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The Citizen, 1998-06-24, Page 4C itizen Cn The North Huron Photo by Janice Becker Looking Back Through the Years From the files of the Blyth Standard, Brussels Post and North Huron Citizen June 27, 1968 The softball standings had Mon- crieff in first place with 14 points, followed by Walton with 12, Bel- more and Brussels tied with 10 --each, Jamestown with eight, Kurtzville, Ethel and Gorrie all with four points and Bluevale in last with two points. Although Pierre Trudeau's Liber- al government won the federal election with 154 of a possible 264 seats, the Progressive Conserva- tives won the Huron riding. They had 14,534 votes, the Liberals had 10,747 and the NDP had 1,175. At Brownie's Drive-In in Clin- ton, the following movies were being shown: the double feature on Thursday and Friday nights was of The Ambushers, and The Big Mouth. For Saturday add Monday Nights the double feature was Point Blank, and One Spy too Many. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights Hotel was playing. Coming next for six days was Bonnie and Clyde and the war drama First To Fight. June 27, 1973 CBC President Laurent Picard announced that all commercials would be taken out of television shows aimed to children. The deci- sion was praised by the public, as well as school and community associations. A Conestoga College survey showed that 84 per cent of their graduates from that year had found work in a field related to their area of study. In a special meeting in Clinton it was unanimously decided to approach the Ontario Pork Produc- ers Marketing Board to establish an assembly yard in Blyth. Local pro- ducers felt that since the Clinton yard closed the drive to the nearest was too long. It was expected to take Toronto a couple of weeks to reach a decision. The members of the Blyth Opportunities For Youth Program were: Joyce Nethery, Louise Proc- ter, Nancy Adams, John Battye, David Street and Marjorie Procter. June 25, 1997 Talks began for a possible teacher's strike in protest of the proposed changes of the Mike Har- ris government. Concerns included larger class sizes, the right to strike and reduction of preparation time for teachers. Bill Huzar, OSSTF District 45 president said, "There is nothing left to cut and Secondary school teachers in Huron County are prepared to stand up for educa- tion." Talks of municipal governments amalgamating were also underway. Due to the provincial governments downloading, a meeting was set for the following week. The Blyth Tykes baseball team defeated the Colbome team 23-10. Ashlee Cook and Erin Moore, Justin Ritchie, and Adam deBoer each hit a homerun and Anthony Peters hit two. Brett Lee of Walton competed in two Motocross events in Barrie, finishing second in an amateur pro- gram in the youth class for riders aged 16-24. Letters THE EDITOR, I would like to respond to the article in the June 3 paper from Linda Henhoeffer regarding municipal restructuring. As Ms Henhoeffer correctly points out there is only one taxpayer, and your taxes support several levels of government, which too often have wasted your money in duplicating services. With clearly defined areas of responsibility, government will be accountable and efficient, giving taxpayers better value for their money. That's why your provincial government has introduced legislation to implement the disentanglement of the various levels of government and fixed the inequities in the property tax assessment system that have existed primarily in Toronto. With respect to Ms Henhoeffer's comments on the provincial government's struggle to balance the budget, I would comment that some very difficult decisions have been made to reduce government spending in order to balance our books. We inherited a government that was spending $1 million more an hour than it was taking in, so Premier Harris moved quickly to get the province's fiscal house in order. Your government stands firm on its commitment to balance Ontario's budget by 2000 - 2001. Ms Henhoeffer suggested in her article that there would be shortfalls to rural communities as a result of changes to farm tax rebate. In the past the fanning community paid education tax and property tax on 100 per cent of their property and then received a refund cheque Continued on page 10 PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1998. 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 E-mail norhuron@huron.net Publisher, Keith Rouiston Editor, Bonnie Gropp Advertising Manager, Jeannette McNeil Palo 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 (4) Copyright. Publications Mail Registration No. 6968 But would they pass it on? The provincial governments last week pressed the federal government to restore billions the senior government cut from transfer payments while it was battling the deficit. While the demand seems reasonable, now that the federal government is looking at a budgetary surplus, one wonders if the provinces would pass any federal money on, or would use it for its own agenda. While Mike Harris's Ontario government has been loudest in its complaints about how much the federal government has cut from transfer payments over the years, it is also true that the provincial Tories have a radically different agenda than the federal government. Though claiming to need the federal money to battle the deficit in Ontario, Harris has chosen to drastically cut provincial revenues by granting tax cuts that have helped the well-to-do far more than they have helped the lower income residents of the province. If the federal government was to restore the money it stopped sending the province, would that money go to health care or would it go to fund further tax cuts which the provincial government would then take credit for? And if the tap from the federal government was turned on again, would any of that seep down to the municipal governments? The Harris government has used the deficit as an excuse to impose a radically different vision of Ontario. The province was in such a mess, Premier Harris and other government leaders have said, that something radically different had to be done. That mess has been variously blamed on the former NDP and Liberal provincial governments, municipal politicians, and school board trustees and the federal government. It's been handy for the government to say it has no choice but to make radical changes. If the federal government was to give it the choice, would Harris change anything? Unlikely. Yes the federal government, if it now has its house in order, should make sure our health care system is healthy again. Still, it's doubtful that just passing the bucks to the provinces will accomplish that. — KR Living and hurting by trade Prime Minister Jean Chrdtien this week admitted that the rosy predictions for growth in the Canadian economy have been hurt by the Asian financial crisis and the slowed growth may hurt the government's attempts to improve spending on programs like health care. Welcome to the world of global trade. The Canadian dollar, Monday, slipped to an all-time low, just 67.72 cents to the U.S. dollar. Potential export markets for Canadian farm and forestry products have been hard hit. The problems in Japan and other Asian countries promises to hurt the wallets of millions of Canadians. In recent years we have been told many times about the benefits of international trade. Even as Canadians struggled with the adjustments of the global economy, seeing jobs disappear and watching their incomes stagnate they've been promised prosperity will increase because of international trade. And at times, that prediction may be right. As trade increases, we stand to profit from booms in other countries. But if you profit when other countries are doing well, it stands to reason that you suffer when they suffer. There's no free lunch. In the global world, if Japan catches cold, Canada sneezes. The supposed good times in the Canadian economy have been built almost entirely on international trade. In that way the promise of the free traders has been dead on. Most of the growth has come in sales caused by the booming U.S. economy. But sooner or later, that boom .is going to end. What happens in Canada then? Even as governments have boasted about growth of the Canadian economy, unemployment has remained near 10 per cent, hardly dropping from the highs of the recession. Canadians have had to live with uncertainty about their future because of restructuring, whether they worked for a government or a private firm. Despite huge cuts in services that people needed, governments are struggling to balance their budgets even with this supposed economic boom. So with Asia's economic boom collapsing and that is sure to affect not just Canada, but the U.S., Canada stands to be hit by an economic double-whammy — an end to the boom that Canadians never feally felt, at a time when they haven't had time to build up any reserves for the hard times ahead. Trade can help us, but it can also hurt up. — KR E ditorial