HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1978-03-15, Page 2errAFAMIIMIO
Brussels Post
MUSSELS
ONTARIO
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1978
Serving. Brussels and the surrounding community.
Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario
by McLean Bros.Publishers Limited.
Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Dave Robb Advertising
Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association ' and
Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association
fe CNA,'
' Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $9.00 a Year.
Others $17.00 a Year. Single Copies 20 cents each.
Sewers when?
Snow patterns
Behind the scenes
By Keith Roulston
Few absolutes
Will Brussels get sewers this year or not? That's
the $64;000. question.
Brussels citizens can be excused for being angry at
/hat looks like stalling on a project that's crucial ,to
the future of this village.
Home construction plans are affected by the
uncertainty. No one wants to invest $2,000. in a
septic tank system that'll be obsolete as soon as the
village is sewered.
Much needed road work in Brussels is held off
because no council wants to pave roads that'll soon
be torn up with sewer construction.
It could even be argued that industrial and
commercial development in the village is stymied
because the sewer situation is so uncertain.
Until last week's council meeting; nothing had -
• been heard from the Ministry of the Environment to
indicate that sewer construction would not begin
April 1 of this year, the most recent starting date
used by the Ministry. There had been no sign though
of tenders being called or contractors being signed.
Last week Brussels council learned the..reason for
the lack of action. The province has no money, Reeve
Krauter was told. by local MPP Murray Gaunt, for
sewers for Brussels.
Council is going to protest strongly to the
Ministry, stressing the need for sewers here.
That's a good idea, especially since it was the
Ministry's own staff that was so concerned that the
village get sewers at the OMB hearings on the
subject here a few years ago.
But councirs protest may not have much effect on
the province. One of the notable things about sewer
projects subsidized 75 percent by the province, is
how little say municipalities have over them.
It's perhaps understandable that in a time of
economic restraint, the province would postpone
sewer construction, here. But if that's the case, we
ask them where's the urgency that was so great a
couple of years ago when Brussels was practically
divided in two over whether to sewer or not.
If the province can't give us a straight answer on
when we can expect sewers, council's next step
perhaps should be to tell the Ministry to forget the
whole, thing.
BruSsels'll stick to septic tanks, they could say. At
least :then, we can go ahead with our business and
build our houses and repair our roads.
To the editor:
Hockey mom
says thanks
Thanks for a great weekend.
I would like to take this opportunity through your newspaper to
say "Thank You" to the people of Brussels for an enjoyable
Iveekend of hockey and a good time on Mi-rch 4 ,and 5.
A special thankIstto the people who were kind enough to billett
our boys. They all enjoyed themselves, and for many it was a `
whole new experience.
We found the people of Brussels very friendly and so we really
felt as though we were among friends. Our hats go off to you for
the beautiful job you have done building your arena and
Community Centre. Good luck to you all in the future. On behalf
of the team, coaches and parents, we all say "Thank You
Brussels".
A Hockey Mom, 10 Carroll St.
Mrs. Shirley Accursi Welland, Ont.
There are few absolutes in modern life and.
morality doesn't appear to be one of them:
The recent national convention of the
Liberal party for,instance, passed a resolution
calling for the decriminalization of marijuana
use. The convention didn't go so far is to say
that the use of the drug should become legal,
but it did say, the penalty for use should be
reduced. As few as five years ago that would
have been unthinkable for a major Canadian
political party to take such a stand.
Some will see the move as healthy. Some
will think it didn't go far enough. Some
experts argue that marijuana is no more
dangerous than regular cigarettes or alcohol
and these are not only legal but a major source
of government income. Frankly I don't know
much about the issue and I don't care much
one way or another what is done about it.
There's one aspect of the decision,
however, that is troubling. The Liberal party's
resolution on marijuana seems to show once
again that we have no definition of what is
right or wrong other than the majority's
wisheS on any particular subject. Five years
ago; • use of drugs, such as marijuana was •
considered a major moral. problem. The main
argument for changing the law seems to be
not" so much that we've found out that
marijuana is not as strong a drug as we
thought, but that so many people are now
using it. It seemed to be quite all right to have
harsh treatment of those caught using the
drug as long as it was only a relatively small
number of long-haired creeps. But today more
respectable people like lawyers and professors
are also using it so we need to soften the law.
We saw the same kind of thing with the •
changing of abortion laws in Canada. Abortion
didn't become legal because suddenly we
came up with a more safe way to. perform the
operation. It didn't come' about because of a
drastic need (ironically abortion became legal
at a time when for the first time in 'history
there' were fool-proof contraceptive methods).
The change in the abortion law came about
because a large proportion of the population
came to the point of wanting to make use of
abortion. There was no real decision of right
or wrong, simply a political decision of how
many, Were for and how many against.
Now you may agree or disagree with these
law changes but the prospect of morality by .
majority mule remains a very dangerous one.
We are drawing ever closer to the issue of
euthanasia in North America. It seems ,
fantastic to us now, but whatif the niajority. of
people felt it was better to end the lives of
people once they had passed their
"productive" age? What if, instead of getting
a gold watch on retirement, you got a cyanide
pill? Under our present manner of deciding
the morality of society, it could one day come
true. We are, after all, reaching a point where
the number of people older than the
retirement age will become so large that it will
put a heavy economic burden on society. The
young generation today that is deciding the
pot is fine and abortion is all right will some
day be in a position when they will be a
burden on younger members of society. They
might well find themselves in a position of
finding that the new majority, the people still
"productive" think it quite all right that
Grandma and Grandpa be snuffed out, (oh
quite humanely of course, perhaps while they
slept.)
Yes it seems preposterous but then 20 years
ago it seemed impossible that abortion would
ever become legal and 10 years ago few would
have seen a major political party taking a.
softer stand 'on marijuana. If majority rule is
acceptable for moral issues it seems quite
possible that if the majority of people felt it
was all right to murder your neighbour than
the law would be rewritten.
There's one large counter-measure to the
present trend however. All polls show that if
there was a plebiscite on capital punishment
the majority of people would be for it. Yet our
legislators continue to rote against the issue
whenever a decision must be made in the
Parliament. What this seems to show is that
it's not so much what the majority feels on
moral issues but what the majority of the elite
group that makes up our legislators feel.
Members of Parliament have a remarkably
similar background. The majority are lawyers
and nearly all come from relatively wealthy,
.middle-class backgrounds. The morality of
this group then. .can often decide the morality
of the nation, at least as far as legal laws mean
morality. Thus marijuana became more
acceptable 'when the middle-class
professionals accepted it. Thus abortion
became legal when middle class professionals
accepted it.
Lord help us if the lawyers decide that it's
quite all right for people to be beaten to within
an inch of their lives for non-payment of laW
fees,