HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1981-10-14, Page 2 1872
Brussels Post cid
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
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario
Weekly Newspaper Association and The Audit Bureau of
Circulation.
Box 50,
Brussels, Ontario
NOG 1H0
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1981
Authorized as second class mail by Canada
Post Office. Registration Number 0562.
THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS — Men from St. Ambrose church in
Brussels and the Sacred Heart church in Wingham got together in
Brussels on Saturday night to form a Knights of Columbus organization.
In the front row from left are Anthony (Tony) Wagner (regional
co-ordinator) of Region 5 Ontario; Stu Parker, Financial Secretary of the
7569 Council Wingham; Harry J. Morel, former District Deputy of
District 28; Timothy Hillyer, District Deputy of District 55, Ontario;
Seamus Doherty, District Deputy of District 3 (Clinton). In the back row
from left are: Gerald Belanger, Chancellor of the 7569 Council Wingham,
Richard. Campeau, Charter Grand Knight for Wingham, Nick Terpstra,
Deputy Grand Knight and Al DeWitte, State Officer from Chatham who
was the guest speaker.
Behind the scenes
by Keith Roulston
Why can't we get along?
Man's inhumanity to man is a well-known phrase and one that took on
even more meaning this past week with the assassination of Egyptian
president, Anwar Sadat.
Greed has played a large part in the disputes that keep countries
forever in battle--greed for more land, wealth and power.' It's sad that
this year the world's well-known peacemakers such as the Pope and
Sadat are being shot at and it is a sad reflection on our times.
The days when everybody helped their neighbour out are slipping
farther and farther away as the attitude has become one of looking out for
number one.
Is it really so impossible for people in this world to get along in spite of
different religions and philosophies? Men like Anwar Sadat are a rare
breed in today's society--men who aim at peace instead of fighting with
their fellow man.
There seems no doubt that some people in this world want to be at war.
It's a way of life for them. How unfortunate, when the best thing we
could all do would be to try and get along with our fellow man.
How long must the battle against pollution
go on?
One would have thought that with the
revolution of public interest and concern
about pollution in the 1960's and early 70's,
the battle of pollution would have been won
long ago. Pollution is like motherhood, who
can argue against it?
Well a considerable number of people have
been able to not only argue against pollution
controls but win that argument. In the U.S.
anti-pollution legislation is actually being
reversed under the combination of concern
about energy shortage and paranoia about
too much government interference. In the
United States, you see, it is a businessman's
inalienable right to pollute the air in the
pursuit of profit.
But one of the healthy things about the
report on the government committee study-
ing acid rain that was released in Ottawa last
week was that for once Canadians looked in
their own backyard at air pollution instead of
across the border. While we do have
problems with imported air pollution from the
U.S., we have been using it as a handy crutch,
blaming all our troubles on them instead of
ourselves.
In the committee's list of the 10 worst
polluters in Canada for instance, three of the
culprits were coal-fired generating stations of
the Ontario Hydro government owned
corporation. The Ontario government has
been particularly active in lobbying Ameri-
cans to do something about the acid rain
situation but there are three of the worst
polluters in the country under the direct
control of the Ontario government. How can
Bill Davis really expect anyone across the
border to listen to him under the circum-
stances?
It seems the attention span of the public is
only slightly longer than an average six-year-
old when it comes to major issues. It took
several years back in the sixties for the
concerned few to make people actually
believe that there was a problem with
pollution. We had come to enjoy the good life
that modern industry, the good jobs, the
cheap products, the modern processes that
gave us both through the use of chemicals of
all kinds. We seemed to be on the way to a
utopia of material comforts. But we are
paying a price without knowing it, a price in
affecting the good things in our lives we had
been taking for granted: fresh air, clean
water, countryside in its natural state. Many
people didn't want to listen. They wanted to
think that they could go on forever just the
way things were.
The anti-pollution campaign went on,
however, until people generally agreed that
there was a problem and that something had
to be done. Governments began spending
money to build new sewage treatment
facilities. Tougher anti-pollution legislation
was brought in and companies were actually
taken to court because of pollution from their
plants.
But the concerns of the sixties and
seventies soon were no longer fashionable.
The anti-pollution campaign waned about the
same time the anti-war campaign died. New
glamour issues took over the front pages of
the newspapers and the consciousness of the
people. Energy shortages, real or imagined,
inflation, Russian agression now held the
national attention. The political pendulum
swung back to the right, toward less
government intervention, more freedom for
businessmen to make a profit. After all,
people said to themselves, pollution is licked.
