Times Advocate, 1999-09-22, Page 7Opinion&Forum
10 YEARS AGO
September 20, 1989 -
Sunday's Terry Fox Run was
Exeter's eighth such annual
event, but this year's 44 par-
ticipants brought in just over
$5,000, more than double
any pr.( Ivfous year's total.
Zurich has had a highly
visible police presence since
spring when an. Extended
Service office opened in the
village. Exeter OPP Constable Rick Borden
has spent 75 hours each month in the area.
The office was officially opened this weel
OPP Superintendent Murray. Peer said
"Fostering a partnership between police and
rube community is the main goal of community
a olicing."
20 YEARS AGO
September 19, 1979 - Excellent weather
conditons brought the largest crowd in years
to Saturday's Kirkton Fall Fair. Secretary
Audrey Bearss in estimating the attendance
at 1,500 said gate receipts were close to
twice as much as in 1978.
30 YEARS AGO
September 20, 1969 - A symbolic torch was
lit Friday to mark the beginning of natural
gas service. to Exeter, Centralia, Lucan and
Hensall.
Exeter Police Chief Ted Day' has warned
parents that drug use among teenagers in the
'area is increasing. -
3 5 YEARS AGO
September 21, 1964 - This year the Zurich
Fall .Fair celebrated its 100th anniversary
and reports are it was one of the best on
record.
Improved mailing service for the Exeter
area began this week, providing earlier
arrival of mail and later outlet to allow next
day delivery throughout Western Ontario.
Exeter T -A sports reporter Ross Haugh won
the Hereford heifer calf being raffled at the
1- Exeter Fall Fair this year. .
Peter Lewis, son of Rev. and lam. S.E. Lewis
of Exeter has been approved as a candidate
for the ministry and will be officially received
at the next meeting of the Huron ;Presbytery
of the United Church of Canada,
40 YEARS AGO •
September 18, 1959 - Barbara Parker won
the harvest queen competition sponsored by
the Exeter Kinsmen club at their fifth annual
jamboree Friday night.
Thanksgiving feature at Zion Lutheran,
Church in Dashwood this year will be a used
clothing drive to aid the needy throughout the
world.
A sister and brother led the prize winners in
the school children's competition at the
Zurich Fall Fair last week. Donna and Larry
Kipper placed first and second in scoring the
highest number of points.:
50 YEARS AGO ;k
September 19, 1949 - Exeter branch of
Canadian Canners have an orchard. of 1,500
pear trees on the east side of town where
some 50 people are picking pears for can-
ning.
Lucan has made a start on its new commu-
nity centre.
Opening of the new headquarters of the
Huron County Health -Unit in Clinton marks
the beginning of full-time public health ser-
vices for every citizen of Huron County.
75 YEARS. AGO
September 21, 1924 - Mr. Arthur Jones of
Hensall has purchased the Massey -Harris
repairs shop in connection with the business
of Mr. B.M. Francis
Mr. W.J. Beer has on display 'a finely built
neutrodine radio set built by Rev. G.M.
Chidley of Thames Road.
A by-law proposing to spend $7,000 for the
erection of an addition to the Exeter School
was voted down on Monday by the ratepay-
ers.
J.G. Stanbury and-R.N. Creech representing
the Exeter Board Of Education and J.M.
Southcott were in London Thursday attending
the. opening of the Un1 ersIty of Western
Ontario.. The fourteen counties surrounding
London can well feel proud of the magnifi-
clent buildings.
ROSS
HAUGH
BACK W4 TMS
OPINIONS AND LETTERS
Unique opportunity
corning to area
Dear Editor:
A unique opportunity is coming to Southwestern
Ontario this fall!
The Listening Centre, a Toronto based independent
clinic, which used a program of sound stimulation,
will be doing an Outreach Program in Stratford.
The Centre helps people of all ages with problems
•"ich as Learning Qisabilities, Dyslexia, Attention
?cit Disorder (ADD), Autistic Spectrum Disorder,
JD, Autism), Down's Syndrome and other
ievelopmental Delays, as well as with general enrich-
ment, creativity, fatigue, stress, anxiety, learning a
new language, voice training, tuning the musical ear,
enhancing communication and self development.
The program consists of an initial assessment which
will determine whether or not a person is a candidate
for the listening training program. You will be told the
changes and improvements to be expected and the
approximate length of the program required to reach
these goals. Most programs consist of two intensive
phases of about 30 hours each, (two hours per day for
15 days) with a four week break in between. Short
"boosts" may be recommended as a follow up. Each
trainee receives through headphones an individually
tailored program of sound modified by various levels
of filtering.
In recent years it has been spotlightedon The
Discovery Channel featuring their work with Autistic
Spectrum Disorder- ; the Director, Paul Madame, has
been interviewed on the Vicky Gabereau show on
CBC; and Equinox magazine presented an eiccellent
overview of the Centre's work in the May `97 issue.
The Stratford Outreach Program is being coordinat-
ed by Janette Lyoness who tookher five-year-old
developmentally delayed daughter to the Centre in the
fall of 1998. "The Listening Centre has opened a
whole new . world for my daughter and our family and
having the program come to Southwestern Ontario
will allow people to take part who mai' not.otherwise
be able to given their geographic locations," said Ms.
