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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1980-03-12, Page 4is 4 TInviutAdV9c010, March 12, 191$0, Times tiblidved 1073. .Aelverais.Established, .18411 Amalgamated 1924 ay W. Roger Worth There's a nasty situation. brewing in Canada -that goes trt the very rOolS, of what the country is all about, .--, The problem:. tliscrimina, tory government restrictions in some provinces that effee- lively force companies to hire local residents, A Newfoundland-first poi- icy on offshore oil field jobs is the latest example of the kind of government activity that limits Canadians' freedom to move from province to prov- ince. Quebec had earlier regu- lated hiring in the construction. industry to favor provincial residents. Those restrictions have now been eased. Roger Worth is Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. In Newfoundland, Premier Brian Peckford has used his considerable bargaining power to force the oil companies de- veloping offshore resources to hire from a registry of 5,700 Newfoundlanders, or have applications froin so-called "outsiders" screened by pro- vincial officials, (A Newfoundlander is de- fined as someone who has lived in the province for the last three years or 10 consecutive years in the past.) There is a. certain amount of justification forPeckford's .move. With an unemploy, moat rule of •17cr'o - the highest. in -Canada - Newfoundland was concerned oil firms would hire workers from -other areas of the country without bother- ing (to give local residents a crack at the. jobs. Peckford was particularly . sensitive about the fact that Newfound- landers could "appear" to be less qualified.. The real 'problem is that Newfoundland openly insti- tutionalized subtle-WO hiring policies that exist in other jurisdictions. Whilc it's easy to sympa- thize with Newfoundland's dilemma, the policy, parlicti: .larly it' extended to other prov- inces, Would result in further splits in the country. Canada is already better off than most nations in the world. With. potential' energy reserves, such as those off Newfoundland, our long-term outlook is a lot brighter than most experts forecast. What's needed is a devel- opment policy that ensures Canada takes full advantage of the phenomenal opportu- nities that exist and that the various regions of the country get a fair share of the proceeds. Interprovincial bickering and beggar-thy-neighbor poli- cies are luxuries we can do without: 55 Years Ago During the first electrical storm of the season the bank barn on the pasture of Sherwood Hunter, on 'townline between Usborne and Biddulph townships was struck by lightening and totally destroyed. Nelson Vale, age 42 an employee at the Exeter flax mill, died from blood poisoning. He removed a flax sliver from his hand with a knife and blood poisoning set in. Thos. Acheson last week purchased the fine red brick house of D. Mack, Main Street for $5,500. 30 Years Ago Pupils from the nine public schools in Usborne township presented a program Wednesday evening, the first to be put on in the gym- torium of the new Exeter District High School. The concert was staged with a view to raise money for the proposed new hospital. The proceeds were $178. Inspired by the work of the Boy Scouts Association, S.M. Sanders of Exeter has donated a plaque to the Exeter.District High School. Stuart McBride, a student of Exeter High School, has won a $1,250 scholarship at the University of Western Ontario, Twenty three OES members motored to Detroit the latter part of the week and were guests at Samson Lodge at the International Birthday Party. 20 Years Ago Thor Orenczuk, Exeter won a hoster set in the ATD Christmas contest at Beavers Crest Hardware. Spring floods in town threatened to drive -families out of their homes and water rose rapidly Wednesday afternoon. Walter Creery, sonAef Mr. and Mrs., 'Theiton Creery, Usborne, has been awarded a Canadian council pre- master's scholarship, of $1,200 for studies in philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. A well balanced,. beautifully costumed car- nival on-ice was staged at the Exeter arena when an audience of 531 viewed the 1960 Exeter Figure Skating Club presentation. 15 Years Ago Although organized for some time, the Dashwood Boy Scouts finally received their charter, Rev, M.J. - James accepted the document from Jack Gallant, Bayfield, District Commissioner. As their mother had done 19 years earlier, Cindy Parker and Debbie Smith joined the Hensall Brownies. Their Brown Owl is Mrs. Bob Cook. Council Monday accepted the resignation of Constable Lloyd Hodgins from the local police force because they felt they could not meet his demands for an $800 pay increase and a five day week.Chairman Ted Wright said the $4000 salary of Constable Hodg ins was in line with the other two men in the community. Dear Mr. Batten, "Heart Month" in Canada is now over and on behalf of the Canadian Heart Fund, Ontario Division, please accept our heartfelt thanks for your promotional support during February. Our objective for the 1980 Heart Fund Campaign was $6.4 million and although all returns are not yet in, we are quite hopeful that our ob- jective will be attained. Without your willing co- operation in communicating our needs to the public, we Would not be able to express such an outlook. The Medical Committee of the Ontario Heart Foun- dation, met at the end of January to review research applications submitted to us for support. You will be pleased to know that after deliberations, $7.4 million was committed to car- diovascular and cerebrovascular