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2 - Orono Weekly Times, Wednesday, December 3,2003 ) V Subscriptions $29.91 + $2.09 GST = $32.00 per year. Publications Mail Registration No. 09301 • Agreement No. 40012366 Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs. " > Orono Weekly Times 5310 Main Street, P.O. Box 209, Orono, Ontario LOB 1M0 Email: oronotimes@speedline.ca • Phone/Fax 905-983-5301 Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart 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 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. Group of Seven held hostage An article featured in Tuesday's Toronto Star, I'm sure hit a raw nerve with many who read it and feel a connection connection with the Group of Seven artists, and what they stand for. The piece by Star Staff Reporter Christopher Hutsul on page 3 of the GTA section, explains how the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), in an effort to streamline their operations operations on the heals of some tough economic times exacerbated exacerbated by the SARS outbreak in the city of Toronto last year, have closed their Group of Seven exhibit from public public viewing. Faced with a decreasing number of visitors and increasing costs, the public art gallery's board have decided to lock away their Group of Seven exhibit existing existing of approximately 240 works. According to an AGO spokesperson quoted in Hutsel's article, the Group of Seven exhibit space was easily cordoned off without interfering interfering with other exhibits in the Gallery. The collection of art, by one of Canada's national treasures treasures - the Group of Seven artists, who were the first to embrace a distinctive Canadian Art Movement, is now locked away in the gallery where incidently, they held their first exhibit in 1920. If the AGO Board had intended to raise the public's ire by this move, it certainly has managed to do that. If locking locking away the Group's collection is the AGO's answer to their budgetary woes, maybe they should let the collection go. Holding the Group's paintings hostage is no way to treat such a national treasure. Now that the public can no longer see the Group of Seven exhibit at their Ontario Gallery, the public would be better served if the AGO where to lend the collection to other galleries that would give the Group of Seven the respect they deserve. Letters to the Editor "Thrashed over trash" OPINION Oak Ridges Moraine more than just Richmond Hill by Michael Scott Executive Director Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation Dear Editor, That's Right! I would love to thrash the guys who pick up my trash! Being a single female living living on Regional Road 20 has it's highs and lows. My lows come Monday mornings when it's time to retrieve my recycle bins and large plastic trash barrel with a friction fit lid. I'm always curious over where I'll end up finding them and what else got left behind after trash pick-up. On several occasions I've gone down into my ditch to retrieve cardboard items. Must have been the wind, right? They just can't put the lid on the can after pick-up either to make it less of a seek and find episode for me. This past Monday topped off an already bad situation. It snowed between the 7a.m. pick-up and the 10 a.m. retrieval. After picking up several cans that were dropped by them on my driveway, I was on the hunt for my trash can lid. After putting on Snowmobile boots, I was forced to kick through the knee deep snow in the surrounding surrounding ditches to recover it! Living rurally has it's advantages but our taxes have risen quite a bit with little provided provided (i.e. sewers, sidewalks, water and so on). You would think that the one of the few services we receive could get it right. Put the lids back on the cans and if you drop items while collecting, take some pride in your job and pick up after yourself, please. Colleen Wolff Regional Road 20 Pontypool Orono's downtown sparkles after a little help from its friends Dear Margaret: I would like to say how beautiful the town looked at the 'Lighting of the Lights' on Friday night. Many thanks to Jeanne Burnside for working tirelessly putting up the trees and decorating them. Let us not forget the few dwarfs that helped her, Dopey, Sneezy and Grumpy and the wicked witch that helped in the pouring pouring rain. Clifford Francis Orono From news reports over the past week, you would not be alone if you thought the Oak Ridges Moraine began and ended in Richmond Hill. But this is just not so. How is it that a small parcel of land currently under dispute in this town - important land, no doubt - is confused with the entire Moraine, 160 kilometers of rolling hills, valleys and streams? Maybe part of the answer lies in the fact that few of us know much about the Moraine and why it's protection protection is so important. The Oak Ridges Moraine is large, and Richmond Hill occupies less than 1 percent. The Moraine is so large that it would take you 10 days to walk across it's full length from the Niagara Escarpment to its eastern edge near Peterborough. It is a rich and complex ecological region, and it's influence stretches across an area or almost one million hectares - lands and water sources crucial to us all, from Lake Ontario north to Simcoe, west to the Niagara Escarpment and east to the Trent River. If you were to walk the Moraine trails, you would experience the meadows, streams, pastures, open country, country, forests, wood lots, "kettle" lakes and wetlands formed by retreating glaciers. If you looked and listened carefully, you might even notice more than 1000 different plant MORAINE continuai p»Q9 6