Welcome to the first week of February 2005—this will happen from time to time as the 20-year-old weekly editions of the Voice don't always jive with today's dates. But given that February starts tomorrow I think we'll survive this tiny ripple of time-travel dissonance.
The big front page news on Wednesday, February 2 2005 was that, and I quote, "The Pelham Star Tile Bantam Rep. Panthers were 40 seconds away from securing a birth in the finals of the International Silver Stick Tournament in Port Huron Michigan."
Yes, in the first of many typos to come this week, a group of young boys was about to "birth" a hockey final.
Beyond the birthing, this is also curious phrasing, since in fact the poor fellas were not 40 seconds away from securing anything. They lost, to a team from Kingsville, who went on to win it in overtime. My belated condolences, guys.
At the end of the story we are assured, however, that "the weekend tournament was enjoyed by all and the Panthers can be proud of their accomplishment as semi-finalists in this prestigious invitational tournament."
Here be those cats, their eyes looking more like a posse of midnight raccoons caught near the green bins:
Too young to care about Silver Stick competitions, we find three tots having fun on a purpose-built snow slide:
Now, before we move on to more pleasant sportive achievements, with regret we must once again descend into the swamp of bigotry and homophobia surrounding same-sex marriage. (Man, I sure hope this is the end of it, but your guess is as good as mine—I'm not looking more than a week or two ahead in these old papers.)
Our bigot du jour this time around is (then-newly elected) MP Dean Allison. First, let's take a look at the photo that accompanied the story:
What a rogues' gallery of prejudice in this "Coaltion," eh.
You'd like to imagine that the attitudes that fed such a petition drive are now just an historical black stain, 20 years later, but bigotry has been making a comeback lately.
The self-righteous certainty held by such dogmatists that love is some sort of private club, and that only certain select humans are allowed membership in that club, is as fundamentally dehumanizing as the insistence that females aren't fit to vote, that whites-only bus seats and hotels are just nifty, and that residential schools and concentration camps were efficient ways of taming (or burning) a bothersome minority.
The lengthy story accompanying the photo lays out Dean Allison's clear conviction that the gay folks should stay on their end of the matrimonial aisle, i.e., nowhere near it:
"Allison noted that when a constituent calls his office with concerns over same-sex marriage, he automatically sends them a petition to add their voice to the thousands who have already signed."
In his first campaign for the seat, just a few months before, Allison said that he "felt strongly in favour of the traditional definition of marraige," and I'm leaving that original Voice typo in "marriage" because it poetically sums up the imbecility of those who imagine that they, and they alone, know the One True Path, and furthermore insist by law that everyone else follow it.
So what does MP Allison have to say about same-sex marriage now, 20 years after it was made the law of the land, after even Stephen Harper declined to revisit the issue?
Did Allison—like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Dick Cheney before him—change his thinking on same-sex marriage, lagging behind the public at large, eventually finding it politically expedient to "evolve" his position?
Good question.
Allison's spokesperson neither replied to nor acknowledged our request for comment—sent several days ago.
In fact, ever since the Voice reported on Allison's apparent endorsement of the crackpot conspiracy theory that a livestock dewormer was a Covid cure, Allison has managed not to respond to a single request for comment from the Voice or PelhamToday.
But were I betting man, I'd wager that Allison is as anti-marriage equality today as he was when he was first elected two long decades ago. Let us not forget his 2023 meeting with radically far-right German politician Christine Anderson, visiting Canada to support the "Freedom Convoy," whose AfD party feeds on not just anti-gay propaganda but also serves up a bloody banquet of other deplorable dishes—opposition to immigration and Islam, anti-feminism, climate change denial, anti-Semitism, and support for Vladimir Putin. So, yeah, a real peach for the MP to entertain on our Niagara patch.
In 2005, our story quoted Allison saying of federal Parliament members, “We hope there are enough politicians with a backbone to vote for what is right and honourable.”
In a delicious paradox, Allison's hope came true, just not the way he had hoped.
Moving on.
This week's mystery subject is one Julia Carter, 7 years old in 2005. Here she is, and do enjoy the possibly record-setting four typos in a single photo caption:
Julia would be 27 or 28 today, a demographic not known for their interest in community news websites, meaning she's almost certainly not going to see this, even if she's still living in Pelham. So we need your help.
Know Julia? Know her parents? Drop us a line and tell us where, among the approximately 2 million Julia Carters existing on the internet, we might find this one!
Next up, just when you thought we were done with shiny leotards it's more gymnasts:
Then it's on to fundraising by our various local Tim Hortons franchisees of the day. (Apparently at some later date we figured out how to spell "restaurants." Once is a typo, twice is a habit.)
Finally, opening Heart and Stroke Month we find Mayor Ron Leavens assisted by a bevy of ladies. Awareness campaigns for these concerns were later split into two months—February is now Heart Month, and June is Stroke Month. I'm sorry to report that among those in this photo, only Marilyn Ozog is still with us.
If you missed our 20-year catch-up with last week's mystery subject, Stacey Kerr, find it here. And once again, if you can help us track down Julia Carter, please let us know!
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