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Clinton News-Record, 1984-05-16, Page 4r 1 THE BLY,TH STANDAR) J. HOWARD AITKEN Publisher SHELLEY MePHEE v Editor GARY HAIST - Advertising Manager MARY ANN HOLLENDECK o Office Manager A MEMBER MEMBER Disobey advertising rater evelleble on request. Asa f®r !tele Kari. No. 14 effective October 1. 1443. _. Tourism terrible in Canada Canada is sagging far behind the world growth in the tourism industry. While -the tourism business is an $18 billion one in Canada, while it offers 1.1 million jobs and is run by 100,00Q companies, it is in terrible shape in Canada -- on the brink of collapse in. malty areas. An article tri the Sunday Star outlined the condition and problems affecting the tourism industry. We have priced ourselves out of the market, basically. Canadians themselves go south every winter despite the high exchange rate. Americans and Europeans. are checking our prices and packing their bags for other countries. Only 34.3 million people visited Canada last year despite perfect weather from coast to coast. Fewer than one million overseas tourists visited On- tario. And the American visitor tally climbed by a tiny .05 per cent. Only 11 million Americans spent a week or more in Canada last year compared with 13 million in 1972. Canadians themselves spent $5.9 billion out of the country last year, mostly in Florida, California and Hawaii, while foreign visitors spent only $3.8 billion in Canada. Business stinks. Why? The basic problems from the tourism industry point of view a -re four fold. Energy taxes mean that gasoline in Canada is more expensive than in the U.S. More than 100 million Americans live within a day's drive of Canada but gas prices keep them home. Taxes put liquor "out of sight" compared with U.S. prices. And•some provinces have a surcharge on each drink. The minimum wage, going -up to $4. per hour in October, is high compared with U.S. prices where hotels pay less for the same work. And the municipal tax level on hotels and restaurants is "staggering" according to one official quoted who said if he wanted to open a smelly factory he would have three levels' of government .tripping over each other to help him. "But if I open a hotel, they rub their hands and set the tax rate". So, what are the answers? How does Canada get back into the tourist industry • to the tune other countries are enjoying? The federal government is spending an -extra $22 million- this year to promote Canada around the world. It will spend nearly $14 million in the United States, mostly the border states, to convince Americans that "Canada borders on' the magnificent" The provincial government has budgeted $13 million for promotion plus an ex- tra $4 million for Bicentennial celebrations. All levels of government have now admitted there is ,a dire problern it the • tourism industry that once grew without extra effort. But Canada, Ontario and Local communities are going to have to fight the front lines to keep their tourist dollars coming back. — from The Kincardine News. Behind The Scenes In fashion One of the benefits of living in Huron County is that you get a good chance to look over the fads and fashions of the rest of the country before you have to decide if you're going to be fashionable here. The fashion world isn't as dominated by Paris as it once was but fashions in clothes still seem to originate in Paris, London or New York. Popular fads, from the latest food dishes to the latest dances, seem to come mostly from California these days. It takes some time for the fads and fashions to take hold in Toronto, even though so many people there seem to spend most of their lives trying to figure which fashion band- wagon to jump on next. From Toronto the fashions spread out across Ontario first to the smaller cities. and eventually, in somewhat altered form, to our little corner of the world. By that time you can see if the new fad has any staying power. It may be that what was "in" is "out" before it ever gets around to being "in" in Huron County. This saves us a lot of money and a lot of looking silly. For instance, although there are probably none of our citizens more fashion conscious than our teenagers, the "punk" look hasn't really caught on locally. Our kids still look like real kids not victims of a radiation leak from Douglas Point. It's hard to know just what is fashionable in Huron County (some glib city commen- tators would quip that fashionable and Huron County don't belong in a sentence together). We don't have a large section of this newspaper, for instance, dedicated to telling us what the trendy people of the town By Keith Roulston will be wearing next fall. Our television sta- tion doesn't make a big thing about the latest fad to hit the area. We can buy magazines to tell us what's the craze of New York and read newspapers to see what is be- ing touted for people in Toronto or Kitchener but out here nothing gets the stamp of ap- proval. And if you're going to ask for advice, be careful who you ask. I asked a fashionable friend from the city recently, just what fashionable men were wearing these days. If I'd worn what she said was fashionable I'd have attracted as much attention on our main street as if I'd strung Christmas lights over my birthday clothes. Even in the fashionable. city, there are different fashions for one group than another. What's fashionable among the artists, actors and musical communities in the city, for in- stance, is going to look pretty funny on Bay Street and what's fashionable there will look funny on a university campus. In fact in the city among a certain section of the population, particularly the arty - types, what's in is what's out with everybody else. These individuals like to choose their own eccentric dress by going to used clothing stores