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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1981-06-17, Page 4Page 4 Tinsel Established 1873 Times -Advocate, June 17, 1981 Advocate Estoblashed 1.81 Imes - dvocate SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C W N A O.W N.A. CLASS 'A' AND ABC MEMBER ONTARIO PRESS COUNCIL Published by J.W. Eedy Publications limited LORNE EEDY. PUBLISHER Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind Phone 235-1331 eNA Amolgomoted 1924 Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $17.00 Per Year; USA $35.00 Important decision There's a two-thirds chance that a proposed hydro route to connect the Bruce nuclear station with London will pass through this immediate area. Four of the six alternatives being considered will affect area residents. In their wisdom, Ontario Hydro and the provincial government chose to build .the Bruce generating plant near Kincardine and now face the task of choosing yet another tower line for the power that is required for the more populated areas some distance from the source of that power. It's too late to argue the merits of that decision. The question now is to choose the most economical and least disruptive route through the rich agricultural areas to get power to the customers requiring it. A few area residents have been in- volved in the initial discussions about the route locations and everyone will now be invited to join in the arguments over the final decision. Obviously. the outcome could prove detrimental to some area residents and the time to voice their concern and opinions is now, and not after the deci- sion has been made and the towers start going up. Land owners and politicians at all levels in the immediate area should become conversant with the proposals (they're only three or four inches thick) and be prepared to make their opinions known. Keep on trying Environment Canada sent along one of the multitude of brochures, books and press releases stemming from government sources this week, in- dicating that the federal government is $9,000 richer due to a recent program for recycling paper. The program, which is being ex- tended to various civil servant locations, recovered more than 200 tonnes last year. "Recycling produces a significant energy saving compared to producing paper from our forests, or even from using it as fuel," the communication noted. The story was carried under a caption "Don't waste that paper"!" Ironically, the brochure itself was 24 pages of 8'/2" by 11 "in both French and English. The type used was about twice the size of that you're reading right now and there was white space galore. It could have been easily printed using half the amount of paper. Similar to most government press releases, brochures and reports, it will be read by half those who receive it at the very maximum. That would have reduced the amount of paper used by another 50 percent. Now that the civil servants are into this paper saving project, it is to be hoped they'll give some consideration to reducing the amount of paper they waste in addition to recycling waste paper. With an honest effort, bet they could increase that $9,000 annual saving to something quite significant. Suitable recognition A couple of weeks ago an in- teresting weekend celebration was held in the town of Clinton. Dubbed "Klompen Feest the event recogniz- ed the presence of the hundreds of Dutch families who have settled in Western Ontario since the end of the World War II. The streets of the town were decorated with replicas of wind- mills and other peculiarly Dutch emblems and flags. Dutch foods were served and the parade on Saturday followed a thoroughly Dutch theme. The entire event was not only im- aginative. in that it departed from the more customary themes of early summer celebrations. it also recogniz- ed the unique contribution these Canadians of Dutch origin have made to Canada. Kitchener -Waterloo has its annual Oktoberfest. dedicated to the German origins of that city; there are Highland Scottish games each year in By SYD FLETCHER In South Carolina . about' two years ago. a man brutal- ly attacked two women One died from multiple knife wounds. The other. though - so badly beaten that she lost the sight of one eye was still able to identify the man Ile was sentenced to death However. his sentence still has not been carried out, and probably never will be even though he has con- fessed to his crimes and has places like Fergus and Embro; Listowel holds an Irish Paddyfest celebration. It is fitting that at least one Dutch feest should be included. Canada, a nation built on the efforts of immigrants from other lands, owes is very being to the hundreds of thousands of people who crossed the oceans to live here. Each additional group has made its own valued con- ribution to the building of our nation. However, few national groups have urned out to be better Canadian itizens than have the people from the Lowlands. And we know of no other eople who have been so ready to ecome one hundred per cent Cana- ian. We sometimes feel that our new eighbours from Holland have a deeper ppreciation of the freedoms we enjoy han do the rest of us who have three or our generations of Canadian life ehind us. The Wingham Advance -Times t t c b n a t b Perspectives been convicted. In his state. as in many others. the capital punishment law has become a farce. Recently he escaped from prison for four months. The woman who testified against him had to go into hiding