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The Citizen, 1998-03-25, Page 4Photo by Janice Becker Looking Back Through the Years March 24,1976 Spring came early to Brussels this year as melting snow put the Maitland over its banks flooding surrounding low-lying areas. Some basements were flooded but damage was much less than Wing- ham where some people had to leave their homes and part of Hwy. 4 was closed. On Friday, March 19, James Moss of RR2, Auburn, parked his pickup truck at Tolton Motor Sales, Bluevale. While talking to Bill Tolton, he looked out to see his truck heading down Hwy. 86. Police were alerted and Constable Doug Foxton discovered the truck ditched at a nearby turkey farm just east of Wingham. A 19-year-old was charged with the theft of the truck. March 29, 1972 Mary Davey, Blyth; Gerry Har- ris, Holmesville; Trudy Hill, Varna; Brenda Brooks, Blyth and Medie Elliot, Clinton, were mem- bers of a bowling team from Crown Lanes, Clinton, that won the zone championship in Coiling- wood, Sunday, in the National Classified Bowling Tournament. An article from the 1950s about small towns being a land of oppor- tunity for someone trying to start a business still held true two decades later. In Toronto, in the 1970s, it was almost impossible for an ordinary person to afford a house of his own, let alone a business. House prices in the city started at $30,000, more than many business- es in small towns such as Blyth. and North Huron Citizen March 27, 1996 Officers from the Wingham OPP were investigating a break and enter, which occurred on March 23 at Stickers in Auburn. Sgt. McKee said the thieves broke a plate glass window at the front of the restau- rant to gain entry then stole an unknown quantity of cigarettes. The theft was reported at 6:30 a.m. The police had no suspects at the time. More than 40 local children gathered at The Ark in Brussels, March 19, to participate in games and crafts at Exel's Easter Craft Day. Youngsters of all ages creat- ed cottonball bunnies, Easter ani- mal posters and challenged each other to games such as egg races and pass-the-orange-under-your- chin. From the files of the Blyth Standard, Brussels Post Letters THE EDITOR, Attention Snowmobilers! Further to recent inquiries regarding local trails, the B & W Trailblazers Snowmobile Club was grooming the weekend of March 13 and it was running before other local clubs were grooming. Trail conditions depend greatly on the amount of snowfall. A smooth trail depends on a good base of snow and what you were snowmobiling on that weekend had no base. And if it wasn't for our volunteer's going out last fall to level our trails you wouldn't have been able to even snowmobile that weekend! I would like to remind all snowmobilers that we wouldn't even have a local trail system if it weren't for our landowners and our volunteers. About 16 volunteers put in over 300 hours each per year into your trail system by cutting, trimming, staking and signing 180 km. of trails (again and again because people steal them and break them throughout the year), monitoring trail use, picking up garbage, working in the clubhouse, fundraising, building bridges, and working with our 160 landowners. Other members arc able to donate their time as well. The B & W Trailblazers has one of the best trail systems in the area, something all our members can be proud of. What we can't control is the weather and how much snow we get. As an avid club member, I am ashamed of the disrespect some snowmobilers have for the land our club has the privilege of using for our trail system. Some people have been seen on the trails when they shouldn't be (i.e. when there isn't enough snow), racing on the trail, littering and damaging landowners' property. Expense is added to the club each time a sign is wrecked or stolen (signs cost $6, stakes $2). It has also cost the club over $3,000 in payments to landowners for damage to hay and wheat fields and for tree replacement. Our snowmobile trails are what Continued on page 6 C itizen 4.,"A The North Huron P.O. Box 429, P.O. Box 152, BLYTH, Ont. BRUSSELS, Ont. NOM 1H0 NOG 1H0 Phone 523-4792 Phone 887-9114 FAX 523.9140 FAX 887-9021 Publisher, Keith Roulston Editor, Bonnie Gropp Advertising Manager, Jeannette McNeil VIEVIIiir J.113 The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $27.00/year ($25.24 + $1.76 G.S.T.) in Canada; $62.00/year in U.S.A. and $75.00/year in other foreign countries. 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 © Copyright. Publications Mail Registration No. 6968 E-mail norhuron@huron.net PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1998. The inequality of property tax The dream of owning your own business has become a nightmare for merchants in downtown Toronto. With reassessment, many are looking at tax increases of five or six times what they have been paying in the past. Many feel they're likely to go out of business. It's easy to find the cause of the problem. While we in Huron County have had our properties reassessed regularly to keep their assessed values close to current market values, Toronto is still using assessment values for some older buildings, that date back to the 1940s. Now with reassessment to current values, many older properties are being hit hard while newer buildings, which have been paying too large a share of the tax costs, are getting a break . But the answer isn't so simple. It isn't exactly as if many of these business owners have been getting a huge break. Many have been paying $10,000 in taxes on properties the size of a normal store in downtown Brussels or Blyth. Given the amount of revenue those little stores can be expected to generate, that's a big piece of cash. Now, however, the shop owners are looking at tax bills of $50,000 or $60,000 or more. And what's really galling to them, is that the big bank towers nearby are getting a tax break of millions. Therein lies the silliness of depending on property tax to pay for too many of the services we need in our communities — it does not depend on the ability to pay. The banks are already making enormous, record- breaking profits but they will get a tax break. The little guys, who are in part helping those banks make their enormous profits, are getting a back-breaking increase. The push these days is away from taxation based on the ability to pay while pushing the burden down to the little guys. The cry to income tax reductions, coming from Preston Manning and Jean Charest in Ottawa and being delivered by Premier Mike Harris in Ontario, seeks to reward those with money by having them pay less. It means the burden must be picked up by people who don't have as much income to enjoy a tax break. They'll continue to pay, with no breaks, on things like property tax, provincial sales tax and GST which are not connected to income. Like the banks in Toronto, this is great for the big guys but it's killing the little guys. — KR Creating competitiveness Despite its sacrifices of the '90s, Canada is still not as competitive on the world level as it should be. The answer, promoted by right-wing thinkers like the Fraser Institute, is to abolish the minimum wage. But figures in a study released by the Alliance of Manufacturers and Exports Canada, show the problem is not with workers, but with the lack of ingenuity and commitment to research on the part of management. Measuring Canada's performance against the other Group of Seven major economies in eight different categories, we ranked high in improving unit labour costs and labour productivity at nearly 100 per cent of the top competitor. We failed badly in things like investment in research and development, where we trailed every other G-7 country (ranked at 40 per cent of the top competitor) and new patents (where we had 24 per cent of the top competitor). All this comes at a time when our major firms have been recording record profits and rewarding managers with astronomical salaries for their good management. It comes at a time when companies continue to seek to boost the bottom line at the expense of the workers at the bottom. Is this good management to pay out big profits instead of investing in new research to develop new products? But that kind of thinking continues among the elite in Canada. Canada should increase its competitiveness, not by using its brains better, but by reducing payrolls. If we can't lay off any more workers, then we should pay them less. Unions should be defeated (look at the Maple Leaf Packers strike where workers took a 40 per cent pay cut). The minimum wage should be abolished. What do these people want, to reduce Canada to a third world country? Last week news broke that major U.S. companies were paying Chinese workers the equivalent of $1.30 a day to produce garments sold in big stores like Wal-Mart. Is this their idea of the way Canada should be? Is it yours? Let's change the people who need to improve, those at the.top.— KR E ditorial