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Times-Advocate, 1988-11-02, Page 2Page 2 4 limes Advocate, November 2. 1988 ALL CANDIDATES - Voters got •the chance to hear their candidates ad- dress the issues at Clinton Public School Thursday. From left are Tom Clark of the Christian Heritage Party, Liberal.Ken Dunlop, meeting modera- tor Chris Palmer, NDP candidate Tony McQuail, and incumbent conserva- tive Murray Cardiff. Huron -Bruce federal candidates debate. Continued from front page •tnoscxuality.; and universal daycare. Ken Dunlop, -mayor of Port Elgin and representing the Liberal party, told the audience gee trade was the most important issue ofthe erec- tion. He said the deal would climi-_ nate one of the fanner's main neces- sities: marketing boards. "Marketing boards- arc great things," said Dunlop. "They limit • your production. They keep your • prices up." • -Dunlop also linked free, trade to an unstable increase Ingle Canadian dollar. "How far can the dollar rise before it starts hurting the farming com- munity?" he asked. Nuclear - submarines A question from the. audience -asked each candidate's opinion on the plan to spend S8 billion on nu- clear• submarines. McQuail echoed Ed Broadbent's. sentiments seen on television _two days earlier. "To continuc.the cold war mental- . ity is suicidal;"'hc said, calling for - a complete elimination. of the plan. Dunlop also opposed the expendi- ture and said nuclear submarines wcrc not necessary. Clark said his party believes in a strong Canadian defense and ap- proved the. idea.' "1 think it's time we started pull- ing our weight," said Clark. Cardiff defended the plan, terming- the present fleet as "rusted out" and said the subs were essential to Can ada's commitment to NATO and . NORAD. He also pointed out the $8 billion cost would be absorbed;' over 27 years, thus contributing to only three percent of_the total de fcnse budget. Clark was asked about thc Chris- tian Heritage Party's stance on the. Shaw Continued from front page team was more concerned with getting out on the ice and squaring matters with Shaw. Fortunately Lemieux was not seriously injured, but -the dan- ger for more serious implica- tions was.ccrtainly there. After Lemiux fell to the ice, his team-mate Dan Quinn took up his defense and speared Shaw in the stomach before the two got into fisticuffs. Hcrc was another almost dangerous situation. Quinn was waving his stick in the air while Shaw now without his stick was making like Mike Tyson. Luckily they fought and the stick swinging was over. • i certainly don't condone Shaw's actions, hut feel it was strictly a move of reflex to re- taliate and not deliberate. PUC Continued from front page thc reason for depleting a budget which contained over $52,000 at the beginning of the year. Davis did say the situation is not yet critical because of forthcoming capital projects grants. Ile said revenues arc suffering from a drop in metered, commercial water use, while pumping costs for unmetered summer watering de- mands have risen dramatically. "Don't expect a good year in the water works department," said Da- vis. Davis also said the ministry has demanded Exeter move quickly to store its unused PCB -contaminated oils. He has bought a trailer for $1,800 which will be kept on PUC property. "I think it is a tempest in a tea- pot," said Davis, but he hopes there will be no opposition to the storage location hccausc of the small -amount of PCBs involved.. "There's probably more on the poles than what we're going to have stored," said commissioner Many DeVrics. The PUC hope in future the stor- age facility will be only a tempo- rary measure for oils on their way to the ministry for destruction. Davis said a policy of testing transformers for PCBs is not man- datory, but Exeter does it anyway because he would rather see the dan- gerous substance stored than take chances on untested transformers on the line. role of women and free trade. Clark responded in favour of the deal. "1 don't -think it will be as bad as the Liherats- and- NDP'makc it out to be. 1 don': think it will be as good as the. Conservatives. make it out to be;" he said. He said he saw the role of women as best suited for "childrearing. The state always makes a bad parent." • Post office future Ttic candidates were all asked about the present plans to- close government -run rural postal offices. "We- have to recognize m some areas we have post offices within a mile of one another," said Cardiff. "It is difficult to justify keeping all the post' offices because of .thc cost." McQuail disagreed, claiming fran- chising was a Icss efficient alterna- tive to the present facilities, and said the NDP would reinstate Cana- da Post service to all Canadians on an equitable basis. - Dunlop also took issue with the cost-cutting measures, stating he has seen postmasters' delivery con- tracts cut from the usual term