Loading...
The Citizen, 2019-01-10, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 2019. Editorials Opinions President: Keith Roulston • Publisher: Deb Sholdice Editor: Shawn Loughlin • Reporter: Denny Scott Advertising Sales: Brenda Nyveld • Heather Fraser The Citizen P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1H0 Ph. 519-523-4792 Fax 519-523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. N0G 1H0 Phone 519-887-9114 E-mail info@northhuron.on.ca Website www.northhuron.on.ca Looking Back Through the Years CCNA Member Member of the Ontario Press Council The Citizen is published 50 times a year in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $38.00/year ($36.19 + $1.81 G.S.T.) in Canada; $160.00/year in U.S.A. and $205/year in other foreign countries. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Mon. 2 p.m. - Brussels; Mon. 4 p.m. - Blyth. PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40050141 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 152 BRUSSELS ON N0G 1H0 email: info@northhuron.on.ca January 11, 1968 Ted Elliott was installed as president of the Brussels Legion. It would be his third term in the Branch’s top position. Mac Eadie was the overall winner of the Brussels Livestock Ltd. trophy with three wins and a plus of 23 at the business’s annual bonspiel. January 10, 1973 East Wawanosh Reeve Roy Pattison was elected to the position of Huron County Warden, winning a five-way race for the title. In the final election of the day, Pattison defeated Hullett Reeve Hugh Flynn by a close vote of 28- 26. It was the first time in a quarter- century that the warden came from East Wawanosh Township. There were anxious moments at the Blyth arena when someone dropped a lit cigarette on the wooden floor of the heated area of the arena. Instead of falling to the floor, however, the cigarette butt fell into a crack in the floor and by the time it was found it had burned a hole in the floor. Arena Manager Russell Cook said he would soon be posting “no smoking” signs in the upstairs of the arena, with smoking only being permitted in the lower portion of the arena with concrete floors. A meeting to decide the future of the Blyth Little Theatre Group was scheduled for the following week at Blyth Public School. The group had been formed before Christmas with plans to produce plays through the holidays and into the spring. However, in the weeks since the formation, the group was informed that new fire escapes were needed at Memorial Hall before the staging of further plays. January 11, 1995 Despite complaints from municipalities across Huron County, including from Huron County Council itself, CKNX and CPFL television stations (operated by Baton Broadcasting Inc.) denied that coverage of the 1994 municipal election was lacking. After Huron County Council passed a resolution protesting what it felt was a lack of coverage for the county, Baton Broadcasting Inc. President E. W. Eadinger responded, denying council’s claim. “We correctly represented the areas we are licenced to serve and applied our resources most effectively,” he said in his letter. A strong American dollar and a strengthened Canadian economy combined in 1994 to create a strong environment for tourism-related businesses in Huron County. A Huron County Planning and Development Department report stated that some businesses in both Goderich and Bayfield reported their best years ever. On the theatre side, the Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend saw an annual attendance of 67,000, while the Blyth Festival rebounded from a disappointing 1993 with an attendance of 31,000 in 1994. The two theatres contributed $7 million and $2.66 million, respectively, to their local economies, according to estimates in the report. January 15, 2009 A proposed Canadian Tire store and gas bar was again put on hold in North Huron thanks to a pending traffic impact study requested by Huron County Council. The issue was discussed at Huron County Council’s Jan. 7 meeting, where council said it would grant temporary relief on a traffic bylaw if a new design, including the aforementioned study, was submitted to the county. Mike Alcock, the county’s civil engineering technologist was confident that the two sides would work out their issues and that a solution would be found in the coming weeks. Thirty-seven-year-old Peter Robertson of Belgrave became Huron County’s first fatality of 2009 when he died as a result of injuries sustained in a single-vehicle snowmobile crash at approximately 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 10. Blyth firefighters responded to the crash, but Robertson was pronounced dead at the scene. Huron East Council, the lowest- paid in Huron County, voted to give themselves a two per cent raise for the coming term. Councillor David Blaney said that while he acknowledged that Huron East Council was the lowest paid in Huron County, all councillors knew that when they volunteered for the job. Eighteen students and three teachers from St. Anne’s Catholic Secondary School in Clinton were just months away from a mission trip to Kenya where, upon arrival, they planned on building a school. The students had recently rolled up their sleeves and raised over $8,000 for Free the Children through its Brick by Brick campaign