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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-06-24, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1987. Opinion. Getting government dose to the people When the Prime Minister and the 10 premiers got together and approved constitutional changes last month their accomplishment, they said, was decentralizations, bringing government closer to the people. If we’re serious about decentralization, however, how come the reform always stops at the provincial level. In recent years provincial politicians have been getting more and more power, arguing on one hand that they should have more power from the federal government because they are closer to the people and on the other hand, taking more power from the municipalities by using their spending power to make municipalities toe the line. Municipalities are in the same position with the provincial govenrment that the provinces have been in with the feds. Over the years the responsibilities have grown while the taxation power has remained the same. The provinces have solved the problem by giving more and more grants to the municipalities just as the federal government has given transfer payments to the provinces. Just as the federal government wanted some control on how the money it provided for things like medicare was spent, so the province has used its funding to determine how many areas of municipal activity are conducted. Roads, for instance, must be built to provincial standards or there will be no provincial subsidy. Special programs like Ontario’s PRIDE program are carrots dangled in front of municipalities that are only available to those communities that accept provincial conditions that they have comprehensive zoning by-laws and property standards by-laws: regulations local politicians often don’t think they need. Some people want a strong federal government to set common standards across the country but provincial premiers call for more local autonomy to serve local interests. Yet how many municipal areas have the provincial governments intruded into in recent years in the name of setting common standards across the province? If there is one level of government in Canada that is irrelevent in most cases, it is the provincial level. Perhaps in some cases like Quebec or Prince Edward Island and the island of Newfoundland (but not mainland Labrador) there is some social and communal reason for provincial boundaries but in most cases they are just devisions of jurisdictional convenience. What do we in Huron county have in common with mining towns of Northern Ontario, for instance? We probably have more in common with small towns in Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan and we do with people in downtown Toronto. If our leaders were really interested in decentralization in getting government closer to the people, then the provincial premiers would be meeting with municipal leaders to see how to put more money, and autonomy in the hands of governments at the community level. But they aren’t. What we have seen is a power grab. Ten premiers have continually ganged up on a series of Prime Ministers until they finally found one who would rather given in than continue to fight. At the other end of the fight there are just too many municipalities and they are too diverse in size and interest, for them to be able to gang up on premiers. The premiers intend to keep it that way. Before Canadians believe the baloney about “decentraliza­ tion”, before they swallow the guff about a “community of communities”, they should ask the Prime Minister and the premiers, including our own David Peterson, just where the real communities, our own villages and townships and towns and counties, fit in to the whole decentralization plan. Rewarding experiences One of the most moving moments at the annual convention of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association in Toronto last March was the presentation of the Junior Citizen of the Year awards. Treckingtotheplatformtoreceive awards from former Lieutenant Governor John Black Aird were young people who had rescued people from drowning, and people who had organized humanitarian missions to third world countries and all at an age when most young people were worried most about having a date for Saturday night. There are these outstanding examples of young people in our communities. Not all outstanding junior citizens may have the opportunity to do such outstanding things that they find themselves accepting awards from Lieutenant Governor but there are many people out there who deserve to be recognized. Forms to nominate people for the Junior Citizen of the Year award are available in The Citizen office. Even nominating someone gives them recognition. Too often we point out the bad things young people do. Here’s a chance to reward those who have made outstanding contributions to their community. Letter from the editor BY KEITH ROULSTON Harry J. Boyle, one of my boyhood heroes growing up in this part of the country, came home to speak to the opening night dinner of the Blyth Festival, Friday night. Sitting in the Blyth Memorial Hall basement, filled with digni­ taries, Icouldn’thelpbutthink how much things had changed since the time in Huron that Mr. Boyle wrote about in his books. As someone fascinated by writing and storytell­ ing, the fact that here was someone who wrote books who had grown up just a few miles from where I lived, made it seem not so impossible to become a writer. I’d read about him hearing a distant train whistle coming up the valley and I’d wonder if that was the whistle of the same train that cut through our farm. He’d tell his stories of the many fascinating characters in his mythical town of “Clover” and I’d wonder if any of them were the same people I saw on main street on Saturday night. One thing I remember from the Clover books was how cutoff his little corner of the world in Wawanosh was from the great outside world. The telephone, the mail, the daily newspapers that some people got, later the radio, were the links with the outside world. Still it often seemed like there was the real world here and the mythical world outside. To some extent it was that way when I grew up on a farm to the north in Kinloss township. You could read about famous writers, you could see actors on television or in the movies but you never expected to meet one, let alone think you could be either. Our horizons seemed very limited. That was the contrast that struck me Friday night: how today my children growing up in Huron county can feel plugged right in to the outside world, how they can see examples in everyday life of so many different possible paths for their lives. There just down the table from me sat two of the top writers in Canada, winners of the highest prize the country has to offer to writers, the Governor General’s Award. Both Alice Munro and AnneChislettcall Huron home. Next table over sat two provincial cabinet ministers, privy to the halls of power in the province. At other tables sat businessmen from many businesses large and small including the president of the Toronto Blue Jays who makes his part-time home in Huron. And there was Mr. Boyle himself, in his lapel, a quiet symbol of the highest award the nation can give him; the Order of Canada. At one time to have been in such company would have meant to be sitting at dinner in some plush Toronto setting. Today we can enjoy it in our own back yard. I can’t help envying today’s young Huron county residents. Whether they know it or not, they live in one of the most interesting places in the world. They live where they can help load hay into a haywagon this afternoon and take part in the shooting of a movie Continued on page 6 [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. Box 152 P.O. Box429, Brussels, Ont. Blyth, Ont. NOG 1 HO N0M1H0 887-9114 523-4792 Subscription price: $15.00; $35.00foreign. 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