HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-10-14, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1987.
Opinion
Post office divides
to conquer
There is an age-old tactic in war and politics: get people
fightingagainsteachotherand you can easily beat them.
Canada Post and the federal government of Brian Mulroney
seem to be playing the tactic to perfection.
While the attention (and the wrath) of the Canadian public
has focused on battles between Canada Post and its unions in
recent weeks and months, post office officials have quietly gone
ahead with plans to deprive millions of people of the postal
service they have come to expect in the name of “efficiency”.
Across the country many rural post masters have been given
the ultimatum: operate your post office as a franchise, make a
few cents an hour for selling stamps on commission, or we’ll
close your post office down and leave your community without
postal service. It’s all part of Canada Post’s declared intention
toclosehundredsofthe 1700 rural post offices across the
country in an effort to save money. How much? A reported $60
million over the next 10yearsorabout$6 million ayear. Canada
Post and the Mulroney government behind it has declared war
on rural Canada to save $6 million a year.
When CBC’s The Journal last week tried to get comment
from Canada Post on its plans for small town post offices the
post office officials said they were too busy dealing with the
inside postal workers str ike to talk about small town post
offices.
Canada Post spends a lot of time not talking about the
smalltown post offices. While it says it wants to close hundreds
of post offices it won’t say which ones. When people start to
worry about their post office, Canada Post denies knowledge
that that post office is on the list. Even members of parliament
seem to be in the dark much of the time.
To borrow the old baseball term: you can’t hit what you can’t
see and Canada Post with government backing is intent on
making sure that people can’t organize to fight smalltown post
office closures. But the post office is also providing a target for
our wrath: the postal unions. Rural Canadians are so busy
hoping the postal unions get their comeuppance, that they’re
ignoring the threat to their own postal service. Canada Post is
playing us for suckers and we’re going along with it.
Contributing
to the community
When the Biyth Christian Reformed Church celebrated its
25th anniversary last week it was an occasion not just for looking
back by parishioners of the church, but a chance for a
community to realize how much the Dutch immigrants and their
children have added to our area.
Inthesedayswhenthereseemstobesomuch backlash
against illegal immigrants and, under the same guise, at all
immigrants, the story written by the Dutch Canadians, both
Protestant and Catholic, has been one that can remind us of
what this country has been about since the beginning of white
settlement.
Beginning immediately after World War 2, people began
escaping their ravaged homeland for a better life in Canada.
Many, particularly in those early days, came with nothing. The
story sounds the same over and over as you listen to the first
families: how the men came to work as hired men on Canadian
farms, worked hard, saved every penny they could, and
eventually bought their own farms, or in some cases, their own
businesses.
Even then the new Canadians did without many luxuries in
the early days as they built up their farms. Today those farms
are among the most prosperous in the nation, well kept and a
credit to the community.
For people in a strange land surrounded by people speaking a
strange language, the church proved a refuge both spiritually
and socially, in those early days. When the Biyth CRC began in
1962, one service a day was still held in Dutch while the other
was in English. It wasn’t long however, before all services were
in English.
In the grand scheme of things, it has taken very little time for
the immigrants of 30 and 40 years ago to become fully
integrated into our communities. They have followed the
pattern set by earlier generations of Irish and Scots and many
other nationalities who faced hardship when they arrived but
worked hard and made a better life both for themselves and for
the rest of the community. That’s the way this country has
always operated.
When we talk about the immigrants of today, legal or
otherwise, perhaps we should remember the immigrants of the
pas*, Dutch, Scots, English or Irish, and the fact that without
them, we wouldn’t have this rich, blessed land we have today.
THE AMERICAN SAIANISTS ARE
LYIN6 AGAIN...THIS PHOTO IS
NOTHING BUT A FOOR IRANIAN
FISHERMAN CATCHING AN O/ERLY
FAT OCTOPUS
Mabel’s Grill
There are people who will tell you
that the important decisions in town
are made down al the town hull.
People in the know, however know
that the real debates, the real
wisdom reside down at Mabel's
(drill where the greatest minds in
the town [if not in the country]
gather for morning coffee break,
otherwise known as the Pound
Table Debating and Filibustering
Society. Since not just everyone can
partake of these deliberations we
will report the activitiesfrom time to
lime.
MONDAY: The Free Trade agree
ment naturally got a lot of talk
around the round table this
morning. Ward Black was saying
“I told you so’ ’ after all the talk that
Brian Mulroney wouldn’t be able
to pull off the agreement. Tim
O’Grady wasn’t so happy about it
and Hank Stokes was thankful, for
the first time in years, that he
wasn’t a dairy or poultry farmer,
because they’d be worried about
their marketing board.
Billie Bean said he thought
Mulroney had really bownit on this
deal. It we were going to give up so
many things, he said, at least
Mulroney should have got an
agreement tha t the B1 ue J ays got to
beat the Tigers.
WEDNESDAY: Billie, always on
the lookout for new business
opportunities says he doesn’t
figure he’s up to this one but the
obvious place to make money these
days is in weddings. He was talking
about an article he saw in the paper
that said marriages were up 57 per
cent per year in Canada since 1959
but the number of divorces also
increased by 16.7 per cent in just
one year between 1985 and 1986.
“This is obviously a growth
market,’’ he said. “It’s also a
renewable market. People used to
get married just once for life but
now there’s built-in obsolescence
in marriages just like in cars. We
may see the day come when people
trade in spouses every two years
just like they do cars. Just think
what that will do for sales of
wedding dresses and flowers and
wedding photography.’’
fix of NFL football.
Well, said Julia Flint, looking at
a front page picture on the paper
about more fun on the picket lines
at the post office, at least Cana
dians can watch the postal strike to
get their fix of violence. Think of
the poor American fans.
FRIDAY: Juliawas mentioning
this morning about Jerry Falwell’s
resignation from the PTL club
because a court decision means
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
might get back in control of the
group. The evangelists may be
unhappy, Julia said, but cartoon
ists all over North America are
probably hoping they do come
back.
THURSDAY: Tim was saying
some friends of his are getting
really antsy without their weekly
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