The Citizen, 1986-08-13, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1986.
'A' for courage
J ack Riddell, minister of agriculture and food for Ontario and
Member of Provincial Parliament for Huron-Middlesex
deserves an “ A ” for courage in his decision not to come to the
aid of hailed-out Niagara fruitfarmers even if he gets an “F” for
political astuteness.
The freak hailstorm caused millions of dollars of damage in a
swath across the Niagara Peninsula near Niagara-on-the-Lake
leaving lOOorsofarmersindire straits. Yet despite the calls for
emergency assistance, Mr. Riddell has stood firm. He has told
the farmers the same thing he told farmers closer to home in the
Wroxeter-Harriston area, when severe weather destroyed
their crops earlier this summer: there is a system of crop
insurance to meet such emergencies.
Mr. Riddell’s point is that if the government jumps in with
emergency assistance every time one of these natural disasters
hits, farmers looking to save every precious dollar they can,
won’t bother to buy crop insurance. That in turn will lead to
more occasions when the government is asked to step in with
emergency assistance and so on.
There’s a lot of logic in the argument, but it doesn’t
necessarily look good on television or in the big city
newspapers. The Niagara fruit belt gets more attention in the
media than bean or corn growers in Huron County, far from the
glare ofbig-city television lights. It’s pretty easy for Mr. Riddell
to come off as a heartless politician who won’t come to the aid of
people in danger of losing their livelihoods.
As well, there’s the charge that the insurance program is so
inadequate that farmers in fruit-growing areas don’t buy it. The
pay-out, these farmers claim, is so low that it isn ’ t worth the cost
of the insurance. Even some of the farmers who have insurance
say it won’t help them fend off bankruptcy in this case.
If this is true, then there is something wrong with the crop
insurance system that must be fixed. The insurance program
should be fair enough to attract farmers to enroll or there’s no
sense having an insurance program.
In the long-run, Mr. Riddell’s right. If an adequate program
is in place, the government should not undermine it. If the
program isn’t adequate, then changes should be made and in
the mean time, something should be done to at least help these
farmers stay in business.
This issue won't fly
Despite efforts by Prime Minister Mulroney and Quebec
Premier Robert Bourassa to take the constitutional issue off the
back burner, there seems little urgency to get into that mess
again, at least in the short run.
The Quebec government has been shopping around a list of
what it wants in order for it to sign the constitution that Rene
Levesque refused to sign in 1982. Among the items the province
wants would be a virtual veto on some constitutional changes
which it felt might adversely effect the province.
The problem for Mr. Bourassa and Mr. Mulroney is that
there is little concern on the part of anybody else but themselves
to make concessions. Way back in 1971 when former Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau was first trying to get constitutional
reform, the pressure was on and the other provinces were ready
to give Quebec concessions, (even against their own better
judgement in some cases). In those days, with separatism a hot
subject in Quebec, with the October Crisis barely past, the
other provinces agreed at a conference in Victoria, to give
Quebec the kind of veto power it now wants.
But Mr. Bourassa in his first go-round as Quebec premier,
tried to up the ante, to use the pressure in Quebec to get even
more power for his province. That ploy failed and the coming of
a separatist government in Quebec made it even harder to come
to a constitutional agreement.
Thingshave changed drastically in Quebec since then. After
two decades of debating political independence, the people of
Quebec have turned instead to economic matters, building a
new Quebecois business elite, and generally just getting on
with the job of living.
And so for the rest of the country, the pressure is off. There
may be sound moral and political reasons for Mr. Mulroney and
Mr. Bourassa to want to make an agreement but for the other
premiers withworries about the crisis in agriculture, the
demise of the oil industry in the West, the worries about free
trade negotiations with the U.S., there is little urgencv to open
the can of worms of constitutional negotiation agair
Ordinary Canadians too are tired of those old squabbles.
They want to leave constitutional conferences behind with the
Trudeau era.
