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oT "A Family Tradition for 133 Years" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, February 2, 1999 - 7 -- | The Pod Povey Shay ---------- ---- Question of the Week... | Do you have a suggestion that you think would make a good question of the week? Call us at 905-985-7383. job to keep it safe, but they can't be everywhere all the time. ad here. Also, if you can smell their fumes, I think theyre too close to shore. the shore where the kids are. But, it is also hard for the police to regulate. Do you think rules and regulations 3% | . for sowmoblers should be Gregg Williams Wilma Elliott Darrell Spinks Ed Williamson Wilf Jones ¥ enforced; Speeds on the lake should They seem to be going Yes, I think they should I certainly do. That kind No, not really. There has be slowed down. The awfully fast out there; do something, especially of speed out there is hor- to be a place Miers Suys police-are doing a good they're just flying by to keep them away from rendous; that's the kind can wind up and let it £0; you can't do that on the road. They can't legislate common sense though. where guys get hurt. They should really slow down out there. fil LETTERS Abolition of bear hunt the right move To the Editor: In recent years, Ontario had its share of caring and compassionate governments. To create an Ontario dream world, they overtaxed, overspent and implemented programs like employment equity. Maybe the motives were right, but the results were wrong. Overspending and over- taxation created unemployment, and employ- ment equity made racial relations worse. Then came Mike Harris. He lowered taxes, reduced spending and abolished employment equity. Like magic, Ontario's economy began to flourish. There was nothing special about what Mike Harris did. He simply encouraged and allowed Ontarians to do for themselves what they could and should do for themselves. Future generations of well-educated Ontarians will be grateful for the much-needed reforms Mike Harris introduced in the school system. He had the courage - which previous governments lacked - to cut the education establishment down to size a few notches. The protests were deafening, but now we know: The education system is there to serve our students, not the education establishment. This month, Mike Harris again demonstrated courage and compassion when he abolished Ontario's spring bear hunt. For many years, national and international organizations have criticized Ontario for allowing the hunting of bears when they are still weak after a long hibernation. Female bears are then often accompanied by cubs, which are too young to fend for them- selves. Though females with cubs are not sup- posed to be shot, it often happened and the cubs usually starved to death. According to the Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters, the spring bear hunt brings in $17 million a year in direct revenue, and adds $40 million a year to the Ontario economy. Natural Resources Minister John Snobelen said the orphaning of cubs swayed the government to end the hunt. The government intends to assist tourist outfitters in making a transition into other activities. The price to do this will be worth it to most Ontarians. Evert Vroegh, Hampton operators are, from left: M. THE GOOD OLD DAYS - 1957 - Operators manually connected thousands of local calls from this Port Parry Bell Telephone switchboard every year. Telephone 8 ar . Cassidy, D.J. Martyn, M. Hooey and P.M. Warriner. - K 4 Editor's Notepad SEEN YOUR SHADOW TODAY? It being Groundhog Day and all, no doubt everybody's praying for cloud cover. ...Eh? ...What? You'd forgotten Groundhog Day? The day on which, legend has it, everybody's favourite rodent takes a break from hibernation, or a long table hockey tournament, or watching an endless stream of daytime television, or whatever, sticks his head from the entrance of his lair, sniffs at the mid-winter air, and makes a silent prognostication on the duration of the remainder of said season? | He sees his shadow, he shrieks and buggers off back to the comfort of his couch, so the legend goes, and winter goes on another six weeks. He doesn't, and he comes out to wallow happily in the snow and romp on the pavement until he's crushed by a passing mini-van. Bingo! Spring's right around the corner. (...| inadvertently typed coroner there. Hmmm. Does it mean something? Does spring need to come imediately? Quick! Look out the window! Isn't that a dense cloud bank moving in?) By now you've had enough of columnists telling you that this is Canada and we should just toughen up and endure the season, maybe even enjoy it, and Mel Lastman is a cry-baby and a knob for calling in the army for a few centimetres of snow, and blah, blah, blah, so I'll just skip that. Instead, we ought to stick with animals. Specifically, the cat: The cat's gone nuts, and | think it's because winter's been just a tad too long. She spends most of the day sleeping in the clothes hamper, and arises occasionally to run around the kitchen in a frenzy, then pounce on my ankle and sink sharp teeth and claws into my flesh. | know it's not rabies, 'cause she's had shots. Nope. it's cabin fever, plain and simple. So why shouldn't the groundhogs be getting a little bit skittish, too? Lord knows, a smelly underground lair isn't much of an improvement over a smelly laundry hamper (except that there is virtually no danger of having a load of dirty socks dumped on you without warning). It's little wonder that by this point in the winter you're able to walk anywhere at all without finding yourself knee-deep in swarms of stinking, mangy field rats that have been underground for too long. It's a miracle any of us has pant legs left at all. All of this points to the many benefits of hockey, of course. We can shovel an ice patch on the lake, or rent the rink for an hour, or just root for the Leafs. Better to pin your hopes on them than some varmint.