of five years to -those that must be re newed every four months or Tess. • Clark said cost-cutting was essen- tial. - "Where efficiencies arc in need we must be willing to make a change,". .hc said. Ethanol production A question directed at Murray Cardiff asked why ethanol additives in gasoline had not been promoted: .by the government in the past four years even though its substitute is harmful to thocnvironmcnt. Cardiff said the Conservative gov crnment has plans to ban leaded gasoline by 1990, and, that an etha- nol plant is presently under con- struction in the Huron/Bruce riding. While he acknowledged the plant is. - small, he .said it will use one rnil- lion bushels of corn- for ethanol. production, thus :creating_ a new cash crop market. - Another question queried the tol- erance ofthc Sudbury.snoke stack, its continucd_ damage to the envi- ronment and why scrubbers -had not been installed. . Dunlop agreed the Liberal govern- ment had ignored the problem -in past decades, but he accused every- one of neglecting the environment in the_ irown way- hy removing cata- lytic convcrtcrs'or boring out gas . caps to take unleaded gas, ignoring_. environmental concerns. But Dun- lop said these attitudes will change. Other questions from the audience sought the candidates opinions on Other subjects such as the proposed. value added tax, Canada's commit- ment to fooitl quotas at (A -TF, cruise -missile testing, .and nuclear power. The meeting was originally scheduled for two -and -a -half hours but was extended another half hour - to deal with a backlog of questions. GB COUNCILLORS DEBATE - Shown during Sunday's debate are Grand Bend council candidates Lloyd Guil- let, Angelo Maruca, Shirley Mitchell, John McDowell, Bruce Woodley and Todd Desaulniers. andidates grilled at GB By Wayne Proctor GRAND BEND - Village voters had their chance to grill the 10 can- didates for the upcoming municipal election at Sunday's all -candidates meeting in the Legion Hall. On November 14, Grand Bend voters will select five members of council. Two scck thc position of reeve, two for deputy reeve and six arc running for councillor. . During ra tour -minute opening statement each candidate told the packed hall what they believe will be major issues for Grand Bend in the next three years. Most agreed the restructuring of Lambton County,anncxation with Bosanquct Township, traffic flow in the town, lack of parking and the bcach dis- pute arc of mime importance. All incumbents were quick to de- fend the track record of the past council. The race.for reeve is between for- mer reeve Bob Sharen and current deputy reeve Dennis Snider. Sharon asked voters to question each candidates accountability to the village. "Do we know you seven days a week, or do we know you just at election time?" Snidcr told of a busy and contro- versial past three years, but says he is proud of his record as deputy reeve and proud of council's record as a whole. He claimed the most important problem for Grand Bend is the restructuring of Lambton County, but promised a $.300,000 garbage transfer site and an upgraded sewage system to handle new devel- opment in the village. Marsha Lemon and George Kdle- cik arc both seeking the office of deputy reeve. George Kadlecik, a developer, spoke of his interest in the village's future as qualifying him for a scat on .council. He says Grand Bcnd needs boun- • dary adjustment soon because of a lack of buildable land. He also wanted to go on record as being in favour of . developing the south beach and in favour of stronger by- law enforcement in town. Kadlecik also said he would like to see more open council meeting's which would "Make it fair for everybody to be heard." Lemon vowed, if elected, to do all she could "to make sure Grand bend is more than just a nicc place to visit. We have to make it a great place to live." She also said she would seek continucd upgradingof municipal services and stressed long-term solutions over short-term fixes. Todd Desaulniers, Shirley Mitch- ell, John McDowell, Bruce Wood- ley, Lloyd Guillet and Angelo Ma- ruca are the six who arc seeking the three councillor's positions. Dcsaulnicrs claimed his 35 years expecience in construction will pre- vent him from having the wool pulled over his eyes by engineers. Guillet wants to push council to work harder with community groups, upgrade the downtown core, add morc washrooms, clean up the banks of thc river and would like to see Grand Bend recycle its garbage. He -also termed a lack of parking as Grand Bend's most disturbing prob- lem. He thinks Grand Bend should hire a traffic engineer to improve the village's traffic flow and to alle- viate parking problems. "Everybody talks about the park- ing problem and nobody docs any- thing about it. i will do something about it," he said. Maruca said if elected he woujd like council to work closer with lo- cal organizations, such