Huron Expositor, 2009-05-06, Page 4Page 4 May 6, 2009 • The Huron Expositor
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pinion
Proprietor and Publisher, BOW'S Publislistelknited, 11 Main St., Seaforth, ON, NOK IWO .
Huron County needs
newimmigrants
While a petition with more than 430 signatures
has been successful at extending Tariq Muham-
mad's stay in Canada from May 20 to July 31, it
seems that the Seaforth entrepreneur could still be
losing his battle to begin a new life in a new country
with his family.
Although he's been in Canada as a refugee since
September, 2003 and running the local Mac's Milk
in Seaforth where he's employed six people for the
past three years, Muhammad is facing deportation
to his native Pakistan since the Ministry of Immi-
gration believes his life will not be in imminent dan-
ger if he returns.
After making the sacrifice of separation from his
wife and two children as he worked very hard for
the past five years to prepare the way for a new life,
it looks like Seaforth could be losing an energetic
and law-abiding contributor to the community.
The Huron Business Development Corporation,
recognizing the important role of immigrants to the
community's prosperity, is teaming up with Huron
County with a Huron Immigration Partnership
Plan.
The HBDC says that over the next five. years,
there will. be 10,000 retirements in Huron County,
a number that has no hope of being filled by Huron
County youth, even if every one of them grows up
and stays put.
In a county where outmigration takes 50 per cent
of our local youth, HBDC manager Paul Nichol is
predicting that Huron County is going to have some
trouble maintaining its population and a viable
workforce.
Nichol says that while an action plan won't be in
place until 2010, a target has already been set to at-
tract 50 new families a year to Huron County, 10 of
whom will be entrepreneurs looking to set up 4 new
businesses. =
And yet, at the same time, we're losing an entre-
preneur who had hoped to bring his wife and two
teenagers to Huron County.
While Huron -Bruce MP Ben Lobb has done some
advocating on Muhammad's behalf and the commu-
nity has stepped up to sign a petition supporting his
fight to stay, so far, it hasn't been enough.
That's a shame since Muhammad is the type of
immigrant Huron County is going to need to thrive
into the future.
Susan Hundertmark
should stop my Generation Y-ning
about my high expectations
I'm usually not a very com-
petitive person, but nobody
likes to lose.
On the weekend I found my-
self up against several worthy
competitors and I was deter-
mined to beat at least two of
them.
One was a nine-year-old boy
and the other was a woman in
her 70s. The game: five -pin bowling.
I knew all along that I was a terrible bowler
and before long, so did everybody else.
So what if a surprisingly good 70 -something
woman and a young boy showed me up on the
lanes? There's no shame in losing from time to
time.
I am, after all, a member of the "Trophy Kids
Generation."
This odd term is a reference to how people
my age growing up would receive a ribbon or
trophy at sporting events simply for partici-
pating. Some eggheads would say this created
a sense of entitlement that has carried over
into adulthood, causing impossibly high ex-
pectations in the workplace.
A more popular term for people my age is
Generation Y, or "Generation Why?" as an ar-
ticle in the Toronto Star put it over the week-
end.
The story was about two twenty -somethings
who started dating in high school, entered the
manufacturing industry, began earning good
wages, bought a house and started a family.
It was a plan that worked for their Baby
Ron di Dave
C Jimmy...Do you know who
Chuck...Can you name
Eric...What was the Magna
Boomer parents, but the shift
from the labour -based economy
to a "creative" or "knowledge-
based" economy has thee. fall-
ing between the cracks.
At the other end of the . spec-
trum, young people who spent
tens of thousands of dollars
on a university education who
are now deeply in debt are also
having trouble finding a suitable job.
I sometimes think that I entered the jour-
nalism field just in time before the industry
severely contracts and becomes much harder
for young people to get into.
In addition, 10 years from now when the
Baby Boomers have all retired and we have
the biggest population of seniors ever, a huge
strain is expected to be placed on the health
care system, which may have governments
and tax payers struggling to keep up with
their needs.
Some predict that we will even have to work
into our seventies because of the labour short-
age caused by our parents.
But, they say, we'll be healthy enough to.
Futurists are predicting people my age and
younger may experience triple digit life spans,
as health care scientists learn to reprogram
cells to compensate for failing organs.
It may also be possible to add memory to our
brains, the way we download it into computers
now.
And nanotechnology has huge potential.
See PESSIMISTIC, Page 6
by David Lacey
Jacques Cartier was? Judy...Who was Winston Churchill? �,tI've finally got my teacher trained
the Queen of England? Murray...Who was Napoleon? She doesn't even bother to ask me
Carta? and...Joanne, when did Columbus discover America?,\. questions anymore. j
It takes a lot of the stress
off of me. I can sleep much
better now.
Your Community Newspaper Moe 1860
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