Look who we caught admiring Tuula's buns

Yep, that's Jack Layton, learning all about bun-making late last week from A Taste of Scandia's Tuula Valkonen.

The federal NDP leader and about 20 of his friends dropped by Tuula's Queen Street East eatery for breakfast.

Layton said that Tuula Valkonen makes such good buns that he and Sault MP Tony Martin are having the restaurant cater a big celebration for Tony next month.

Layton says he'll be coming back to town to help Tony celebrate his 15 years in politics, so far.

The big shindig will be held at the Steelworkers Hall on Dennis Street on November 12.

Layton said that Martin has been taking advantage of every opportunity to talk to other federal members about the issues facing people in Northern Ontario.

During a Town Hall meeting a gas prices the previous day, Martin joined with Layton in a call for real action from the federal government.

He invited people to visit his website to sign and send a post card to the Prime Minister.

"Tomorrow morning when he's drinking his coffee and reading his mail, as he usually does, he's going to hear from Sault Ste. Marie," said Martin. "We have to inundate the prime minister."

At the same meeting, Tony Martin offered the floor to a number of speakers, including Jack Tindall,) to tell how rising fuel prices have affected them.

Tindall, a farmer from Echo Bay, said he was worried about planting next spring.

"When I start the tractors up, I'm in the same position as the loggers," said Tindal. "It's going to cost me more to put the crop in the ground than it will pay to harvest it."

Richard Folz, an owner-operator of forestry harvesting equipment working north of Heyden, said he had to lay off one full-time and one part-time person since fuel prices started to really climb and he's still losing money.

Folz said that most timber harvesters are locked in to contracts with lumber and paper companies and that there's little hope of raising delivery prices to cover rising higher costs.

"They [lumber and paper companies] say there's no money when we ask for fuel surcharges," said Folz.

About 60 visitors to the Union Hall also heard from a taxi driver, Ray Dawson, who said that taxis are a lot busier now that gas prices are up, but they aren't making any more money.

An elderly woman also reminded people at the meeting that fuel runs furnaces as well as cars and tractors.

She said that her heating bill for the past three months is over $1,000 and she may not be able to continue to live in her house over the winter.

Genesio Paciocco said the only solution to hardships faced by Canadians over rising fuel costs is to put control of the industry in the hands of government.

"Cost is no excuse," said Paciocco. "The returns from that cost will come back to the people in no time."