for that time as he had sworn to get revenge. Since then he has been caught, but she still has recurring nightmares that he will get out. It seems to me that criminals are literally 'get- ting away with murder.' that they are making fun of our law system. Perhaps the problem has become one wherein people have become too liberal in their views. Civil rights has become the bandwagon for everyone to jump upon. Criminals suddenly get all kinds of rights. They have a right to life is what is being said, and, two wrongs dont make a right. they continue on. ignoring the rights of persons already injured. plus those potential victims of violent criminals. Perhaps we should take a look at Saudi Arabia's system. They have a low crime rate there because of very harsh punishments. A person caught stealing has his right hand cut off. The next time he loses the other hand. Finally he is executed. Tough, eh? Yet apparently a person can leave a wallet on the street there without fear of it being stolen. We should be so lucky. "They asked if it can wait till morning — the whole police force is spa or something." BATT'N ARO out raiding some A happy holiday to you Members of Exeter council took a rather boldstep recently in deciding to declare the third Monday in February as a civic holiday, regardless if the federal or provincial governments move to have the much discussed mid- winter holiday. The ramifications of such a declara- tion are interesting. There's already some question whether the town's own employees would get the holiday as their contracts don't call for it and council would have to hope they'd agree to change their Easter Monday holiday for the February date. The alternative would be to give them both days. It is even more interesting to note that several members of council probably wouldn't benefit from the move. Mayor Bruce Shaw, as an employee of the Huron board of educa- tion, wouldn't get the holiday unless it was selected as a professional develop- ment day or worked into a new con- tract. Councillors Tom Humphreys and Dr. Gaylan Josephson wouldn't get the holiday either, as employees of a Lon- don industry and the federal govern- ment. respectively. Those self-employed members, Don MacGregor, Alvin Epp and Jay Campbell, would presumably be at liberty to choose. As a part-time employee of an accounting firm, Lossy Fuller would only get the holiday if that was a day she was supposed to be work- ing Bill Mickle and Morley Hall are already semi -retired. Another day off doesn't matter one way or the other to them! The concern of the writer is, that if the town employees and members of council aren't taking the holiday, they'll probably hold their meeting scheduled for that night. That means yours truly doesn't get the holiday either! As a salaried employee, that doesn't even result in time and a half or double time for working either. And a happy Heritage Day to you too! Having sat through the recent On- tario Municipal Board hearing into Hensall's proposed annexation of 200 acres in Hay Township. I was in- terested in another OMB hearing held recently in London in which the chair- man for the hearing is considering an assessment of costs against the lone objector who forced the hearing. While the man in question had forced the hearing through a written objec- tion. he sat silently through the five- hour hearing of arguments involving the expensive time of lawyers, city planning and traffic officials and did not offer any evidence to justify his in- tervention. The London Free Press, in an editorial, endorsed the suggestion of assessing costs against the silent objec- tor and noted it would be a salutary deterrent to others who may consider a pointless charade that cost the tax- payers a considerable amount of money. It's a point well taken. but surely the OMB, which makes major decisions affecting thousands of people and often millions of dollars. should have the power to determine when hearings are required. The written objections should have enough substance to warrant a hearing. It is ludicrous to have a situation where any one individual can force a costly hearing without having a plausible ob- jection to the matter before the OMIT If it is a frivolous objection it should be dismissed without the necessity of a hearing. If it is considered plausible, then the hearing should be held. It would be extremely dangerous to our democratic process if people feared they may be assessed costs of thousands of dollars by filing objec- tions, most of which are filed on the basis of an individual's concern that his rights are being infringed upon in some manner. Su ar and Spice Dispe1sed by Smiley To those not affected by the matter, those objections may well seem pointless, but they are nevertheless real concerns for those who have raised the objections. Spending thousands of dollars to hear those concerns may appear to be foolishness, but surely the OMB can determine that before ordering any hearing by a cursory review of the situation. • One of the interesting aspects of the Hensall hearing was that the objectors were told that the only matter to be decided was the annexation question itself. The proposed future develop- ment of lands adjacent to their proper- ties was not at issue. In reality, of course. the future development of the adjacent lands was the main issue for the objectors. It is the only reason that the annexation is even being considered by Hensall. To a certain degree. it would appear practical that the future