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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, March 21, 2019
Volume 35 No. 12
NEW FRIENDS - Pg. 3
Blyth’s McGregor set to
stage three-story play
HASAR - Pg. 9
Search and Rescue group
evolving quickly
HOUSING - Pg. 2
Festival seeks housing for
more cast and crew
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0
INSIDE
THIS WEEK:
CCRC
sets new
goals for
program
With the transition from Arts
and Cultural Initiative 14/19 to
the Canadian Centre for Rural
Creativity (CCRC) well underway,
Project Manager Peter Smith has
some lofty goals going forward.
News was released in The Citizen
several weeks ago that the transition
was officially underway, with the
first goal of 14/19 – the renovation
of Memorial Hall – now complete.
With the former Blyth Public School
property now up for sale, however,
the location of the centre is yet to be
determined, though a number of
locations are currently being
considered.
Smith says that it made sense to
sell the property and look elsewhere
for a location for the Grant and
Mildred Sparling Centre, which will
house the CCRC in the future.
The hope, he said, is that the project
can take cues and attract input from
the entire community and that a
support structure can be built around
the centre, possibly including
accommodation options and other
amenities.
With the search for a new
location, Smith says, comes an
opportunity to look at the project
with fresh eyes and reshape its
future to see what it can become.
Smith says the CCRC is still
working with renowned architect
Heather Dubbeldam for the design
of the centre; the project is just
waiting for a new location to be
confirmed.
In the meantime, however, Smith
said that much of what is planned
for the coming years can be
accomplished without the aid of a
bricks and mortar facility.
The CCRC is in the midst of
fundraising to host another Fare on 4
meal to bookend the meal that fed
1,419 people on Blyth’s main street
in 2014 to kick off the 14/19
campaign.
Smith says he feels it would be
rather poetic to host another Fare on
4 in 2019. Right now, nothing has
been confirmed, but the CCRC is
looking at Sunday, July 21 as a
potential date.
There have also been discussions,
Smith said, about turning Fare on 4
into a biennial event, joining the
organization’s Rural Talks to Rural
(R2R) conferences and perhaps
alternating them so the CCRC has
Victim’s daughter upset by Wettlaufer play
Our daily bread
The Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Centre
(BMGCC) was the site of a number of March Break
activities last week, including the Community Food
Advisors’ (CFA) culinary classes in the centre’s kitchen. On
Friday, participants put what they had learned into practice,
serving dinner to a family member. Above, a group of young
chefs prepare plates of bread for the meal. From left: Kayleigh
Long, Brooke Laffin, Charlotte Mutter and Emily Burkholder. CFA
representative Donna Bauer explained that the events couldn’t
happen without the hundreds of volunteer hours that go into them,
as well as partnerships between the BMGCC, Kids Challenge and
the Mobile Food Truck. (Denny Scott photo)
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 2
While the creative team behind the
Blyth Festival’s In The Wake of
Wettlaufer has connected with
several family members of the
victims of confessed serial killer
Elizabeth Wettlaufer in the creation
of the upcoming play, not all
connected with the event are happy
about the production.
Susan Horvath, the daughter of 75-
year-old Wettlaufer victim Arpad
Horvath, has taken to YouTube to
express her concern with the play.
Horvath claims that the play will
be in “hurtful taste” and bring up
pain for those connected to the
murders, as well as senior citizens in
general.
In an interview with The Citizen
on Monday, Horvath said that, first
and foremost, she wasn’t
speaking for herself, but for a
“substantial” constituency of people
who believe the play shouldn’t be
produced.
In her nearly-12 minute video,
which was uploaded last week, she
says that her family’s loss, alongside
their involvement with Wettlaufer’s
trial, has left her suffering multiple
maladies.
She says that the play, like the
recent inquiry caused by the
Wettlaufer murders, will make her
relive the incident.
Horvath states she plans on
protesting the play as well as seeking
legal action against it.
During the interview, Horvath
explained that she disagreed with
those working with the Festival for
the play, pointing out that one is her
brother.
She said the play is too soon, too
close to home and, having been
announced late last year, was rushed
to creation, in her opinion, for
financial gain.
Horvath said that the play
wouldn’t generate the kind of
discussion necessary to influence
decision makers, so it was made
only for financial gain and to sell
tickets.
She said she is familiar with the
Blyth Festival and its works, and
says that great theatre is made in
Blyth, but said the inspiration behind
this play misses the mark and is
“immoral and pretty sad.”
“It’s opening new wounds and
triggering old pain,” she said.
Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil
Garratt, in an interview with The
Citizen on Monday, said that he saw
Horvath’s video and found it
“heartbreaking.”
He explained that the video
touches on many of the points that
are a central concern for those
creating the play.
“The play is about the impact of
Elizabeth Wettlaufer’s heinous acts
on all people in Ontario and
Canada,” he said. “We can’t go
forward without discussing it.”
In creating the play, Garratt and
creator and co-writer Kelly
McIntosh hope to keep not only
Wettlaufer, but the fallout from her
actions in the public discourse.
Garratt said that the murders and
following court case and inquiry,
have unveiled some serious concerns
about the state of longterm care, and,
despite that, Ontario continues to see
cuts across the province, resulting in
hundreds of nurses being laid off.
Because of the reality that Ontario
is faced with, he feels it is important
the play goes forward.
Garratt also explained that the play
doesn’t deal with Wettlaufer’s
actions directly, or with actual
families involved in the case.
“There are no families portrayed,
no victims portrayed and her crimes
aren’t depicted,” he said. “The play
is far more universal than that. It’s
about a fictional family grappling
with a parallel experience.”
The play fits the mission of the
Blyth Festival, Garratt said, by
giving voice to the area and the
country, and to ignore such an
important story, that was enormous
not only in this region but in the
country as well, would be ignoring
that mission.
“We have a duty to engage those
ideas,” he said.
Garratt and McIntosh have been
working closely with relatives of the
victims, and he says they did reach
out to Horvath through her lawyer
last month, and respect her decision
to not participate in the creation of
the play.
That said, he is encouraged by the
words of those who chose to be a
part of the creation of the play,
highlighting a statement from Daniel
Silcox, another relative of one of
Wettlaufer’s victims.
“There is a need for the story to be
told about the struggles that take
place within a family during the
placement of their elderly parents
into Long Term Care,” he said.
“From what I know of [Garratt and
McIntosh] and the insights [they]
have gained through family
interviews and other research, I am
confident it will be presented in a
sensitive, yet powerful way.
“I thank both [Garratt and
McIntosh] for being so open and
eager to discuss [the] project,” he
said.
For more information on the play,
visit blythfestival.com.
By Denny Scott
The Citizen