Lyoness.
This past spring, The Listening Centre held a suc-
cessful Outreach Program in Truro, Nova Scotia, with
24 participants consisting of 20 children from two. to
15 years of age and four adults. Another is being
planned for next spring.
Included in the Outreach Program is a free Parent's
Listening Program that they may choose to do while
waiting for their children. It helps them relax, de-
stress, gain energy as well as give an opportunity to
network with other parents.
The program is scheduled to begin October 6 at St.
Andrew's Church, 25 St. Andrew St., Stratford, and
there are still some spaces available. Tobook your
assessment, please call The Listening Centre directly
at (416) 588-4136. Volunteers are needed as well to
assist with the children. Contact Lyoness at (519) 271-
6515 to apply for the volunteer positions or if you have
any other questions.
, � . }_ � .� ;- Y JANETTE LYONESS
Has justice been
delaved again?
Dear Edi
Prorogation of Parliament's main effect is not
Cabinet avoiding Opposition questioning for three
extra weeks.
It is that all legislation not - signed into Law and all
hearings of Committees not concluded are scrapped
and must start again from square one.
Articles stating the accomplishments of this
Parliaments' first session are appearing.
Will those Bills cancelled be published as well?
In particular, did the Bill to. have multiple murderers
serve time for each crime, rather than the present one
cover all concurrent sentences, become law?
If not, justice has been delayed once again.
Yours truly,
Jou HUEci.w,
NI ara Falls, Ontario
Money well spent?
TORONTO -- Is there anyone
out there willing to put in a good
word for taxes?
Many will think nothing good
can be said about them, particu-
larly since Premier Mike Harris
embarked on his crusade to
make them a dirty word.
The Progressive Conservative
premier,. who has reduced per-
sonal income tax rates by 30 per
cent and plans further cuts
including slashing municipal
spending, is now the national leader in the march
to lower taxes.
Harris. called on all provinces at their conference
last month to cut taxes as their first priority.
He wrote to Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien
advising him now that he has eliminated his deficit
he should cut taxes rather than improve services.
Harris was even in Japan last week, saying tax
cuts are needed to stop more highly trained
Canadians from flocking to the United States for
jobs.
The premier has chutzpah, becausel while urging
cutting taxes he increased the pay of his already
well-paid political staff, who are on the government
payroll but work for his party, not taxpayers, by up
to 30 per cent.
Economic. Development Minister Al Palladini
joined by.writing to federal Finance Minister ,Paul
Martin pleading that tax cuts• would improve
Canadians' quality of life.
Tory MPPs approved a letter to Liberal MPs in
Ontario exhorting them to "Follow the Ontario
Example" and cut taxes, somewhat boastfully
because other provinces, particularly Ralph Klein's
Alberta, cut taxes firs; .
The claim by all these is that tax cuts stimulate
business so government ends up with even more to
spend, but this cannot be proven by Ontario's envi-
ronment ministry, whose operating budget Harris
has cut from $276 to $165 million.
The, chorus. of support from business; whose
shareholders stand to; benefit, is loudest since it
Lobbied successfully for free trade a decade ago.
The call for tax e.uts has been given momentum
by convenient reports, which Harris repeated, that
the "brain drain" of highly -educated Canadians to
the U.S. has soared to a record particularly
because of higher taxes here. •
The Conference Board of Canada, which repre-
sents business, helped fuel it by finding a sharp
increase in Canadians obtaining temporary permits.
to work in the U.S., but later conceded it had exag-
gerated because it counted Canadians who
renewed their permits as new emigrants.
More reliable federal government statistics show
only 1.5 per cent of Canadians who finished univer-
sity in 1995 left to -work in the U.S. within the fol-
lowing two years and one-fifth of these have since
returned home.
Canadians also move to the U.S. because of high-
er pay, more exciting opportunities in bigger com-
panies and head offices, more openings in research
because more is done there, and transfers within
companies as more Canadian firms have expanded
into the U.S. with free trade and the. boom.
There also are jobs in the U.S. that aren't avail-
able in Canada, particularly in nursing and other
health care areas, precisely because governments
here have reduced spending on hospitals to cut
taxes. Lower taxes are only one of the lures.
A poll by a Toronto newspaper supportive of tax
cuts nevertheless claimed that 82 per cent. of
Canadians believe more skilled and. prOfessian4
Canadians are moving to. the U.S. and that higher
taxes are prompting them, and Harris parroted
this:.theme. on his visit to Japan.
Such campaigns have made it difficult to stand up
against tax cuts. Every year a right-wing think tank
gets huge publicity and applause from media by
declaring a day, which was July 1 this year, as Tax
Freedom Day; when. average families "have paid
all the taxes imposed on them by all levels of gov-
ernment for the year and started working for
themselves."
But these taxes in fact paid for many services for
Canadians, including medicare, which lower taxes
in the U.S. do not provide.
They paid also kr police and fire protection,
repairing streets, pensions, clean water, collecting
garb: and ensuring safer workplaces.
AMNIA it is not fashionable - to say so; they were
mostly Haney well spent.
ERIC
DOWD
A VIEW FROM
QUEEN'S PARK