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The Citizen, 1985-11-13, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1985. The world view from Mabel's Grill ° t cak41-1 Ski There are people who will tell you that the important decisions in town are made down at the town hall. People in the know, however know that the real debates, the real wisdom reside down at Mabel's Grill where the greatest minds in the town (if not in the country) gather for morning coffee break, otherwise known as the Round Table Debating and Filibustering Society. Since not just everyone can partake of these deliberations, we will report the activities from time to time. TUESDAY: That Russian defector who defected from the country he defected to caused some talk at Mabel's this morning. Somebody said they thought he'd tricked the Americans all the time but Tim O'Grady figured the guy had just figured up how much living in the capitalist, Christian, democracy was going to cost him with Christmas coming up and got so scared he went right back to Russia. WEDNESDAY: Poor Ward Black was getting a tough time again today. Billy Beanjustcan'thelp getting a few digs in at Ward about the election coming up. Billy said something about councillors got paid too much. Ward said that councillors de- served every penny they get and you had to get decent money to get the best people. Hank Stokes argued that point. "The way I look at it," Hank says, 'the smarter people you elect to council, the more ideas they have. The more ideas they have the more staff they'll have to hire to do the work. The more staff they have, the higher the taxes. Therefore if you want less taxes you elect stupid people." "Well," Ward says, "I guess I can count on not getting your vote." "Hell," says Hank, "I'll be voting for you just like always Ward." THURSDAY: Tim O'Grady, who is always organized about every- thing, was talking this morning about how he's all prepared for the winter (he probably bought this Christmas' presents last Boxing Day). Billy Bean said that was just the sign of a pessimist. Billy never prepares for winter. He says it shows his optomism. Every year he just keeps hoping this will be the year winter doesn't come at all so he doesn't want to waste his time putting the storm windows on or putting the lawn furniture away. FRIDAY: Julia Flint was saying that with all the wine being pulled off the shelves at the L.C.B.O. these days she's almost scared to go in the door of the place, let alone drink the stuff. Hank Stokes says he'd never get that scared. He figures they've been telling him for years his booze was going to kill him so what's one more danger. At least he'll die happy. There was a scare in town though, when somebody said that with the election on Tuesday all the bars would be closed. It was almost enough to get a few people in favour of doing away with demo- cracy and appointing a dictator but democracy was saved when we found out that the bars aren't closed anymore on municipal elections. Tim O'Grady says they origin- ally says that they brought in the law about closing the bars on election day in the old days when politicians would buy votes from people by buying them a drink. He can't figure out if it doesn't work anymore because with inflation people want more than a drink for their.vote or if the politicians figure out the votes aren't worth a drink. Julia figures it can't be the latter since the government gets most of the money from booze anyway so the politicians would just be helping to pay their own salaries. New swine specialist named The Ontario Ministry of Agricul- ture and Food has appointed a Swine Specialist to work in the counties of Huron, Perth and Oxford. Ed Barrie, who holds a B.Sc. and M. Sc. in Agriculture from the University of Guelph was named Swine Specialist and assumed the position on October 8, 1985. As a member of the Ministry's Animal Industry Branch, Barrie will co-ordinate and conduct swine advisory services in the assigned areas. Ed Barrie has extensive techni- cal and applied experience with swine record keeping systems said Dr. Jim Pettit, Director of the Animal Industry Branch. [640523 Ontario Inc.] Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. P.O. Box 152, P.O. Box 429, Brussels, Ont. Blyth, Ont. NOG 1H0 NOM 1H0 523-4792 Subscription price: $15.00; $35.00 foreign. Advertising and newsdeadline: Monday 4 p.m. Editor and Publisher: Keith Roulston Advertising Manager: Beverley A. Brown Production and Office Manager: Jill Roulston Canada greedy in immigration When times get tough in a country, people tend to turn in on themselves and think only of their own troubles. Such seems to be the case in the new Canadian government policy that will greatly increase immigration this year but only for those from other countries who will bring wealth with them. From our own stand point the policy makes sense. Canada has prospered on waves of immigrants bringing new ideas, new energy and new money to the country. (One has only look to the contribution in our area of the post-war influx of Dutch). With the economy sagging, we can use a new boost now, particularly from people who bring money with them. But while we speak piously about helping the "third world" this is a policy that will help beggar poorer countries. We are inviting to come to our country the very well-to-do residents who could do most to help those poorer countries grow. Imagine if the richest five per cent of Canadians took their money and moved elsewhere. What would happen to our country? Yet even then the people left would be far richer than the people of most third world countries. Yes by our standards Canadians are facing tough times, but by the standards of most people in the world we're still living a life similar to the Ewings of television fame. Perhaps we should look beyond our short term gain by this immigration policy and see what it does to our moral reputation in the world. Morris council wasteful? There is a case to be made that the Morris Township Council should be taken to task for wastefulness in their new municipal building. The council has had a beautiful, roomy council chamber in the new building. It has a beautiful oak council table and comfortable chairs for the reeve and councillors. But that's not the wasteful part. The council has left room for the public to sit in on council meetings: room that will not likely be used for much more than annual ratepayers meetings. Wasteful it may be but the attitude that it expresses is both welcoming and welcome. Too often councils seem like private clubs to which only the councillors are invited. A citizen walking into a council meeting is likely to feel as if he had walked, unannounced, into somebody's living room and sat down to listen to people discussing family secrets. The fact that Morris township provides an inviting council room for local residents to attend meetings (they get comfortable chairs too) might, just might, encourage more people to get interested in local politics and not just show up once a year for ratepayers meetings (if then). In reality, people probably won't show up and the councillors will have wasted the money. But they can be forgiven. Their hearts were in the right place. Taking the leap of faith Canadians are being asked to take the "leap of faith" in negotiating free trade with the U.S. but as the safety ads warn us, we should never dive into unknown waters. The MacDonald commission was the one that made the "leap of faith" comment and the Mulroney government has been telling us we don't have to worry, just let them negotiate for us. We can trust them, they say. It would be more convincing if the government had been more trustworthy before. This is the government that told us that they would end patronage and they did: for Liberals. They made it a bonanza for Conservatives getting government jobs and contracts, however. The government said social programs were a "sacred trust" then tried to change them in the first budget. Now they say they won't let farmers down by bargaining away marketing boards. They say cultural sovereignty won't be a bargaining chip. Yet the signals keep coming out that the Americans are going to demand the dismantling of both protective cultural regulations such as quotas on television and controlled marketing legislation. There are also hints that the gOvernment is softening its position such as John Wise's observation that Canadians might have a lot to gain by getting more access to the U.S. market for ice cream sales. The problem is that the negotiations will be going on behind closed doors and we won't know that the agreement is until it's too late. What makes one more nervous is the fact that the present government has such a huge parliamentary majority that it can get legislation through even if the Canadian people turn out to hate the agreement they make with the Americans. The one hope we have is that the negotiations take long enough that any agreement will be an election issue in the next election. Then the people of Canada will be able to do more than just "trust" them.