Editorials - Feb. 7, 2025

Donald Trump’s recent tariff announcement created an instant backlash among consumers, with calls to shop and source Canadian. 

 

Grocery lists are changing, travel plans are being re-routed, streaming services are shifting. It’s a defence mechanism that seems to have empowered average citizens, who, in all honesty, feel helpless when world politics threaten our average, work-a-day lives. While booing the U.S. national anthem at a sporting event might feel good in the moment, it probably does about as much good as howling at the moon. Joining the “Shop Canadian” movement might just have some real impact. 

 

Now the question is, “what is Canadian?” and, judging from the online comments, everyone has a different opinion. Some companies are wholly Canadian, using only Canadian materials and labour, but others are a confusing mix of ownership. Free trade has been around for decades, so American companies buy Canadian ingredients, assemble their products in the U.S. and ship them back. Canadian companies buy and sell American products. Companies are owned by international conglomerates.

 

It’s hard to know what is Canadian. Even Tim Hortons is a big question mark. The company is owned by a Canadian-American multinational in which a Brazilian company has a 32 per cent stake. However, franchises are locally owned. Is your morning double-double supporting Canada? Who knows. The key is to buy as many Canadian-made products as possible to help our economy weather the storm. Your shopping list may not eliminate all U.S. products, but the key is to not let perfection be the enemy of good intentions. – DS

On Jan. 28, Premier Doug Ford made the 44th general election of Ontario a reality, sending Ontarians to the polls a mere 31 days later. For a weekly community newspaper and its responsibility of keeping its local residents informed of the happenings of the election on a closest-to-home level, this presents a significant challenge.

 

You are reading the Feb. 7 issue of The Citizen - the first issue since the election was technically called (there were rumblings one week earlier that an early election would be called) and the deadline for nominations is Thursday, Feb. 13, meaning the Friday, Feb. 14 will not include a complete and final list of candidates for Huron-Bruce. That leaves the Feb. 21 issue as the only opportunity to get to you, our dear readers, accurate and confirmed information ahead of the Feb. 27 vote (the Feb. 28 issue will be too late for that information, but too early for the election results). A detailed election guide, dependent on the participation of the candidates on such a short timeline, is likely out of the question, so the only hope will be coverage of an all-candidates meeting, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 18 and hosted by the Huron County Federation of Agriculture. Aside from your existing level of familiarity with the candidates, that, it seems, will be all you get.

 

Perhaps this was done to keep everyone, including the media, on the back foot. Perhaps not. One thing is certain, Ontarians have a great responsibility to seek out accurate, vetted information on their local candidates. Look to your local media sources for the information they can provide. Whatever you do, do it quickly. The clock is ticking. – SL 

American film actor Nicolas Cage recently made an impassioned plea about the dangers of artificial intelligence infiltrating the arts. “Robots cannot reflect the human condition for us. That is a dead end,” he said. His words carry weight in a time when technology threatens to replace the heart and soul of artistic expression.

 

Huron County is privileged to host the Blyth Festival, the Livery Theatre, the Kingsbridge Centre and other dedicated community groups working tirelessly to truthfully tell local tales. These are places where real actors bring life to stories born from lived experience. Good theatre is a mirror that reflects a community’s history, struggles and triumphs in a way that no machine ever could. Not even a threshing machine.

 

Theatre thrives on authenticity, something AI will never be able to recreate. An algorithm may be able to generate a script, but it cannot understand the weight of a well-timed pause, the crackle in a voice signaling devastation and heartbreak, or the particular cadence of familiar dialects and local speech patterns. It cannot replace the magic of a community seeing its own stories reflected on stage by actors who have walked the same streets and observed the same sunsets.

 

Cage warns that, “if we let robots do that, it will lack all heart and eventually lose edge and turn to mush.” This is why community theatre groups are so vital. They safeguard a future in which art remains rooted in human creativity rather than being dictated by algorithms. 

 

As audiences, we must recognize the value of what we have and support it fiercely. Every ticket sold, every standing ovation and every conversation sparked by a performance helps preserve not just theatre, but the essence of human storytelling in Huron County. – SBS