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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-04-19, Page 5Arthur Black International Scene THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1995. PAGE 5. Average Canadian still treasures penny A penny saved is a penny earned Old English saying Every penny counts Ancient Hebrew adage In Spain, they have a coin called the centimo. It is a tiny, almost weightless disc, made of dingy aluminum. Value: one- hundredth of a peseta, which is to say...well, I remember getting off a city bus in Malaga one day. The man ahead of me had paid his fare with a bill and received a fistful of centimos in change. His response? He tossed them over his shoulder without a backward glance. At the time, the average weekly wage in Spain was about $20 Canadian. I hadn't thought of that little Iberian vignette for about 30 years. Not until I was standing at a stop light in Toronto last week when a man got out of a cab right in front of me. He too, paid his fare with a bill. He too received a handful of coins - in this case, pennies. His response? Exactly the same as the Spaniards. He tossed the pennies in the gutter and walked away. Shouldn't be surprising, I guess. Most Canadians must be familiar with that little Maintain cultural barriers It is difficult to know where to start this article but I will begin by saying, that in one week I read about, or heard, three different things that at first sight might not appear to have any connection but, by the time the week was over, they all came together in my mind. The first was the arrival on the Western campus, the same place where I ply some of my economic wares, of the chairperson of General Motors. His name is John Smale and, if my information is correct, he originated from Listowel but left Canada at an early age. At any rate he seems to have done quite well at the corporate level; rising to the top of GM is no mean feat. However, any admiration I had for him departed rapidly when he told the assembled students that Canada should take concrete steps to eliminate all cultural protection measures. If we took any efforts to prevent American culture from dominating Canada even more than-it has already, it would run counter to the natural order of free trade. What this is, I thought, is nothing more than a variation of the old theme that what is good for GM is good for the rest of the world. If by American culture all one meant was listening to Andre Previn, looking at the paintings of Jackson Pollock of admiring the New York Ballet, all would be fine. However, whole sections of American culture are steeped in violence; pop songs are filled with it and it has been endemic south of the border ever since the country was formed. If it isn't guns, it is knives, brass knuckles or the sheer use of physical violence. The same day As Mr. Smale was here, I read a report of life in Los Angeles. One styrofoam cup by the restaurant cash register with the slogan "Give a penny, take a penny" written on it. It signifies that the Canadian penny is now so worthless, cashiers can't be bothered making change with it. They round your bill off to the nearest nickel. If you've got a couple of cents in your pocket to even it out, swell — throw them in the cup. If not, forget it. No big deal. For cashiers, the penny has become a nuisance. A mere pain in the assets. But the average Canadian still treasures the penny. We don't spend them — we hoard them. By the ton. A recent study commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint found that a staggering 81 per cent of all Canadian homes contains stashes of coins - especially pennies - in "jars, piggy banks and other types of containers." The study reckons that if we could somehow vacuum up all the pennies squirrelled away in cupboards, desks, drawers and cigar boxes we'd fmd about 10 billion coppers. Ten billion! That means there's about $100 million worth of coppers out there, gathering lint and turning green. Which really bugs the Canadian Mint, since they have to keep manufacturing 700 million new pennies each year to replace the ones that go into our sock drawers and out of circulation. parish priest reported that in a specific time period, he held more funerals for young people that had been victims of violence than he did of those who died a natural death. Teenagers have become fatalistic; they expect to be killed either as an innocent bystander or involvement in a gang. With regard to the latter, eight-year-old boys no longer play a version .of cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians; they take on the names of district gangs and act out their raids and vendettas. That, Mr. Smale, is part of American culture that you think free trade should permit. I could continue indefinitely about this report but one more incident will suffice. An 18-year-old girl deliberately got herself pregnant since, as she told her friends, she wanted to experience birth at least once before she was killed. All part of the fatalism to which I referred above. And the third incident. It took place when we were called on that Saturday morning and told that Jamie Williamson, the young son of some good friends of ours, had been the victim of an unprovoked murder at the main intersection in London. He was stabbed repeatedly and, as he lay dying on the street, he was kicked by all three perpetrators. What difference was there, I thought, between London, Ont. and Los Angeles. Frankly, trying to keep a "kinder, gentler" Canadian culture when we live beside the United States is exceedingly difficult at the best of times; we need all the help we can get, and if that means a few cultural barriers, so be it, free trade or no free trade. I want to be known as a person who lives in a country that can produce Mr. Dressup than one that spews out Rambo-like programs on a GM - like assembly line. Just take a look at American culture on the TV, as I am sure many of you have, and you will know immediately what I mean. But shutting off the TV is not enough. We have to instill in our children the necessity of And they're losing money on every penny they produce. That's right - the Canadian penny is now so worthless it costs the Canadian mint a cent and a half to