as the Lions Club. McDowell vowed to help get tax- es and the village's expenses down. If the beach is lost . to Archie Gibbs in the ongoing beach dis- pute, McDowell said the next coun- cil should be thinking of alterna- tives to keep the tourists coming to Grand Bend. Mitchell, an incumbent, said the new council should tell Main St. merchants about untidy window coverings on stores after the sum- mer season. Woodley, another incumbent, said he was proud of the fact he was the person in charge of beach patrol from council. " Our beach is now one of the safest and cleanest beach- es in the province," said Woodley. Parking and traffic flow dominat- ed the discussions during the three- hour meeting, coming from the candidates and questions from the floor. Sharen said he favoured the con- struction of a bypass around the vil- lage to ease summer traffic conges-- -tion. Snider agreed, but did not think villagers should pay one cent towards it.' He felt funding was the responsibility of the province. • Guillet .raised the issue of park- ing, calling for the creation of sev- eral thousand spaces, possibly in a parking garage. . Snider disagreed, defending the present council's plans to develop parking lots along Highway 21. "There's no way we can get more parking close to the.hcach without bulldozing houses, it just can't be done," said Snider. • McDowcll said something had to he done because "sonic residents have to wait two hours in traffic just to. get into their own town on a busy weekend and 1 don't think it is fair " . Snider said he saw a divided audi- ence.: those who want to spend tax money on attracting tourism and those. who want to sec taxes devoted to year-round residents concerns. "it's our job to balance those views," he said. Lemon, when asked about what Grand Bcnd had to offer Southcott Pines -residents for joining the vil- lage, said That the question was al- most academic. She said Bosanquet Township is not likely to ever let the arca go. - "They Ow that arc to bankroll the rest of the township," said Lemon. "Bosanquc t has too great a stake in your taxes." Woodley responded to a question - about the safety of the harbour, agreeing that with only four or five feet of water, it could not be consid- ered safe shelter for larger boats. However, hc wants the village to hold out for government funding for dredging before anything is done about it. He said eight feet would he considered a safe depth. "if a municipality starts paying for dredging then we think it will be an ongoing cost," he said, not- ing thc federal government tradi- tionally paid 100 percent of dredg- ing costs. Snider agreed, saying he believed in user -pay philosophies, not vil lage taxpayers subsidizing the har- bour. "Basically we run it as a business and it pays its way," he said. ouble ak Age of ebY Bruce Shaw Age of stupidity If we listen to Brian Mulroney, we live in the best of times; if we'listcn to Ed Broadbent or John Turner, we live in the worst of times. There is no doubt that our standard of living is high, our un- employment rate is down and, generally, the quality of life is excel- lent in Canada; however, as opposed to the 'age of reason', it seems at times we live in the 'age of stupidity'. - Now, I don't want to focus on one individual, but it -seems thatcollectively some people arc party to gross foolishness. We can start at any level of government, any institution or lobbying group in our society.. No doubt many of you suspect that we on Exeter Council are perpetrators of foolishness and peddlars of insanity but that is a fit topic for later articles. Each year we read the Auditor=General's report and his provincial counterpart's summation to their respective legislatures, and each year we arc amazed at the government waste - both in materialand money. We read of the obscure groups who receive funding and the money that is thrown at failing companies., At one time it was widely believed that the Catholic Church could feed all -the poor in the entire world if it divested itself of its worldly possessions. I.bclieve that the funds expended by Ontario and Canada on bandaids for the environment could be better spent on major surgery to solve the problem. Absolute fortunes are spent by municipalities on studies of waste manage- ment and waste disposal, for instance. Councils must conduct surveys, analyses and reviews at the insistance of the Ministry of the Environment and usually without provincial assistance. Scaforth, for exatnple, spent over $200,(XX) (approximately 40 mils in Exeter with 1987 calculations twice as much as Exeter spends on recreation) to bring in a report that says they must move their disposal site and nothing more!! This same nonsense is being repeated all over the Province. Now, tic this in with the PCB scare. In spite of all I've read and heard about the dangers of.PCB's, there is no scientific evi- dence to