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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1994-9-21, Page 4• Page 4 Times -Advocate, September 21, 1994 Publisher: Jim Beckett News Editor: Adrian Harte Business Manager: oon smith Composition Manager: Deb Lord Advertising; Barb Consitt, Theresa Redmond News; Fred Groves, Catherine O'Brien, Ross Haugh Production; Alma Ballantyne, Mary McMurray, Barb Robertson Robert Nicol, Brenda Hern, Joyce Weber, Laurel Miner, Marg Flynn Transportation: Al Flynn, Al Hodgert Front Office & Accoun(ing, Norma Jones, Elaine Pinder, `�RRuthanne Negrijn, Anita McDonald CLW inion l':l)l'l'ORIAI. You don't have to be a `super kid' andy has been a volunteer at the local seniors home every other day after school for the past two years. She talks and reads to the residents, plays cards with some, and helps others with knitting and crocheting. Without Sandy, the seniors home wouldn't be the same. Joe uses a wheelchair to get around but you would hardly know it by the energy and determination he displays as a member of a local scout troupe. Joe was a member of the scouting movement before his accident, and he continues to participate and be accepted because of his will to overcome obsta- cles. Camping poses no problems to Joe and his fellow troupe members and leaders. Sarah and Bill started noticing the amount of garbage littering the local parks last summer and decided to team up to clean up the mess and discourage other young users from leaving their waste in the playground and around the ball diamond. They approached the rec- reation committee to form a 'green team' of local youths to pick up litter and encourage adult and other young users to keep the park clean. The com- munity parks have never looked better. These and multitude of other potential scenarios describe the qualities of the Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year - young people who make valuable, posi- tive contributions to Ontario communi- ties. Most readers have been touched and inspired by the kindness, compassion or courage shown by a young person. Youth possess a tremendous capacity for facing challenges, overcoming ob- stacles, inspiring their peers, and serv- ing their communities. These exem- plary young people abound in the qualities of leadership, compassion and perseverance. Since 1981, the Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year Awards have recognized the contributions made by young people be- tween the ages of eight and 18 who have overcome various physical or psycho- logical difficulties, contributed to their community in a volunteer or leadership role, performed an act of heroism, or ex- emplify the qualities and characteristics of a "good kid". The 1994 awards are co-ordinated and co-sponsored by the Ontario Communi- ty Newspapers Association and Bell Canada and will be presented to 12 indi- viduals and one group who, with their families, will be guests of honor at the Junior Citizens luncheon during the OCNA's 1994 spring convention. Award recipients will visit Queen's Park and have a family portrait taken along with the Lieutenant Governor Henry Jackman, as well as receiving a Junior Citizen pin, a $200 cash award, and a plaque to recognize their accomplish- ment. If you know a young person deserving of consideration for the Junior Citizen of the Year award, contact the Times Ad- vocate at 235-1331 for more informa- tion. Nominations will be accepted until October 31. For the past 13 years, service clubs, church groups, sports organizations, and individuals whose lives have been espe- cially moved by a certain young person have nominated people for the award. They don't have to be a `super kid' to receive the award. Quiet volunteerism is recognized alongside bravery. By nomi- nating a person for the 1994 Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year, you are showing faith in the young citizens of our community. 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 t' 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. Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris has been away for the weekend with his feder- al leader, but it might have been less risky if he had gone off with someone else's wife. Harris accepted Jean Charest's invitation to Quebec and they Appeared and played golf to- gether raising monby for the federal party. The federal Tories hoped also to persuade the Ontario leader to be less cozy with the Reform Party, their bitter rivals. Harris is anxious to dissuade Reformers from running against him in an election next year and has been demon- strating he shares some of their interests. He said he also wanted to (earn first-hand about the Quebec election. Charest has obvious reasons for wanting Har- ris beside him. The Ontario Tory has rebuilt his party from the subterranean depths it sank to in the middle 1980s and has a reasonable chance of winning an election, although he is not the front-runner. He also is one of the few promis- ing Tories in Canada. Charest's party won only 16 percent of the vote in last year's federal election and has only two MPs in the whole of Canada and none in Ontario. It helps Charest's stock if the up-and- coming Tory leader in the biggest province stands beside him as living proof that Tories there have momentum. But there is almost no advantage to Harris in being involved with the federal Tories. At most he will be seen as a loyal soldier willing to help out his federal party, which does not face an election until 1997, anyway. • The big disadvantage for Harris is that many Ontarians still blame the federal Tories and par- ticularly former prime minister Brian Mulroney for much of the country's ills and remember with anger his