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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, October 17, 2019
Volume 35 No. 39
ELECTION - Pg. 26
Federal candidates
answer questions
FESTIVAL - Pg. 35
‘Christmas Carol’ to
welcome big names
COMMENCEMENT - Pg. 11
‘The Citizen’ honours local
high school graduates
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INSIDE
THIS WEEK:
Federal candidates keep it clean in Holmesville
National
silver for
Townsend
Four of the five Huron-Bruce
federal candidates met last week in
Holmesville for the Huron County
Federation of Agriculture’s all-
candidates meeting, vowing to stay
positive in their final all-candidates
meeting before the election.
The meeting was largely positive
with minimal mudslinging as
candidates focused on selling
themselves and their goals, rather
than pointing fingers and tearing
down the statements of other
candidates.
Conservative Ben Lobb, Liberal
Allan Thompson, Tony McQuail of
the NDP and Nicholas Wendler of
the Green Party were all in
attendance, while Kevin Klerks of
the People’s Party of Canada was
absent.
Hosted and moderated by the
Huron County Federation of
Agriculture, the questions largely
focused on the world of farming and
issues facing the agricultural
community.
OPENING STATEMENTS
Lobb, the incumbent, began the
meeting by saying that Andrew
Scheer’s Conservatives want to work
with Canadians to build a better
Canada.
He said if the Conservatives
formed government there would be a
focus on improving rural
infrastructure and patching up
relationships with trade partners like
China and the United States.
The Conservatives’ environmental
strategy, he said, is the best he’s seen
in his time as an MP and it will rely
on technology and innovation.
McQuail took a trip down
Memory Lane, remembering his
time with the federation in 1979
working as a timekeeper for an all-
candidates meeting. That next year
after seeking information about the
NDP, he was its local candidate.
What appeals to McQuail about
the NDP, he said, is the co-operative
nature of the party and members
working together to solve problems
and address issues. Thirty-nine years
after first running, he said, many of
those same issues remain and, in
some cases, have worsened, which is
why he chose to run again, including
concern about the environment and
climate change.
Wendler said the world is in a time
of climate crisis and the Green Party
has a comprehensive strategy to
reduce Canada’s output of
greenhouse gases to 60 per cent
below 2005 levels. This is part of the
party’s “Mission Possible” strategy
that would also create new jobs in a
clean economy and institute tax on
all carbon sources.
Thompson told those assembled
that he has spent a third of his life
growing up on a farm in the
Glammis area of Bruce County and
felt that he truly understood the
sentiment that farmers feed cities. It
was there, he said, that he learned
about the work ethic of farmers,
which he took into his career as a
local journalist who would
eventually move on to work for the
Toronto Star and then as a
journalism professor at Carleton
University in Ottawa.
As someone who has listened to
people for a living, Thompson said
he would listen to the constituents of
Blyth’s Lucas Townsend brought
home the Reserve Junior Plowing
Champion trophy from the
Canadian Plowing Match in
Sunderland, Ontario earlier this
month.
The title comes after Townsend
proved himself at the local plowing
match and the 2018 International
Plowing Match, where he was
named provincial reserve champion,
earning him a berth in this year’s
national championship.
Earning the reserve title means
that Townsend is nearly at the
pinnacle of the field as there is no
competition past the Canadian
Championship for Juniors.
Townsend said that, while being
named reserve champion for the
country was good, his real takeaway
from the event was seeing all the
other plowers compete in other
categories.
“It was a pretty cool experience
to see all those skills on display,”
he said. “It’s hard to say exactly
what you learn when you do
that, but I definitely took in some
ideas.”
Just competing was a familial
connection for Townsend, whose
uncle Murray was in the same
position 30 years ago.
“It was pretty cool to be
competing for the same awards he
Huron County Council has thrown
its support behind a project to
improve and expand the Blyth
Festival facilities.
Huron County Warden Jim Ginn
spoke to the project at the Oct. 2
meeting of Huron County Council,
saying he had been asked to write a
letter of support for the Festival as it
sought a grant. While it was up to
Ginn, he asked councillors if they
had any objections to him writing
such a letter, which none did.
He said the project would include
renovations to the theatre in
Memorial Hall as well as to another
building the Festival owns,
presumably the Phillips Studio.
Several councillors, including
North Huron Reeve Bernie Bailey
and Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh
Mayor Glen McNeil, spoke up on
behalf of the Festival, commending
its work over the past 45 years and
supporting anything that would
increase its footprint in Huron
County.
Blyth Festival Artistic Director Gil
Garratt declined to elaborate on the
nature of the project, saying it’s still
very early in the process.
For further details, keep watching
future issues of The Citizen.
Ginn supports Festival project
Hockey’s back
It’s that time of year again when the cold air returns and the
ice is back in local arenas, bringing young hockey players
from near and far to compete. The Blyth Brussels Minor
Hockey Association officially opened its season over the
weekend, hosting its first home game of the season when
the Atom Rep Crusaders welcomed the Mount Forest Rams to the
Blyth and District Community Centre for a Saturday morning
contest. Perhaps the teams spent the summer in similar fashions,
as a winner couldn’t be determined and the game ended in a 2-2
tie. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 7
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 9