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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1994-01-05, Page 12Page 12 Times -Advocate, December 29,1993 -o Cold temperatures and nearly continuous snow made travel difficult over this holiday season, but the Exeter works department was working nearly around the clock to keep town streets and sidewalks clear. But that snow only'/neant December was catching up to what it should have been. Snow removal only catching up to normal EXETER - Although this holiday season was marked with frequent, if not almost continuous snowfall, it doesn't appear the town has blown its snow removal budget for 1993. Works superintendent Glenn Kells said he hasn't seen the final figures yet on the costs of clearing all the holiday snow, but guesses that while it will have been expensive, it only evens out when taking into account the winter so far. "I would say for our last part of the year that's it's no worse than last year, except that it came all at once," said Kells. Crews have been working around the clock to keep the town's streets clear this past week, and works employees were on call for New Year's Day, but Kells said overall, there have been few prob- lems with snow removal. The sidewalk plow broke last week, but quick repairs were able to put it back to work with little delay. Separate school busing further expanded for Huron County students DUBLIN - Trustees of the Hu- ron -Perth Roman Catholic Separate School Board voted in favour of ex- tending busing for students in Hu- ron County so they can attend the Catholic high school in Stratford. Trustees agreed during their De- cember meeting that all students should have the option of being bussed to St. Michael Catholic Sec- ondary School in Stratford while the board works towards establish- ing a Catholic high school in Huron County. "The board currently runs buses in Huron county where warranted," said board director Dr. James Brown. At present there are 105 students bussed from the county to the Strat- ford school. Dr. Brown said that in many cas- es the time students spend on the bus is no different than if they were attending a school in the area. "It's not a case of distance, but time," he said comparing the bus ride to the Stratford school with the typical bus ride to any area school. But, he said, the ride from Huron County is comparable to taking an express bus. "There are designated pick up points and it is a more direct route," he said. The board is also working on an agreement with the Huron County Board of Education to share space at Central Huron Secondary School in Clinton. It would be the board's second Catholic high school. At present, the Clinton high school is operating with 600 stu- dents although the school has ca- pacity for 1,400. An Ad Hoc Committee was set up by the Catholic board to deter- mine the feasibility of setting up a new high school. Committee members include: Mi- chael Miller, trustee member repre- senting Stanley, Hay, Bayfield, Zu- rich and Hensall; Gerry Ryan, trustee representing Seaford' and Tuckersmith, and Dr. Brown. Before any decisions are final- ized the board will be holding pub- lic meetings and surveying Catholic school supporters to determine in- terest in the venture. The committee is expected to hold its first public meeting in Feb- ruary and make a final decision by April. And if everything goes according to plan, the board expects to open the school in the fall of 1995 with Grade 9. Additional grades would be intro- duced over four years. But for now, students wishing to attend the Stratford school will be picked up at designated points in the county where numbers warrant. Make wearing seat belts your New Year's resolution TORONTO - Kaye Brown could have been a statistic. A driver with more than 30 years of collision - free experience on the road, Brown (not her real name) was in- volved in a serious crash last sum- mer that totally wrecked her car. She survived with only minor inju- ries, and she places the credit squarely on her scat belt, "I believe it was the scat belt that saved me." she said. "It could have been a hundred times worse." It happened in August when Brown was travelling to her cot- tage from Toronto. Her car drifted on to the soft shoulder of the high- way. Realizing what was happen- ing, she stepped on the brake, the car veered across the highway, did a complete circle and landed on its roof in the ditch next to oncoming traffic. It took six people to pry her from the car, which was a write off. She did suffer some neck pain. "It was a dreadful pain," Brown said. "The top of the roof was crushed, and it pushed my head down on to my neck. But because I had my self belt on, I stayed safe and snug inside the car." Statistics show that Ontario driv- ers have one of the lowest seat belt usage rates in the country. Only 84 percent of Ontario drivers wear, their seat belts, below the national average of almost 88 percent. In the provinces of Newfound- land, Saskatchewan and Quebec - whcre demerit points are assigned to drivers who don't buckle up -- the compliance rates are more than 90 percent. In fact, Newfoundland has the highest scat belt usage in the country at an enviable 97 per- cent. "It's frustrating,' says Police Chief Henry Harley, head of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police Traffic Committee. "Re- search continues to show that driv- ers who do not wear seat belts are 15 times more