
Americans so concerned when Canadians
start buying up their businesses?
WEAK DOLLAR
If the reason the dollar is so weak is the
Canadianization of our own industry then it
seems a reasonable price to pay. If we are
going to reverse past mistakes we can't
expect it to be easy. But we must control,
our own country or the price we pay will be
worse. Mel Hurtig, the Edmonton publish.
er and former leader.of the committee for
an Independent Canada pointed , out
recently that the federal government set its
policy to buy back 50 per cent of the
Canadian oil industry not so mulch from
desire as necessity. The government
suddenly tealired, he claimed, that with
the rise in oil prices since the OPEC cartel
got going in the early 1970's, the value of
the oil owned by foreign companies but still
in the ground, had risen to alarming
heights. The companies could literally buy
up all of Canada with their windfall gaint
an oil. If they chose not to keep their money
in Canada the dollar would plunge anyWay
`from the exit of profits.
The guy in the oil filter ad says, "yoti can
pay me flow Or pay me liter".- That seems
to be the situation Canadians are in in
foreign Ownership. We might as well ply
now and hope to get it over with,