Ontario Community Newspapers

Penetanguishene Citizen (1975-1988), 1 May 1985, p. 3

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I ee _ Greenszeroinon Pauze site in Tiny by PETER SPOHN Whoever opened the front gate of the Pauze landfill site when it opened for business Monday morning may have been startled to find a couple dozen small white crosses hammered into the ground and bunches of flowers strewn around the dump's entrance. The entrance to the dump near Perkinsfield on Tiny concession road 9 was the scene Sunday afternoon of a mock funeral service staged by members of the Ontario wing of the Green party. The "service" was to commemmorale victims of toxic waste contamination. Greens from across Ontario made the trip to Perkinsfield just four days before Ontario voters goto the polls because, in the words of the Greens, the dump is the site of the worst toxic waste threat in the province, and the fledgling party's central theme is concern for the environment. Several candidates running in Toronto area ridings and in Kingston joined Simcoe Centre Green candidate Steve Kaasgaard at the entrance to the site and made speeches for the TV cameras, reporters, and a small crowd that assembled for the occasion. The group headed to the dump site shortly after 1 p.m. in a procession from Perkinsfield. With abou! half a dozen cars driving one after the other in close formation with headlights on, the procession did indeed look like a funeral convoy headed for-a gravesite. At the gate, the Greens propped up a dummy of a man they called Mr. PCB. (He looked suspiciously like Ronald Reagan.) Like the Progressive Conservative party of Ontario, the Greens said, '"'Mr. PCB says nothing"' about the threa! of toxic contamination. The Green's, about a dozen of them, then ham- mered their white crosses into the ground and passed them out to the handful of people who Police Week, May The Ontario Provincial Police are joining every other Canadian police force in celebrating Police Week May 12 to 18. In keeping with the fact that 1985 is the Inter- national Youth Year, the slogan for Police Week this year is "Police and the Youth."' It is an annual tradition for the OPP to hold an -PCrally disrupte turned ou! for the demonstration. Most seemed surprised more people hadn't turned out, in- cluding one Toronto resident with a cottage at the end of Tiny consession road 16 who said he made the trip from Toronto earlier in the day especially tor the demonstration. John Deaver said he made the trip because he is concerned about what will happen when toxics from the waste site seep into Georgian Bay. He said he used to be a PC sup- porter but felt the Ontario Ministry of the Environment wasn't doing it's job, and the PC's wouldn't be getting his vote. : There was even a little blood shed during the ceremony. Judy Hannon, running in a downtown Toronto riding for the Greens, accidentally ha- mmered her finger with a rock while trying to erect one of the white crosses. Another woman scattered bunches of flowers brought -up to the dump especially for the occasion. She said she got them from a funeral home. Steve Birch, a candidate in a Kingston riding, said the Greens in Ontario face a bigger challenge trying to get people to support their cause than do the Greens in European countries because the threat facing them may not be as obvious here as it is in Europe, where nuclear missile silos are scaltered throughout the countryside. Another Kingston area Green said he was on hand in Perkinsfield "to help prevent Georgian Bay from becoming the chemical bathtub that Lake Ontario 1S: 4 : Local candidate Kaasgaard said the Pauze site '"'should be closed, capped and surge pumped"' to purge it of toxic waste contamination. "Our demonstration here is an attempt to shed light on Ontario as the province with both the worst en- vironmental record of any Canadian province or territory and a Progressive Conservative government of 43 years which now must answer to i wehbe. Said. 12-18 open house during Police Week. All OPP facilities will be open to visitors. Youth groups are given a special invitation to come out and meet some of their local OPP officers.Members of the provincial police will be on hand to show visitors around their detachment, and many detachments will feature displays of police activities and equipment. Orser eyes '88 by PETER SPOHN Canada's top figure skater, Brian Orser, is featured on the cover of the spring edition of Champion magazine. Champion is published quarterly by the Athlete Information Bureau for athletes, coaches and other individuals coneerned with high performance amateur sports programs. The Penetanguishene native, who now lives in Orillia, is