likely to be killed and five times more likely to be hospitalized than belted drivers. The Ontario government recent- ly announced it was taking steps to increase the use of seat belts as part of its goal to make Ontario's rv�ds the safest in North America. Changes to the Highway Traffic Act effective January 1, 1994, make driving without wearing a seat belt -- at any time, on the high- way or in town -- punishable with two demerit points agaihst'k driv- er's driving record. These points are in addition to the current $90 fine for not wearing a scat belt. The demerit points can also be levied against Ontario drivers who do not ensure that passengers in their vehicles under 16 years of age are properly buckled up with a seat belt or in a child safety scat. Demerit points are designed to identify persistent traffic violators and protest motorists and pedestri- ans from drivers who abuse the privilege of driving. The points re- main on a driver's record for two years from the date of the convic- tion. Drivers who accumulate demerit points receive a warning letter from the Ministry of Transportation and may be required to participate in a counselling interview. An accumu- lation of 15 points carries a 30 -day license suspension. Any accumula- tion can also result in higher insu- rance premiums. Brown says she hopes her expe. rience will provide a lesson b drivers who don't or won't wear s seat belt. "I've always been a safe driver, and rve a1vays worn my seat belt. But it shouldn't take ap accident like the one I had to con_ vines anybody to use their seat belt all the time." Boards not dismantled by GATT There is life after death says Raymond Moody and dozens of other contemporary writers and there is life after GATT, as well. From the sombre tone of many farm writers and broadcasters, one would think that the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade automatically disbanded all of Canada's mar- keting boards. Not so. Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated, says John Core, chairman of the Ontario Milk jarketing Board, effectively quoting Mark Twain. Boards have not been disman- tled by the trade deal. They will, of course, have to make some basic changes when import quo- tas are replaced at the border by tariffs. Producer quotas are still in effect and will remain so, even after July, 1994, when ' GATT is officially adopted. What GATT does is eliminate import quotas. Nothing more. Marketing boards are legal in Canada and will remain so. And those import quotas will be protected anyway for the next few years so that marketing boards and all farm organiza- tions will have plenty of time to adjust. The tariffs, for instance, will be as high as 351 percent in some instances. Under the new agreement,.those rates -will fall over the next six years but only by 15 percent per year. So, if consumers believe that this new GATT agreement means lower prices for many commodities in the food stores, then they surely have another think coming. Regular readers know that I have been a firm believer in farm marketing boards for many years, and I have also been an advocate of supply manage- ment. I felt that Canada had a good chance to maintain and even strengthen supply manage- ment in these GATT talks but, once again, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. However, the new agreement will not mean the end of market- ing boards. It will mean the end as we now know them. I'm sure they will adapt and change in the next few months and years so that Canadian farmers will r/taintain the stability that these arils have brought to the fees rs and"dairy industry. If, as'many people fear, our big brother to the south floods our markets with surpluses, Ot- tawa can simply boost the al- ready exceptionally high tariffs. There are, in other words, ways to protect our people. I am of the firm belief that the GATT agreement did one very specific thing and that is the sys- tem of handling disputes. Prior to this round of talks, disputes have gone to a panel and those panels issued reports, unless , signed by participating nations, were simply ignored. The re- ports were toothless as a hen. But the new rules give those panel reports the clout they should have had all along. The 117 countries involved will have to abide by the panel deci- sions. What is also important is the new definition of subsidies. The definition is as long as a wet week and too complicated to de- lineate in less than a thousand words but the new code will cer- tainly clarify many fuzzy areas. It is also noteworthy that the agreement still allows subsidies that cover up to 75 percent of the cost for basic research, 50 percent for applied research and 10 percent for environmental protection. Canada has always been a bright star in agricultural re- search and this agreement will see our research scientists at the top of the subsidy heap and that's where they belong. It is certainly going to be an interesting few years ahead. 