Roads

June 18, 1954

Roads are very much in the public eye at the present, so perhaps a few words on them may not be out of place. We have come to the time of year when the days are long. Bright sunshine and balmy airs beckon one from the gas-filled streets of the town to the pure air of the country side. And away we go rolling along the rural roads to jake, stream or forest for a change from the hum-drums of everyday life. It is about these country roads I want to say a few words.

Many of our visitors from the states to the south have often mentioned our side roads and contrast them with the so-called highway, not to the benefit of the later. They look around to sparsley settled district and say "How do you do it?" When one considers that there are three or four hundred miles of roads in Kenora district to be kept in order by rural municipalities and seventeen Statute Labour Boards, one can easily ask "How do you do it?" That is done with some assistance from the Department of Highways, and is all to the credit of the district. We are beginning to realize the importance of these rural roads when we look at the hundreds of visitors who use them. Do you think they would come and risk cars or even life and limb if these same roads were not maintained?

These roads have a chequered history--mainly political, giving point to the saying that a politician looks only to the next election, a statesman to the next generation.

I go back rather more than 50 years to get the right prospective. I arrived in Dryden looking for a home and incidentally any job that might be going. I heard there was some road building going on west of the town and walked out to see about getting work. Approaching the foreman I asked for a job--I knew the wages were ten cents an hour and a ten hour day--but I was not prepared for his question in response to my inquiry.

I was a green Englishman, and had already experienced the feeling that an Englishman was not altogether a "personal gratis" to the average Canadian, in fact we were classed mostly as "mud pups" acting more or less like those described so beautifully by Bob Edwards in the Calgary Eye-opener. So when I was asked "How did I vote," I was taken completely off balance. I said "Conservative," "No job for you," and away I went but like Paddy's parrot, doing a lot of thinking. I had come to Canada at the invitation of the Canadian government, which had placarded the United Kingdom with huge posters saying that there was need of men, and work for all, only to be asked "How did I vote." These were the days of the declining Ross Administration--and disclosures in Parliament of the cruise of the "Minnie M", almost forgotten today, brought about an election.

Having said I was Conservative I stuck to it although I did not know the difference in policy between one or the other--Liberal--and after 50 years I don't except that one is in and the other out. However I was asked to go to Camp 10 as R.D.O. with two others from Dryden. Camp 10 was north of Vermilion Bay. Counting several others in the same condition. To conclude this story, next year, election year, they opened the road, putting it in charge of a couple of good Tories who didn't know a cow-trail from a concrete highway. Out of curiosity I took a look at the lay-out. The stakes through the swamps were lovely, all nicely peeled, and squinting along them, I found, that if carried out, my farm house would be exactly in the middle of the road; the road outlined would be about eight rods off centre. It took an hour's argument to make the foreman see differently. Query, "Does a good party man make a good road builder?"

Now let me give another illustration of the business of putting party men in to run the roads, and both parties, Liberal and Tory are guilty. When the boys came home from World War No. 1 it will be revealed by the older generation that notices appeared on business buildings and factories that "No returned men need apply." Considerable road activity was going on around Dryden and many of the boys applied for jobs. If of the right political stripe they got one--the others, no. This raised a bit of fuss, but there was no legion in those days to fight the battle.

It so happened that Col. Finlayson, Minister of Lands and forests, with two other members of the Legislature was to address a meeting in Dryden. The late Harry Davidson and myself were asked to attend that meeting and state our case. We sat in the front row and I had some difficulty restraining Harry from jumping right in. I kept telling him, "Wait a minute, you are getting them jumpy." Anyone who has been on a public platform and knows someone is waiting to ask questions can appreciate the situation. Finlayson could stand it no longer, and stopping his speech pointed at Harry and myself and wished to know if there was anything we wanted. Harry tore into the situation. Finlayson listened and then asked me if I had anything to say. I said I did and asked if he recalled the posters, "Town, King and Country Need You." He did. "Didn't say," I asked "that only Tories would be accepted?" "Why," he asked. "Well," I said, "Now that we are back and want work it is only the particular political faith who can get it." I retorted. "See you later," said the minister. I did and gave him names and places and I noticed the next day that any boy who wanted a job got one. And the sequel: Six months later I was picked up on the road by the road engineer. Sitting in his car he said, "We have had enough of your interferences with the roads; We are going to run you out of this country." "That" I said "will take brains, and I haven't seen any super abundance of the commodity in your party. I'll be here years after you are gone and forgotten."

I got out and walked home.

Memories of other days crowd on me, but I think I have said enough to prove that roads and politics do not make good bed fellows.

The Department complains that they can't get good men. And never will they make the job worthwhile by paying salaries to the men and engineers actually or the job equal to that of others in similar jobs and not make a political faith a factor in being hired or employed. We are only on the verge of road expansion in this north Country and we want roads, not politics, on which to run our cars.