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The Citizen, 1987-06-03, Page 13“Can I have some of that, Dad?’’ asks Steven Todd, 4, as his father, Wayne, fills his plate from the sumptuous smorgasbord presented at the annual Maytime Supper sponsored by the Melville Presbyterian Church in Brussels on May 27. The hall was packed for the full two-hours as more than 300 guests enjoyed the meal. The International Scene ltitj eiiinsn, wisumisiMJAit, junm 3, i^c/. rAut 13. Brussels' misplaced road won't open as exit lane Continued from page 4 the fish is ordered until it gets to some restaurant in Switzerland. As fish-lovers will know, perch is a very small fish and by the time you have filetted it, there is not too much left; certainly not as much as, say, pickerel or whitefish or even trout. It takes a lot of perch to make up a 25 lb. box of them but that is the size of the container that goes on the plane. Given the freight rates, it does not make much sense to ship anything less than 1000 kilograms at a time which means that there is slightly over 2200 lbs. going in one shipment. If more is sold, so much the better. The fish is trucked from the fish plant along Lake Erie to Malton Airport at Toronto (or should 1 say Lester Pearson International Airport) where it is put into a container and loaded on the Swissair DC -10 as soon as there is space. Since Swissair has one flight a day from Toronto to Zurich, there is no delay. The plane takes off just after supperand arrives at Zurich the next day at 10 a.m. their time. It is checked by the health inspectors, cleared through customs and it is safe to say that 24 hours after it leaves the fish plant in Ontario, it has reached its destination, or should I say destinations, since is has previouslybeen sold to any number of distributors and restau­ rants throughout Switzerland. In order to stockpile for the times when there is insufficient perch being caught to make up a shipment, the perch can be filletted and then frozen under a system whereby each fillet is frozen separately. This process is called IQF or Individually Quick Forzen. This time it does not go over by aircraft but is loaded into a refrigerated container which will keep the fish frozen the same way. Depending on the size of the container, there can be more than 30,000 lbs. shipped at one time and the normal procedure is to ship it to Rotterdam in Holland, the largest port in Europe, where it is then transhipped along the River Rhine all the way to the Swiss border city of Basel where it goes through the same customs and health inspec­ tion. On some occasions I have been over in Switzerland when the fish arrived and thus have had the satisfaction of seeing some of the fruit of my labours materialize. It is also interesting to see what the other fish plants are shipping. So, ifyou are ever in Switzerland and see Eglifilets on the menu, you can take satisfaction that here is one Canadian product that is considered to be a delicacy in another part of the world. It is part and parcel of the fascinating world of international trade. More Brussels council news next week Because of the lateness of the Brussels council meeting Monday night, it was impossible to have all council stories written in time for Tuesday deadlines. More stories will be included in next week’s paper. When a road is not a road became a contentious issue at Brussels village council meeting Monday night. In a debate that was often clouded with recriminations for things past, council listened to a presentation from the Brussels, Morris and Grey Recreation Com­ mittee to have a road, or a lane, depending on who is talking, opened up from the arena to John Street. Neil Gowing and Dale Newman representing council said that after a meeting with Dale Assuter of the Ministry of Trans­ port and Communications about the road that had been improperly constructed last year, Mr. Assuter said he wouldn’t approve the road as a street unless it met the MTC standards of 66-foot from property line to property line. The road currently has a 22 foot surface but does not have a 15-foot boulevard on the west side. The committee does not have the fundingtoaltertheroad, either moving it farther to the east or getting more land to the west, Mr. Newman said as he asked for permission to open the street, not as a regulation street but as an exit lane from the arena. Councillor Gordon Workman, who had resigned last year as chairman of the recreation commit­ tee had little sympathy with the plight of the committee. “It’s too bad. I weep,” he said. He said he didn ’t know who had staked out the road but it didn’t go where it had been supposed to go. There was a road allowance there but the road didn’t go in its proper place, he contended. He said he was not in favour of letting the road be opened without a 15-foot boulevard. “Ithas to go in as a street and be maintained like a street,” he said. Councillor Workman said that yearsagowhen Councillor Mal­ colm Jacobs had wanted to extend John Street in order to sell lots, he had been told the street had to meet MTC standard and he hadn’t had the money so the street wasn’t built. Why should the recreation committee be allowed to work under different rules, he said? Councillor Jacobs said that when the BMG Centre was built he and neighbour Sam Workman had sold the land, then donated the money back and provision had been made for the second entrance. Other landowners, however, hadn’t been willing to donate land, he said, and the road was blocked. He wondered why property owners on the west side of the street (which includes Councillor Elizabeth Graber’s husband Carl) couldn’t donate 15 feet of land to provide for a boulevard for the street. Councillor Neil McDonald sug­ gested that the recreation commit­ tee should meet with area land­ owners to see if some cheaper solution could be found. Councillor Jacobs said he felt the entire council should be in on the meeting. A meeting was tentative­ ly set for later this week. The issue exploded again later in the meeting when Councillor Workman asked for a committee of the whole (private) meeting of council after the regular meeting in orderto workout what council’s position would be in the meeting with landowners and recreation committee. Before the motion could be signed and voted on Reeve Hank TenPas asked if it was really necessary to go into committee of the whole on the issue. Tempers quickly escalated with Councillor Workman getting up to leave the meeting, and making a statement on the way out the door that Councillor Neil McDonaldtook as a personal slight. The affair became a three-way shouting match with councillors Workman, McDonald and Jacobs before the meeting finally calmed down, the vote was taken, the meeting adjourned and council went into a committee of the whole meeting that lasted until after 1 a.m.