Harry Stemp was born in Uxbridge in 1934. He started his career with the Uxbridge Times-Journal as an apprentice typesetter at age 14. He soon began writing sports for the Times-Journal and eventually owned 10 community newspapers in central Ontario including the Times-Journal. He started writing his award-winning Stemp’s Stew in 1965. The column came to an end shortly after he sold his newspaper chain in 1989, but was rejuvenated in 2006 when Harry became a regular contributor to The Cosmos.
The wild west
Can't imagine the feeling a parent must have hearing from their child that a fellow student had arrived at school with a loaded .38-calibre pistol in his backpack. I have two grandchildren in school and the sick feeling that swept through my body was hard to handle.
Then I thought how lucky they attend Uxbridge Public School and the chances of this happening is, hopefully, a big zero.
But not so in some schools in Toronto and that is exactly what happened last week. Fortunately the principal stepped in to break up a confrontation and found the pistol when checking one boy's backpack and called the police. Had this not happened, imagine how different and terrifying the end story might have been.
Much of the shock came in knowing that a young student could get his hands on a gun like this in the first place. After all, this is Canada and we do not have the love of guns like our neighbours in the United States. The right to bear arms is alive and well and as long as the powerful National Rifle Association exists, that is not likely to change.
Also in Florida they have the constitutional right to defend themselves if they feel their life is in danger. If you can prove you were defending yourself from being killed, you can actually kill someone and not be charged with murder. Unbelievable.
The recent much publicized case of a young black man being shot and killed by a self-appointed neighbourhood watchman is a classic example. He was told by the 911 operator not to chase down the young man as police were on their way. As you know, he ignored that order and the young black man was killed. The shooter pleaded self-defense and it was several weeks before authorities bowed to public outrage and charges were laid.
There was a heated argument between several locals and myself at happy hour in Florida involving the right to bear arms. One man finally said “do you know there are more guns per capita in Canada than in the U.S.” I disagreed, even though he was backed up by a few of his friends.
Next day I checked it out on the net and put the question to Wikipedia and arrived the next day to prove him wrong. The chart covered guns in 50 countries and I was shocked when I read that, for every 100 persons in the U.S., there were 88 guns. I looked around the bar and wondered if pistol-packing mommas surrounded me. Canada was well down the list with 38 guns per 100. The figure for the UK was a very low 7 per 100, which probably explains why, for years, police were not armed.
Even though I received a free cold one from my attacker, it didn't give me a good feeling to know that in many parts of our friendly nation to the south they still live with the 'wild west' attitude. And being armed is a right they will never give up.
Sad. It seems to me there is a saying “live by the gun, die by the gun” and, sadly, because of our lax immigration laws the city of Toronto is heading down that path.
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It was a busy, and fun, time on the banks of Elgin Pond Saturday as young and old arrived to catch the 'big one' during the Huck Finn Fishing Derby.
This event that has been going for 10 years seems to grow every year, and those who work very hard to make it a success deserve a huge pat on the back. Heading the pack is Pat Higgins, of Canada Tire, who has been a huge supporter from day one. And this year was no different. Pat made sure that every young person fishing received a fun gift and I hear that every child who caught a fish went home with a new rod and reel compliments of Canadian Tire.
But the winning trout, which weighed in at 2 lb., was caught by the same female angler who won last year. A highlight this year was the unveiling of the attractive concrete 'trout' monument (painted by local artisdt Joanne Hutchinson) marking the 10th anniversary of this fun event.
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Our local representative in Ottawa, MP Bev Oda, finds herself in hot water once again; this time it was not so much what she said as what she did,
At a conference in London, England, she cancelled her room where the conference was being held and moved over to the five-star Savoy Hotel where she enjoyed a $16 glass of orange juice and then hired a limo to take her back and forth to the conference - charging all this to the Canadian taxpayer.
Agreed she has offered an apology to the Canadian taxpayers and reimbursed them for the added expense. But this was a weak move as most Canadians realize that she only did this because she was caught.
This isn't the first time Oda has been in hot water abusing her position as a Cabinet Minister. Her love of limos has put her in hot water many times. She paid back over $2,000 for limos when she attended the Juno awards in Halifax and in 2008 she was accused of not disclosing $17,000 in other limo expenses.
Sadly, this isn't an isolated case when it comes to politicians and bureaucrats using tax dollars to live the high life style when traveling on government business. It happens all the time. Some get caught, some don't.
So what does this mean for Bev Oda? The scuttlebutt coming out of Ottawa, especially from friends in the press gallery, is that she will not be part of the next Harper cabinet. Too bad because in spite of her spending problems she has been a good member for our riding and our community has benefited on many occasions when she went to bat for projects that were being pushed by Uxbridge council.
But politics at the top level of government in Canada is a tough business and you get very few chances to embarrass the government. When you run out of those chances it results in being shipped to the backbenches. Only time will tell whether this will be Bev Oda's fate.
