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Times -Advocate, April 5, 1995
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Worthwhile show
The 10th annual Optimist Club
Home and Garden Show coming up
this Friday, Saturday and Sunday is an
excellent chance to see what is new for
this year. As usual, the club has lined
up an variety of businesrses who are
happy to show off their products or ser-
vices as well as answer any questions
people may have.
Exhibitors have consistently stated the
Exeter show is always "one of the best"
and many of them keep coming back
although the club manages enough
turnover of exhibitors every year to
keep the show fresh and new.
Club members are expecting this
year's event to be extra special because
they have reached a major milestone of
ten consecutive successful shows. The
Exeter Optimist Club had only been
serving the comunity for a year when
club member Dirk Coolman persuaded
the rest of the members that an event of
this magnitude would be a success. They
shared his vision, rolled up their sleeves
and the result has been a show that
draws thousands of visitors every year.
An added bonus is the proceeds from
the show have been poured back into a
long list of worthwhile community or-
ganizations. Exeter is very short on the
number of annual events staged by any-
body, which makes the 10 -year success-
ful track record of the Optimist Club
something that should be appreciated by
everybody.
Decisive action
school policy of zero toler-
ance for violence has to be backed with
strong action if it is to have any mean-
ing.
This policy was put to the test at
South Huron District High School on
March 6, when a pellet pistol dropped
from a grade, nine student's clothing
during class.
Although the pistol was not illegal,
concealing it under clothing is a crimi-
nal offense. The pistol, at a glance, re=
sembles a 9 -mm semi-automatic hand
gun.
The staff and administration dealt
with the situation quickly and quietly
by removing the individual from other
students and calling the authorities. A
maximum ten-day suspension has been
initiated and alternative schooling for
the student has been arranged until the
legal aspect of the situation is resolved.
As well, the student will not be allowed
on SHDHS property for the remainder
of the year.
Home schooling may be just buying
time but at least it keeps the student off
school property and away from other
young people.
Parents ata meeting Thursday ques-
tioned if am day suspension is strong
enough co sequence to enforce the poli-
cy. Two ten day suspensions are the
maximum the principal currently has the
authority to hand out.
What everyone can agree on is the con-
cern shared about keeping our schools
safe. Awareness is half the battle. By
making small changes in the daily flow
of students, the school staff and adminis-
tration is able to take a pro -active ap-
proach to dealing with the violence
which is a growing part of today's
world.
What's on your mind?
The Times Advocate continues to welcome letters to the editor as a
forum for open discussion of local issues, concerns, complaints,
and kudos. The Times Advocate reserves the right to edit letters for brevity.=
Please send your letters to P.O. Box 850 Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S6. Sign your
letter with both name and address. Anonymous letters will not be published.
A View From Queen's Park
By Eric Dowd
TORONTO - Premier Bob Rae will climb
into bed with anyone, but this is not necessarily
a bad thing.
The New Democrat premier has been more
adventurous in seeking allies than previous pre-
miers, for which he has not been given much
credit.
Progressive Conservative premiers up to
1985 rarely gave public posts to those who did
not echo their views and when they did it was
usually for crass gain.
Premier William Davis in 1977 and desperate
to regain a lost majority for example, named
Liberal MPPs Phil Givens to the Metropolitan
Toronto Police Commission and Vernon Singer
to the Ontario Municipal Board to create vacan-
cies in seats he promptly won.
David Peterson, when Liberal premier from
1985-90, gave jobs to a dozen former Tory and
NDP MPPs, but more to hand them a few dol-
lars or weaken their parties as threats than for
real help in governing.
Rae has overwhelmingly appointed his own
party so that boards are stacked with former
NDP MPPs, candidates and officials, including
many who have made the pilgrimage from oth-
er provinces.
But he also has formed an increasing number
of alliances with a few who do not share his
philosophy, his most conspicuous success be-
ing to hire Maurice Strong, multimillionaire en-
trepreneur, apostle of private enterprise and
federal Liberal, to run the spendthrift Ontario
Hydro.
Strong has cut the utility's staff by nearly
one-third, which a long line of political cronies
and cautious civii servants appointed by the To-
ries and Liberals shied from, and it has sur-
vived, kept down rates, announced a profit and
looks to have a secure future, which Rae never
could have achieved but for his strange bedfel-
low.