use of the land be considered at the time of the annex- ation hearing, rather than go through the possibility of another similar hear- ing when concrete proposals for development are presented. If it was found that the land was un- suitable for some particular reason for development, then the annexation would be a waste of time and money for everyone involved. It would appear more logical to con- sider annexation and development as a total package so all the issues involved could be resolved at one time without a duplication of hearings or expensive planning that may prove worthless to say nothing of the months and even years that those involved have to sit in limbo and fret before all their questions and objections are finally answered. School year winding down Winding down. The school year is winding down to a close, and I oc- casionally feel that I'm winding down with it to a permanent close. Last term is panic term. Back in September, everybody, students and teachers, was optimistic, healthy. look- ing forward to a solid year of ac- complishment, whether of learning or of teaching. Second term is the grinder. It's cold, or stormy, or both. The days are short, the nights long. There are no long weekends to break the monotony. Everybody is either at home in bed with the 'flu, or sneezing and snuffling all over the few teachers and students who don't have it. Somehow we all struggle through, get a lift from the March break, and head into the'home stretch, weary and short of wind, hut with just enough stamina to make it to the wire, not necessarily first, though even the long shots manage to finish. Most of them. This year we had two who didn't finish. One of them had enough sense to quit, and drops in occasionally to rub his bronzed, healthy face into our pallid, twitching ones, informing us with deliberate malice that he's just completing his morning's four -mile walk. The other one, a superactive, excep- tionally outgoing guy, looking forward to taking early retirement in a couple of years, and following his true voca- tion — preaching — was struck down by a tumour of the brain, and has retired permanently from this vale of tears. Then, in the last term the panic starts. Teachers must have marks for the year's work, and begin setting and marking tests and essays like maniacs. Students roll their eyes and groan when they learn that they'll have four tests next Wednesday. The administration showers us with memos, threats, warnings, and other assorted garbage. Students who are not "highly motivated", in educational jargon, feel the pull of sun and green grass and a stirring of the loins, and drop out. Everybody decides to have a field trip for his grades. The other day I had 13 out of 34 in a Grade 13 class. All the others were on a field trip, or off with the track team, or off with the concert band, or just spending a day in bed, because "There'll be nobody there anyway." 1 can stand all this; I've been doing it for 21 years. And it all comes out In the wash. The students who were doing well continue to do so. The students who were flunking continue to do so. A few, around the squeaky line, become extremely solicitous of the health and welfare of their teachers, in the hope of a miracle. Strange things happen in the panic term. Just talked to a teacher today who still has a kid on his rolls, and hasn't seen him since Sept. 8th, 1980. Naturally, he though( the boy was long gone; but he's still registered. A couple of years ago, a fairly good student got into my marks book, and raised his marks by 20 percent across the board. The forgery was so obvious that I let it go, reducing his marks by 10 percent from the original. Just the other day, a teacher caught a kid cheating on a test. He had no need to. He was a top student, and now, because of cheating. must write all his finals. Guess what the subject was? Canadian Law! But this is all normal, and all blood under the bridge. As I said, I can hack R. What gets me are the extras. Every- day there's some niggling chore to do that rubs the sandpaper into the Wounds. Take last week. Monday was, as usual, pull -yourself -together -day -after - the -weekend. Had to write out two ex- ams after school (to be written four weeks in the future). Tuesday, column day, had to sit in on interviews with two teachers for a Job on my staff. An hour and a half down the drain. One changed his mind; the r Mainstream Canada The farmers win support By W. Roger Worth Canada's Farmers are under the gun these days as various groups complain that farm marketing board systems for many commodities are keeping food prices al high levels. One statistical study after another, it seems, contends that farmers are getting better than their fair share when it comes to pricing products such as milk and eggs. Some marketing boards ef- fectively set prices for such commodities, ensuring farmers receive enough cash to cover expenses and earn a profit on their operations. Roger Worth Is Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Some boards also control production through a licens- ing system, theoretically en- suring supply does not surpass demand. Because fanners have been allowed to overproduce on many occasions, and products have been destroyed or dumped, all marketing boards have been given a bad name. Marketing boards do have continuing problems to work out. Farmers are individualis- tic and not easily controlled, even by farmer boards. Nevertheless, amid the complainers, there are a lot of Canadians