produce each cent. The government would dearly like to do something about all those hoarded pennies. So far, the options are: • Spend millions of loonies on an advertising campaign to convince Canadians they should spend those pennies. • Pay citizens to cash in their pennies. • Scrap the penny entirely. I think the government's missing the most obvious move. In his budget, Paul Martin announced the government will shortly be minting a $2 coin to replace our paper deuce, right? Why bother? Why spend millions of dollars on new designs and dies and manufacture and distribution when we've already got coins out there, doing nothing? All Mister Martin has to do is announce a simple name change. Henceforth, he could say, the Canadian penny will be worth two bucks and known as...The Doubloonie! Canucks would get whiplash trying to get their hoards of formerly worthless coppers down to the bank. A great idea, no? Sensible. Kills two birds with one stone. Costs next to nothing. Which of course means the government will never go for it. maintaining standards that preclude violence and we have to do this partly by example. Denouncing violence and then accepting it in hockey, defeats the very culture we say we want. We could do worse than look at some of the ethnic groups in Canada whose members seldom find themselves before Canadian judges. In short, the road back to civilized behaviour is long and arduous, but it is a road that must be followed if people like John Smale are to be denied their free trade in violence and if Jamie Williamson's death is not to be repeated endlessly. Steckle salutes Citizenship Week The theme for this year's National Citizenship Week, April 18 to 24, is We're Canadian - Take it to Heart. It is a time for all Canadians to join together and reflect on the pride shared in being citizens of Canada. The Prime Minister of Canada declared National Citizenship Week in 1987 to mark the 40th anniversary of the first Canadian Citizenship Act. The week of April 17 was chosen to coincide with the proclamation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, signed into law as part of the Constitution Act on April 17, 1982. "Communities from coast to coast will take part in activities and events organized to make the week," said Huron-Bruce MP Paul Steckle. "Our active participation as citizens during NCW and throughout the year, renews and strengthens our common bonds as Canadians." "During this week, we as Canadians can reflect on how citizenship enriches our lives and makes us proud of the great nation we share," he said. "I encourage everyone in Huron-Bruce to find a way to show what being Canadian means to them and take their citizenship to heart during this week. There is no better time to celebrate being Canadian and to consider how each of us can contribute to the future of our country." The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Time for learning the hard way How can so many see something as wrong, yet the people who can change things don't appear to agree? Before I proceed any further, I would like to preface this column by acknowledging the many wonderful young people in this world, who are making significant, yet at times, anonymous contributions to our society. They are a large group, who unfortunately, get little press. Then there are the other ones, a smaller representation of adolescents and 20 somethings who, with arrogance, attitude and impudence strut through life as if they own the world and are owed it. They defy authority, are contemptuous of adults and, while perfectly adept at using the legal system to their advantage, have nothing but derision for the laws that try to bind them. These kids are not only a source of irritation to many of their elders, but they are, as well, becoming something much greater. As defenseless as a newborn baby abandoned in a rat-infested building, is the way many people, especially seniors, are feeling about existing in a society with these insolent young sociopaths. Their sorry examples pop up in the media, and coffee shop talk, on a daily basis. There are the young thugs, who wanted to find out what it would be like to kill someone, so, wielding baseball bats they beat to death an elderly couple in Montreal for no other reason than the heck of it. As young offenders not only are their rights protected, but the maximum price to pay if found guilty is a slap on the wrist. And don't for one minute think these punks don't know it. A senior citizen in Palmerston, who owns a jewellery store certainly found out what his rights are. He is awaiting trial because he took a shot at two would-be thieves who broke into his store late one evening, only to fmd the owner still at work in the back. (I guess these boys don't understand the earlier generation's work ethic!) This careless disregard for others and their property, this insouciance for the law and its punishments, is something that is beyond the comprehension of the good folk, who worked hard for everything they ever owned, were taught to put others before themselves and who expected and usually received, harsh judgement for their misdeeds. (This is not to say that there are no pathetic examples of adulthood, but that is another column. ) This past week my mom and dad told me about a friend of theirs whose vacation trailer home was burned to the ground by a group of teens just out to cause trouble. Kids, who in their view, have probably never known what it means to work, scrimp and save so that you might own something. Kids, who place little value on anything, because they have everything. When stories like these come up, the good people who built this country, are dismayed and angry that what they achieve could be treated so carelessly, so casually, by others. There is also dismay, and concern, that when caught in these acts of crime or vandalism repentence is nil, punishment for the perpetrators is lax. What's wrong? Are they bad because we've handed it all to them? Or, is life so stressful that they just can't deal with it? Either way the general consensus seems to be that these kids had better start learning — the hard way. People are getting tired of seeing such callous indifference towards the values they believe in and struggled for.