Why teach in Quebec?: We asked one young man this question and his answer was that he was born here and educated here and he was darned if he was going to be squeezed out of his own home province.

Fortunately for our schools there are other like-minded people but it is a sad fact that a great number of English speaking teachers take the necessary steps to become accredited across the river.

Quebec teachers have a lower maximum salary than Ontario teachers and it takes longer for them to get to it. The initial salary in Western Quebec is $8,323 whereas in Ontario it is $10,800. A teacher with five years of experience in Quebec gets $9,990, while the Ontario teacher with that much experience makes $15,430, which just happens to be two thousand dollars more than the maximum in Quebec.

In the last twelve months, teachers’ salaries in the rest of Canada have increased up to 40% and not one province or territory in Canada has a lower minimum or maximum salary for its teachers than Quebec.

There is a theory that Quebec can always obtain teachers on the cheap, at least in the French schools, because French speaking teachers can’t go anywhere else — and as for the English schools, the theory is that the Government of Quebec really couldn’t care less!

If there are other theories we’d sure like to hear them and pass them on because the one stated above is sick, sick, mad!

Hot contest in Pontiac: The possibility of a woman mayor looms as Mrs. Joan Brady filed nomination papers Monday. Mrs. Brady, secretary of the township of Eardley and also secretary of the provisional council of the amalgamated municipalities for one time, is the third mayoralty candidate to enter the race. In some quarters her nomination was unexpected but then with the fair sex one never knows just what is going on. Better keep their heads at any time. And let the men take heed, never underestimate the power of a woman.

Other aspirants to the mayor’s chair are William “Bill” Burke, mayor of the provisional council last year, a former mayor of Quyon and a former warden of Pontiac County, and Marcel Lavigne, also a former mayor of his township of Eardley and a member of the provisional council in its initial year.