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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1989-11-15, Page 5The International Scene THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1989. PAGE 5. Letter from the editor Something for nothing ... or next to it BY RAYMOND CANON One of the things that I usually do when I am off in other countries is read the newspapers for news of Canada. I must confess that by and large it is a futile search for Canadian news is not considered to be of top priority or even close to it. There was a small article in one paper ■ about one of the court's decisions about abortions but other than that, nothing. Well, almost nothing. Several times I saw a huge ad with the word Canada featured in it. However, would it or would it not surprise you to learn that it was an ad for a Canadian lottery. If you sent in so much money, said the ad, you would be able to take part in the draws for a whole month; you could even, if you wished, cough up a considerable amount of money and take part for a whole year. There was the usual come-on about the chances of becoming a millionaire as well as the frequently heard statement that, if you wanted to win, you had to play. I can understand why the Cana­ dian lotteries would start to adver­ tise in Europe. After all, there are only so many Canadians who are prepared to buy tickets on a regular basis. Lotteries have been a part of European life for a lot longer than they have here and there are so County council briefs First residents turned down Huron County’s new policy to reduce the size of the resident population at Huronview in view of the move to two smaller homes in the future has only been in place for a month and already some county councillors are unhappy with it. At the Nov. 2 meeting of county council two applications for admis­ sion were denied under the new admissions policy which will freeze admissions at the home until the resident population drops to the size that can be accommodated at the new Huronview unit at Clinton and the proposed northern satellite at Brussels. Several councillors are unhappy over the move. Turnberry Reeve Brian McBurney, in a letter to the editor in last week’s Wingham Advance-Times argued that the county should have fought for more than the 181 extended care beds the government as allotted the county because, while the need for residential care beds may be declining, the need for extended care beds is growing and the county doesn’t have the space. Bill Mickle, Reeve of Exeter is another councillor concerned with the lack of extended care beds and has asked the county to push for more beds, particularly for the south of the county where a proposed southern satellite of Hur­ onview was turned down by the provincial government. Public Access Computer cata­ logues have been ordered by the Huron County Library Board for five libraries in the county, includ­ ing the village of Blyth, where fundraising has been sufficient to many more addicted Europeans than there are Canadians. I recall that, when I was living in Spain many years ago, they used to have all the blind people out on the street selling the tickets. The argument was that it gave the blind something to do and in addition you might feel sorry for them and buy an extra ticket or two to increase their small commission. In addition to lotteries, there are the sport pools. To tl ose not familiar with them, the trick is to pick the winners in 12 or so football games. You can indicate win. lose or draw and, depending on how successful you and all the other betters are, you can win either a considerable sum of money or a sum not so considerable. We haven’t got around to the sport pools yet in Canada but lotteries are here in a big way and it is obvious from the ads that they have gone international with a vengeance. I must confess that I am not nor have I ever been a supporter of these lotteries; I did, in fact, once write an economic study on them which showed that the biggest percentage of the tickets were bought by those who could least afford them. Further­ more I pointed out that the odds given on these lotteries were so rotten, you had a better chance of being hit by a Mack truck when you were crossing the street. You may be surprised to learn that you get much better odds at such places as Las Vegas and thus I consider the lotteries to be guilty of telling less than the truth. To me the central theme is simply people’s desire to get something for nothing or next to it. As my economics students can testify, I consider the whole thing pay for the computers. Others to receive the computers are Exeter, Goderich, Seaforth and Zurich. Some libraries, with two floors, may require a second computer and fundraising is underway in those branches. There was good news from the budget front when the road com­ mittee’s report forecast a year end surplus of $274,000 in road expen­ ditures. Last year the department also had a sizeable surplus at the end of the year. With the construction at the Huron County Museum now com­ pleted emphasis has turned to programming with quick success. The musem offered a Christmas program to schools consisting of a film on a Victorian Christmas, hands-on Christmas crafts and hands-on traditional Victorian toys followed by a Christmas snack and decorating the tree. Within hours of starting to take bookings the entire 2500 places available in the program were taken. Meanwhile, piece by piece, the Museum is acquiring one of its largest collection items: an Anson aircraft, the kind of bomber train­ ers used to train flight crews in airports such as Port Albert under the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. The museum committee re­ port said the fuselage had been delivered and dismantled for stor­ age but the wings and other materials had not yet been receive- ed.***** Condominium developments are springing up like mushrooms in the fall weather across the county. To to be part of the erroneous thinking that, if you can get rich, you wilLbe able to do what the beautiful people do and you will thus be a beautiful or happy person. Unfortunately this is not how life works. Becoming rich is not going to make you into a beautiful person; in many cases it does exactly the opposite. The correct approach, from where I stand, is to start out by being a beautiful person, in short, get your act together economically and spiritu­ ally; this will lead you into doing the right things and you will end up having the right things. To put it very briefly, instead of the HAVE- DO-BE sequence, you follow the BE-DO-HAVE sequence. This will give you far better odds of getting out of life what you want to. Those who support lotteries of­ ten tell me about all the nice things that the profits from lotteries bring to the communities in Canada. There is no doubt that this is true but the fact to remember is that people do not buy lottery tickets for such altruistic reasons; they buy them out of sheer greed and, as I pointed out earlier, the load falls on the people who can least afford them. If you really want to have such nice things in communities, find other ways to finance them that are not so regressive. However, such is the intensity of the “something for nothing’’ feel­ ing, both in