Rae has taken on another odd ally in Davis as
chair of a board promoting exports. While the
former Tory premier has not been a whiz in
business and a land 4cvelopment company he
Published Each Wednesday Morning at 424 Maki Ill.,
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Telephone 1.619-2351331 • Fax: 518.2360766
IRtesasetiti
On the road again...
This week's column which ap-
pears bi-weekly thanks to
Heather Vincent's contribution
on health matters the other
week, will be a combination of
odds and ends.
The main reason for this is
that we were not able to conjure
up any topic with any length or
depth to it. To add to our col-
umn of two weeks ago on
bloopers and typographical er-
rors we will pass along a de-
scription of a typing blunder as
it appeared in Gordon Sander -
son's column in a recent issue of
the London Free Press.
The typographical error is a
slippery thing and sly;
You can hunt until you are diz-
zy, but it will somehow get by.
Till the forms are on the press, it
is strange how still it keeps,
It shrinks down in a corner, and
never stirs or peeps.
That typographical error, is too
small for human eyes
Till the ink is on the paper,
when it grows to mountain size.
* * * *
Brian Doidge of Ridgetown is
By Ross Haugh
Bits and pieces
a regular on the agenda when
the Huron Soil and Crop Im-
provement Association holds its
annual Spring Crops Update.
Doidge was in Seaforth last
week and made his predictions
as to the "futures" of corn prices
and the Canadian dollar. He ex-
pects corn prices to go up and
told Huron farmers, "Sit on your
corn. The trade will be coming
after it."
As to the hopes of our "buck"
he suggested it would drop to as
low as 68 cents within the next
18 months. He based this on his
assumption that the Canadian
and Ontario governments were
not doing enough to lower defi-
cits and with tongue in check
said Quebec would probably
have a "separate card" to play.
* * * *
The Ausable Bayfield Conser-
vation Authority hands out
awards each year to individuals
or groups who are successful in
contributing to conservation.
This year the winner was the
BluewaterRecyclingAssociation
and in accepting the award, Paul
Maguire said with the collection
of a wider range of recylables,
the time wasn't far away when
blue box pickup would be done
at no cost to the municipality.
He added, "We will be contin-
uing our efforts to reduce the
amount of garbage going to the
landfill site and there won't be
much that can't be recycled. We
will be back again for another
plaque. We are not quitting."
Maguire also suggested that
those municipalities looking for
larger landfill sites were short
sighted.
On this same subject we spot-
ted an advertisement in the
March 19 issue of the Toronto
Star which said, " What's your
municipality doing? It could be
saving thousands of your tax
dollars in avoided landfill costs,
now and in the future, by col-
lecting old cereal and detergent
cartons, shoe, toy and cracker
boxes from curbside. It could be
maximizing its efforts to meet
the province's 50 percent waste
diversion goal."
Strange bedfellows
heads is struggling, foreign companies are im-
pressed by government titles, which gives him
some value.
Some of the same can be said of Tory former
lieutenant -governor Lincoln Alexander, whom
Rae has drafted as an envoy on trade. Alexan-
der was an MP and minister in the brief Joe
Clark government and his stature will open
doors.
Rae has resurrected the respected Tory and
former Canadian Medical Association presi-
dent, Bette Stephenson, to supervise province -
wide school tests using experience of having
been education minister for seven years.
Stephenson also can be relied on to tell it as
she sees it. She once called an opposition MPP
a hypocrite, retracted at the Speaker's request,
called him a guttersnipe instead and had to
withdraw that too.
Rae has brought back former Liberal minister
John Sweeney, who retired at the 1990 elec-
tion, to head a task force reducing school
boards. Sweeney's forte was solving problems
with minimal confrontation, a talent the NDP
can use.
Rae named another retired Liberal, the ad-
mired former attorney -general Ian Scott, to
study a community college problem. Scott's
last words as an MPP oddly had been that Rae
appoints too many New Democrats.
Rae chose another Liberal who caught his
eye, Anne Golden, to study the problems of
Greater Toronto. In her last spell at the legisla-
ture she was his rival party's director of re-
search.
Rae doubtless made these appointments part-
ly trying to show he is open to others' ideas and
when faced with an election and still has not
appointed many who do not share his own phi-
losophy to public posts.
But he has brought in a few and they have
been appointees of quality - with the glow from
Hydro he oen even argue that they have started
to pay off.
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