But it wasn't as we now see. The acid rain
problem may be the worst of all the pollution
problems. In Scandanavia, for instance, they
have discovered their lakes are dying because
of pollution created hundereds of miles away
in Germany and Britain. Here in Canada the
Ontario government forced INCO to build a
700 foot smoke stack in Sudbury which has
improved air quality in Sudbury by exporting
it to Quebec. This is a kind of pollution that is
no longer localized. Just because you don't
live beside the smelter or the generating
station doesn't mean you won't suffer from it.
Further, acid rain can change our whole
environment. It has already killed life in
many lakes by changing the chemical
balance, that we know, but what else is it
doing. That government committee was
appalled that more research hasn't been done
into the effect of acid rain on the trees that are
important to the lives of many and the
economy of the whole country. How is the
acid rain effecting crops which we need to
keep up our lifestyle? How much damage is
done when the acid rain eats away at
buildings in our cities?
The job fighting pollution is only partly
done. We• still must solve the acid rain
problem and then look at the problems of
chentical wastes, of Overuse of agricultural
chemicals, of so many areas. We can't
probably turn the clock back to the turn of the
century when pollution was'mostly non-exist=
erice but we can at least keep our world from
following apart around US. What good are all
the material trappings of modern life if we no
longer have the Simple, natural things?
It's been a tough day. This morning, I
ducked home from work to say goodbye to
daughter Kim and grandboys, who are off to
Hull.
(Dear proof-reader, that is Hull, Que., not
Hell.)
Kim has given up on teaching school,
although she was offered a promotion at her
last school. She loved teaching, and threw
herself into it with the enthusiasm of a
knight setting off for the Crusades.
Her summing-up was honest, but not
bitter: "When you put every ounce of your
energy, enthusiasm, imagination and belief
in the best values in life into a job, and
receive in return apathy, sullenness, indif-
ference, and even physical violence, there
tnust be some better job around some-
where." Right On.
I spent a week with her last spring, and
she still retained a vestige of those
attributes, but it was wearing thin.
I'm amazed that any young person wants
SO get into teaching. In the twilight of my
own teaching cateer, I can look back and see
some of the
Pleas
ures: summer holidays; the
occasional ctht was fun, and bright
and made you feel like a kindly uncle. And
that's the list.
Sugar and spice
By Bill Smiley
There's something terribly wrong with our
educational system, but it's too complicated
to put my finger on, in this space. When I've
retired I plan to be appointed to a
Commission (at $100 a day) to examine
problems, make a report, and have it
ignored.
Anyway, Kim is off to Hull, the anus of
Quebec. She wants to learn French, expose
her children to it, and find a job. I think she
must have glimpsed those headlines a few
weeks ago, stating that our top civil servants
were the highest paid in the world. And
about a third of the civil servants are in Hull,
just across from Ottawa.
Maybe she'll hit it lucky and Pierre
Trudeau will fall in love with her and marry
her. She's just about the right age for him,
under half his. And this would give him a
family of five boys. Another couple and he'd
have a hockey team, and in 1999 Canada
might win the Canada Cup. But all this is as
likely as yours truly going to Heaven.
They left in a battered Datsun that uses a
quart of oil to a quart Of gas. has to have the
radiator filled every 10 miles, and has tires
Of tissue-paper. It' an eight hour drive. I'm
praying, something I seldom do, except
When I get in a mess', fall On My knees. and
plead, "For God's sake, God, get me out of
this." Like most people.
But, by golly, Kim, is going back to her •
roots, whether she knows it or not. Back to
the Ottawa Valley, where her great-
grandmother was an itinerant music teacher,
her great-great uncle a holy terror in fights
among lumberjacks.
She has dozens of cousins in the area, on
both the Quebec and Ontario side, whom
she has never seen. Tonight, if the Datsun
holds up, she'll be staying with her aunt
Flora, in Perth, whom she hasn't seen since
she was about four months old.
Flora will feed her with food, homilies,
good advice, dozens of addresses, and
spunk. The last will be needless, because
Kim has lots of it, but they can exchange a
bit of spunk, and maybe a few angles of
feminism or whose children/grandchild are
the best/worst,
Kim might even see the house where her
father was bungled up. Or the river where he
used to catch fish. Or the school in which he
took seven years to get through the normal
five.
Only one problem. She saved enough
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