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The Citizen, 2012-05-03, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2012.Editorials Opinions Publisher: Keith Roulston Acting Editor: Shawn Loughlin • Reporter: Denny ScottAdvertising Sales: Ken Warwick & Lori Patterson The CitizenP.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1H0 Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. N0G 1H0 Phone 887-9114 E-mail info@northhuron.on.ca Website www.northhuron.on.ca Looking Back Through the Years CCNA Member Member of the Ontario Press Council The Citizen is published 50 times a year in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc.Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $36.00/year ($34.29 + $1.71 G.S.T.) in Canada; $115.00/year in U.S.A. and $205/year in other foreign countries. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth. PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40050141 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 152 BRUSSELS ON N0G 1H0 email: info@northhuron.on.ca May 13, 1965 A fire at Export Packers at 5:30 p.m. on May 7 took Brussels firefighters hours to extinguish. The fire destroyed a large quantity of egg crates and packing material. The fire was allegedly started by children at the back of the building. Just before the Export Packers fire was discovered, fire was spotted in two cars at nearby McCutcheon Motors. Paper had been placed in the interiors of the cars and ignited. The 4-H Tractor Club elected its slate of officials for the year. Graeme Craig was made president of the club while Ken Oak was named vice-president. Hank TenPas was named president of the Brussels Lions Club for the year at the club’s annual meeting on May 10. May 6, 1987 Bruce and Ross McCall of Brussels Stockyards announced that their facility, the third-largest market for finished cattle in Ontario had been sold to Klaus Henschell of Ingersoll. Over the previous 17 years the McCalls grew the business from a facility that averaged $9 million in sales per year up to one that averaged $1.25 million in sales every week. Frank and Cenetta Bainton were named Citizens of the Year for the Blyth area for their extensive involvement in the community. Frank served as the village’s reeve between 1946 and 1949 and was a charter member of the Blyth Lions Club, while Cenetta served on the Blyth School Board from 1954 to 1956. In 1964 the pair opened the retail arm of Bainton Limited, the business originally started by the Bainton family in 1894. Earlier in the year Frank and Cenetta had officially passed the business on to their grandchildren, Franklin, Jayne, Amanda and Richard Snell. The Baintons were the second- ever winners of the award. The first winner of the award was Evalena Webster thanks to her countless volunteer hours with several different organizations throughout the community. Producers of the movie Blue City Slammers were set to hold auditions on May 7 for 10 minor parts in the movie that would begin shooting in Blyth later in May. Once shooting was set to begin, the producers would also be looking for extras to assist in the filming of crowd scenes. Contract talks with the Huron County Board of Education had ended and the board’s 385 teachers would receive a 9.2 per cent increase in pay over the next two years. Negotiations between the teachers and the board had been ongoing for over a year and at one point a provincial fact-finder was brought in to help both sides reach an agreement. The fact-finder appointment was followed by the appointment of a provincial mediator in February. After that appointment, a news blackout was imposed. May 4, 1994 Huron County education taxes were set to increase by 6.09 per cent for the year. The elementary portion of the board was able to cut spending by approximately $200,000 and increase revenue by $430,000 and the secondary portion was able to cut spending by $204,000 and increase revenue by $200,000. Brussels was a step closer to having its new fire hall when Brussels Village Council approved the hiring of an engineer and the filing of an application for funding under the federal-provincial infrastructure program. Huron County Council made a decision to reduce the amount of councillors following the upcoming election, giving some municipalities more than one vote. Council voted to adopt Section 28 of the Municipal Act which stated only reeves would sit at the Huron County Council level. The section, however, provided for reeves of larger municipalities to have more than one vote on issues. Villages like Blyth and Brussels would still only have one vote each, while the Town of Goderich would have four votes. May 5, 2011 Incumbent MP Ben Lobb won the federal election in a landslide victory over Liberal Charlie Bagnato and the NDP’s Grant Robertson. Lobb finished over 15,000 votes ahead of the second-place finisher, Robertson. Lobb was declared the winner in Huron-Bruce shortly after 11 p.m. and it was shortly after that it when it was announced that Stephen Harper’s Conservatives had clinched a majority government for the first time in years. The Walton TransCan was recognized by the Huron Tourism Association on April 28 with the association’s annual Tourism Development Award for the TransCan’s overall contribution to Huron County tourism for over 40 years. The Grade 8 students at Blyth Public School held their own model election and the results were pretty close to the real thing with Lobb prevailing with 11 of a potential 22 votes. Robertson earned the vote of nine students and the Green Party’s Eric Shelley earned two votes. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) for our publishing activities. We are not responsible for unsolicited newsscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright Balancing the books As if the Drummond Report and the recent Ontario budget weren’t enough evidence that Ontario must cut its deficit, last week’s warning by some bond rating agencies that they might downgrade the province’s credit rating certainly is sobering news. While bond ratings are an obscure thing for most citizens they have very real meaning when the province has a $202 billion debt that’s climbing every day. If the province’s credit rating drops, the cost of borrowing goes up and we spend more of the province’s precious revenue on interest costs instead of things to make life in Ontario better. Most of us, whether in our personal lives or through our governments, don’t like to take less. It’s easy, when we’re looking from afar at a place like Greece, to see the foolishness of people thinking they can get more from government while they seek to avoid paying any taxes, but when we’re told the same message we resist it. There are only two ways to balance a budget, whether personal or governmental: you either raise income or you cut expenses. Few people want the government to increase its revenue because that can only come from increasing taxes so the alternative is to cut spending. A provincial government is a massive thing, touching our lives in dozens of essential ways, from our highways to hospitals and schools to the Ontario Provincial Police. Many of these essential services involve thousands and thousands of employees. It is impossible for the government to cut its deficit without controlling the growth in the salary costs of the people who work for the many departments of government. This can come from cutting jobs, or freezing salaries. The provincial government has chosen to freeze salaries. Naturally these people, whether healthcare workers, teachers or government office workers, feel they are being asked to pay for the deficit and that it’s unfair. If they want a little perspective they can look at the federal government’s layoffs of civil servants as it fights its deficit. Would they rather have a salary freeze or lose their jobs? — KR Investing in the future There hasn’t been a lot of sympathy with college and university students in Quebec with their ongoing protests against tuition rate increases, but perhaps the reaction to the violence involved has prevented some deeper examination of the issue of the cost of higher education. At a time when governments are fighting to balance their budgets, it’s been difficult to feel sorry for Quebec students – who have by far the lowest post-secondary tuitions in Canada – being asked to pay more each year for the next seven years when the final amount would still be lower than students elsewhere already pay. Students who go to Quebec’s community colleges actually have virtually free tuition. Quebec students, on the other hand, look at the heavy debt load being shouldered by students who graduate from Ontario’s universities and colleges and wonder how they can manage, especially when the difficult economy has made it hard for many to find jobs in the fields they trained for. They worry that people from poorer backgrounds will pass up seeking post-secondary education because they worry how they’ll be able to pay for it. It’s this barrier, real or perceived, to seeking further education that needs to cause us to think beyond the headlines. One of the great advantages Canada has held for many years is the upward mobility of our population. Many of the people earning comfortable, or even high, incomes today, didn’t come from well-off homes. Our system of free education at the elementary and secondary level, followed by subsidized post secondary education, has allowed the brightest young people to rise to the top – and in doing so pay higher taxes to support the government that once supported them. So while we worry about cutting provincial deficits, we must also remember the long-term bottom line. Investing in the ability of bright young people to reach their potential will benefit our country, and help reduce deficits, in the future. — KR & Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise.