Loading...
The Exeter Times-Advocate, 1977-05-12, Page 4Manpower minister Bud Cullen last week indicated that workers from outside Canada would again have to be used to complete the seasonal chore of harvesting Canada's fruit and vegetable crops. That's rather odd in view of this nation's frightening unemployment figures. Surely there are enough people among those ranks who could undertake the work and thereby reduce the unemploy- ment figures and the staggering costs associated with them. However, Mr. Cullen did indicate that those who were "willing and able" would be employed. No doubt the key word there is "willing". There are many people in this nation, in assessing their contribution to the federal treasury, who feel that "willing" should not be one of the considerations, As long as those drawing unemployment insurance benefits are "able", let them do the work, Be careful "If you don't know me, don't trust me." Those are the , words of advice con- tained in a new brochure recently issued by the Ontario Provincial Police. At first glance, it may seem unfair that the police should urge you to suspect every stranger with whom you come in contact. Obviously there are many honest people who solicit business and just because they are not known to you, it does not necessarily follow that they are dishonest. Unfortunately, the amount of fraud • perpetrated in this province does add credence to the police warning. About 30,- 000 residents in Ontario will lose money through fraud this year and that statistic suggests that everyone should indeed be wary about dealing with strangers. This is particularly true in some of the examples cited by the police, such as: home repair firms, land speculators, phoney bank inspectors, short change ar- tists and people who insist on writing out cheques even though they do not have funds to cover the amount. Statistics, unfortunately, do prove,that people can't trust strangers. Even when you think the person with whom you plan to do business is honest, it's still a good idea to check with the Con- sumer Protection Bureau or the police if you have any doubts at all. No reputable firm minds that type of scrutiny and it's a practice that can prevent you from pouring money down the drain in fraudulent tran- sactions. Economically tragic All those English-speaking Canadians who took the trouble to try to become bi- lingual, or at least were sympathetic to the wisdom of a two language concept must be squirming a bit. Last week the Quebec government produced its own white paper on language, which will probably be translated into law within a few weeks. That law will effectively make French the only language in Quebec. French will be legally required to conduct business, to ad- dress the courts, even to take out on a shop- ping spree. All immigrants to the province- regardless of mother tongue, will be educated in French schools. So much for bi- lingualism and the millions it has cost the taxpayers. Even those who have the greatest of sympathy for and understanding of the French-Canadians' aspirations can weep over the tragedy which is in the making. The retreat of Anglophone families and businesses from Quebec is not a rumor—it is a fact. (see the current issue of MacLean's). Investment money is being quietly withdrawn from inside Quebec and sources outside the province are drying up. As English-speaking people and business firms leave the province the real majority of separationists increases, as does the possibility of a strong "yes" vote when a referendum is taken. If and when separation does occur we will be left with two weak national bodies rather than one strong one. The future of a French enclave of six million people surrounded by over 200 million English-speaking neighbors is culturally exciting and economically tragic. Wingham Advance Times We're a violent people `Op toceferVines-ibuocafe SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C.W.N.A., 0,W.N.A. CLASS 'A' and ABC Published by.1, W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager Jim Beckett Plant Manager — Jim Scott Composition Manager -- Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jong kind Phone 235-1331 +CNA Published Each Thursday Morning of Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 Paid in Advance Circulation September 30, 1975 5,409 SUBSCRIPTION RATES; Canoga $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 Good advice comes too late Fire Page 4 Times-Advocate, May 12, 1977 Just the willing? 55 Years Ago About 15 men busied them- selves on Arbor Day in beautifying the town. They planted about 45 trees in the parks and 100 more in other parts of the town. The play presented in the Exeter Opera House last Wed- nesday night by the St, Matthews Dramatic Club of London under the auspices of the Girls' Auxiliary of Trivitt Memorial Church was a decided success. Melville Ernest McNicol was presented with the Royal Humane Society Life Saving Medal at a presentation made at Caven Prebyterian Sunday School, Sunday morning. Two winters ago young McNicol was instrumental in saving Scout Bob Gambrill frOm a watery grave. The Exeter Junior baseball team in the north Wellington league has been grouped with Lucan and Kirkton. year-old twins of Mr. & Mrs, Norman Brock, RR 1 Granton, copped top marks at SHDHS music festival Tuesday with a duet which adjudicator B, S. ivicOool, termed 'particularly brilliant.' R. Ross Tuckey, manager of Tuckey Beverages Ltd., was appointed to Exeter Public School Board at a meeting Monday night. Friday night shopping hours, which appear to be gaining in popularity in this area, have been