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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-02-10, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1988. Opinion Decisiveness doesn't have to mean bad manners The leadersof the Huron county women’s organization Women Today may not get the grant they were seeking when they appeared before Huron County Council last week but they probably got enough anger from their reception to keep their organization fighting determinedly for the next 10 years. In fact, if the women could have taken a tape recording of the reaction of two of the county councillors (who weren’t contradicted by the other 25 or so present) they might have ammunition to convince federal and provincial government authorities even more money must be poured into Huron County to protect women from such male chauvinist behaviour. There were reasonable doubts about the funding request. Colborne Reeve Russell Kernighan, for instance, questioned how he could support a grant for Women Today when in his township the Women’s Institute had been doing good work for years and never needed a grant. But then the embarrassing silliness began when Stephen township Reeve Tom Tomes got up and said his daughter had been involved in a women ’ s group at high school until ‘ ‘ she saw the light”. He went on to say he noticed there were few men in the video presentation the women had just shown and wondered ifthegroup would be willing to accept male tax dollars. Later it was the turn of Robert Fisher, Reeve of Zurich to give the impression men haven’t become much more sublte than when they used to use clubs to win arguments with women. Filling in a recent grant application, he said, he had found a line at the bottom that said preference would be given to native people, women and franco-phones. Equality doesn’t exist for women? he said. It is the poor white, English-speaking male that is the underdog in society. He joined Reeve Tomes in hoping no money was given to the group. Fair enough if the councillors felt they couldn’t support the group. Fair enough if they felt they had to be honest and stand up and say they couldn’t support that grant. But surely even if you don’t believe in the aims and objectives of an organization, county councillors can show enough maturity and civility to treat people politely when they appear before council. When fair-minded people listen to strongly feminst groups talk they often think they are going too far in their depiction of men as anti-women. Then you listen to men like Reeves Tomes and Fisher and you wonder if the women are right and millions should be pumped into supporting feminist groups. Distance makes the head grow foggy There were plenty of red faces among the ranks of the Tory blue in Ottawa last week over the resignation of yet another cabinet minister who bit the dust. The question that might be asked of the constituents of some of these ministers, however, is why they elected these members in the first place. There is much talk about small communities and how everybody knows everybody else’s business and there are times when it is true. One of the times when that can be good is when it comes to electing people to offices. There are two parts of every political office-seeker: the paper figure that can be constructed in official biographies or 30-second television clips, and the real person that those in regular contact with the person know. It is easy to fool people with the paper figure. It’s hard to pull the wool over the eyes of people you meet day to day. On paper Michel made a super candidate for the Conservatives in Quebec. He was handsome, charming, well-known, had an impressive background as an accountant with one of the country’s top firms. Yet by the time the axe finally fell last week, some of those close to the scene in Quebec City had been wondering how he held it all together as long as he did. As our population continues to grow but the limits of the number of people we can elect to the House of Commons remains relatively stable, it is inevitable that there will be more mistakes in who we elect to the Commons. As ridings get larger, both in terms of the number of constituents and, in rural areas, in the vastness of the territory covered by the riding, the possibility to know the real candidate diminishes. More and more we must choose our M.P. on the basis of the paper figure: on how the person looks on television, on how he or she speaks at meetings, on how impressive the biography looks. If we, at the local level, don ’ t elect the best people because we don’t know enough about them, then how can a prime minister have the best people to choose from for his cabinet. A democracy in trouble at the grassroots level will also be in trouble at the top. LOOKS GOOD MIKE, LET'S GOWOH AN ELECTION BUC&ET! MIKE WILSON FINANCE Confessions of a life of crime BY KEITH ROULSTON You won’t catch me being among those demanding the head of Marcel Masse on a platter for being investigated by a quasi-judi- ciai body. Marcel, I’ve been there. Now it can be told. For two years I, and The Citizen, have been underthethreatofaction by the Ontario Securities Commission. It began, I suppose, back in the days when The Citizen was being organizedin the late summer of 1985. It seemed like a good idea at the time to have local people in the community own the newspaper. Local people seemed to think it was. Offerstobuy shares in The Citizen flooded in. The first thing we knew we had over 80 sharehold­ ers. The problem, our lawyer and our accountant told us, is that if we wanted to be classed as a private company, if we didn’t want to have shares listed on the stock exchange, we had to have fewer than 50 shareholders. Meanwhile we had the paper started and we had that 15 minutes offame Andy Warhol talked about. Somebody thought it was interest­ ing how we had got the paper going and wrote a story for a local daily newspaper. Canadian Press thought the story was interesting so they put in on their wire service. Newspapers across the country and as far away as Florida and Arizona thought it was interesting. CBC and radio stations as far away as Alberta called to do stories on the paper. The problems really probably began, however, when the Toronto Star and, more importantly, the Globe and Mail thought the story was interesting and ran the story. Important people read the Globe and Mail. Particularly people involved in big business and the regulation of big business. It was during the rush of the week before Christmas, 1985 that the telephone call came from Toronto. The lady said she was from the Ontario Securities Com­ mission and did we know that we were in violation of this regulation and that regulation and we could have all our bank accounts seized and be ordered to cease operation (she didn’t say we could be thrown into the dungeon and stretched on the rack but it sounded like a definite possibility). It was a very merry Christmas at our house in 1985. Our sin was that we offered shares for sale without giving investors a proper prospectus. The OSC has brought in regulations against such things so people won’t swindle gullible investors by selling them worthless moose pasture and claiming it’s full of oil or gold or is going to be developed into quarter million dollar resort condominiums. The trouble is an approved prospectus costs $30,000 to $40,000. We were only trying to raise $30,000 in the first place. We tried to argue that we didn’t really have to go out and sell the shares that most of the investors came to us. We tried to argue that in a small town 47 shareholders Continued on page 39 [Published by North Huron Publishing Company Inc.] Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships Published weekly in Brussels, Ontario P.O.Box152, P.O.Box429, Brussels, Ont. Blyth, Ont. NOG 1 HO N0M1H0 887-9114 523-4792 Subscription price: $17.00; $38.00 foreign. Advertising and news deadline: Monday2p.m.in Brussels; 4p.m. in Blyth Editor and Publisher: Keith Roulston Advertising Manager: Dave Williams Production and Office Manager: Jill Roulston Second Class Mail Registration No. 6968