to help aid in the school construction. Eighteen-year-old Blyth native Anthony Peters was in the midst of getting used to a new dressing room in the Ontario Hockey League after being traded from the Kingston Frontenacs to the Saginaw Spirit. He wasted no time proving his worth to his new team, posting his first career shutout in the league on Jan. 7 in a 4-0 victory over the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada. We are not responsible for unsolicited newsscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright Good news is welcome Good news stories about the environment often seem hard to find these days so it was heartening to learn from the report of Huron County Stewardship Co-ordinator and Biologist Rachel White last week that there are several successes in the county. White, who oversees several different environmental stewardship initiatives, told Huron County Councillors that many other areas are envious of Huron’s plant diversity with many plants rather common here that are scarce elsewhere. Meanwhile the county is attracting national attention for its efforts, with CBC covering the county’s actions to secure the future of the eastern hog-nosed snake, which is labelled “threatened” on the Ontario Species at Risk list. CTV covered a turtle release by the Huron Stewardship Council, with more than 800 people attending in person. Both Huron County and the many volunteers involved in organizations like the Stewardship Council and Trees Beyond Goderich’s replanting of trees lost during the devastating 2011 tornado deserve our thanks for their efforts. – KR This is embarrassing An Ontario Superior Court Justice made a ruling in late December on a matter that should make all Canadians embarrassed for what the government has been doing on our behalf. Justice Patricia Hennessy said the Crown has acted without honour in continuing to pay the citizens of 23 Northern Ontario First Nations the same $4 annuity it agreed to when it signed a treaty in 1850 to take over a huge, mineral-rich tact of land stretching from Lakes Huron and Superior north to Hudson Bay. “I find that the Crown has a mandatory and reviewable obligation to increase the treaties’ annuities when economic circumstances warrant.” When governments are increasing their resourced-based revenue from the region covered by the treaties, they should increase the annual payments. What’s particularly shameful is that in this day and age of supposedly attempting reconciliation with Indigenous peoples the federal and provincial governments both argued against any obligation to increase the annual payments beyond that paltry historical amounts. Perhaps you could argue that they were looking after the interests of taxpayers since the money owed to the 40,000 people in the region for 168 years of arrears could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, but if so that makes us all complicit in that sad affair. Many billions of dollars have been made by shareholders of mining and forestry companies from the region covered by this treaty. Governments also got billions from taxing these companies and the resources extracted. Yet governments refused to increase the annual payment First Nations residents were supposed to receive in return, even enough to cover the inflationary increase over more than a century and a half. People on First Nations land remained in poverty while others built vast wealth from what had been their land. Thanks to Justice Hennessy we can no longer ignore this shameful situation. Now’s the time to right this wrong, even if it does cost our governments money. – KR Rescuing the stupid Officials with agencies like Global Affairs Canada can be excused if they roll their eyes when people are warned for years not to go to a dangerous country, go anyway, and then expect our government to rescue them when they get in trouble. The Canadian government has been warning people not to visit Syria since 2011 when civil war broke out there with an estimated 500,000 dead as a result. Yet late last year a British Columbian adventurer went to Syria and disappeared, apparently taken into custody by some faction or other. Now his family wants the government to rescue him. Meanwhile, a Quebec woman and her boyfriend have disappeared in Burkina Faso, a country where the Canadian government has warned travellers to avoid all “non-essential travel”. Guy Pardy, a former director general of consular affairs, told CTV news, “Anybody who would go there with the idea that this is a place you can get in your car and drive across (the) country and expect, you know, as if you’re going to Toronto – I mean, I find it very troubling but it happens.” Of course the missing woman’s family is now desperately asking the government to rescue her. Despite the obstacles involved in such efforts, Global Affairs Canada officials will do what they can. They have little choice. To appear to have abandoned Canadians abroad would bring severe criticism – even if they might secretly wish they could tell these people “You got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out.”–KR CORRECTION:A misinterpretation of the source material led to incorrect information in last week’s “Shooting the Messenger” editorial. The actual number of journalists murdered in 2018 was 53. &