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The Citizen, 1991-08-28, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28,1991. An indistinct society Apparently, as part of it's plan to keep Canada together, the Federal government is prepared to keep the term "distinct society" in relation to Quebec: whatever it means. Joe Clark, the minister responsible for constitutional affairs has indicated the government will keep the distinct society term in the plans it will put forward on constitutional reform. Canadians outside Quebec might envy the Quebecois the efforts being made to keep their society different. The thrust of federal government efforts in the rest of the country seem more to be making us an "indistinct society"- indistinct from our neighbours to the south. So far, to its credit, the federal government has been standing up to threats from the U.S. free trade negotiator Carla Hills that we must give up what few protections we now have for a distinct Canadian culture. Ms Hills, sitting in the most dominant cultural nation in the world, thinks it's silly that anyone should think there is a need to protect what makes them different from the influence of U.S. culture. But little by little, the bottom-line influence of the current government is eating away at the fragile Canadian culture that has only come into being in the last 25 years. CBC has been forced to cutback many of the activities that drew Canadians together. Our book magazine and newspaper publishers face huge increases in postal expense at the same time they face a declining market through things like the GST. Canadian movies have virtually no chance to get on the screens of Canadian movie houses because those screens are controlled by American distribution companies and when one federal Communications minister attemped to get some protection for Canadians in their own country, the powerful Hollywood lobby put on such pressure, the government backed away. This year only eight movies have been made in Ontario compared to 17 last year. Between TV cutbacks and the movie situation, actors and technicians can't find the kind of lucrative work that allows them to make a living while they appear in live theatres such as the Blyth Festival. But at the same time our small Canadian culture is under pressure to survive the onslaught from the south, our federal government seems prepared to reduce our distinctiveness even further by turning culture over to the provinces. While Quebec's demand for autonomy over culture may make sense (although a federal withdrawal means there's likely to be even less contact between Quebec and the rest of the country), any attempt to even things out by putting other provinces in total charge of culture will hasten the day when we're just like the Americans. When Confederation happened 124 years ago, it came about because colonial leaders realized that only by banding together could they fight off the influence of the neighbours to the south. They had in mind the Fenian raiders and the "Manifest Destiny" desires of most Americans. Today the raiders are on the movie and television screens, in the magazines and the books. The desire to spread its influence is still alive in the U.S., however, as Ms Hills illustrates. Today instead of banding together to meet the threat, however, our federal government and premiers seem ready to divide ourselves into weaker units. Do we never learn from history? Into the union's hands Canada Post's recent moves to centralize postal sorting have delivered rural residents more than ever into the hands of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. It used to be that while local residents worried about a postal strike, they often were little effected at the local level, by the strike. Most post offices locally are run by members of the Postmasters Association and as such weren't part of strike action. But ironically, Canada Post's reorganization has hit hard at the members of the Postmasters Association, which has never gone on strike in its history, while delivering the work local people used to do into the hands of large central post offices in Kitchener and London. Where local mail used to be sorted locally and taken in a fairly direct route to other post offices in the area, now all mail going beyond the local post office must go through a large, unionized centre. With the privatizing of some post offices, even local sorting may be done in a nearby, larger, unionized postal facility. Rural people get a double slam from the current policy: we lose local jobs to the cities, and we get delivered into the hands of the CUPW whenever it's frustrations with the post office boil over into a strike. Who's watching who? Dear Editor, As I was spreading the manure last week I could­ n't help thinking about lawyers. See I'd read in the daily newspaper that they were throwing big parties for stu­ dent lawyers trying to convince them to join this or that big firm. Here I thought there was hope for the country yet because I remembered only a couple of years back they were saying there were too many lawyers around and they couldn't find jobs for them. I suppose that should bring hope to farmers. We've had too much food around for years now to the point we're all loosing money trying to make a living from it so maybe somewhere down the road we too can hope things will switch around. Of course we haven't got going for us what the lawyers have going for them. See the lawyers run the country so it makes sense that they'll keep passing laws that make it impossible to do without lawyers. It's just the same in Ontario. We've got social ser­ vice workers and teachers running the government now so you can bet your boots there won't be any shortage of jobs for social service workers and teachers for a while- at least until the lawyers get the government back. If, God help us, the postal workers ever take over the government we'll have door-to-door delivery in Belgrave. So I couldn't help day dreaming while the you know what flew, about what life would be like if farm­ ers ran government the way lawyers run government today. Bread, I figger, would be about $25 a loaf and there’d be a waiting room in the supermarket where you had to wait for an hour or so before you could have the privilege of paying that much. Of course just in case you thought you might like to grow your own food we'd pass a law that said only farmers who belonged to the food association could grow food. Everybody would be about 250 pounds because we'd make sure that everybody had to eat a lot so we'd have business. I grant you this isn't as healthy for the country as the lawyers' way of doing things because they keep us all skinny paying for all the legal advice we need to survive these days but what the heck, it should keep the weight-loss clinics on our side come election time. If farmers ran the country we could take two- hour lunches while somebody back at the farm did our work for us and we charged their time out at $150 an hour. Every time we made a phone call or sent a fax, the guy at the other end would pay the bill. No matter how many mistakes we made, the guy we were making the mistakes for would pay for them all. And, of course, there would be dinners and par­ ties and offers of all kinds of inducements to get young farmers to join this or that multi-million dollar farm operation. My day dreaming might have gone further but the wind changed about then and brought me out of my dreams with a splat. That, after all, is how most dreams end for farmers. Your Correspondent from the 12th Line. The Citizen P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M1H0 Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. NOG 1 HO Phone 887-9114 FAX 887-9021 The Citizen Is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable In advance at a rate of $20.50/year ($19.16 plus $1.34 G.S.T.) for local; $19.16 + $1.66 for each month after March 31/92 ♦ G.S.T. for local letter carrier In Goderich, Hanover, Llstowel, etc. and out-of-area (40 miles from Brussels); $60.00/year for U.S.A, and Foreign. 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. We are not responsible for unsolicited newscripts or photographs. 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