who believe farm marketing board systems are workable, providing protec- tion for smaller farmers in a cyclical industry. For example, in a recent survey conducted by the 60,000 -member Canadian Federation of Independent Business, 480/o favored allow- ing farmers to police them- selves in order to control out- put of various commodities. Ouly 26% opposed such boards, and 26% were unde- cided. It's interesting to note that Federation membership of 60,000 people operating their own small and medium-sized businesses, includes only a small percentage of farmers. While the 48% who sup- ported farm marketing boards is not particularly overwhelm- ing, it at least indicates the farmers are not alone In their view that smaller farm opera- tors deserve protection. Dear Editor, The Town of Kapuskasing is sixty years old this year. We are celebrating this birthday with a party during RENDEZ-VOUS WEEK from June 28th to July 5th. This week will be full of fun for everyone. It starts with a Marathon Run for the athletic types. Official opening ceremonies are at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday June 28th. Immaculate Con- ception parish will hold a special Mass on June 28th to commemorate its 60th an- niversary. The Strategic Air Com- mand Band will be in at- tendance not only for con- certs but also to play for dancing.Rendez-Vous Parade will be on Saturday, July 4th. Hospitality centres will be open all week. Many organizations are holding Open House. These are but a few of the activities planned. For more information and the calendar of events please contact me at P.O. Box 321, Kapuskasing, Ontario. We want all former residents to make a visit to "Kap." this year. Hope we see you there! Mrs. Isabel (Poolton) McDonald SEARCH AND INVITE COMMITTEE RECEPTION COMMITTEE Dear Sir: To the residents of Hensall and district, especially those who attended the meeting on Senior Citizens Housing in the United Church on June 10, I feel that many of you left that meeting feeling it was very technical with all' those facts and figures, which I know can be boring, but never the leas they are important and as an Independent Co-operate Body we will have to abide by them. Perhaps you were i more interested in knowing s how you can qualify for a f senior citizens apartment. c Firstly -- Anyone can qualify for a senior citizens apartment regardless of where you are now living, your nationality, or your religion. However, there are a few things which are im- portant for you to fill in when the need study is taken in Hensall and district. You must prove you are a Canadian citizen, that you are 60 years or over, and your yearly income. Your assets and your bank balance is your own business, we are not in- terested. You may fill out a need study form at 58 years young then your name will Hot, on the waiting ,t, because not only do we have to have enough names to prove to Canada Mortgage and Housing that there is a need for senior citizens homes, we have to have a waiting list or a follow-up of names who will need homes in the future. These rules apply to both rent geared to income and market value rents. There is one additional rule for the rent geared to income apartments. If they own their own home, this must be sold before a unit can be rented to them. Our committee has been very carefully selected, so that any information entered in the need study form will be respected and kept secret between our committee and Canada Mortgage and Housing. We hope you will co-operate with our need study committee who will be willing to help and advise you on filling out these forms. Some of you may feel because you have already filled out an application form for senior citizens homes this is enough, but unfortunately those forms were for provincial housing, the new forms will be for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation a federal department. They will then have to study these forms to determine whether or not Hensallhomes. has a need for these If you are interested in having senior citizens homes n Hensall you must help us o that we can help you. For urther information please all any of our committee members. Signed Irene Davis y Hensall UnitedSecretarChurch Senior Citizens Housing Committee • • other wasn't the fireball I need. No column written. Wednesday, have to go up to emergency ward at the hospital, to pick up a girl who had tried to sew two fingers together in Family Studies, and done a fair job of it. Column written, hastily and not so hotly. Thursday, a.m. had to get the car to the dealer's to fix the flicker lights, then go and get it after school. Twenty-four bucks, and it isn't working. Friday, have to trot a colleague off to the emergency with chest pains at 3 .m., after missing a class at 9 a.m. to have a filling fixed (thirty-four dollars.) Friday night, have to go to a play with old friends in it. It was excellent but I was whacked by time we'd got home and done the post mortem. Saturday, drive 120 miles to see great-grandad, 88, who was more concerned with getting hold of some nice, rich manure for his roses than he was about the 88 papers I had to mark. Sunday, play with great-nephew for two hours while his mother, father, grandmother, grandfather and great-aunt busy themselves at less strenuous pursuits. Monday, drive home same mileage, and find skunks have torn up half the lawn, searching for grubs. Tuesday, back to work with no marking done, pants have big grease spot on front, and column to write. And here I am.