extended until 10 p,m. during the DST period, Exeter Players Guild won its first award, the Lake Huron Zone Drama Festival Trophy last week with the play, "Rise and Shine." Directed by Mrs. James Glaab, the cast included, Mrs. Art Whilsmith, Bob Russell, Mrs. James Smith and Frank Wild- fong. Adjudicator was J. Burke Martin, drama critic of the London Free Press. Watching hockey playoffs late- ly, and discussing the brutality of the modern game with other former aficionados, I began to ponder on that subject which is of such recent concern to our society — violence. It is certainly nothing new. History is a long and often sickening record of violence. In the great Greek epics, treachery and murder and war and killing are celebrated. The Bible is loaded with people "smiting" each other. The Romans reveled in cruel and bloody spectacles. The Crusades of the Middle Ages, under the blessing of the Church, were sagas of loot and raping and fire and killing. Wars and piracy and vicious colonization occupied Renaissance man, under the guise of exploration and spreading the faith. Torture and burning at the stake were the treats in store for anyone ac- cused of treason or heresy as State and Church struggled for supremacy in the western world, And speaking of the West, that great American state to the south, under the various cloaks of freedom, peace and the spreading of law and order, but spurred by greed and hunger for land, practised a ferocious type of genocide on the original natives. Then came World War I, when slaughter and mud and blood became a way of life, for years, for millions of men, in a holocaust that made a mockery of the notion that man was becoming civilized, and paled all previous violence by com- parison. Next feature was Son of World War I. While not as devastating in the score of human life, it reached new pinnacles of perver- sion and horror, culminating in the unspeakable death camps of Germany, and the terror bom- bings of the Allies. Things haven't improved. Cold war, with the building of vast stores of deadly and dreadful weapons. Arabs and Jews, The Congo. Ireland. Lebanon. You name it and modern man is capable of it. Hijacking, kidnap- ping, torture, bombings are com- monplace. What are our favorite movies? At least the ones that make money? Disaster films, the bigger the better. Air crashes, earthquakes, towering infernoes. Or vicious portrayals of mad killers as in Taxi Driver. Or see- ing two humans punch each other into bloody ribbons, as in "Rocky." Or watching violence, physical and verbal, carried to the point of parody, as in "Slap Shot." And that brings us neatly, and inevitably, back to professional hockey. And after thinking over a few thousand years of violence, it's a Sunday School picnic, that spec- tacle on the ice, in my mind. Why should I become exer- cised over it? The owners are in- terested chiefly in either a big buck or a tax writeoff. Fighting and high sticking and blood fill the arenas. So it's a free country and capitalism is the economic system. Why should I worry about the managers and coaches en- couraging blood and brutality? Those people are mere stooges for the owners, They have to fill rinks and win games, or it's "Slong, Charlie." Why should I feel contempt for the referees when they fail to honor their hyprocritic oath and turn a blind eye on some guy try- ing to tear out another guy's guts with the modern equivalent of a spear? They don't encourage mayhem, but they tolerate it by ignoring the rule book. If they don't turn a blind eye, they're fired. Simple. Do the media people and the sports writers attack the viciousness in hockey? Not on your next year's contract with Hockey Night in Canada, buster. They mention it, chuckling. Should I feel some sympathy for the players, forced into fraudulent ferocity by owners, coaches, fans? No way. I pity them for the punishment they take, but at the same time pity them for being patsies for everybody else; for being dumb, in other words. They're well paid. If they want to be actors, let them act. If they want to be thespians, let them thesp, through their missing front teeth. If they want to be goons, let them goon away, as long as they goon on each other, and not on me. And should I feel contempt for the fans, who scream for blood, who curse colorfully the opposi- tion when it is winning, who blaspheme bitterly their own team when it is losing? Nope. I feel no more contempt for them than I do for the Roman mob, suckered by the Caesars into go- ing to the Games, instead of ask- ing who is'looking after the store these days. I guess in the long run we're a violent people. We don't throw Christians to the lions. We throw figurative tigers to the nominal Christians. Those of us who don't like it should move to Switzerland, where they don't fight wars, and have lousy hockey teams. That 90 pound 60-year-old lady wlio screams at the professional wrestler, "Stomp on him Killer!" is merely exercising her democratic right, and her hatred Did you ever notice that the "good advice" doesn't come along until it's too late to use it? That point was brought home to the writer quite vividly this week while scanning through the daily paper. The headline im- mediately attracted attention with its pronouncement that "kids poor• investment — finan- cially speaking". Having just paid out vast sums for spring bicycle repairs and watching the never-ending raid on the family refrigerator, the headline wasn't all that startling. That is, not too startling until we read through the accompanying story. It was enough to make a fellow cry! The story related facts from a