1994 spring crops update HOLMESVILLE - Farmers are invited to this year's Huron Soil and Crop Spring Crops Update to be held on Wednesday, January 12 at the Goderich Township Community Centre in Holmesville beginning at 95 a.m. This year's meeting will feature Steve Hawkins, an agronomist from Purdue University, Indiana. Steve has done extensive work with starter fertilizers, aged ferti- lizer and manure management. His topic will be "Start- er Fertilizers and Fertilizer Efficiency". Jeff Reid, with C & M Seeds and Jack Campbell with the Ontario Wheat Producerf Marketing Board will be providing an update on "Hard Red Winter Wheat Production and Marketing." Brian Doidge, Ridgetown College of Agricultural Technology will be back with his popular "Commodity and Market Update and Outlook." Rob Templman, Soil and Crop Advisor, Perth County will be providing an update on "Coloured and White Bean -Production and Quality." Alan McCallum, Soil and Crop Advisor, Huron County will provide some insight into "Corn Hybrid . Maturity and Selection". Pre -registration for lunch is required by Friday, Janu- ary 7 by contacting the Ontario Ministry of Agriculttire and Food office in Clinton at 482-3428 or 1-800-265- 5170. Thousands of cows can't be wrong GUELPH - Health, production and management information from more than 4,000 cows across Onta- rio is being compiled through a re- search program centred at the Uni- versity of Guelph, to determine what management systems work on provincial dairy farms. The effort involvg about 30 vete- rinarians enrolled ih OVC's dairy health -management certificate pro- gram, 95 dairy herds and produc- ers, researchers and graduate stu- dents in the department of population medicine and staff from the Ontario Dairy Herd Improve- ment Corporation (ODHIC), which is based in the University of Guelph Research Park. "Our ultimate goal is to increase the profitability of Ontario dairy farms," says project co-ordinator Kerry Lisscmore, a professor of population medicine. "We're look- ing for strategics that work, so they can be implemented on other farms." The profitability of producing milk and its components can be al- tered by management, nutrition or genetics. Various strategies have been promoted to increase produc- tion, but in many cases, the actual costs and benefits have not been well established. Lisscmorc and his colleagues are filling the information void through two multifaceted interdisciplinary projects. First, researchers are in- vestigating herd and individual cow factors associated with the protein and fat components of milk in On- tario. Farms, identified and selected by the vets involved in the dairy health -management program, con- tribute a wide range of data from records compiled by ODHIC staff and entered into their electronic in- formation system. Through this ef- fort, data arc available on produc- tion, udder health, nutrition, reproduction, health and disease and management. Campus researchers have access to the system through a computer linkup. In addition to Lissemore, participants in this project are vete- rinary professors Ken Leslie, Dave Dolton and Wayne Martin, animal and poultry science professors John Gibson and Brian McBride and graduate student Jan Sargeant. The second project involves the effect of dry cow management and a gram-negative core antigen vacci- nation program - useful for prevent- ing problems such as mastitis and diarrhea - on disease rates and pro- ductivity in dairy herds. Disorders of the periparturicnt period of a dairy cow - that, around calving time - account for a large percent- age of the overall disease and mor- tality problems (including stress and immunosuppression) in a cow's production cycle. Researchers be- lieve fine-tuning management dur- ing the "dry" period leading up to calving could keep cows healthier. "An increased understanding of the relationships among stress, immune response and disease incidence in dry cows is needed," says Lissc- more. The dry cow vaccination project is sponsored by IMMVAC Inc. of Columbia, Missouri, and Bayvct of Etobicokc. Soil and Crop reports available CLINTON - The Huron Soil and Crop Improvement Associ- ation annual reports for the crop trials are now available. The corn trials report includes the 1993 summary of the com va- riety trials conducted by pro- ducers in Huron and Perth counties, and a report of indi- vidual co-operator com trials. The summary report has in- formation from 91 plots in Perth and 136 in Huron County. The average yield for the plots in Huron was 120 bushels/acre. In- formation included in the report includes standability, moisture index and yield index. Another report that is available is the Huron and Perth Soybean Trials Report which includes a sum- mary of trials and individual plot results. The last report available is the project trails report which in- cludes area cereal variety trial results, wheat fertility trial, Till- age 2000 results, corn row width trials, pre -tillage trials in corn, nitrogen rate trials on corn, and 1993 weather data. 0 0 b $ 0 o o THE TOWNSHIP OF HIBBERT • NOTICE TO CANDIDATES candidates in the TE THAT 1994 MUNICIPAL rsons �and to bSCHOOL e BOARD elections must file with the Township Clerk a NOTICE OF REGISTRATION in the _ prescribed form to become eligible as a candidate. Registration forms are available in the office of the Township Clerk and may be obtained and filed for the purpose of the 1994 elections at any time after January 1st, 1994. a FURTHER TAKE NOTE THAT no person, corporation or body acting on behalf of such person shall solicit or accept contributions nor spend funds for the purposes of the election of that person`at any time unless the person has registered as a candidate. Dated at the Township of Hibbert this 5th day of January 1994. Patricia Township of Hibbert Dublin, Ont. NOK 1E0 U.r.%.rlr✓,r✓✓../✓✓✓✓.frr��.r✓�-/.r✓✓_/�%�r, d r p r p p 0 O 2 6 p 0 6 r r �) r.1,/.1-1.l✓J