Editorials

It’s a scene that plays out every day. Your teen hops into a vehicle with their friends to head off to school or, say, return home from work. Or perhaps it’s your son or daughter who picks up their friends to go to a hockey game, band practice, fast food joint, or the movies across the river.
Harmless, right? Yet if new legislation proposed yesterday by the Ontario government is passed, that will be illegal.

Yesterday, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, marked the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I.
Known at the time as the “War to end all wars,” we know today that wasn’t the case, of course. The Second World War began just over 20 years later, followed by the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the two in Iraq, and now Afghanistan—not to mention the four wars in the Middle East and countless other smaller ones around the globe.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream—and last night it finally came true.
Forty years after Dr. King’s assassination, 40 years after the race riots that threatened to tear the nation apart, a black man stood before a throng of 250,000 cheering and crying people in Chicago to deliver his victory speech after being elected the 44th president of the United States.
It was an amazing scene that capped the long, arduous, tragic, and courageous journey from slavery to the White House.

According to the town’s new strategic plan, which was approved by council Monday night, a decision on whether to implement water meters in homes here is to be made by December, 2010.
It’s sure to be a contentious issue, with residents lining up on both sides of the debate, but really the decision is a no-brainer.
The most obvious advantage of a water meter system is that homes pay for what they use. Currently, a senior living alone is charged the same flat rate as a family of five even though he or she surely uses less water on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. What’s fair about that?

Our reporters have spent the past six weeks covering political leaders in our community, so it only seems appropriate that we now are turning our attention to the young leaders of our district.
We have been filling news pages with stories of how our political candidates plan to invoke changes that will see growth and stability among our residents and businesses. Now, we’re going to show you examples of how so many of our youths already are giving of their time and energy to make this a great place to live and work.

Congratulations, first, to NDP candidate John Rafferty, who captured the Thunder Bay-Rainy River riding on his third try, handily defeating Liberal incumbent Ken Boshcoff in yesterday’s federal election.

Fort Frances and district residents have given a ringing endorsement to the new Fort Frances Public Library and Technology Centre that’s to be built at the corner of Second Street East and Reid Avenue in behind the Memorial Sports Centre.
No, it wasn’t a campaign issue during a municipal election. Nor did they vote for it in a referendum. Instead, the public spoke in a much more powerful way—with their wallets. Needing a final $35,000 to reach the $750,000 local share of the project, the “Drive for 35” phone blitz launched on Sept. 22

“Election fever” has been painfully lacking in Rainy River District so far this campaign—with no more glaring example being the dreadful turnout at the Civic Centre last night for the all-candidates’ debate hosted by the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce.

We all know the legal drinking age in Ontario is 19. Everyone also knows, unless you have your head buried in the sand, that many teens consume alcohol on a regular basis.
It’s a situation that certainly isn’t new—nor is it one likely to change anytime soon.
The prevalence of teen drinking can’t be denied. The 2007 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey, a province-wide survey of 6,323 students in Grades 7-12, found just over 61 percent had used alcohol in the past year. And just over one-quarter had participated in binge drinking.

In U.S. politics, the term “lame duck” refers to a president nearing the end of his second term in the Oval Office because he is unable, under the Constitution, to seek a third one. In other words, he’s merely a caretaker until the new president, whether from his party or the other, is sworn in.