support the. emotional claim that PCB's cause cancer. No scientist has indicated that the PCB's as found in transform ers across this country or the U.S. will be .of any danger, and ' yet look what has happened. as a result of fear to which we've all been exposed. Thousands ofsites have been now identified as storage areas for PCB's. These sites must provide suitable safeguards to en- sure the oil will not leak or be exposed to flames. The oil cannot be transported. If it is to be destroyed; special commercial units must be called in, at great cost, to convert the contaminated oil into second grade usable oil. It cannot be diluted to be rendered. harmless, I'm not an ostrich, and I certainly value our environ- ment, as our most precious asset, but look what we must do to protect ourselves from what many scientists have said is harm- less-. Exeter must build or buy a storage shed and secure it for the less than 45 gallons of contaminated oil. To bring in a dispo sal crew will cost $30,(XX). We cannot transport it to a larger site or even to a central depot where professionals could work on it. Blenheim must store, forever, tons of gravel, asphalt and cant) that were exposed to PCB oil. Across the country, there arc sim- ilar examples of tremendous costs being levied against munici= palities through no fault of -their own. Why cannot reason prevail? Let's assume PCB's am harmful. Let's take reasonable precau- tions and ship the oil by truck, or where practical, by rail, to a central depository.in Ontario where it could be safely converted to re -usable oil. I'm riot saying that this approach can be used for all contaminates, but for PCB's - yes!! it seems that the Mini- stry and Department of the Environment, in their zeal to save us from ourselves, tend to remove themselves from' reality and practical solutions to serious and not so serious problems. in this case, we do not in an 'either-or' situation. it isn't the envi- ronment or PCB's. PCI3's can he destroyed and our environ- ment will not be endangered, but let's use our heads. Next week: Part 2 (Incidentally, there was one deliberate grammatical error in 1;11 week's Double Take. $25 goes to the First person who tells me what it is, after Wednesday, November 2nd, 9:00 a.m.) Blood donor clinic Continued from front page Robert Traut, Heather Pinner, Pam Hunter, Tom 'Prow, Tim Alec, Carole Alcc, E. Paul Elston, Doug Hocking, Catherine Couture, Teresa Taziar, W. AI Hoggarth, Al- kr—Barker, Bert de Bont, Brenda McDonald, Marion Cornish, Joan Morgan, Alan Beattie, Fred Jones, Carolyn Mcrncr, Claire Hoffman, Mag Urlin, Bill Coleman, Alex Mcikle, Paula Taylor, Tammy Weller, Al De Haan, Michelle Cacrs, Frank Palen, Theresa Van Wicren, .Yvonne Benninger, Larry Gibson, O.A. Ecker, Joyce Maas, Frank Maas, Jim Tuxford, Jane MacLean, Agnes Cottrell, Mary Draiscy, Al- vin Draisey, Cecil Pepper, Helen Coates, Bob Coates, Ray Cann, Lloyd Denomme, Sue Johnson, Lynda Lippert, Sue Mousseau, Jay Alhlas, Lorne Rideout, Charmainc Wise, Ralph Batten,.Gerric Wun- nink, Susan Dolphin, Bart Devries, Bill Atthill, John Jaques, Sharon Dale, Marie Jaques, Colleen Carter, Denise Renning, Gabhie Mol, Frank Verbeke, Mick- ey McDonald, Paul Taziar, Dennis Hockey, Marty Krebs, Margucritca McLeod, Judy Dougall, Kathy Ridley, Lori Dalrymple, Hubert Jacobs, Debi Homuth, Tracy Gilfillan, Gary W. Garniss, Mar- garet A. Hayter, Robert G. Mur= ray, Stephanie Peters, Sylvia Smith, Fred Miller, Mary -Ellen McBride, Cathy Jacobs, Tom Rolph, Fran Micklc, Ola Batten, Deb Wamsley, Cathy Pfaff, Bruce Shaw, Kathy Monk, :.lass:, Ken Nlatlronia:lieorgc N1a- lhonia, Gerard Grenicr, Julie McBride, Brad McBride, Wayne McBride, Rob McCann, Doug Pear- son, Craig Webber, Betty Sanders. Trevor Blue, Dorothy Bilinsk, Carol Ncaves, Bob Bilinsky, Draw. Bcckcr, Iola Shaw, Wayne Shaw, Kevin Hern, Lynn Dawc, Terry. O'Rourke, Rick Dc Brlhandcrc, Don Romphf, Irvin Martin, Shel- ley Simpson, Troy Bryson, Ralph Mathonia, Pctcr Czyphyha Ken Oke, Doug Kyle, Bonnie Sitter, Deb O'Hagan, Ken Farwell, Leroy Edwards, Cheryl Edwards, Clayton Stcckle, Bryon Keith Thomas, Ray- mond H. Jack, Robert Hem, Dene - an Haist, John Batten, Marilyn Den Hollander, Jim Glasgow, Donald Wareing, Leo Wevcrink, Evert Vansligien- horst, Brenda Wedge, Lia Snell, John A. DcWcend, Susan Glan-_; ville, Robert Dougall, Joanne Stef- fens, Ron Dougall, Danep Collett, Allan Riley, Gib Dow, Iry Arm- strong, Tom Trichncr,•Noella Tri- ebner, Darlene Schultz, Marin Schultz, August Grcgus, Allan B. Rowcliff, ,Russell Watson, April Scott, Terry Mcikle, Pat Riley, Don Brunzlow, Maurice ilaist, Mary Pavkejc, Pam Bell, Peter Datars, Conrad Sit- ter, Al Renning, Dave Webber, Ken Glavin, Mariene Rundle, Howard Hendrick, Kathy Hendrick, Dean Boyle, JoAnne Dinncy, •Jayne Boyle, Carol Gilmour, Tammy Mathers, Henry VandcrBurgt, Y.M. Lam, D. McFaIIs, Paul Thcandcr, Larry McBride, Lia Vandcnhcrk.