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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-01-10, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1990. Opinion Make up your mind If indeed the Ministry of Community and Social Services is having second thoughts about building a new Huronview for Huron County’s seniors, Huron County Councillors have every right to be angry and frustrated...and so do Huron County’s seniors and its taxpayers. Huronview Management Committee Chairman Tom Tomes told county council Thursday that rumours are that after having told the county it should build a new Huronview, the Ministry may now be looking at renovation of the old Huronview instead. Already delays have cost millions of dollars as construction costs skyrocketed. There has also been hundreds of thousands spent on architects studies as to what to do with renovating the old building, then looking at a new one and how to make best use of the old Huronview if it is no longer to be a home for seniors. Land has been optioned for the new northern site at Brussels, plans have been made to restrict the number of residents entering Huronview so that the smaller Huronviews will be able to hold all the patients that must be moved. This debate over what to do about Huronview has dragged on for years. Every time the county feels it has made a decision, someone in the Ministry changes a policy and the county has to start all over again. Meanwhile costs of construction have been increasing at a rate of 12 per cent a year. The original 1985 proposal to renovate the old building was estimated to cost $2,961,000 to produce 297 beds. By 1987 two proposals for renovation put the cost at $8 to $10 million. Current estimates suggest the project may have jumped to $24 million to produce only 224 beds. If the matter doesn’t get settled soon and the construction doesn’t get started, Huron county taxpayers may think nuclear submarines look cheap by comparison. This endless procrastinating by the Ministry is costing everyone, county taxpayer and provincial taxpayer (the province pays 50 per cent of the costs) millions. It leaves the staff and the residents uncertain. It wastes hours of debate at county council and makes county employees waste time working and reworking proposals that would be better used for other activities. It’s time to get the show on the road once and for all. Let's not be smug As one by one the Communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe fall like dominoes, there is a certain smugness in the West that “our system” has won out over the hated Communist system. While it’s good to see that now the people of Eastern Europe are free to choose their own system rather than having it imposed on them, we might be shocked if they decide not to follow our example to the letter. Now that we have “won”, we are apt to accept our system as the undisputed best and ignore the problems of unrestricted free enterprise. It would be a mistake on our part not to keep questioning, not to keep looking for ways we can make our own system work better. While attention has been focused on the deficiencies of the centrally planned economies of the Communist world, we have not been looking at the deficiencies in our own country. In the cold weather people are freezing to death in Toronto and other major cities in North America because they cannot afford to rent a home. When a two-bedroom apartment in Toronto costs $1,000 a month and you must provide the first and last month’s rent in advance, is it any wonder that many people, even working people find it hard to put a roof over their own heads. In the name of profit, many companies have used our rivers and lakes as sewers and turned our air into poison waiting to be turned into acid rain. One of the crimes of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania was forcing peasants off farms, destroying their houses and forcimg them to live in agri-industrial complexes. We haven’t used troops here but look around: we have been driving farm families off farms they didn’t want to leave for years only we use the free market so no one can feel guilty about that. We talk about what a wonderful way of life farming is, but we quietly approve of farmers being bankrupted in the name of cheaper food on the supermarket shelves. And Canada is a utopia compared to many countries where the free market is in play. Look at the many countries in South America where a handful of families own 90 per cent of the wealth while 90 per cent of the people live in incredible poverty. Let’s never forget that it was abuse of the private enterprise system -that led peopletofightforCommunism in the first place. People have short memories. Although Communism may be discredited now, if people find suffering and inequities under free enterprise, they may turn to Communism again for the answer. Drifts Mabel’s Grill There are people who will tell you that the important decisions in town are made down at the town hall. People in the know, however know that the real debates, the real wisdom reside down at Mabel's Grill where the greatest minds in the town [if not in the country} gather for morning coffee break, otherwise known as the Round Table Debating and Filibustering Soc­ iety. Since not just everyone can partake of these deliberations we will report the activities from time to time. TUESDAY: Tim O’Grady was say­ ing this morning that he hoped Manuel Noriega didn’t celebrate New Year’s Eve the way some people do or that rock music the American troops are blaring at the Papal embassy in Panama City will really have him suffering. “That sounds like a man speaking from experience,” Julia Flint said. Ward Black said that _fter raising three teenagers he’s about ready to seek shelter in a mone- stary where the monks have taken a vow of silence just to see what silence sounds like. “When they start blaring the music before you’re out of bed in the morning and they keep it up after you’ve gone to bed at night, you start wondering if you’ll ever be able to hear again.” WEDNESDAY: If you live in rural Canada, says Hank Stokes, it seems they’ve got you coming and going. He was talking about all the trouble down in the Maritimes where they’ve announced quotas are being cut back because there are too few fish. “We farmers are in trouble because we produce too much and the fishermen are in trouble be­ cause they have too few fish,” Hank says. “The end result is always the same: the little guy gets it in the neck.” THURSDAY: Some people, says Billie Bean, don’t know how lucky they are. Seems after the train P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. NOM 1H0 Phone 523-4792 P.O Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. NOG 1H0 Phone 867-9114 The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $19 OO/yr. ($40.00 Foreign). Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth. We are not responsible for unsolicited newscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright. derailment in Toronto the other day, Toronto Mayor Art Eggleton said it was time they banned freight trains from Toronto because of the danger they involved. “He should have been up here,” Ward said. “Our councils’ never have to worry about bans on trains because the railways and the governmeht keep taking our trains away even when we’d like to keep them.” Yeh, said Billie, we’ll gladly take Toronto’s unwanted trains and the factories the trains are going to as well. FRIDAY: Darn, Billie says, he always gets in the wrong business, talking about the fine against Labatt’s for bribing tavern owners. Billie says he’d just love to have owned a barn so somebody from Labatt’s could slip him some money under the table to sell Labatt’s Blue. “Yeh,” said Hank, “and that’s where they’d have to give you the money too, under the table, be­ cause if you owned a bar that’s whe-e you’d be most of the time.” Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. Editor & Publisher, Keith Roulston Production Manager, Jill Roulston Advertising Manager, Dave Williams Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968