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2 - Orono Weekly Times 1937 - 2012 · Celebrating 75 Year Subscriptions $42.86 + $2.14 GST = $45.00 per year. No Refunds. Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund for our publishing activities." Wednesday, December 5, 2012 ORONO WEEKLY TIMES - 5310 Main St., P.O. Box 209, Orono, ON L0B 1M0 E-mail: oronotimes@rogers.com or Phone/Fax: 905-983-5301 www.oronoweeklytimes.com Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart Production and Display Advertising - Roxanne Johnston Classified/Sports - Christopher W. Brown The Orono Weekly Times welcomes letters to the editor on subjects of interest to our readers. Opinions expressed to the editor and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Orono Weekly Times. Letters must be signed and contain the address and phone number of the writer. Any letter considered unsuitable will not be acknowledged or returned. We reserve the right to edit for length, libel and slander. If your retail or classified ad appears for the first time, please check carefully. Notice of an error must be given before the next issue goes to print. The Orono Weekly Times will not be responsible for the loss or damage of such items. Goes around comes around According to John O'Toole the election of Conservative MP Erin O'Toole marks the first time in Canada that a father and son have held office federally and provincially in the same riding at the same time. While making history is not new to the riding, this is an interesting first. The Honourable Bev Oda, whose resignation from parliament precipitated the recently held byelection; was the first Japanese-Canadian cabinet minister in the country. Oda was on track to be the first cabinet minister to be found in contempt of parliament when the May 2011 general election was called. She was also the first female member of Parliament to represent the riding. Incidentally the recent federal byelection was not the first for Clarington voters. In 1885 voters in the former Durham East federal riding, made up of the former Clarke and Darlington Townships and Port Hope and Cobourg, had to vote in a byelection when their MP, Conservative Arthur T.H Williams died while in office. Williams represented Durham East in the House of Commons from 1878 to 1885. Besides having a military career just like our newly elected MP, and having studied law unlike our current member, Williams was never called to the bar. He won his first federal election with 1,717 votes, beating out the Liberal incumbent, Lewis Ross by 392 votes. By the time of the Riel Rebellion in 1885, Williams had bought eight sections of land in Southern Manitoba from the Canadian Pacific Railway. As commander of the 46th Battalion of the volunteer militia from Port Hope, Col. Williams joined the military force that was sent by Ontario to put down the Riel Rebellion. When returning from a mission a few weeks after the battle of Batoche, MP Williams became ill and died on July 4, 1885 on the steamer, near Fort Pitt on the North Saskatchewan River, ten miles east of the Alberta border. William's empty seat was filled in the August 24th byelection by Conservative Henry Alfred Ward, who was acclaimed to the seat and won it in the 1887 general election, lost it in the 1891 election, lost the seat in the 1896 election and won it back again in the election of 1900. Statistics are not available for the number of eligible voters in the riding at the time, so we have no idea what the voter turnout was for the 1885 byelection. It certainly could not have been as bad as this most recent byelection in Durham. Judging by the voter turnout in last Monday's election, while every effort was made to make the election interesting, the public was not engaged. We at the Times were accused by some in the Conservative camp of being biased towards the Liberals. What seems to have incensed them the most was the fact that we ran a picture of Bob Rae on the front page of our election edition.. The fact is, we did not support any party, and the reason Rae's picture was on the front page was because he was the highest profile candidate who was in the riding that week. If the Prime Minister had been in the riding, his picture would have been on our front page. In preparation for our election edition coverage, our journalist Christopher Brown had asked the four leading candidates if he could accompany them for an hour or two of door knocking, to get firsthand what the issues were that had residents talking. All the candidates agreed to Brown's request except the people handling O'Toole. Their reasoning was that Bev Oda never allowed the media to tag along with her when she went door knocking. O'Toole finally agreed to a phone interview with Brown. We continue to stand behind our election coverage, and feel the articles we produced were unbiased. Incidentally the Election Edition had two Letters to the Editor from the same person, one decrying the Liberals, the other the NDP candidate. When O'Toole refused to give The Times reporter an interview at his victory party, we were informed by his campaign team that we were obviously biased against them. We are hoping we can chalk up O'Toole's reaction on election night to an error in judgment brought on by the fatigue of his campaigning, and part of the learning curve he will have to undergo in his transition from private citizen to an elected representative for all of Durham Riding. Otherwise his actions could be characterized as behaviour unbefitting an elected official, which is exactly the kind of behaviour that necessitated the byelection he handily won. `Lift Off" Doumo arigatou To the Editor: Last week I met an interesting gentleman from Shinshiro Japan. Shinshiro means Newcastle in Japanese. He came to Clarington to prepare a presentation for the Japanese Delegation ahead of the Newcastles of the World Summit that Clarington will be hosting in 2014. I had the pleasure to talk with him and give him a tour of Newcastle. During the two day visit Mr. Yukinori Yokoyama was pleased to meet with several local politicians, some business leaders in our communities, and a few residents. I would like to thank the many people who helped make his visit memorable, Charles Tawes of the Clarington Museum, MPP John O'Toole, Kirk Kemp, President of Algoma Orchards, The Hamptons of Newcastle, Shelia Hall President of the Board of Trade, and Mayor Adrian Foster. And a special thank you to Bev Jeeves of Newcastle, who jumped out of her car when Mr. Yokoyama was given a walking tour of Newcastle, and gave us a tour of the Newcastle Historical Society. Mr. Yokoyama was very impressed by the hospitality and the generosity that each one of you showed to him for the two days he spent in Newcastle. I got to see firsthand what a group of politicians, business leaders and local residents can do in such a short period of time. Christopher W. Brown former delegate of Newcastles of the World 2012. Voter turnout huge failure To The Editor: I would like to thank and congratulate all the candidates, regardless of political stripe, who stepped forward to run in the federal byelection on November 26th. It takes great courage to put your name on the ballot. Having said that, I am very disappointed in the turnout by the voting public. Only 35 pre cent of eligible individuals bothered to participate in what is our greatest right. Just watch the evening news and see the hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in Egypt or the thousands being killed in Syria. They are fighting for the rights that we obviously take for granted. Worse still, we are mere weeks beyond Remembrance Day when we honoured our veterans for their sacrifices. They fought and died in order that we are able to participate in the democratic process. Failure to vote is the ultimate insult to all those heroes both past and present. failure see page 3