HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1986-07-16, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 16, 1986.
Making it happen
The recent rush of activity of the Brussels, Morris and Grey
industrial committee is welcome news for the area at a time
when agriculture, our major industry and major contributor to
jobs, is in a slump.
With one small factory all ready to set up in Morris
township’s old municipal garage and another industry
interested in locating at the edge of Brussels, things are looking
up and credit should go to the councillors from the three
municipalities who had the foresight to get the committee
started and who have put so much hard work into bringing early
results.
Still, while activity should undoubtedly continue to attract
industry from outside the area, attention should also be given to
cultivating our local resources. A shining example of what can
be done is in a recent article on “The Beauce” region of Quebec
in Review magazine.
The Beauce was one of the most depressed regions of Quebec
prior to 1973 when local businessmen decided to do something
about the situation. The people there sound a little like a
Quebec equivalent of the Huron county natives: “stubborn
individuals who forge ahead regardless of obstacles, eager to
take chances. ’ ’ Their biggest asset, said a local spokesman, is
their spirit of self-reliance.
In 1973 the local businessmen organized the Beauce
Economic Council, staffed by ambitious, no-nonsense young
professionals. The council urged local credit unions and other
lending institutions to invest more in small business ventures,
especially manufacturing plants that would create permanent
jobs.
Thefirstnew businesses incorporated centred on local
activities like processing food and forest products. Successful
in these areas, they tackled others as well, producing
everything from bicycles to truck trailers to fibreglass parts for
subway cars.
The entire Beauce region contains only 75,000 people (not
much bigger than Huron county) but since 1970 it has managed
to establish more than 350 manufacturing industries. Among
the home-grown success stories is a printing plant that employs
125 people manufacturing everything from soap opera
magazines to Garfield The Cat calendars for markets all across
North America. There’s the Vachon bakery that now has
branches all across Canada employing 5300 people but had its
start in the Beauce.
The thing about these industries is that they are firmly rooted
in the local communities. They’re unlikely to pull out at the
whim of a board of directors in Toronto or New Y ork. They seem
to guarantee a steady growth for the future.
We have one of the Beauce’s strongest assets: hard-working
intelligent people. What we must do is learn to harness the
skills of those people as they did in the Beauce. We’ve got to
learn ho w to put our own money to work in our own communities
instead of building apartment buildings and shopping centres
in the cities.
We’ve got what it takes to create a miracle like the one that
happened in The Beauce. All we need is to get together and
make it happen.
Life beyond Toronto?
When Ontario Premier David Peterson announced the move
of the Ontario Lottery Corp, offices from Toronto to Sault Ste.
Marie last week there were some people as happy as if they’d
won the lottery and others as upset as if they ’ d found they ’ d just
lost a winning lottery ticket down a sewer grate.
Happy, of course were the politicians of Northern Ontario.
Unhappy were many of the 145 employees whose jobs will be
switched to the north. To read some of the moaning comments
in the paper, one would think they’d be forced to live in igloos
and eat raw seal meat when they left the big city.
Toronto has become so large that people there can’t imagine
life in the rest of the province, let alone the rest of the country.
When a culture becomes so large that it turns inward, always
looking at its own navel, it might as well be separated from the
rest of the world by a 100-foot high wall or 1000 miles of ocean.
The problem for the province and the country is that we are
concentrating more and more of our decision makers in this
myopic metropolis. Our media is centred there so that unless
something happens in Toronto it’s less than news. Even if the
television cameras and newspaper reporters do venture into
the wilds of the rest of the province, they report from a Toronto
perspective.
Our government officials are centred in Toronto as of course
are big business leaders. Even such rural-oriented services
such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the headquarters of various
farm co-operatives and the head office of the Ontario
Federation of Agriculture are in Toronto because they want to
be close to the decision makers. Yet by doing so, these farm
leaders may be caught in the same myopia as the rest of the
city-dwellers.
Once in a while it would be nice if word could seep through to
the towers of Toronto that there is life beyond Steeles Avenue.
picking these days that people
have run out of the usual worm
picking sites like golf courses and
now they’re going onto farmers’
land in the middle of the night,
often without permission and
sometimes tra mpling crops to do it.
Some of the farmers have got a
little hot about this and one or two
have even got out a gun.
Hank says.
Julia said she read the article too
that said there are 63,250 families
in Canada that average $212,000 a
year. “I mean it kind of gets
depressing to know there are
63,250 families making 10 times as
much as you do.”
Billie Bean says he wishes U.S.
President Ronald Reagan’s “trick
le down” theory would hurry up
and work because he’d like to get a
piece of all that loot.
There are people who will tell
you that the important decisions in
town are made down at the town
hall. People in the know, however
know that the real debates, the real
wisdom reside down at Mabel’s
Grill where the greatest minds in
the town (if not in the country)
gather for morning coffee break,
otherwise known as the Round
Table Debating and Filibustering
Society. Since not justeveryone
can partake of these deliberations
we will report the activities from
time to time.
MONDAY: Billie Bean was men
tioning an article he-read in the
paper this morning about some $11
million sitting in dormant bank
accounts more than nine years old
that are going to be turned over the
Bank of Canada (alias the govern
ment).
“Imagine,” Billie says, “there
was one guy who moved back to
Iran and left $50,000 in a bank
account. How could he forget
that?”
“Imagine,’’ Julia Flint says,
“just sitting there and letting
$50,000 slip away.”
“I don’t know,” says Hank
Stokes. “Nine years ago I bought a
farm and I’ll bet it’s had a lot more
than $50,000 slip away since
then.”
TUESDAY: Tim O’Grady was
telling the regulars this morning
that he’ll be missing these sessions
for a week or two. He and the wife
are leaving next week for a trip
west to Expo.
“Gee,” says Julia, “I wish I
could go too. It sounds like quite a
show.”
Ward Black says he won’t be
going there either but he figures
he’spaidhiswayanyway. With the
government admitting the cost of
the Ontario pavillion has now
jumped to $30 million he figures his
share is already enough to pay for
admission.
WEDNESDAY: Tim O’Grady was
chuckling this morning about the
* ‘ worm wars ’ ’ going on down in the
Niagara Penninsula. Seems
there’s a big fight going on
between local farmers and the
companies that pick worms.
There’s so much money in worm
Ward Black said he never
realized worms were worth so
much. Whenever he went fishing
he took it for granted he could
always go outto the garden and dig
afew up and never thought of them
being worth much.
Tim said he read they were worth
big money down in the States
because summers are so hot the
worms don’t come out.
“Humph”, says Hank Stokes.
“The farmers can’t expect much
helpfromthelaw. Those worms
are probably worth more than
some of the farmers down there.”
FRIDAY: Ward was giving it to
Hank this morning about all his
complaining about hard times on
the farm. “Why I read this article
in the paper the other day on rich
families and it said the rich people
included doctors, business execu
tives, lawyers, dentists, stock
brokers and farmers”.
‘‘I guess if you consider E. P.
Taylor a farmer, it might be right, ’ ’
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