research projects in Ontario, com- mencing June 1980. The financial support of many individuals and businesses has made this commitment possible. Thank you again for your support, and for helping us to ensure that research against our nation's number one health enemy will continue. With best wishes Yours Very truly, Canadian Heart Foundation Ontario Division Esther M. Richards Director of Public Relations you're in clover- ST.TRICKSDVS The other side One of the nation's leading breweries sends along a- press release this week noting that this is the 50th an- niversary of their highway courtesy program. Since 1929, the company drivers in Ontario alone have made a total of slightly more than 50,000 stops to assist motorists with everything from flat tires to flaming fatalities. While the efficiency of the modern automobile has reduced the necessity for emergency stops, the company still equips its vehicles with jacks, wheel wrenches, air chucks, flares, fire ex- tinguishers, a disposaple blanket, etc. It all sounds very heart-warming,of course, and is worthy of commenda- tion. However, there are those who may wonder how much of the firm's product has resulted in the mounting toll of in- juries and deaths on those same On- tario highways as drivers imbibe too freely. It's the other side of the coin and one that is obviously less praise worthy. Do the brewery executives or their courteous drivers have a pang of guilt When they haul a broken body from a wreckage along with a partially com- pleted case of their own' product? As others see us "I'm a big fan of the community newspapers." claimed CFRB commen- tator Bill McVean recently. Here's what the popular Ontario broadcaster said: "This is Bill McVean. Take a memo about an old-fashioned custom that's coming back - small community newspapers. You getyourpencil and I'll be right back. "I'm a big fan of the community newspaper. Large papers are necessary and OK because we do live in a global village and only the big ones can keep correspondents in Moscow. But although I may be interested in what the Ayatolla said to the other Ayatolla, I'm more interested in whether they're going to rip up the QE again, or whether they're going to build an atomic energy plant across the road! "It stands to reason that I'm more interested in somebody I know than somebody I don't know so I'm less in- trigued by a story about a mass murder in Texas than the news that Cec Rodney had a heart attack. "For a long time now we've assum- ed that big was good. Big newspapers, big radio stations, big everything. Perhaps it is in many ways better. Small neighbourhood papers are aware of what's happening in the big-world, but they relate it to how it is going to affect you, and the guy next door. I've often wondered whether small papers are really small enough. They usually serve a community of several thou- sand. • Why not, for instance, an inexpen- sive, giveaway paper to serve an apart- ment building? Great project for somebody! I'm sure the local merchants would buy space at rates ap- propriate to the circulation. This is probably being done now. I'm sure there are papers serving groups of hun- dreds rather than thousands. I'll also bet they are doing pretty well. What's so great about big? Smaller cars have been sensible for 25 years - it's only how that they're accepted. What about economic growth? If a village doesn't show 'growth' they vote out the mayor! What's so great about increasing your size?And newspapers - what's so great about stories about a two-headed calf born in Australia? I'm more interested in the fact that the Clark's cat, down the street, finally had her kittens. "Sign that Bill McVean and send a copy to the Community Newspapers Association!" by SYD FLETCHER My father-in-law had one unusual index finger. It was fused solid so that there was no bend at all to it up and down, although the tip was pointed off away from the rest of the fingers. It was all because of an encounter with a buzz saw, back in the days whein farmers cut most of their own wood. When I asked him how it happened he told me, but remarked that he wasn't as bad off as another fellow he knew who had also lost a finger through carelessness. In amazement the fellow with him asked, "how in the world did you do that?" Perhaps in a state of shock the first fellow replied, "Like this," flicking his hand at the whirling blade, promptly losing another one. That reminds me of the tale of the chief cook at the Ipperwash army cadet camp told of a fellow who was cutting meat with the big saw and cut off his thumb. He was on the floor looking for it when the master sergeant came in and roared at him for 'goofing off'. "I'm just looking for my thumb, sergeant," the un- fortunate man replied, Seeing that he was not kidding, the sergeant im- mediately fainted. The wounded man revived the sergeant, got them both into a jeep and drove to the hospital, whereupon the sergeant again fainted. The same chief cook regaled us also with the tale of the private, new to Cooking, who was preparing a green salad. Unused to the sharpness of the knife, he sliced the end of his thumb quite deeply. Being resourceful, he decided that French dressing would be more appropriate for that day's meal than Italian. The lengths some people will go to provide some flavour in their cooking. Perspectives Main.stream Canada Hemma Over Hiring. Policies Newspapers and their letter writers have been having a field day with comments made recently by the Ontario Public School Men Teachers' Federation. The Federation came out with a rather provocative statement claiming