recent survey undertaken by an economics professor and it in- dicated that it costs $53,605 to raise a child to age 18. Multiply- ing that by the four blonde heads in the Batten family, it comes to a staggering total of $214;420. However, that wasn't all. The, information indicated that the cost of raising the first child in a family tends to cost roughly twice as much as the second child. We didn't know those hand-me- downs were saving quite that much money, but because every family has an eldest child, we had to add another $53,605 to the total and that brought the figure to $268,025. All those figures are suggested as being "direct costs" such as the money required to pay for food, clothing, peanut butter, bandaids, hockey equipment and everything else. It doesn't include the cost of a university education, which by the way is rather staggering as outlined by the economics professor. Nor does it include the "lost" earnings if the mother in the family gives up a job to stay home with the children. That we are told is another $132,000 to add to the previous total and that brings the cost of the four Batten of her big, fat, overbearing hus- band. That little pot bellied bald headed middle aged guy who is staring at the screen waving his beer and shouting "Flit him, Tiger!" is not a sadist. He's a good citizen, kind father, devoted husband, He is merely remembering the time he was a scrawny runt, went over on his ankles and was always chosen last for a pickup game of hockey on the outdoor rink. It's a great country we live in, and we're all entitled to at least a modicum of violence, a smattering of blood, and a few teeth knocked in, as long as they are somebody else's. kids up to a whopping $400,025. There should be an obvious conclusion to make from all this. Probably the most sensible one that comes to mind is to save all that money you're spending in hopes of winning a giant lottery prize and invest it in something sensible — such as birth, control pills. The professor then proceeded to conduct another survey in an effort to find out what advan- tages are returned by the sizeable sum spent on kids. Nearly three-quarters of the parents questioned cited hap- piness, love and companionship. It's assumed that the other 25 percent basically looked upon the whole affair as a poor invest- ment and if they had it to do over again, they wouldn't. About half of the people giving positive responses said that the investment in their kids was well worth it from the standpoint of their own personal development and child-rearing satisfactions. Whatever the reason people cite for having kids, it is rather obvious that many of those offspring do not consider the amount expended on their behalf in view of the heartache and grief which some parents suffer. Perhaps those having this type of problem should start laying some of the facts on the line so their kids will better understand the obligation they have, They may not comprehend the need for returning the love and hap. piness aspect but most of them understand money. A century ago, many people looked to their children for assistance during their old age, To the Editor: John Vintar was Superinten- dent of the Huron-Perth Roman Catholic Separate School Board starting in 1969. Recently, he resigned as Director of the nine- teen schools which make up the two counties school system. The new county board was being in- itiated back in 1969. Challenges from the far flung jurisdiction were very many and varied. From the scantily fur- nished offices in the town of Seaforth, John was up for his everyday set of new experiences. To equip the have-not schools was the first in a long line of ac- complishments. He introduced to the scattered teachers an op- timum line of communication through a variety of workshops,' clinics and educational courses. He provided schools with con- Amalgamated 1924 but today's welfare system has precluded that need to a great extent. In fact, the survey taken by the economics professor found that 94 percent of the middle-class parents did not expect anything in return and 73 percent of the lower-income parents gave the same response. Speaking of kids, those in the Exeter area have been busy run- ning around enlisting sponsors for the walkathon to be staged on June 4 for the South Huron Recreation Centre. Judging from some of the lists, most people have been generous in their pledges and the event should go a long way towards bringing the project goal to frui- tion. Hopefully, everyone in the area will look upon the weekend's events as the final push and will do their best to hit the target and have the debt cleared before the building is completed. •), Those of us who have been sticking our noses in the doorways at the centre as the construction progresses are almost awed by the size of the new facility. Indications are that it is cer- tainly going to be a very attrac- tive facility as well and this com- munity will be extremely proud of it when the doors are officially opened, Many residents have not yet made their contribution and should take steps to fulfill their commitment now, sultants be it religion, primary education, special education, family education and physical education. His newsletter which appeared during the years was another approach to make the schools closer although many miles apart. As director, he produced train- ed superintendents who further serviced the needs of the teacher population. There are so many factors that he instigated in our schools that it would end up a litany of constructive transfusions into the healthy cir- culation of our student body. I have known