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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-07-04, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 1990. Opinion Outwitting Canada Post The people of Newbury near Chatham have come up with a novel way to try to outflank Canada Post’s destruction of the rural mail system. When Canada Post announced it was going to close the local post offices, sell off the building and contract out the mail service to a local retail outlet the people were furious. They protested and they wrote letters but nothing would budge Canada Post in the completion of its self-appointed rounds. But the municipal council in Newbury decided if Canada Post was going to contract out mail services, it would bid for the contract. If Canada Post was going to sell off the post office, it would buy the building and move its municipal office into the building. That way town staff could look after the post office as well as do municipal business. Canada Post says its legal people are now studying the proposal, no doubt worried about what kind of precedent might be set by such a move. The Newbury solution sounds like one proposed by a Blyth resident some time ago. If Canada Post doesn’t want to handle the local delivery of mail any more, he suggested, why not have each municipality take over the service. Then if a municipality wanted j ust a retail outlet in a store it could do that. If it wanted to maintain a local post office as the kind of centre of the community it could do so. If local people even cared enough to have mail delivered door to door, they could pay the costs involved. It’s the kind of innovative thinking all small communities in Canada had better be doing if they don’t want to end up getting their mail at a counter at the back of a store, or worse still at a community mail box. Make no mistake: you will not continue to get the mail the way you do now in towns like Blyth and Brussels and Clinton and Wingham. Canada Post has made up its mind and it’s going to take a lot more political pressure than has so far been mounted to convince the current government to change that course. The government is committed to making the post office a private corporation. It’s up to us to find the solutions to keep the kind of mail delivery system we want. Now’s the time for local councils and community groups to start looking at alternatives before it’s too late. Refreshing viewpoint Antonio Lamer, who became chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday has a philosophy that all people in high office, elected or appointed, could copy. In an interview on his taking the position, he was asked if as one of the three members of the Supreme Court he represented Quebec he said no. ‘We don’t represent anyone,” he said of the judges. ‘‘Once we’re appointed, we represent all Canadians. There is no duty of loyalty to anything else but the constitution, the rule of law and our conscience.” If we have learned one thing from the failure of Meech Lake surely it must be that politicians, whether federal or provincial can’t “represent” anyone. Politicians who represent their province in a proprietary kind of way are sowing the destruction of their country. You may be from Ontario or Alberta or Nova Scotia but if you act first as someone from the province and secondly as a Canadian citizen thinking of what is good for the country as a whole, you are undermining the very country you seek to improve. We need to begin thinking of people as Canadians, as individuals, not as representatives of any province or any language group or any race or sex. Breaking people into interest groups builds walls between people. Take any two people in Canada, even those poles apart in their “visions” of Canada as expressed in their opinions of the Meech Lake proposal, put them on a desert island with no one to talk to but each other, and they will soon find all the things they have in common. They won’t be bothered worrying about the things that make them different because they need each other. In the end, the differences in their personalities may make them totally dislike each other but it will be as individuals, not representatives of their race, language, sex or political territory. People are people. They are individuals and must be treated as such. When we start herding people into little groups that are all supposed to think the same, when leaders claim they represent these groups rather than the good of each individual in the group, then we are ensuring that sooner or later the country is going to fail. Not getting older, getting better BY BONNIE GROPP Graduation’s over for many stu­ dents for another year and it was my pleasure to photograph some of these groups for our special gradu­ ation issue. As I watched these young, exuberant faces of tomor­ row, I found myself reflecting on images of my youth, on my hopes and expectations. I thought of who I was and more importantly of who I had become. Perhaps what precipitated this bit of introspective soul-searching was a question my 15-year-old daughter asked me recently. With just a few small words and the honesty of youth, she sank any delusions of youth I may have still been harbouring. I was in the kitchen preparing dinner and as is my wont, “boogying to the beat” of a great 60’s tune, when I noticed my daughter was watching me with a look akin to pity. This took me off guard (usually it’s a look of disgust) so I stopped and she drove in the spike. “Isn’t it depressing to listen to this music and know you are not now, what you were then?” After a few deep breaths I ruled out adoption. I mean, normally she’s a nice girl, sensitive too, so obviously she was really curious about how it must feel to no longer be young. (Gasp!) I decided I should try and give her an answer, but with the detour she had placed in the way of my nostalgia I was not able to clearly see which way to go. My gut reaction was “Yes, I wish I could be 16 again! To be carefree and full of energy”. Immediately following that, however, I realized that the answer is no. Getting to this point was a sometimes trying, often educational experience, to say the least, but the efforts have been worth it. I like being who I am. What I said to her was that when I hear these songs I am young again, transformed back to the young girl with ideas and ideals. The difference is that this one is smarter. It can be the best of both worlds. I am a baby boomer. I was spawned in the 50’s (take your pick), a flower child in the late 60’s and a rebel in the 70’s. Like many others that travelled through those turbulent, remarkable times the way we rode was often bumpy, sometimes hazardous. I hold in my mind a glamorous, romanticised version of that era and my memor­ ies are selective. (That comes with age I’ve discovered). What was bad, moulded me and taught me, and I have tucked it away in the storage room of my mind. If necessary I’ll bring it out for future use or for reference, then put it back. The memories that are always present for me are the good ones, the ones that I build on daily, the ones that continue to make me who I am. So as I looked at these young people who were taking one more step in their development and education I was reminded of all these things. As I looked at the hope in their faces, the excitement and joy, I was reminded of the interesting things they would dis­ cover in the years to come, the challenges they would encounter, the defeats they would overcome, and the turns their lives will often take. They too will not always have good times, but will learn from the bad, grown from their mistakes and share the best, reinforcing the things that make them who they are. The Citizen P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. NOM 1H0 Phone 523-4792 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont NOG 1H0 Phone 887-9114 The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $19.00/yr. [$40.00 Foreign). Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisment 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. Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. Editor & Publisher, Keith Roulston Advertising Manager, Dave Williams Production Manager, Jill Roulston Second Class Mail Reaistration No. 6968