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The Citizen, 2007-09-27, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2007.EditorialsOpinions Publisher, Keith Roulston Editor, Bonnie GroppAdvertising, Ken Warwick & Lori Patterson The CitizenP.O. Box 429,BLYTH, Ont.N0M 1H0Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152,BRUSSELS, Ont.N0G 1H0Phone 887-9114 FAX 887-9021E-mail norhuron@scsinternet.comWebsite www.northhuron.on.ca Looking Back Through the Years Member of the Ontario Press Council The Citizen is published 50 times a year in Brussels,Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc.Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $32.00/year ($30.19 + $1.81 G.S.T.) in Canada;$92.00/year in U.S.A.and $175.00/year in other foreign countries.Advertising is accepted on thecondition that in the event of a typographical error,only that portion of the advertisement will becredited.Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth.PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40050141PAP REGISTRATION NO. 09244 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 152 BRUSSELS ON N0G 1H0 email: norhuron@scsinternet.com Sept. 27, 1950 Fall fair season in Ontario rolled on with festivities happening in Milverton, Port Elgin and Tavistock. More countries were sending troops to fight on the United Nations’ behalf against the South Korean ‘Reds’ (Communists). Among the countries participating were Britain, Scotland, and the United States. An exotic dancer from Vienna was quoted as saying American strip dancers were “vulgar” and that stripping should be a delicate art form. Working at a nightclub in Chicago doing an act including a milk bath, the dancer said that her performances had “no thought of sex”. Sept. 27, 1961 A London woman and her son were recovering from serious injuries sustained in a collision which took place near Clinton. The pair were returning home from a visit in the area when a car driven by “tourists” broadsided their vehicle, pushing it off the road and into a tree. The car was completely demolished, and the woman and her son sustained serious injuries. However medical help was quick to arrive to take them both to St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, where they were reported to have been making good progress. Police were investigating the incident. The announcement was made in Athens, Greece, that Princess Sophie, 22, was engaged to Don Juan Carlos, 23. Don Juan was of Bourbon, and was the son of the Pretender to the Spanish Throne. Flooding in Texas was causing some serious damage. Hundreds of boats in the hurricane area were damaged or sunk. In Freeport, Texas, boats were moored under shed rooves at a marina until breaking through the rooves of the sheds and floating forcefully upward with the rising waters. With Christmas still months away, the Foster Parent’s Plan in New York was already receiving generous donations. A warehouse in New York had already been packed with 15 tons of gifts mailed to help impoverished children in Europe and the Far East. A jet plane had been created and was being described as the slimmest of all jet planes. The HP 115 included a British Handley Page delta wing job, considered a trailblazer for later 1,400-mph super passenger planes. The Canadian National Institute for the Blind was hoping to earn new donors for their annual fundraising campaign. Despite their gratitude towards their regular donors, officials were worried about being able to sustain the organization without further monetary support. The CNIB was serving more blind people each year and the service program was continually being expanded, not to mention ambitions of new and more efficient training programs and informational courses. Sept. 27 1972 The Huron Progressive Conservatives nominated local farmer and businessman Robert McKinley as their candidate for the Huron riding in the upcoming federal election. The Huron Liberals had also nominated their candidate, Charles Thomas, also an area farmer. The Women’s Institute of Walton was celebrating its 75th anniversary with a special meeting, including a ceremonial signing of a commemorative guest book. Sept. 28, 1988 Retiring Blyth fire chief Irvin Bowes was honoured by many friends, family and neighbours in a special dinner held by the Blyth district fire area board and members of the fire department. Bob Beckett of the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office presented Mr. Bowes with the 40- year service medal. Morris reeve Doug Fraser, and Blyth reeve Albert Wasson presented Mr. Bowes with a commemorative portrait. Along with these presentations and many speeches praising Mr. Bowes for his many years of devoted service, it was made clear the impact Mr. Bowes had made on the community. Playing at the Park Theatre in Goderich was Young Guns, starring Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez. Also playing at the Lyceum Theatre in Wingham was Hot to Trot and License to Drive. Sept. 26, 1990 The Blyth Festival concluded a very successful season, recording attendances over 44,000 people. The attendance was slightly down compared to the record-breaking 1989 season when more than 90 percent of all available seats all season long were filled, but the 1990 season was still pretty good considering 85 per cent of the seats still were filled. Top attractions included Local Talent, the comedy by Colleen Curran, as well as Firefly by Carol Sinclair. The Citizen won a third-place award for