that teacher strikes cannot be shown to adversely affect the education of children. A great many people jumped on that comment to suggest that if the withdrawal of services by the teachers had no affect on a child's education, then it would appear to follow that teachers were unnecessary. SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND 0.W.N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC. Published by 4.W.Eeely Publications Limited LARNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor —itosstlaugh„ Advertising Manager — Jiro Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business,Manager — Pick dong,kind Pu.blis.hed Each Wednesday Morning Phone 235-1331 at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Iltipi4trotion Numb., 0346 SUBSCRIPTION RATES; Canada $14.00 Per Year; USA $35.0Q, ICT4:5221E111141TAW Take another look That obviously was a much too literal translation of the Federation's position and we assume that they were saying that a short-term strike (as most are) had no long-lasting affect over! the course of a student's' entire education. However, even that is subject to argument. Surely any time lost, whether it be for a few days or a few weeks, results in some. loss for the students in being able to cover the prescribed course of study. It would appear that the Federation should take another look at their fin- dings. s,, k..•rh'4Zi. St ... -____tilOR C11105 TAGGW $25 A 11145NYtLf.D WALKS v77,17-A [77.71,75 You think you have troubles Life, it seems, as in any other game, has its winners and losers. By design or accident, there are those who can con- sistently be counted in the latter group. Some time ago• there was a story making the rounds about a motorist who was making his way from Clinton to London, Unfortunately he had a heavy foot and by the time his trip con- cluded, he had paid for that weighty problem. The Goderich OPP had a radar unit set up north of Kippen and nabbed the motorist. Chagrined, but undaunted the driver assumed that he had suffered his stroke of bad luck for one day and con- tinued merrily on his way, but still with a heavy foot. Unfortunately, the Exeter police department had a radar unit in opera- tion in town and again the speeder was nabbed by the long arm of the law. That, of course, convinced him that he should be set for the old adage that misfortune or fortune strikes in threes? Not so! To make a long story shert, the Lucan OPP radar unit nabbed him speeding through the Irish community. When the officer asked him for his identification, the motorist handed him the two previous tickets he had picked up and advised him that all the infor- mation he needed waswritten' thereon. * * * Obviously, the chap would be an ideal candidate for inclusion in a new paper- back by Stephen Pike entitled, The In- complete Book of Failures, which carries page after page of the tales of woe of the oddballs, eccentrics and chronic losers in the battle of life. Here are just a few of the riches con- tained in the book: Sometimes I am convinced I was born 30 years too soon. When I see the wonderful opportunities for travel young people have today, I turn pea- green with envy. When you and I wereyoung,mostof us didn't get much farther than the next town. A minority visited the city oc- casionally, and it was considered a big deal. And a shal whale of a loi of people never did get to see a big city in their entire lives. And were no worse off for it, of course. Man, how that has changed. Nowadays, young people go galloping off to the four corners of the earth with no more thought about it than we'd have given to a weekend in the city. They're so blase about it that it's sickening to an old guy like me, who has always yearned to travel, and never had the time or money or freedom to do it. In may day. during the Depression, the only people who could afford to travel were the hoboes. They could af- ford it because they didn't have any money. They rode free on the tops and inside the box-cars of freight trains. And they didn't have any respon- sibilities except the next meal and a place to sleep. Looking back, I was one of the lucky ones. Most of my generation of youth was forced by circumstances to stay home, get any job available, and hang on to it like grim death, never ven- turing forth on the highroads of life. I was the envy of my classmates, when, at 17, I nabbed a job on the upper lake boats, and could come home bragging of having been to such bizarre, exotic places as Duluth, Sault Ste. Marie, Detroit,, the Lakehead. Today's youngsters would sneer at such bourgeois travels. They exchange anecdotes about Morocco and Moscow, Athens and Australia, Paris and Port- au-Prince, Delhi and Dubrovnik. Fair nauseates me, it does. By the time he was 22, my own son had lived on• both coasts of Canada, been to Mexico, New Orleans, Texas, Israel, Ireland. and a hundred other° places that are just names in an atlas to me. He's been to Paraguay, South America, and has visited Argentina and Bolivia. He speaks four languages. I speak one, not too well. My nephews have seen more coun- tries than Chris Columbus or Sir Fran- cis Drake. One's an airline pilot, and knows Europe, North America and the West Indies the way I know my way to school. Another has worked in the Canadian north, Quebec, the Congo, Jamaica and Costa Rica, My nieces are just as peripatetic. They've been to the West Coast, France. England, Russia. A four-day trip to New York, for them, is scarcely worth mentioning. Migawd, I'd have given my left eyeball to see New York when I was their age! I thought it was pretty earth-shaking