All this may be wrong-headed, short-sighted thinking. It
may be that by putting off coming to a resolution of the problem
of Quebec not being part of the constitution it is only courting
another crisis in Quebec down the road. But the reality of the
moment is that Quebec is in no position to drive a hard bargain
now.
Mr. Bourassa and Mr. Levesque blew it earlier grabbing for
too much power. Now, if Quebec wants to sign, it will be on
terms dictated by the other premiers.
Inside from the outside at the old barn
Letter from the editor
Starved for good movies
BY KEITH ROULSTON
If I had the kind of loose change
lying around that makes people
want to play the stockmarket, I
think I’d be looking to invest in a
company that makes video tape
recorders.
My choice of investments would
be based on the hunch that there
are more people out there like me
who wonder whatever happened to
good movies.
First of all, whatever happened
to the late night movie? Living in
the country without access to cable
television and without the inclina
tion or the funds to invest in a
satellite dish, I often get the idea
the late-night movie is extinct. Of
the four channels we get, only one
shows late night movies. On that
channel there are some fine old
classics during the mid-week
nights when you’ve got to get up
the next morning but when it
comes to the weekend they seem to
find the movies only an insomniac
would stay up to watch. I mean with
the death of good old late night
movies around we could have a new
baby boom.
The late movie is part of my
family tradition. My parents were
nighthawks and never went to bed
before the late movie was over,
even on weeknights. I grew up a
nighthawk too. As a college
student, Iusedto watch the late
movie, the late, late, show and the
late, late, late show. Even though
four small children and a job killed
my own midweek viewing, I still
looked forward to the weekend to
stay up late and escape into a good
movie. Despite advancing age, the
desire is still there. The movies
aren’t.
More than a few times this
summer there has been the urge to
go out to a theatre to see a movie.
That urge usually lasts about as
long as it takes to check the listings
of the movies in the entertainment
pages of The Citizen. For a rural
area, we have a tremendous
selection of local movie theatres. In
a half- hour ’ s drive of my home I can
be at the ticket window of three
indoor and one drive-in theatre.
The problem is that most of the
people who go to the movies today
are teenagers, people looking for a
place to take a girl out for the
weekend or maybe meet someone
of the opposite sex if they don’t
haveadate. Movie makers have
discovered this fact and so they’re
aiming their movies at people
under 20. So we have 25 versions of
teenagers “coming of age”.
The thing is, they make all the
movies for kids so they only get kids
and when they only get kids they
say there’s no sense making
movies for adults.
Our small local movie theatres
are in such a precarious financial
pinch mostofthe time that even
when there is a good adult film
around they can’t afford to inter
rupt the string of teen flicks to show
it.
And so the vicious circle starts
again. Both television station and
movie theatre owners groan about
the changes that the VCR revolu
tion is bringing. More people are
staying home to watch movies.
More people are renting a movie
when they used to watch regular
television programming. As the
market gets smaller, both televi
sion stations and movie theatres
ignore the adult movie lover. When
they do, they drive more people
who want to watch movies to buy
VCRs and further deplete the
audience.
If the current trends continue we
may have no option but buying
VCRs. If’the moving-going audi
ence is chipped away by alterna
tives like VCR, our local movie
theatres may be hit by the same
economic squeeze that killed off so
many small-town movie theatres.
Fragmentation of the audience has
already hurt many television sta
tions that can no longer deliver the
big blocks of viewers advertisers
want.
Now listen fellows, before it’s
too late, think of us movie lovers. I
like to watch late movies. Hike to go
out to the movies when there’s a
good show about something other
than some kid trying to lose his
virginity. I have no urge to spend
$500 on a VCR. But the way things
are going, you may leave me the
choice of either going cold-turkey
on movies or giving another boost
to the stocks of the VCR manufac
turers.
[640523 Ontario Inc. ]
Serving Brussels, Bly th, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel,
Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships.
Published weekly in Brussels, Ontario
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