Editorials - May 15, 2026
Room to grow
Spring couldn’t have come at a worse time for Canadian farmers. While farmers are in their tractors preparing the land and planting crops, anxiety is mounting around record-high diesel and fertilizer prices.
We are hardy, rural stock and used to the whims of Mother Nature and commodity markets. Farmers are not generally fazed by the uncertainties of agriculture, but the whims of a president and the fate of a narrow body of water half a world away piled on top of the usual stress is a lot to take, especially at the outset of the season. There is no relief in sight, so sky-high diesel prices are likely going to affect the entire 2026 season from getting the crops in the ground to harvest to distribution. Just type fertilizer and fuel into your computer’s search engine and watch as news articles from across the globe echo the worry facing farmers everywhere.
Hopefully, a solution between the U.S. and Iran is found before the entire world’s food supply is in jeopardy.
In the face of such times, farmers need to be encouraged to look after their mental health. The agricultural industry tends to tough it out, rather than talk it out, but asking for help isn’t a weakness. Please reach out if the stress is getting to you. We are all in this together. – DS
Is it happening again?
So goes the eerie and haunting warning from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: it is happening again. It’s hard not to have that feeling as reports of the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship have spread like, well, the hantavirus after those first stories about a mysterious virus on the ship.
Medical officers of health around the country and in the U.S. (the ones R.F.K. Jr. hasn’t fired, anyway) are preaching patience, insisting that the risk to public health is low and that this is not, in fact, another case of the COVID-19 pandemic, posing worldwide implications. And yet, as cruise ship passengers disembark and head home, isolating at home and being monitored in regions as close as Grey-Bruce, it’s hard not to recall those early days of the pandemic when cases were tracked down to the municipality. Here in Huron County, COVID-19 was a city problem... until it wasn’t. That not-so-distant past has no doubt made those around Ontario tense up, harkening back to those dark days of lockdowns, case counting and watching the virus spread worldwide.
There are a number of pieces urging the public away from fearing another pandemic, but it’s simply human nature to flinch in the face of a stick with which you were struck just a few years earlier. This also brings to mind the responsibility on us that proved to be so divisive as the pandemic wore on. A CP24 story on hantavirus in Ontario states that the situation will be over “sooner rather than later” if “everyone does their job” which includes following public health regulations, including contact tracing, reporting, etc. Not to dive entirely back into it, but we know that some did their part, while others didn’t back in the early 2020s. That aspect could also be worrying for some people.
Right now we’re being told that risk is low and that staying the course is the right thing to do. And that’s really all we can do. – SL
Unhelpful oversimplification
The decision by CIBC to close its branch in Brussels is an important story and one worth national attention. Rural bank closures affect seniors, small businesses, farmers, community organizations and residents who still depend on face-to-face service. In a story about the CIBC bank closure, published in The Globe and Mail, writer Mariya Postelnyak notes that local newspapers in Brussels “occasionally” print graduation photos and references a past Huron Citizen story about a cow giving birth to triplets, concluding, “It’s that kind of small town.”
To begin with, graduation coverage is not something The Citizen publishes “occasionally.” It is annual coverage, produced deliberately and consistently because local graduates and their accomplishments matter to the communities they come from. Community newspapers across rural Ontario continue to print graduation features because readers care deeply about them. The reference to a cow giving birth to triplets is similarly unhelpful. Rural newspapers cover agricultural stories because agriculture is central to rural life and economies. A once-in-a-lifetime birth on a farm is naturally the sort of unusual local story that readers talk about. But presenting that article as representative of The Citizen’s coverage overlooks the actual breadth of reporting every week.
There was also an opportunity to examine another side of Brussels that local residents know well: the community’s ability to respond to challenges. Time and again, volunteers, businesses and organizations have stepped forward to support endeavours that matter. The community centre stands as one example of what collective effort can accomplish when residents decide something is worth saving and improving.
The best journalism works to understand why communities value what they value and how they respond to challenges. Rural Ontario is not frozen in time, nor is it defined by selective anecdotes chosen for atmosphere. – SBS