Daily Archives: February 19, 2010

By Doug Draper

Niagara’s Brock University has launched a website lovers of history and all of us who should know more about our history should treasure on both sides of our Canada-U.S. border.

War of 1812 military button. Courtesy of Lundys Lane Historical Museum.

It is a website featuring more than 1,000 items and 22,000 images from the War of 1812 and it is fitting that a university bearing the name of one of that conflict’s most iconic generals – Isaac Brock for the British side – is showcasing it over an internet site you can access at www.1812history.com.

This website, launched this February 18, “aims to provide a snapshot of the time period in an effort to give a wide-ranging overview of daily social, economic and political lives (of people during the War of 1812),” according to a media release the university circulated on the occasion of the launch. “Items like newspapers, business ledgers, letters, clothing, household objects and articles from the war are included on the site.” Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

Opposition parties in the Ontario legislature hammered the province’s Liberal government once again this February 18 over hospital costs in Niagara and the possibility that they may have contributed to the death of Fort Erie teen Reilly Anzovino.

Reilly Anzovino

Reilly died following a car accident on Hwy. 3 in the late hours of this past Boxing Day,  enroute or very shortly after arrival by ambulance to the Welland hospital site.

Concerns that she may have lived if ambulance paramedics could have taken her to the Fort Erie or Port Colborne hospital sites instead of Welland are so pervasive that members of all three major political parties in the province – Liberal MPP Kim Craitor from the Niagara Falls/Fort Erie area, NDP MPP Peter Kormos from the Welland/Port Colborne area and Tim Hudak, a Niagara area MPP who is now leader of the province’s Conservative Party, have called for a public inquest.

A plea for a public inquest was also made this past January by Reilly’s parents, Tim Anzovino and Denise Kennedy, and that, along with other related stories on health care and hospital cuts in Niagara, can be found by clicking on www.niagaraatlarge.com. Niagara At Large will also reprise the letter Reilly’s parents sent to Ontario’s chief coroner, asking for an inquest, at the end of this post.

But before that, Niagara At Large is once again publishing hansard from the Ontario legislature this February 18, with oppositions critics slamming the McGuinty government, once again, for gutting hospital services in the southern tier of Niagara and calling on the government to hold an inquiry into the circumstances around Reilly’s death.

You can read the debate, featuring Hudak, McGuinty, Liberal health minister Deborah Matthews, Tory health critic Christine Elliott and others by clicking on ‘keep reading’ at the end of this sentence. Continue reading →