the first time I saw Toronto. Toronto, yee-c-ch! Thousands of university students an- nually take a year off, borrow some money, stuff a packsack and head out for a year of bumming around Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa, India. Rotten kids! In the last decade, the travel bug has spilled over into the high schools. Some of them are beginning to sound like agencies, with frequent an- nouncements over the P.A. system, "Will the group going to Rome in the winter break please assemble in Room 202 at 3:30 for a lesson in tying your toga." "All those taking the Venezuela trip are requested to see Mr. Vagabond in room 727 at 3:15 today." "Those who are involved in the spr- ing break trip to the Canary Islands should have their passports by March 1st," "An urgent message will be held to- day for those who plan to take the London-Paris trip during spring break. All seats are now filled. If enough are interested, we'll hire another plane," 44. . • ' colored pylons which represent mail boxes and other obstacles. Now, who ever heard of a snowplow going around a mail box if it could go through it? The secdnd test lets wingmen demonstrate shelfing-off skills by toppling cans from raised pylons with the plow's wings. They'd have better luck if the operators had to display their skills at crunching off highway signs. There's evidence every spring in the number of mutilated signs that some operators are most proficient at that competition. However, they missed the best bet of all. Most of the audience at the contest probably would have been interested in seeing how snowplow operators can take a one-inch snow fall and convert it into an icy four-foot drift in front of a laneway that has just been shovelled out. There's a little doubt that most snowplow operators have some great skills, but the contest certainly doesn't bring out the best in them. Seriously, the men who drive the big machines which keep roads clear in winter are skillful operators and for those of us who have difficulty just staying on the road, there is full ap- preciation for anyone who can miraculously steer around obstacles and stalled vehicles during a complete whiteout. The New York competition is a novel idea and in fact is one of the few times this year the.operators have really had an opportunity to test their skills. For that, most of us are thankful. It fairly makes your head swim, es- pecially when your own idea of a trip south is 100 miles to the city for a weekend, a trip west means a visit to great-grandad, and a trip east means you're going to a funeral or a wedding among the relatives. Next thing you know, this travel binge will bulge over into the elemen- tary schools, and great 747-loads of lit- tle shavers from Grade Eight will be descending on the unsuspecting residents of Hong Kong and Rio de Janeiro. Lord help them. The residents, not the kids. Perhaps this sounds like sour grapes. Well, it is. As Shaw saki: "The trouble with youth is that it is wasted on the young". And as Smiley says: "The trouble with travel is that it is wasted on kids who don't know a Grecian urn from an Italian pizza." Qh, it's not that I haven't travelled. I've been to Great Britain. And spent two years staggering around in the blackout or wading through the torren- tial rains of bonnie Scotland. I've been to France. Slept five weeks in a tent in an orchard in Normandy. Been to Belgium. Antwerp; buzz-bombs. Know Holland well. Spent two weeks locked in a box-car in a railway siding at Utrecht. Am intimately acquainted with Germany. Was bonbed in Braunsweig and Leipzig, and spent a delightful six months in salubrious Pomerania, as a guest of the Third Reich. Oh, I've been around all right. But somehow it wasn't quite the same. Rattling through Deutschland on a train with a 10-day stubble of beard on your chin and tag-end of sour black bread stuffed into your battledress blouse is not quite similar to climbing aboard a 747 with your tote-bag and waiting for the stewardess to bring you first meal, Would I trade? Not on your life. sil * Rita Thunderbird, a human can- nonball, has on two occasions remained inside the cannon despite the explosion of gunpowder and the other sound effects. She works in a spangled bikini, and on the second failure she remained- in the gun while her bra was blasted across the Thames, to the tumultuous applause of the spectators. * The Doncaster police set up a secret camera in the locker room of the squash club. When the film was run, it showed only one of the policemen wandering around naked looking for his clothes, which had been stolen. * Then there was the lady golfer who took a 166 on a par four hole. Her ball went into the river, and when it floated, she and her husband commandeered a boat and rowed a mile downstream, flailing at the ball. She finally beached it and played her way back to the course, religiously counting every stroke. *,As an example of memorable words, the author quotes General Sedwick who. in the American Civil War, poked'his head over the parapet at Spotsylvania and remarked confident- ly, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." * * * They've come up with a novel contest in Clayton, New York. It's the inter- national snow plowing contest and this year's event was expected to attract more than 80 entries from Canada and the U.S. to test their skills at moving snow and displaying their dexterity. However, they appear to have most of the tests all wrong. For instance, one of the competitions is designed to test the driver's ability in maneuvering snowplows through gates and around Born 30 years too soon