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The Citizen, 1991-10-02, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2 1991. [ A good beginning Canadians have suffered a lot of pain and soul-searching since the death of the Meech Lake Accord a year ago but the new constitutional proposals of the federal government last week may prove the pain has been worth it. Few Canadians really wanted the deal cooked up between the Prime Minister and 10 premiers at Meech Lake. It seemed to be turning over control of the country to leaders of 10 little fieffdoms in the name of making the country better. It recognized Quebec as a distinct society, something few Canadians would deny it is, but tacked on such ambiguous powers that it might have allowed the Quebec government to subvert individual civil rights in the name of promoting the French language. The new proposal still accepts the Distinct Society and proposes to give Quebec government special powers to defend the French language and unique Quebec culture against the pressures of being in an English continent of 300 million. The majority of Canadians don't mind this, as long as it doesn't mean that Quebec becomes, in effect, a country within a country. Unless we believe in the same standards of civil rights, there’s little sense fooling ourselves that Quebec and those from elsewhere can continue to call themselves countrymen. Elsewhere, there is still a delegation of some federal powers to the provinces but this time there seems to be some demands for things to come back. The new proposal wants to reduce the trade barriers between provinces, something long overdue when we were already reducing international trade barriers. Whether premiers will want to give up the power to stack the odds in favour of their own businesses and industry remains to be seen. , Out of the whole Meech mess we may get a reformed SenaterThe proposal calls for an elected Senate with seats distributed so that smaller provinces, women and aboriginal and ethnic groups could be represented. And the government has promised to address the call of aboriginal groups for self-government. The debate has just begun. Good things may be added or lost in the coming months as opposition parties, the provinces, and hopefully the public, get their say. At least the government seems to be headed in a direction this time that would strengthen Canada, not diminish it. The scope of agriculture Next week, Oct. 6-12 is Agri-Food Week in Ontario, a chance for people of the province to consider the part played by agriculture in their lives. Agri-Food Week comes the week before Thanksgiving, a time when Canadians traditionally think of the bountiful harvest and count their blessings. ♦* But today such a huge proportion of our population never sees a harvest, thinks only of food as something that is always there in great variety in the supermarket, that we have lost perspective about the role of agriculture in our lives. Even we in small towns and villages often are ignorant of the true extend of how fortunate we are to live in a land where hard-working, efficient, food producers make our lives better. As we try to stretch our paycheques to cover all the things we want to have in our lives, we can sometimes think that food costs us too much. The same information informs us: Canadians working at the average Canadian wage require 11 minutes of work to buy a pound of pork. In the Soviet Union a worker spends 40 minutes to buy a pound of pork (not counting the time he spends lined up in hopes of getting some at the butcher store). In France, a worker spends 18 minutes at work to afford a pound of pork. A Canadian works just two minutes to buy a pound of bread, about the same as someone in France. The Soviet Union worker must work eight minutes to earn a pound of bread. It takes a Canadian just six minutes of work to earn enough to buy a dozen eggs. The French worker must work eight minutes. The poor Soviet worker must work 73 minutes to buy a dozen eggs. Canadian consumers have never had it so good. If only we could say the same for Canadian food producers. Picking time It's all garbage Dear Editor, I guess the manure will hit the ventilator this week when the County announces the places where it might stick its garbage. Most of the people will have their shorts in a knot because they're going to be too close. My neighbour Jerry will be unhappy because they don't pick his farm. He figures he can't make any money growing the food they put in those fancy pack­ ages so maybe he can make some money selling his farm for a dump to bury the fancy packages. People are funny about garbage. Everybody gets upset about how much it costs to get rid of it, but you don't see many people shopping in those places where you scoop your cookies out of a plastic tub so they can save the packaging. Everybody complains about all the fancy packaging but I'll bet dollars to donuts that when they reach for something on a shelf they'll go right by the plain brown wrapper to get to the one with the full­ colour label, wrapped in three layers of bubble packag­ ing. It's sort of like apples: everybody says farmers shouldn't use chemicals to keep the scabs off the apples but just put an apple with a scab on it in the store and wait to see how long it stays there. I'll bet my aunt Bet­ sy's bedpan that apple will end up part of the garbage Continued on page 5. C itizenTheNorthHuron P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1H0 Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont NOG 1H0 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. Contents of The Citizen are © Copywright. 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