John Vintar since 1969 up to my retirement in 1976. I have seen this giant of a man shoulder many set-backs as well as victories. He was truly a fine example of a man doing a very difficult job of fusing together the multitude of demands placed on him. The announcement of the resignation of John Vintar as director should not pass without some response. I thank your paper for being a vehicle for this tribute. Vintar has served the 19 separate schools long and faithfully. His first priority always was the children, which education is all about. My association with him left me with warm and lasting im- pressions. He indeed was a real Christian, dedicated leader and possesses a strong code of ethics. On July 31, John finally leaves to take up his new role of Superintendent of the Dufferin Peel Board of Education, You could not help being a better per- son from knowing John Vintar. Gratefully, John B. McCarroll, 589 Mornington St., Stratford, Ont, 30 Years Ago Rev. J. S. Burn of Calvary EUB Church, Dashwood, is retiring and his successor, Rev. Getz, will arrive in Dashwood next week, When lightning struck on the farm of Mr. & Mrs. William Gibson, one and a half miles south of Exeter, Tuesday evening, Mr. & Mrs. Gibson, who were in the act of taking in some clothes from a clothesline, were both rendered unconscious. Both regained consciousness through the night. Mrs. Glenn MacLean was made honorary president of Kippen East WI after serving as president since the beginning of the Institute in December, 1934. The inaugural meeting of the newly-appointed Exeter Com- munity Park Committee was held Saturday evening with A. J. Sweitzer as chairman. 20 Years Ago South Huron District High School Board raised its maximum salary for teachers from $5,600 to $7,000, Tuesday night. • Doris and Doreen Brock, 16- by JIM SMITH To set the stage for disas- ter, start with a couple of thousand people.Put them in a hall or theatre. Yell "fire". And watch the panic develop. It almost never fails. In general, more people are kill- ed by crowding the exits than from fire itself. There have been cases of deaths even though no one received so much as a minor burn. Humans, you see, have an uncanny ability to inflict more damage on themselves by attempting to avoid disas- ter than they would normal- ly suffer if the disaster sim- ply ran its course. And that brings us to eco- nomics, a subject with close ties to panic and disaster. More and more Canadians are convinced that the eco- nomy is going down the drain. So more and more Ca- nadians, attempting to avert disaster, are panicking, en- suring something unpleasant will take place. A few months ago, Cana- da's unemployed exceeded 900,000 for the first time in longer than anyone seems to remember. Figuring that high unemployment signals de- pression, the country panick- ed. Retail sales have fallen sharply. Travel is down. Everyone is busy saving ra- ther than spending, hoping to have a nest-egg if their jobs go, too. In fact, disaster is not in- evitable. More unemploy- ment than the government seems willing to admit exists because of generous un- employment insurance and welfare, 15 Years Ago Monday, the Roman Catholic Separate School Board for Exeter approved a $55,000 debenture bylaw to finance construction of its new school here. Hay township council, Monday night, agreed to become joint owner of the proposed Dashwood Community Centre and donated $1,000 toward its construction. Wednesday, Guenther Tuckey Transports Ltd. began hauling 2,600 tons of African mahogany logs from Toronto harbour to the Maple Leaf Veneer Co. Ltd., plant in Durham, Canadian Canners Ltd., have installed a mobile com- munication system on the new general radio service authorized by the dep't of transport. Three fieldmen's cars pne truck and the viner stations in Hensall and Exeter are connected by the system. Hydro Showtime, a program sponsored by the Exeter PUC and Caven Congregational Circle was well attended for both the evening and afternoon per- formances, Tuesday. There is real unemploy- ment, too; but it is concen- trated in certain age groups and regions, However, as the Canadian Federation )f In- dependent Business points out, unemployment is a tem- porary problem. Canada has the fastest growing labour force in the Western World right now (which explains the unduly high unemploy- ment among the under-25- year-old Canadians). In only a few years, however, growth of the labour force will come to an abrupt slowdown and there will be serious short- ages of labour. Our priori- ties must be in the develop- ment of people with skills to meet the coming demand for their labour. So, although we do have unemployment problems that are not capable of being easily solved in the very short run, there is certainly no rea- son to panic. Workers with a job in a stable industry now have no reason to lose sleep about security. There's no reason to be concerned, that is, unless we talk Canada into a recession. Investors in the stock market suffer big losses because they react as a pack, stampeding at the least sign of danger. They "psych" themselves in- to a bad market.,,,And con- sumers can psych us all into a recession. Saving a bit is good; it pro- vides investment capital. Sav- ing too much is bad; it puts Canadians out of work. The rational approach to today's economy is to carry on nor- mal spending habits. If we're not careful, we could find ourselves trapped in the pan- ic, running from the econo- mic fire, Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1 881 "Remember when H2 O used to mean hydrogen and oxygen — now it's hydrogen and oil."