and buying what all the trendy people of other parts of the populace have given away. Each seems to try to outdo the other by being more ingenious in the unlikely combination of styles. This could, of course, bring problems. If the trend ever caughton everybody would want to wear used clothes and nobody would be wearing new clothes to give away so there would be old clothes to wear. Tune up for summer Cottage weather is around the corner and motorists will soon be taking to the highways for weekend vacations and pleasure driving. The Ontario Safety League is asking all motorists to use a little preventive maintenance. It makes good economic sense. Many drivers wait until something goes wrong before they get it fixed. They'll put up with a defective exhaust system, wipers that don't perform properly or weak battery that is unreliable and then be terribly upset when these components let them down.,far from home. This is called "breakdown maintenance''. Economically, it is the same as health care — preventive medicine is usually much less expensive than corrective The final cut Sugar and Spice Revisiting Perth There's something rather ghoulish about revisiting your old home town after forty - odd years and giving a speech about what it was like to grow up there forty -odd years ago. The younger people don't know what you're talking about. The people your own age are either deaf or dead, and don't know what you're talking about either. Well, that was a recent experience. I' was asked to speak at a Chamber of Commerce dinner in Perth, where I was reared, after a fashion. Special theme of the evening was the celebration of the 150th birthday of the Perth Courier, the second oldest weekly newspaper in Canada. Perth, down in Eastern Ontario, was a centre of culture and class (rich and poor), when Ottawa was a brawling lumbertown and Toronto was Muddy York. My speech was the ideal moment for a lapse into rotundic hysteric hyperbole, and plain old bull -roar. I successfully avoided all three, as is -my wont. I just told the truth, as always. And, as always, I received a standing ovation. The standing ovation, which used to be a rare and heartfelt response to a speech in which a politican promised new roads, new docks, or a new post office, has become as emo- tional as a good sneeze. It is now a chance for people to get off their burns, up from those hard chairs bor- rowed from the funeral director, on which they have squatted for two hours or so, and stretch their arthritic joints. It also signals the end for those who have fallen asleep. You can hear the groan of relief welling beneath the hearty hand -clapping. I didn't praise the Chamber of Commerce. In fact I stuck a needle into them. As a former weekly editor, I know all about the Chamber of Commerce, in another town. We met monthly if we could get a quorum. surgery! Motorists should also be aware that an engine tune-up is the single most important maintenance factor for fuel economy. Igni- tion and carburetion systems must operate at peak efficiency for good mileage. Tune- ups are particularly critical for today's cars to obtain optimum economy and still keep emissions at the required low level. Your car has taken quite a beating since you put on the snow tires, changed the spark plugs and checked the radiator level last fall. Not only will a well -tuned car give bet- ter fuel economy but a proper tune up and a complete check of the car's system will en- sure it is safe for your spring and summer trips. - A by Rod Hilts By Bill Smiley There were always four of us. I guess that was a quorum: the President, two members dragged out of the pub or off the curling rink, and me, as a reporter. Talk of new in- dustries, new approaches to tourism, and a general up -grading from the parking meters floated through the air for two hours, then we'd all go happily home, for another mon- th. This one was a little different. The of- ficials talked -in hundreds of thousands. of dollars, mostly government grants, where we used to talk about the impossibility of raising $200 for a tourist information booth. - At any rate, the Perth Chamber was gracious and exceedingly generous. I think the whole trip didn't cost me more than $100. I also needled the publisher of the Perth Courier, but rather gently. I've been over. that route, and publishers get the needle from readers so regularly that they barely feel it, except when it goes to the bone.or tbe,.._ heart, which it does every time. , What shook me was how old a lot of people were. There I was, feeling a ripe old twenty- eight, and these ancients came shuffling up and saying, "Hey, Bill, remember the time we...?" My only resort was to say, ``Hoon you?" When found out I was mortified. A great strapping chap stuck out his hand and said, "Bill?" I responded, "Hoor you?" He just said, "Roy", and there I was con- fronted, and recognizing a first cousin I hadn't seen since 1945, he just out of the navy, I just out of the air force, having a couple of beers together. We hadn't seen each other, or exchanged so much as a card, since. A few other faces emerged from the bald heads and lined faces: Cam Chaplin,.a raw- boned dairyfarmer who tackled in football like a brick wall hitting a heap of mar- shmallows; Jack Scott, another boy of the same ilk; Kay Lightford, sister ot my old college room -mate, and her brother, KaIeidoscope .tht r ',The N �. I read. it9y• Dear Editor The Bayfield Council seem to be willing to spend uo to $60,Q00 of tax Payer's money for the park they have mentioned on the river bank, The way it looks to me, it isn't fair for anyone under 12 years old or over 50 years of age to even consider it. These seern to be the years of our lives that we can really ap- preciate a park many nature area. It would also appear if they (council) had taken an