arrogance and unctuous manner. It is difficult to get into a conversation about who Ontarians will support in the next provin- cial election without finding some who say theywill not vote Tory because of Mulroney. ere is no certainty this hostility to Mulron- ey and the federal Tories will dissipate by the next Ontario election. It has been refuelled by Publications Mail Registration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: CANADA Within 40 miles (85 km.) addressed to non letterrter addresses $30.00 plus $2.10 t3.s.T. Outside 40 miles (85 km.) or any letter canter address 5330.00 plus $30.00 (total 60.00) + 4.20 0.S.T. Outside Canada $99.00 (includes $88.40 postage) Published Each Wednesday Morning at 424 Main St., Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S8 by J.W. Eedy Publications Ltd. Telephone 1-513235-1331 O.S.T. 1R105210835 Hold that thought... Dear financial institution: I am writing to you to explain that you must have me mistaken for somebody else, somebody wealthy. Or to put it less politely....are you out of your freakin' ininds? You know what I'm talking about. You've been sniggering about this beside the water cool- er for days, just waiting for me to open my credit card state- ment. Oh, I got it alright. I was fully prepared for the bad news on the bottom line. Hey, I spent it, I gotta pay for it, right? But I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw those terrifying words a few lines above: "We are pleased to announce an extension of your credit limit, please see...." Seven thousand two hundred dollars? Just who do you think I am? You know me, I'm the guy whose interest on his chequing account never overcomes the service charges. I'm the one who, as a university student some years ago, you gave a card with a measly $300 limit. A year ago, you extended my limit from two thousand to three thousand dollars. I was flat- tered, but I laughed. I've never By Adrian Harte Dear Bank come close to needing that much credit. Then you gave me a new card with a blue oval on it to save up car points. It had a $2,500 limit, which puzzled me, until yoiradded the limits to- gether when the old card ex- pired. At $5,500, my credit had entered the realm of the absurd. Frankly, I was happier when its limit was only $600. If this keeps up, what's my limit going to be a year from now? I'll be able to buy up large tracts of Peruvian rain for- est, and say "charge it". Who do you think I am - Maurice Strong? Last winter, I cut up three oth- er credit cards I never really used, and breathed a sigh of freedom - one card, one bill. Now this. Since my limit is going up so fast, I wonder if someone else is losing out. I imagine Conrad Black opening his bill, wonder- ing why he was cut back to $600. I know what yoyk're doing. You're messing with my mind, and the problem is, its working. You have me daydreaming about what wild spending sprees I could go on - all perfectly le- gal. I flash on Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman hitting up all the clothing stores on Rodeo Drive. "Mr. Shopkeeper, 1'!!tike. eight pairs of your best -shoes; that big screen TV with,rhe. ur- round sound system, and five hundred packages of ping-pong balls..." You have it so I can look into any shop window and get sweaty palms realizing I could have anything I can see. Sure, I could have it;,.I just couldn't pay for it without enslaving myself to your credit card statements for the next few years. That's it, isn't it. Slavery, pure and simple. it isn't enough to charge me a yearly fee to have the card, charge me interest on my statement, and charge a per- centage of my purchase to the store. No, you want my soul, don't you? Maybe the government is be- hind this. Some $938 would be sales tax alone if I maxxed my card out. Well, it's not going to happen. You and I are going to come to some kind of agreement and more than halve that stupid lim- it. Trust nie, I'm not worth it. Harris keeping his distance his high living, advising big business, and his recent resurfacing to boast that he left the To- ries in good shape and might have won another election. Even his successor briefly as Tory prime min- ister, Kim Campbell, has now felt obliged to pop up and remind that Mulroney clung to power too long and gave her no time to orga- nize an effective election campaign. Harris should know the danger of being linked to the federal Tories because he spent much of his early years after becoming leader in 1990 trying to distance himself from Mul- roney actions. Harris often had to deny allegations in the legisature that he was part and parcel of some federal Tory misdeed and once shouted to New Democrat Premier Bob Rae in exasperation: "You and Mulroney are both wrong." Hams kept his distance equally from Camp- bell by saying he would not automatically sup- port her in an election, but would endorse poli- cies he felt appropriate no matter which party advocated them .After the Campbell Tories lost, Harris said they were 'elitist -- too few people at the top make the decisions.' Hams has achieved his so far modest success partly by showing his independence. He criti- cized earlier Ontario To;ies under premier Wil- liam Davis for governing by polls rather than principles and insisted 'this is the party led by Mike Harris, not Brian Mulroney, Bill Davis or Frank Miller.' in his manifesto of party policy he avoids mentioning even the Progressive Conserva- tives, talking instead of the 'Mike Harris plan' and 'Mike Harris government' and he has Mike Harris not Progressive Conservative task forces on crime, rural government, small business and the like. Hams has been doing all right on his own -- he should tell his relatives to go fight their own battles.