The Rural Voice, 1990-08, Page 10AGRICULTURAL
EMPLOYMENT
SERVICES
Provide employment planning
assistance to the agricultural
industry
Recruit workers for agricultural
employment
Assist worker orientation and
transportation
Promote good employment
standards
Provide information about
government employment
programs
OWEN SOUND WALKERTON
371-9522 881-3671
CANADIAN
CO-OPERATIVE
WOOL GROWERS
LIMITED
ACCEPTING
WOOL CLIPS
ON CONSIGNMENT
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For more information contact:
RIPLEY
WOOL DEPOT
John Farrell
R.R. 3, Ripley, Ontario
519-395-5757
6 THE RURAL VOICE
ACCEPTING DEFEAT:
HAVE WE GIVEN UP?
Keith Roulston, a newspaper publisher
and playwright who lives near Blyth,
is the originator and past publisher of
The Rural Voice.
For several years, I've been con-
cerned about the attitude of defeat in
the farm community, watching a soci-
ety that once was ready to stand up
and fight for neighbours and for what
was right, get tired and cynical and
figure you couldn't win so why both-
er trying. Sadly, I think the feeling is
spreading to all of society.
There's a feeling of helplessness,
that what we believe in doesn't mat-
ter, that the powers that be have their
own plans and nothing we say is go-
ing to change that. We've just sat
through the mess of Meech Lake and
seen 11 leaders negotiating the future
of the country with a prime minister
that openly boasted about how he
manipulated the proceedings to get the
result he wanted ... before the whole
thing blew up in his face, of course.
Locally we've watched our
railways being torn up and been left
powerless to do anything about it.
Once upon a time there was a hearing
process that gave the public a chance
to protest railway closings as being
against the public interest. But that
was messy politically and often the
railways couldn't obtain their goal of
closing down the railway. This
government brought in a new Na-
tional Transportation Act that turned
,the whole argument around. The
public had no place in the procedure
because public interest was not a
criteria. The onus was no longer on
the railway to prove it should be
allowed to abandon the rail line but
on the current customers to prove
that they could make the railway
profitable in the future if they wanted
the line to continue. And of course
the railway keeps the books.
All these things come to mind
because I just attended a meeting and
watched a bunch of angry and defeat-
ed people. They were there to protest
the closure of their post office in the
village of Walton in Huron County.
It was fascinating to watch the
three Canada Post officials operate.
They've learned a lot through similar
meetings in the past.
First of all, there was no specific
meeting time, just an open house.
Then, instead of a meeting format,
they used a round table discussion
method with several groups, which
amounted to divide and conquer.
You could hear little outbursts of
anger at the different tables but these
were quelled relatively quickly and
didn't have that way of building on
each other as often happens at open
meetings.
Then, there was the way things
were handled, always pleasantly but
brooking no debate. The post office
officials at the meeting assured the
people that they would likely have a
retail postal outlet, just as good as
they had before, maybe even better .. .
if they could find somebody to run it.
Someone argued that if someone took
over the postal outlet they wouldn't
make much money. The officials said
there was a good return. Then why
change the system at all, why not
leave it like it was in the past, some-
one wondered? Well, the former post
master had retired, they said. But
rumour was that she didn't willingly
retire but was told she could either
take early retirement and get a nice
cash settlement or she could keep
her job but her post office would be
closed anyway and she would have to
commute to some other post office to
work. Well they knew nothing of that.
Not their department. Besides
employer/employee relations were
private business.
People were frustrated and felt
manipulated but couldn't do anything
about it. It's a feeling that's taking
over more and more people: that the
PR men and the deal makers have tak-
en over and no matter what we know
is right, it is not going to happen.0