the best special section for newspapers under 6,500 circulation in the Ontario Community Newspaper Asso- ciation’s annual advertising awards competition. The section which won the prize was the annual farm issue, published each spring. THE EDITOR, Listening with interest to last week’s election debate last week, I was encouraged to hear Conservative leader John Tory, arguing in support of fair funding for faith-based independent schools in Ontario. Unfortunately, I also heard Premier Dalton McGuinty using the same tired arguments against fair funding that he used in the last election. As they so successfully did in the last election, the Liberals are hoping to cash in on the average voter’s fear that funding faith-based independent schools will hurt the cash-strapped public school system. McGuinty does his best to build on this fear through election ads that argue the finances for faith-based schools will be ‘taken out of the public school budget’. The Ontario PCs have promised an extra $2.8 billion in funding for public schools. This is in addition to their promise of funding for all faith- based schools under the umbrella of public education. Second, parents who send their children to faith-based independent schools are offended at McGuinty’s suggestion that funding these schools will be divisive and will cause social unrest. Graduates of faith-based schools, like those in public schools, become productive members of society and good citizens. Life in Alberta, BC and in several other Canadian provinces is peaceful and these governments have financed school choice for years. McGuinty received a Catholic education and chose the same for his own children. In light of the fact that the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops is on record to support other groups seeking full funding for faith based education, the premier’s defense of funding Catholic schools but no other faith-based schools, is indefensible. McGuinty, you are on record in 1998 as acknowledging there is a ‘fairness issue’ when it comes to the current practice of funding Catholic schools only in Ontario. You have also said that you are not “ideologically opposed to the idea of extending funding to other faith- based schools.” I ask you to quit making incendiary comments about such schools and to return to your pre-premier statements. Clarence Bos We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs. We are not responsible for unsolicited newsscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright Complicated issues Making a decision on who to vote for is a complicated process, at least for those who spend some time contemplating how best to use their vote. After an election, the media may claim one issue was the deciding factor and the winning party may claim it has been given a mandate to do some obscure part of its platform, but it’s not so simple for the voter. In the current provincial election, for instance, the headline issue for the Progressive Conservatives, whether they want it to be or not, is the proposal by party leader John Tory to fund schools for all religious faiths. If he should win, it won’t likely be because of this issue — it will be more likely because voters have decided to punish Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty for what is seen as a trail of broken promises. And what do voters do about McGuinty? No one wants to reward bad behaviour by voting for someone who makes election promises he doesn’t keep, but do they want to punish the government that otherwise has healed so many of the wounds created under the fractious reign of Mike Harris? One of the broken McGuinty promises, for instance, was to shut down Ontario’s coal fired power plants. They’re still running. Yet on the other hand, the growth in Ontario’s green power supply has been greater than any other government, including the NDP. How about the NDP? Promises like leader Howard Hampton’s pledge to roll back post secondary tuition fees sound good, but as one college official said, where’s the money going to come from? The NDP’s favourite answer, that big business and the rich will pay, isn’t so simple to carry off in this global era where money and jobs can shift overnight to some more inviting locale. So selecting who to vote for will be difficult for those who really think about it. The important thing is to think. Make your vote count. — KR Lessons learned, unlearned There’s an interesting new book out by Tom Flanagan in which the former Reformer and trusted adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper advises the Conservatives to move toward the centre of the political spectrum if they hope to become the “natural governing party” instead of beneficiaries of an occasional protest vote against the Liberals. Coming from a Reformer who split from the Progressive Conservatives because their policies weren’t conservative enough, it was obviously a tough lesson learned that Canadians weren’t ready to buy the strict Reform message. It’s a message still unheard on the other side of the political spectrum. There was absolute glee on the part of many long-time NDP supporters at winning a by-election in Quebec. That it was over the Liberals, was even better. For many NDPers the enemy is really the compromising Liberals not the Conservatives. Meanwhile the Green Party wants to go where the NDP won’t. This lack of willingness to compromise may make Flanagan’s dream of a long-term Conservative government come true. — KR & Letter to the editor