original offer of $10,000 and put it towards Hayfield's own park, they now might have something. Yours truly, Don Lindpay of Bayfield Reader questions Liberal delegates Grover, a widower with six children who married a widow with four, and who grasped me earnestly by the lapels and told me I should consider marrying again. Aside from a few, it was a family reunion. My big sister, dammer, who instigated the whole affair, put me up for three days and tried to force-feed me. Her son, Pete, an Air Canada captian, just happened to drift up from Montreal, and . his little sister, Heather, took a jaunt down from Pembroke. I used to baby-sit them. My little sister, a nurse, drove with her husband, some white- haired old guy called Jack Buell, with whom I'd played football forty years ago, floated in from Brockville. We had quite a time, swapping lies and figuring out who was dead, who'd had a stroke, who was divorced and why. We'll probably not ever be together again until the day my ashes arrive in an urn. --Something unusual, and -very. moving for me, occurred at the; dinner.. I was told that an elderly gentleman, or as some put it, "an old man", had been waiting outside the hall for about two hours, wanting to see me. A bit bewildered, I told them to have hirh come in. And I finally nailed the old devil who has been writing me for years, signing himself, at first, "Your TV Repairman", and later, over the years, just "YTVR". I knew he lived in Westport, Ont., but couldn't answer his blunt and caustic com- ments, his kind and encouraging notes, his sensitive letter when my wife died. And there he was. He wouldn't come in to dinner. He had to drive home, in the dark, at Iver 80 years. He'd come all that way just to gay hello, Smiley. He gave me a gift which I ,thought might be a chamber -pot, with his sense of humor, neatly wrapped. It turned out to be a beautifully handwrought wooden bowl, which I shall treasure. More about hire later. Around the province, Bicentennial activities are gearing up to full potential. The festivities are being held to honor Ontario's 200th birthday, yet still some questions arise as to actual meaning of the celebration. The Bicentennial year honors the beginnings of the early major settlements and the migration of United Empire Loyalists, from the United States to the settlement, now known as Ontario. Loyalists were, Americans who had retained allegiance to Britain during the American Revolution. When Britain lost the war, these Loyalists chose not to live in the new United States. More than 80,000 left New York when the British pulled out after the war. Some Loyalists returned to England, some moved to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, while others made their way to the West Indies. Many thousands eventually settled in the province of Quebec, a huge tract of land spreading hundreds of kilometres south and thousands west of Quebec and Montreal, mostly along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, in Niagara, around Detroit and the north shore of Lake Erie. Ontario's 200th birthday is not only in honor of those proud pioneers of 1784; it honors those who preceded them an all those who followed. But it is that year. that turning point - 1784 - that heralds the true By Shelley McPhee commitment and struggle that created the foundations of what Ontario is 'today. Barbara McConnell, of the Ontario Bicentennial Communications program notes, "Our social and our . financial institutions are drawn from the farms, the markets and theindustries of those various peoples. They fervently believed in a better life - and helped build a better life in Ontario. +++ This weekend, Clinton celebrate the area's Dutch heritage with the fourth annual Klompen Feest celebrations. The program list promises the biggest and best Feest yet. To get in practice John Greidanus and the Festival Singers will be performing at Huronview on Thursday, May 17 at 7 p.m. The singers will also be one of the featured acts at Klompen Feest's May 18 evening program. Friday's performance will be highlighted by the talents of John Jager of Goderich. An accomplished -vocalist, John will sing Pk hou Van Holland, accompanying himself on the accordian. Some of you may be familiar with John Jager's name. Last fall he sang with the London Symphony Orchestra when they performed in Goderich. +++ Also at Klompen Feest more than two dozen draws will be made on Saturday, May 19 at the wind up dance at the Clinton arena. Chamber ensemb Permanent, Ontario -based chamber ensembles are eligible to apply for grants from the Ontario Arts Council. Grants will be made towards projects and operations. Deadline for the 1984 juried competition is Aug. 15. The program was created by the Council in 1983 to provide support to small -venue music-rpaking which has little financial return but great artistic value. Dear Editor: I have heard and read with more than casual interest, especially the comment of Jack Horan, P -resident of the Huron -Liberal Association advising, 'according -to the media that, "he intends to vote for Mr. Whelan "all the way". Delegates have a responsibility to the community at large. Do these delegates really know Mr. Whelan? Do they know or care how some departments function under Whelan? I would like to ask them these questions. My experience with Mr. Whelan has convinced me that he should not be Minister of Agriculture. Mr. Whelan has ex- hibited a total lack of responsibility so far as my farm operation is concerned. I tried to reach him at his convenience as I did not believe he would approve of the manner in which one of his departments had handled my affairs - but no, just as his staff had told me, "Whelan had no time." After years in personnel management I always found that any department head who exhibited such a disinterest