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The Citizen, 2010-12-23, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2010.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 norhuron@scsinternet.com 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 $34.00/year ($32.38 + $1.62 G.S.T.) in Canada; $105.00/year in U.S.A. and $175/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: norhuron@scsinternet.com December 29, 1948 Two well-known Blyth residents marked their 90th birthdays just a few days apart when Isabella Cole celebrated on Dec. 29 and Blanchard Herrington celebrated on Dec. 31. Mrs. Cole, originally from Scotland, came to Canada in 1870 and Mr. Herrington was born in York County. Blyth’s Trinity Anglican Church celebrated its annual Christmas Eve service and reported that it had been well attended. The junior choir of Trinity Church in Belgrave led the singing at the service, which was officiated by Rev. J. L. H. Hender- son. Results of the first set of examinations for the students of Blyth Public School were published, along with the scores, for students in Grades 5, 6, 7 and 8. Playing at the Capital Theatre in Goderich was A Date With Judy, starring Elizabeth Taylor. December 18, 1985 Grey Township Reeve Leona Armstrong was handed the ceremonial key to Huron County on Dec. 10, becoming Huron County’s first-ever female warden. Armstrong was given the key by outgoing warden Paul Steckle. She was unopposed for the office of warden. In addition to becoming the first female warden in Huron County’s history, Armstrong also made history in that her father, Harvey Johnston, reeve of Morris Township in 1952, had also been warden. Upon her election, Armstrong said that 1986 would be a challenging, yet exciting year going forward. Two of the more important tasks for her going into the new year were the construction of the new Huron County Museum and the renovations at Huronview. Armstrong said she felt honoured to be Huron County’s first female warden and said she was inspired to give the position a try after a discussion she had with a female warden from a neighbouring county at a convention. The recreation agreement for the Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Centre became official on Dec. 16 after an agreement had been signed by representatives from all three of the municipalities. Going into the signing, however, there were some last-minute doubts that the agreement would go through. Letters were received from three different councils, as well as from the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation, stating that there were deficiencies with the agreement. Brussels Village Council decided to follow the lead of many of Huron County’s municipalities and move to a quarterly tax collection. The decision was made at the Dec. 16 council meeting. In order to help a local family make their home accessible for their son, who was in a wheelchair, president of the Brussels Lions Club Dale Newman presented the family with a cheque for $5,000 to aid them in the construction of an addition to their home. The Huron County Board of Education announced at its November meeting that no schools within the county would face the scrutiny of a potential closure. The last schools that had faced the accommodation review process were Vanastra Public School, Hensall Public School and J.A.D. McCurdy Public School. December 24, 2003 The Blyth Festival ended the year with a deficit of over $150,000. A decline in tourism due to the SARS outbreak, as well as the BSE scare helped to diminish Festival audiences throughout the 2003 season. The Festival had projected an income of $529,330 and brought in just $424,528. Grants received from various levels of government were also down from the previous year. Starting with the first newspaper of 2004, the January 8 issue, The Citizen became a ‘Thursday’ paper, after years of being released on Wednesday. The change in publishing date returned The Citizen back to the times of The Blyth Standard and The Brussels Post, which had both been published on Thursday in past decades. December 24, 2008 A decision on how future business would be conducted at the Belgrave Community Centre was delayed until 2009, it was decided at the Dec. 15 meeting of North Huron Council. Because there were two different opinions on the Community Centre by North Huron and Morris- Turnberry Councils, North Huron Councillor Greg McClinchey deferred any further discussion until the two sides could work the issue out further. It was said to be one of the snowiest falls in recent memory in 2008 that eventually led to another crippling storm as winter officially began on Dec. 20. Winds at over 50 km and a high level of lake-effect snow coming off of Lake Huron resulted in the closure of every highway from the north end of London to the Bruce Peninsula. During the Dec. 20 storm, sources at The Weather Network stated that the area experienced temperatures that crept as low as -22 degrees Celsius with the wind chill. 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 Finding a proper balance The split personality of the Christmas season – between a spiritual/family time and an orgy of consumerism – has been even more emphasized this year as the country worries about possibly slipping back into recession. The media have been filled with stories taking the temperature of consumer spending: surveys in advance of the season to see how much people planned to spend; nearly weekly stories about traffic in shopping malls; interviews with shoppers about much they’re really buying. Our government and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney have worried about the amount of debt Canadians are carrying, yet economists also obsess over the need for people to keep spending. South of the border, where the world-wide financial crisis was partly triggered by people overextending themselves financially, there’s now concern that people have been saving instead of spending, thereby prolonging the recession. Another set of stories illustrates how important this obsession with consumer spending is. Unemployment remains stubbornly high because new jobs aren’t being created fast enough to fill the needs of a growing population – especially well-paid job of the kinds people have come to count on. Young people in particular, have had problems finding jobs, even as they often struggle to pay off student loans. Our society is caught in a conundrum. Despite grumbling that people’s incomes just haven’t kept up with the cost of living, the cost of that “living” has come to include a lot of necessities that aren’t really that necessary if you look at the real essentials of life. Our needs are an endless hole that will never be filled because manufacturers are always creating new essentials and the advertising industry and media convince us that life isn’t worth living without them. The financial crash was an opportunity to rethink our priorities, to put goodies and gadgets in their proper perspective, and yet it soon became our duty to spend to help provide the jobs that would stop the suffering for our neighbours and friends. In many ways, our society mirrors our divided feelings at Christmas: we know that the things that truly matter are the spiritual elements of the season, but we keep buying gifts anyway – sometimes gifts we can’t afford to give. The problem in both cases is how to get off the merry-go- round and back to a proper balance. — KR Too much/too little Even people in the media have been troubled about how to treat the enormous numbers of U.S. diplomatic cables made public by the controversial Wikileaks website. But just when you begin to think these leaks of secret documents might have gone too far, a story comes along that shows the need for ways to pry information from secretive governments. Former NDP leader and Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas has been dead since 1986, yet the federal government has fought in the courts to keep from releasing for public viewing many of the 1,142 pages the RCMP collected on him, some dating back 70 years, despite the fact these documents are stored in the Library and Archives of Canada. This week the government finally agreed to release more information, on top of the 456 heavily-censored pages released earlier in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by a Canadian Press reporter. For five years the government fought against disclosure, arguing that releasing the information would impair ongoing security work and even endanger the lives of confidential informants. Only when a judge expressed concern about the continuing secrecy of files on a person of such historic importance did officials agree to reconsider. For many, the very idea that such an iconic Canadian would be spied on by the RCMP will be upsetting, but there is a reasonable argument that paranoia is a necessary part of national security operations. Twenty- four years after Douglas’s death, however, the continued paranoia has gone too far. — 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.