Canada and elsewhere, that anything I say will not likely have any effect. However, that will not stop me from continuing to preach my far more practical theory above if only because, if you are in any way a gambler, the odds are so much better than those offered by the lotteries. All it takes is time and persistence. deal with the cost of the Planning and Development Department’s work on such agreements. Council approved the establishment of an application fee of $.1,000 plus $50 per lot for each plan of subdivision. Draft approval was given to a 120-town-house development in Goderich proposed by Mark Sully. Another proposal to convert two buildings in Vanastra to condo­ miniums was received to be dealt with at a later date. Meanwhile the Ministry of En­ vironment is expressing increasing concern over the quality of ground water on lots that are too small for septic tanks to be properly used, planning officials said. For subdivi­ sions with septic tanks, this may require hydrogeological studies or larger lot sizes. Public environment forum tonight A public forum on environmental problems in Huron and Bruce will be held at the Lucknow Town Hall on Wednesday, November 15 at 7:30 p.m. Professor Bill Andrews will head the list of five speakers who will tak on sustainable agriculture and waste management. Professor An­ drews teaches environmental sci­ ence at the University of Toronto. He was born in Clinton and operates a demonstration ecologi­ cal sanctuary on the Maitland River near Belgrave. His views on the environment have challenged the accepted policy of the government. An up-date on the recycling program will be given by Jim Lang Continued from page 4 these young people out for their future life but they’re showing that the principal of their earning more money than high school teachers is worth more to them than the problems they are causing for their students. It’s a good lesson for the students to learn. They can re­ member it in the future when perhaps they join a union. They can use it when they’re bosses perhaps who can argue that giving the employees more money or better working conditions would cut into their own profits so therefore the employees will' just have to do without. They can use it when they’re in industry and they can say that yes, a little pollution in the air or water may be harmful to the environment and thus to everybody else, but it’s in the self interest of the industry to make the others suffer. Self-interest, greed if you will, makes the modern world go around, after all. The teachers of course will argue greed isn’t part of their strike. They’re trying to build a better education system they’ll tell you. How can the colleges attract good teachers if teachers aren’t properly rewarded? Teachers will leave the colleges to enter private industry if salaries aren’t improved, they say. I wonder. I know people who have gone from private industry to work in colleges to get more money but not many who have come the other way. Even if the money was better Letters Brussels firemen said dedicated, courageous THE EDITOR, It’s too bad that things are so quiet in Sunshine that Facetious Lee has to consider applying for the as yet unadvertised job of Chief Co-ordinator of the Brussels- Morris-Grey Fall Leaf Collection and Distribution (CCBMGFLC and D, for short). But before Mr. Lee gets this job (he may be the only applicant) he needs to bone up on the significant role the Brussels Fire Department plays in our community. Completely staffed by volun­ teers, these community-spirited men are willing to spend hours of their personal time learning the latest technology of fire fighting. They are also willing to drop everything (even a paying custom­ er) the second the siren sounds and get the fire truck on the road within three minutes of the alarm. It is very reassuring to the residents of Brussels and the surrounding countryside (including Sunshine?) to know that the volun­ teer fire department is only min- who is deputy clerk of Wingham and in charge of waste manage­ ment. The future of waste manage­ ment in Huron County will be discussed. Paul Weitendorf of the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority will speak on sustainable agriculture. Ted Zettel of the Bruce County Ecological Farmers Association will deal with the concerns of the farmer and the environment. Tony McQuail a Huron County member of the Ecological Farmers and Huron County School Board member will talk about some political aspects of this global problem. How the individual can have impact at the local, provincial in some private sector jobs, could the hours of the college teacher be beaten?* The college teachers are at least honest. They’ve called on the provincial government to put more money into the college system so they can get more. It’s refreshing honesty since most public sector professionals talk a lot about needing more government funding to improve their sector of education or health care or public safety but never mention that the money would go to pay more in salaries. Just once I'd like to hear a bunch of professionals come out and worry about the quality of the product they were able to give the public and say that to help the situation out, they’re willing to take a cut in pay of a few dollars a week. I have great sympathy with the students right now. Having one daughter in university and another in turmoil trying to decide what career to follow when she finishes high school, I see first hand the stress that is on young people at that pivotal stage of their lives. That four or five year period when a student is finishing high school and going to college or university will change the entire direction of their lives and the stress of the uncer­ tainty is enough for kids to have to put up with without the added worry about what will happen if the strike lasts much longer. At least the strike should give the students some incentive to get a job that will put them on the gravy train like the teachers. utes away. Those of us who watched the fire at the Brussels Legion have only the greatest admiration for these men, who are willing to risk life and limb on our behalf. (Besides, they also serve the best breakfast in town several times a year). I feel certain that Facetious Lee’s reference to the Brussels Fire Department was meant in jest and did not intend to offend anyone. But it did make me stop and think about the many reasons we should be grateful to these courageous men. Grateful Lee Brussels. Read information THE EDITOR, An open letter to Tai Chi-ers: Please read carefully all the literature in your packet, especially the magazine. Your concerned and caring neighbour. and federal level will be discussed. Wayne Fenton the Bruce County Waste Management Co-orindator will have a display of the waste management program. Other groups which will be represented are Environmental Minds of Grey- Bruce, Men of Trees from Kincar­ dine, and the Temagami Wilder­ ness Society. The video - “Wrath of Grapes’’ which deals with pro­ blems in California will be shown. Admission is free and there will be refreshments and a door prize. Anyone with concerns or questions about the environment is welcome to attend. The forum is organized by the Huron-Bruce New Demo­ crats.