sooner or later fell by the wayside and so he/she should. Whelan's disinterest in may case has had and will have far reaching implications on agriculture for years. to come and possibly for consumers as well, according to research scientists with whom I have cor- responded in Britain and the U.S.A. While scientists may disagree, surely it is better to make an error on the side of safety. On taking my case to court it came to zny attention seconds before court began that Mr. Whelan hadtakensteps to prevent in- formation coming up in court that could have influenced court in my favor. He wanted the name of the animal disease kept out of court as well as our exchange of cor- respondence. One letter in particular could well have helped me in court. His final letter to me before mut wanted lustige d4n0 Do the Liberal delegates know how Mr. Whelan voted when the bill to restrict all printed material from being visible 50 or 60 days before election day? Or other can- didates as well. (I have just read where Mr. ivrulroney has - decided the Conservatives acted too quickly on this bill.) I should think so! All Canadians should appreciate that the National Citizens' Coalition members are prepared to challenge the bill and go to jail if necessary to protect the rights of Cana- dians to present literature up to the final voting hours. It is interesting to note that the two youth delegates are from the same family. Is this indicative of a lack of interest and support in the Liberal party by Canadian youth? '\ I wonder it Mr. Whelan missed the plane and therefore the Huron County Liberal meeting. Huron has a pretty strong Con- servative following and it would seem to me that in playing the game of politics his time would bear more results by helping John Chretien to gain more Western . Canada delegates. This . would weaken John Turner's position in the west and ensure Mr. Whelan of a position in Chretien's Cabinet if he should win. The media and Canadian citizens are becomingvery aware of the impact on Canada that decisions of delegates can have. I welcome enquiries from the Liberal delegates especially Mr. Horan who say, "he will go all the way for Mr. Whelan." Ob- viously, Mr Horan has not suffered as I have 'from decisions made by Mr. Whelan. Edith Baker Seafortl. The draws are part ot a Lund -raising lottery, sponsored by Epilepsy Ontario, Huron County. Epilepsy Ontario is a non-profit organization which helps people with epilepsy. The Huron Chapter covers Huron, Bruce and part of Perth Counties. Merchants from throughout the are have donated valuable prizes for the draws and tickets can be purchased at the Epilepsy Ontario booth at Klompen Feest for $1 each. Apple cider and muffins will be on sale at the booth, as well as the national bestseller, 'Epilepsy Cookbook. + + + The bouquet of the week goes out to Lisa Steckle, daughter &Ivan and Pat Steckle of Goderich. Lisa won first place for her Spanish guitar solos in both the 15 years and under category (mark -83) and the 13 years and under category (mark -80) at the Kiwanis Music Festival in London on April 2. Randy Lawson of Goderich is Lisa's music teacher. Fireworks display Don't forget the Fire Works display to be held in Londesboro on Monday May 21. Also the Hullett Recreation Committee are holding a Hullett Days Planning meeting on May 30 at 8 p.m. in the Londesboro Hall. All interested people in the Township are encouraged to attend! eligible for. grants "Ensemble playing is key to the music foundation of the provine", OAC's music of- ficer, Gwenlyn Creech pointed out. "Chamber music is one touchstone of the music community's maturity." Ensembles tper- forming withconductor are eligible to apply to this program. At least half of the ensembles members must be full-time residents of Ontario. Ensembles resident at Bicentennial geranium TORONTO - A new geranium cultivar developed at the University of Guelph is be- ing named Ontario 200 in honor of the pro- vince's Bicentennial, Agriculture and Food Minister Dennis Timbrell announced today. Timbrell showed sample specimens of the new geranium at a media conference at the Ministry of. Agriculture and Food's exhibit at the National Home Show in Toronto. "Ontario 200 is one of the first cultivars developed through the horticultural breeding program supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food at the University of Guelph," said Timbrell. Ontario 200 was developed by hor- ticultural scientist Dr. Patricia Harney after five years of selection and crosses. Us- ing a relatively new technique called tissue culture, the first crop of 2,000 plants was propagated in test tubes and nurtured in greenhouses over the winter. The plants will be displayed in the gardens around the flagpoles at Queen's Park this summer. The new cultivar features well-rounded deep scarlet flowers with as many as eight to 10 flowers in bloom at one time. The flower stems are long to allow a good display above the variegated light and dark green foliage. Dr. Harney told reporters that geraniums a college, university or conservatory, or are are one of the most important bedding part of an orchestra, are not eligible. Stu- plants in North America. They enjoy full dent ensembles are also not elrgible under sunlight and although easy to grow, they the program. should not be• planted outdoors until the danger of frost is past. For more detailed information about the Ontario 200 was on display at the Ontario program and how to apply, contact the Ministry of Agriculture and Food exhibit in Music Office, Ontario Arts Council, Suite the south extet>kion of the Industry Building 500,151 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario at the National home Show, Canadian Na- M5S 1T6 or telephone (416)981-1660. tional Exhibition grounds from April6 to 15. e • e