Sex – as in sex education – was being debated on different fronts in the city in March 1975. At the annual Children’s Aid Society meeting, a University of Toronto professor, who headed up the department of social work, called for taking sex education from behind the proverbial barn and into classrooms across the province.
He proposed that sex education begin with Grade 9 students. Meanwhile, a former United Church of Canada moderator, speaking at a different venue in the city, said sex education was the job of the family and shouldn’t be passed on to school boards. “Too many parents don’t have the guts to do it (at home),” he said. “So they want to subcontract it (to schools).” Meanwhile, the SD and G County Board of Education, in an 11-4 vote, approved a pilot ethics/family values course for its high school students. It was to be optional.
One dissenting trustee, straying off topic, said preachers needed to do a better job when it came to guiding young people down the ethics path. Too many Sunday sermons, he said, were boring and turning young people away from going to church. Another dissenter said it would be an easy way to pick up a course credit.
ALSO IN MARCH 1975 – The Ontario government approved funding for a theatre at St. Lawrence College. In making the announcement, the government put a damper on funding for the former Capitol Theatre. Premier William Davis said the city didn’t need two theatres…When it came to dangerous levels of asbestos in the water supply, Cornwall ranked No. 4 in the province. More alarming was that tests were carried out on water which had gone through the filtration system. Former Ontario chief coroner Dr. Morton Shulman, now an NDP MPP for High Park, and an annoying thorn in the butt of the Davis government, called the levels more harmful to residents than smoking. But a provincial ministry of health consultant down-played the danger and labelled Shulman an alarmist. His report claimed there wasn’t substantial proof that asbestos in drinking water was a health hazard. (Somebody should have checked the guy’s qualifications)…Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry County School Board approved a pilot ethics course to be taught in its high schools. Dissenting trustees – four – said religion did not have a place in public school classrooms. Trustee Lorne Mellon said “uninteresting” sermons were turning young people away from church where ethics should be taught…Meanwhile, a University of Toronto school of social work prof was telling the United Counties Children’s Aid Society annual meeting that sex education and family values should be taught in schools, starting in Grade 9…City House Director Laurier Courville said his department would start enforcing the city minimum standards bylaw passed two years earlier. He estimated that 40% of the 15,000 dwellings in the city were non-complainant. He said some residents were living in homes that should be condemned…When somebody in the Domtar paper mill personnel department checked Claude Lalonde’s employee file when he retired on March 1, it was discovered that in his 36 years at the mill, he had never called in sick. It was a record…Faced with provincial government funding cuts, Hotel Dieu Hospital said it was forced to close nine beds.
TAKE TWO Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) at Glen-Stor-Dun Lodge had their first contract. Hourly rate for the 56 employees went to $3.30 and hour from $2.47 in a one-year deal…An engineering report on the Alexandria arena called the building unsafe with several structural flaws and in need of repairs to the tune of $90,000. However, Deputy Mayor J. P. Touchette said if snow was kept off the roof, there was no danger…Brookdale Avenue residents complained to the city that the international bridge had become a favourite hang-out for pigeons – hundreds of them – with droppings on their properties a health hazard. One alderman had a rather unique solution: Close off Brookdale Avenue and bridge traffic for a day and let the shooting begin…Nancy Eadie (strings) and Linda Lee Rempel (pianist) shared the grand prize at the Kinsmen Music Festival.
HITS AND MISSES Love him or hate him, as the saying goes, you have to be proud, as a Canadian, for the way Trudeau the Younger called out bully Trump over his trade tariffs. Pierre would be proud…Ryan Lomberg of the Calgary Flames is grandson of long-time Cornwall resident Doug Lomberg. Ryan played on last season’s Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
TRIVIA ANSWER Cornwall native Orval Tessier, coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, won the Jack Adams Trophy as National Hockey League coach of the year in 1983. Tessier, who spent parts of three seasons in the NHL with Les Canadiens and Bruins, was a record-setting minor league goal scorer. He became one of junior hockey’s most successful coaches, guiding the Royals to a Memorial Cup in 1972 and taking the Kitchener Rangers to the Memorial Cup final in 1981, losing to the Royals.
TRIVIA Cornwall world champion hammer throw athlete Roderick “Big Rory” McLennan quit the sport in 1877 when a young female spectator was struck and killed by the iron ball he had thrown. In which local park did the tragedy take place. 1) Athletic Grounds, 2) King George Park, 3) Mattice Park, 4) Central Park, 5) None of these.
QUOTED “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” – Donald Trump, 2012
