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The Huron Expositor, 1985-10-02, Page 2Huron . , x ositor SINCE 1860, SERVING THE COMMUNITY FIRST ere *CNA BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1985 Incorporating Brussels Post 10 Main Street 527-0240 Published in SEAFORTH, ONTARIO Every Wednesday morning ED BYRSKI, General Manager HEATHER McILWRA.ITH, Editor The Expositor. is brought to you each week by the efforts of: • Pat Armes, Bessie Broome, Marlene Charters, Joan Gulchelaar, Anne Huff, Joanne Jewitt, Stephanie Levesque. Dianne McGrath, Lois McElwain, Bob McMillan, Cathy Malady and Patrick Raftis. Member Canadian Community Newspaper Assoc. Ontario Community Newspaper Association Ontario Press Council Commonwealth Press Union International Press Institute Subscription rates: Canada $20.00 a year (in advance) Outside Canada $60.00 a year (In advance,) Single Copies - 50 cents each • SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1985 Second class mail registration Number 0696 Not in stores OPINION Once again the question of permitting alcohol beverage sales in grocery stores has surfaced as an issue in the recent provincial election. And once again.the question is a controversial one, and one that needs to be readdressed. People are asking if it really matters where the beer and wine is - if it is better secured behind the doors of Brewers Retail stores and liquor outlets, or displayed on the shelves of corner grocery stores "Midst the pop and potato chips." A recent study conducted by the Canadian Addiction Research Foundation revealed alcohol is the killer or at least a partial cause of one of nearly 10 deaths among Canadians. Nearly 18,000 deaths were attributed to alcohol across Canada in 1980, 5,500 or so of which were linked in some form with car accidents, falls, burns, drownings and suicides. More than 10,000 deaths were recorded which associated alcohol with such afflictions as heart attacks and respiratory problems. Another 2,000 deaths cited alcohol as the direct cause of death by cirrhosis, alcohol abuse, psychosis, and accidental poisoning. So the availability of alcoholic beverages does matter. Maybe they'd best stay where they are Premier David Peterson and the Honorable Monte Kwinter, Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, have announced their intention to extend the sale of beer and wine to grocery store outlets. That announcement may appear a god -send to many Canadians but it more than likely is a rash move. it's possible the government is viewing this policy change too simplistically and without considering all the public health and social implications. It is not an issue that can be so cut and dried. Easier accessibility to alcoholic beverages may have little or no impact on Ontario citizens. But chances are the opposite is more likely to prove true. At least two groups could be adversely affected should this intention come to a reality, and, the spinoff effects could be horrendous. Okaying the sale of alcohol in grocery stores may boost sales of the product, but that may not be a good omen. Sales increase because of unplanned or impulse buying and Research Foundation' studies show consumption increases .6 per cent to 3.2 per cent when alcohol beverages are more readily accessible. Consequently heavy or problem drinkers will have the greatest increase in consumption. That means more problem drinkers in Ontario (and there are already one million recognized) and more problems with impaired driving, family violence, absenteeism and increasing health care costs. Minors also would be able to purchase alcohol beverages easier because grocery store employees, many of whom are minors themselves, would have difficulty identifying and challenging underage customers. By having alcoholic beverages offered for sale In grocery stores what the government is fostering is a society that contradicts everything it and concern groups everywhere have been fighting for. . Tighter legislation against drinking and driving and the campaigns launched by various groups through the media and through demonstrations have started to show some positive results. By making the culprit, booze, more readily available the government could turn the time and energy expended on the project into a wasted effort. The government is enticing the public to buy a product they know could be hazardous to them, and to others around them, if it is not controlled. It is encouraging those people under the legal drinking age to try to beat the system by placing what is to them an illegal product within their grasp. Already critical of the teen who drinks the government would in essence be enticing him or her to do so, and in fact nurturing a lifetime of alcoholic consumption. Perhaps it is time the government thought of the repercussions improved accessibility to alcohol could bring. These public health and social issues should receive the same consideration as the economic issues. Because alcohol is already Canada's number one public health problem doesn't mean it can't get worse. — N.M. Letters must be signed Old MacMillan Home Photo by Heather Mcllwraith A student again A dramatic change has been made in my life. For the past five weeks I have been a student at the School of Business Administra- tion, in the University of Western Ontario. It has been a period of difficult adjustments, The school life is trot as easy as the undergraduate days that I remember. All the students in my class are working harder than they ever had