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Home My WebLink AboutThe Times Advocate, 2006-04-05, Page 44 Exeter Times—Advocate Wednesday, April 5, 2006 =CNA Editorial Opinion n = *OLP<O MZIEM TIMES ADVOCATE PUBLICATIONS MAIL REGISTRATION NUMBER 07511 We acknowledge the Financial support of the Government of Canada, through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP), toward our mailing costs. Jim Beckett — Publisher Deb Lord — Production Manager Scott Nixon — Editor tirt Published by roland Printing, Publishing Distributing& Ltd. 424 Main Street South, P.O. Box 850 Metroland Exeter, Ontario NOM 1S6 • (519) 235-1331 EDITORIAL Plenty on Harper's plate Aps Stephen Harper's Conservative govern- ment opened the new session of arliament Tuesday, we wonder if he's hearing the words of protest voiced by Ontario's farmers fed up with the subsidy inequalities between this country and the U.S. Farmers have held numerous protests and rallies over the past year, in the last month tak- ing their arguments to Queen's Park and on Monday taking their tractors to the cities as they try to drum up support from urbanites and force the provincial and federal governments to step up to the plate and provide more money. The province recently came up with $125 mil- lion in emergency funding, $80 million of which is earmarked for oilseed and grain producers to offset losses from last year. Farmers say that isn't enough and they're urging the province and the feds to come up with more. Farmers took their rally to another protest at Parliament Hill in Ottawa Wednesday. Will Harper and his new government listen? Are farmers on the radar screen? If they're not now, they soon will be, because they promise to increase their pressure on the government in the summer. This is only one of the issues Harper will have to deal with as Parliament begins its new ses- sion. Canadians will be interested to see how the parties work with each other and whether or not Harper, in a minority position, is able to do what he wants to do. He's already identified getting tough on crime, reducing the GST, implementing health care wait time guarantees and a new child care pro- gram as some of his top priorities. Will his government be strong enough to get this done? How will the Liberals, NDP and Bloc co-operate with a Conservative party? The new Parliament offers an interesting sce- nario for the Liberals — with a leadership con- vention not being held until December, they're in no hurry to topple the government and force another federal election. Canadians will be watching. 2O06 Nara-riFri 'fed by intnnrdinn Art ic#.r Cvnrdicnty Tnr Sweet Emotion in Montreal I've been an avid traveller all my life, going on several road trips over the years with friends. So, when I couldn't get tickets to see Aerosmith at the John Labbatt Centre, I thought `well, they're going to Montreal...' And being young and spontaneous, my friend and I decided, why not? So there we were, excited, a little anxious (we'd never driven that far) and all packed up and ready to go. My friend and I left on St. Paddy's weekend. I knew it was a long drive but we didn't care. We cranked the tunes, let our hair down and prepared for what we thought would be the best rock `n' roll road trip in history. After about a 10 hour drive, getting lost in Montreal and putting up with the worst dri- vers I've ever encountered, we were there. All in all the trip, despite the last hour was awesome and the scenery was beautiful. Seeing the sites in Montreal was amazing, too. That night we went to several bars along Crescent Street, including the Hard Rock Cafe. Since Montreal is such a tourism spot we met several people from all over the place, mainly the United States. That night we also heard the news of our concert can- cellation — the whole reason we went there in the first place. We didn't let that get to us, though. The next morning we toured the downtown area and found out that the second largest parade in the world, their St. Paddy's Day parade would be passing through. And they weren't kidding when they said it was long. After watching it for about an hour, my friend and I went and ate. After finishing our meal the parade was still going! That evening we wanted to do something par- ticularly entertaining since our concert had been cancelled. So we decided why not go to the Casino and blow all our money? I guess it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The cab ride was amazing, we toured by many of Montreal's oldest buildings. And the Casino de Montreal — wow, the out- side looks like a crystal chandelier. Actually the casino was the highlight of our weekend. We barely gambled, just walked around and took it all in. There was live entertainment, salsa dancing and so much more. The next morning we headed home, completely satis- fied with our trip. It's funny how things work out sometimes. If our concert wasn't cancelled we would have never experienced the highlight of our whole trip. Sometimes when things don't go quite as planned, it's really a blessing in disguise. NINA VAN LIESHOUT KICK THIS AROUND About the Times -Advocate Address & Office Hours Times -Advocate, 424 Main Street South, P.O. 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E-mail Us Web site: www.southhuron.com TA e-mail addresses consist of the person's first initial and last name followed by @southhuron.com. For example, Jim Beckett's e-mail address is <jbeck- ett@southhuron.com> Our general e-mail address is ads@southhuron.com. The Times -Advocate Team Publisher Jim Beckett ext. 109 ADVERTISING Deborah Schillemore ext. 112 EDITOR Scott Nixon ext. 105 REPORTERS Pat Bolen ext. 113 Nina Van Lieshout ext. 107 CUSTOMER SERVICE Sue Rollings ext. 101 Kim Hern ext. 102 COMPOSITION DEPARTMENT Manager Deb Lord ext. 103/114 Heather Bilcke ext. 103 Kelly Gackstetter ext. 103 ACCOUNTING STAFF Anita McDonald ext. 104 Ruth Slaght ext. 106 Christina Scott ext. 108 MargPertschy ext. 111 Heaer Clarke