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The Brussels Post, 1978-01-25, Page 2Overhanging snow Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association *CNA .e 1.1(14/SPAPIPS COI4'14 ftlifAIOLOWSO 1072 4Brussels Post WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1978 IIRUSSE LS ONTARK) Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each. Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario. by McLean Bros.Publishers Limited. Unity from the heart Behind the scenes By Keith Roulston A bits and pieces week There are a lot of people caught in the middle by the question of Quebec independence. There are those in. Quebec who feel isolated from the rest of Canada, who are deeply hurt when, their language is booed at a hockey game in Toronto': but who don't really want to take the irrevocable step of cutting their ties with the rest of the country. And there are those in English Canada who dislike the way bilingualism and biculturalisrn have been implemented and 'who worry about what appear to them unnecessary concessions to the French Canadians, but who would be devastated' by a Canada without Quebec. These people are not the convinced separatists who wish to leave regardless of the possibilities for change, nor are they the rabid Anglophones who think Canada would be better off without Quebec. These are the people wha are looking for serious reasons to keep Canada one nation and who are willing to recognize the reality that the present arrangement of Confederation is inadequate to meet the aspirations of Quebeckers and also the aspirations of many non-Quebeckers, especially in the Western provinces. We clearly need a revised and :up-to-date constitution which could draw people together but there has to be a grander vision than the one we are generally presented with. First, there has to be something that will convince Quebeckers that there is a better alternative in Canada. Second, assurance that western and Atlantic Province people, too can be comfortable in this country. That vision will not come from cost-benefit proposals or economic balance sheets.. The country will survive into the next century if we feel it should, if we have an emotional dimension — a tie of the spirit that make Canada special in our lives and in the lives of our children. The fight for unity will not be won with economics, it will be won when we reallize that Quebec is part of our definition of Canada and that Canada is pai-t of Quebec's definition of itself. Unity comes from the heart and the soul, not from' sneering or namecalling and not from the provincial and federal treasuries. (The United Church) You've heard it before: You've got to walk before you can run. It's true. So let's get movin'. Subscriptions tin advance) Canada $9.00 a Year. Others $17.00 a Year. Single Copies 20 cents each. PaRTIC/PaCT1011 Walk a blocic.Today. It's one of those bits and pieces weeks those weeks when there are a lot of niggling little things but nothing that rates a whole column. Things such as the report the other night on C.B.C. National news that our strike record isn't nearly as bad as we had thought, compared to other countries. All the labour brass were proudly, pointing out that not only were we better off than some other countries, but, we've improved in the past year. The figures for the first 10'months of 1977 showed the number of man-days lost to strikes to be only one third of the number for the same periodota year earlier.. Now the union leadership seemed to be taking all the credit for this for themselves and their members yet the decline in the strike rate seemed to coincide completely with the institution of the government's Anti-Inflation Board which effectively cut out the cause of the strikes since it said the workers could only get a limited pay increase, an increase which the companies were 'happy to give. Strange, isn't it; that the Union leaders were quick to damn the AIB, but they're just . as quick to steal credit for themselves for what good the Ala 'has managed to bring? * 4: * * * * There's been a government .campaign this year, to get Canadians to stay home more for their vacations (even, if the Prime Minister doesn't) because were literally vacationing our country into bankruptcy. At last count we had something like a billion dollar trade deficit thanks to all those Canadians who head south- in winter and to Europe in summer rather than stay at home. Both C.B.C. and Global news touched on the subject recently and if anything, seemed like they were an advertising agency for the Florida tourist board. Global, for instance, opened their item with a film clip of a raging blizzard and people miserably trying to get around in it, standing frozen at bus stops or pushing their cars out of snow drifts. It then cut to filmed interviews with tourist agents alking about the record number of people heading south and , it threw in a few short scenes of lovely southern beaches and the inevitable bathing beauty. It closed the news item off again with more Canadian blizzard and the remark that, could you really expect Canadians to stay at home in a Canadian winter,?. C.B.C. wasn't quite as bad but almost. Now what I wonder is why, if this is supposed to be unbiased journalism ; they couldn't at least show some of the enjoyable winter scenes in Canada. Why not ,a scene of one of these beautiful 'sunlit days with a new .fallen snow blanketing everything? Why not show some of the millions of Canadians who have fun On the ski slopes every Weekend? Why not show 'a family out on their cross country skis or their snowmobiles? Why do we only show people miserable in this country in winter? And, when the next gloomy economic statistics come out will the news networks remind people that everyone who goes south for' the winter has helped damage the economy, or will they take their usual comfortable, easy way out and blame the • government for everything that is wrong? * * * * * Have'you ever wondered how it is-that- to listen to the bosses there there isn't a player in the WHA who is fit to play in the NHL? That is at least until one of the players of the • WHA becomes available and suddenly the NHL pulls out the bucks and tries to lure him away as they are with the two Swedish stars of the Winnipeg Jets. If the NHL manages to sign the two they will undoubtedly be called among the greatest stars in the world at •the news conference announcing the signing. If they stay with the WHA they'll immediately revert to being bums. * * * * * * The cost' of living, according to Statistics Canada went up again last .month driven up mainly by the cost of food. The increase in food over the last year has apparently risen by something like 17 per cent. At the same time, the income of farmers has declined by 30 per cent in-the past two years. How 'come last week I never heard the two figures put together by newsmen once? How come I never heard anybody wonder how this could be happening.? At the same time the price of food was being blamed for the cost of living increase on page one of the Globe and Mail last week, a professor of something or other was claiming that a major problem with the government's' competition bill was that it exempted farm marketing boards. Now if, as the professor suggets, farm marketing boards are unfairly using their monopolistic powers, how isitthat that farmers are taking a 30 per cent decrease in their real income while everyone else is having an increase of about that much? What the professor and his learned (?) colleagues seem somehow to overlook is that you cannot force farmers to continue to produce food When they are losing money on it. You can talk all ,you want about the need for the interests of the consumer to be considered in any national food policy but the fact remains that the past 20 years has seen hundreds of thousands of people go out of food production inCanada because they went broke producing food. If the next 20 years brings the same rate of decline it won't be a matter of getting food at a cheap price', it will be trying to get food at all..There just Won't be' any farmers left.