before. The program is informative, fast paced and demanding. By now you are wondering why a farmer is studying business administration. That is a fair question. It's one I sometimes have difficulty answering. The operation of a farm involves many complex decisions. It is now necessary for the farmer to anticipate and to adapt to changing economic conditions. The financial recording and reporting systems are becoming increasingly complex. Record keeping systems have the potential to supply a rich source of information for a manager. They can make difficult decisions easier. The trick isigtltaraing how to use and The Huron Expositor has always published an active opinion page opposite the editorial page. Every week readers express their opinions on a variety of subjects and topics through the letters to the editor published on Page 3. We highly value the opinions of the readership and welcome that contact and insight on a regular basis. It is no secret that letters to the editor are widely read whether or not one happens to agree with the opinions expressed. But with the expression of an opinion comes the duty and obligation of the author to stand by his or her thoughts. Subsequent to that, all letters submitted for publication should be signed by the author. The author can request that a pseudonym be used, but the writer's name and phone number must be left with the editor and available upon request. If the letter expresses the opinions of a group of people, it may be signed as such but the name and number of a spokesperson should also be available to readers who request same. The Huron Expositor receives several unsigned letters and they cannot be acknowledged. Freedom of speech is the hallmark of democracy but it also carries with it some responsibilities. i COUNTRY CORNER by Larry Dillon interpret them and also in learning methods to determine their reliability. My classmates were surprised to find someone from my profession in the program with them. The people who designed the course, probably did not anticipate that it would be used by a farmer to improve his skills, but they should have. Farming is a business just as any small manufacturing company is. I'm not the only farm businessman that is trying to improve his .skills. Many of my neighbors are doing the same. Some of them are developing other agricultural skills. One chap near me is experimenting with modified livestock management systems. He uses different words. He says he is just trying out a few ideas, but to me it looks like a serious research project. Other farmers in the area are trying to learn to improve their crop management methods. They are attending seminars, taking courses, and doing some experimenta- tion in the fields. Continuing education has proven to be an asset for many of us. There are even other farmers, in the county, who are taking business courses. We are all trying to improve our skills so that we can be better at what we do. The course I'm taking is hard, but it is (Continued on Page Ail Tuna issue causes stink The stink over the inedible tuna has done damage far beyond the ruining of a political career of Fisheries Minister John Fraser or the loss of money for the tuna packing company involved. It has damaged the very premise of the current government Mr, Fraser's decision to overrule his department's inspectors and allow for sale tuna they had said was unfit for human consumption was just plain dumb. It was almost as dumb as the company's wish to put on the market tuna that was inferior to its usual standards. Supporters of both the government and the company would have us believe the company was a victim of overzealous bureaucrats making an arbitrary decision but the tuna was inferior as the cooks of the armed forces proved when they had it sent back. The Brian Mulroney Conservative govern- ment won support not just because of a reaction against the 20 -year-old ilberal goverrieient but because people really liked the idea of a smaller, less -intrusive govern- ment. None of us like being told what to do. We start rebelling against our parents' rules when we're two and keep it up until the day we leave home. The rules of schools drive many of us to quit early. We have an instinctive shrinking from bankers, police- men, border guards who have power over us. And so the prospect of a government that proposes less government regulation. and BEHIND THE SCENES by Keith Roulston fewer rules is inviting. The alternative to rules, however, is either a jungle where only the fittest survive, or it is a sense of responsibility on the part of all of us. Feeling particularly irked by government regulation has been the business leaders. The drive to deregulate began even before the Conservative government came to power. The tuna affair, and the bank failures in Alberta, have damaged the efforts of politicians who have believed businessmen who said they needed to be freed from government regulations. The government was in the midst of loosening the rales on banks, for instance, when irresponsible executives and directors in the Canadian Commercial Bank put their bank in a position to go under and cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars. Honest businessmen. who have tried to improve the image of businessmen in recent years, find their work undermined by fellows like the leadership of Star-Kist who put political pressure on politicians to have their own mistakes put onto the market rather than accept responsibility for their failure The public sees once