featured in a story with the title, The Unknown Champion. Orser is a champion who maintains a low profile, the article states. He ranks as one of the greatest male skaters in Canadian history, writer Steve Milton notes. "While he's an_ in- 'ernational celebrity, particularly in West Germany, Orser travels as a virtual unknown in Canada. Thal's partly because Orser is soft- spoken and basically shy," Milton writes. Since 1979, after winning the Canadian Penetang !.G.A. store's Grant Lotton Junior Championship, presents cheque for $325 to Saint he has resisted Joseph school principal Tom suggestions that he Desroches on Monday. Since last fall, move to a big city to be students at closer !o the centre of the figure skating world, the article states. the school have been bringing cash register receipts from the store to the school to help raise funds to buy computer software for ECOLE PUBLIQUE $325 for computer software the school. The I.G.A. pledged one dollar to the cause for every $350 in cash register receipts. The school's parents' committee was grateful for the support from Gerry Light and the 1.G.A., parents' committee member Richard Quesnelle said. Mr. PCB Mr. PCB,, adummy that Green party candidates propped against the gate of the Pauze landfill site during a What ave been & victory rally for the local Tories was twisted into an promptu roast by a flank of hecklers and independent Green @ an. ds#i. dva tse Steve Kaasgaard in Barrie last Friday. Premier Frank Miller and past premier Bill Davis appeared at the Progressive Conser- valive rally in Barrie to spark the party faithful onward, upward to victory. But before Miller even took the slage, Kaasgaard ran to the seat vacated for Miller and placed a dummy in the chair before being taken off the podium. The dummy was the same one Kaasgaard had brought to the Injured Workers All Candidates Meeting. At thal meeting the dummy was called PCB and was Kaasgaards replacement for the missing Earl Rowe. Rowe, the Simcoe- Centre PC hopeful was present al the rally, as were Dufferin-Simcoe's George McCague and Simcoe FEast's Al McLean. Before Kaasgaard could be removed from the stage area he was engaged in a tug of war for the dummy by Barrie lawyer and party worker Paul Hermiston. nee scene degenerated further when security men jostled reporters for- cefully who were im-- mock member. d by dummy trying to photograph the debacle. Kaasgaard was quickly hustled out of the meeting area where he held court with reporters, The assemblage inside tried to ignore the scene. Kaasgaard later made his way back into the meeting where he interupted the Premier asking for a chance to debate with him. Miller said he was willing to do so with the independent candidate but had no opportunity as security men dragged Kaasgaard to the side of the room. Another man claiming to be a civil servant called out to Miller that '40 years is enough." The man later: said that he felt civil ser- vants were treated as second class citizens because they can't take an active role in politics. Some reporters who tried to talk to the man while Miller was talking were chastised for not having respect for the premier. One man went so far as to ask a reporter her name and the paper she worked for. When she answered he told her that he advertised with her paper and they would gel no more business from him. _ Another' group heckled the Premier and asked about funding for a Barrie school that had been given top priority rating bul was Wednesday, May 1, 1985, Page 3 funeral ternoon, is pul in place by a Green service Sunday af- bypassed for another project. Miller later talked with the people and said he would look into the matter. He did not' promise funding however. Miller was also besieged by people questioning the government's stand on separate school funding. Both Miller and Davis predicted a large Tory win on Thursday. Davis spoke before Miller. While Miller's speech made sweeping com- mittments to farmers, industry and others, Davis spoke of his hometown of Brampton, the BlueJays and the federal Liberals. Brampton is also the home town of Kaasgaard. ™ Davis and Miller were whisked out of the hall and onto their buses by nine o'clock, By 9:30 the hall was fairly empty with about 70 to 80 faith- ful milling around. Some fell the evenings incidents were humorous, some were embarrassed by the "strong arm tactics of the security." One man stood up for the security's actions saying that Kaasgaard could have easily been an assassin. Most agreed that while the evening was made interesting by Kaasgaard and the hecklers, some thought the victory elation it was meant to instill was lost.

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