again businessmen whose interest in profit is greater than its worry about what is good for the public (Of course the Star-Kist management was stupidly short-sighted because now it will likely lose far more money than it would have if it had accepted its losses in the first place I FSnally, the tuna affair also undermines the government's efforts to allay Canadian fears about closer ties to the U.S The government sang the praises of foreign investment, and downplayed the dangers, yet here is a company owned by d foreign giant threaten- ing to close a plant in a depressed province and throw 400 people out of work unless it got its own way to do something that was unethical. Canadians who may have just started to buy the government's line that we could trust the Americans now will have second thoughts. Short-sightgd action by businessmen and politicians will do long-term harm to those trying to build bridges of trust Forty years seems like eternity It's been a long way from there to here. Just forty years ago, i was lying on the floor of a box -car in north-east Holland, beaten up and tied up And half -frozen. And half- starved. Today, I'm sitting in a big, brick house, with the furnace pumping away, a refrigerat- or stuffed with food, and my choice of three soft, warm beds Forty years seems like eternity if you're a teenager, but they've gone by like the winking of an eye, as most old-timers will confirm. Back then, I was tied up because Td tried to escape. it wasn't pleasant. They had no rope, so they tied my wrists and ankles with wire. i was beaten up because I'd managed to pilfer a sandwich, a pipe and tobacco from the guards' overcoat pockets when they weren't looking, and these, along with a foot -long piece of lead pipe, popped out of my battle -dress jacket when the sergeant in charge of the guards gave me a round -house clout on the ear just before escorting me back onto the train headed for Germany. Served me right. i should have ignored all that stuff we were taught in training: "it's an officer's duty to try to escape," and gone quietly off to sit out the war, which i did anyway, in the long run. But the next few weeks weren't pleasant. I couldn't walk, because my left kneecap was kicked out of kilter. Every bone in my body ached. My face looked like a bowl of borstch, as I discovered when a "friendly" guard let me look in his shaving mirror. Worst of all, there was nothing to read. curse, holstered his gun. and shoved me When I have nothing to read, I start pacing roughly back into the box -car. the walls. But I couldn't pace the walls Why did Hans Schmidt (his real name ' not because i was on the floor, and tied up. kill me that day? He was fed up with a job on Anyway, the light wasn't so good. One little which rations were minimal, comfort almost barred window, non-existent, and duties boring and demean Perhaps even the worstest of all was my ing. SUGAR AND SPICE by Bill Smiley daily ablutions. Alio I uon t mean washing one's face and armpits. i had to be lugged out of the boxcar by a guard, since only one leg was working, helped down the steps. and ushered to the railway bank Ever try to do your dailies (and I don't mean push-ups), with two hands planted in cinders, one leg stuck straight ahead, the other propping you up. and a guy pointing a revolver at you? it's a wonder i wasn't constipated for life. One day the guard almost shot me, i never understood why. He was a rather decent young chap, about 21, blonde, spoke a bit of French, so that we could communicate in a rudimentary way. He was a paratrooper who had been wounded in France and seconded to the mundane job of guarding Allied prison ers. He hadn't taken part in the kicking and punching at the railway station, for his own reasons. Perhaps pride. He was a soldier, not a member of the Feldgendarmerie But this day he was out of sorts. Perhaps sick of being a male nurse. His eyes got very blue and very cold, and he cocked his revolver. All I could do was turn the big baby -blues on him and mutely appeal. it worked. He muttered something, probably a There was another Schmidt in the detail, Alfred He was a different kettle. though he. ton• was a wounded paratrooper. He was as dark as Hans was fair, as sour as Hans was sunny He would have shot me, in the same mood, and written it off as "killed while attempting to escape " Luck of the draw. Another hairy incident in that October, 40 years ago. was the night the train was attacked by a British fighter•bomber, prob- ably a Mosquito, perhaps even navigated by my old friend Dave McIntosh. I was dozing. on and off (you didn't sleep much. tied up, on the wooden floor of a box -carr when there was a great screeching of brakes, a wild shouting from the guards as they hailed out of the train, then the roar of an engine and the sound of cannon -fire as the attacker swept up and down the train. strafing. As you can understand, i wasn't hit, and the bums in the aircraft didn't even put the train out of commission, but have you ever seen a man curled up into a shape about the size of a little finger? That was ich. Sorry if I've bored you with these reminiscences. But they are all as clear, or moreso, than what i had for lunch today. Forty years Time to complete the war, finish university, marriage, children. i1 years as a weekly editor, 23 years as a teacher. a year in The San for non-existent T.B , and 30 years as a columnist i couldn't hack all that today But 1 can go to bed and say. "This beats the hell out of sleeping in a box -car