Daily Archives: February 24, 2010

By Randy Busbridge

There is a special place in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Aireal shot of sprawling Parks Canada site along the shores of Lake Ontario in Niagara-on-the-Lake should be an eco-park, residents group says. Photo courtesy of Harmony Residents Group.

At the western edge of the Old Town lies a 270-acre property owned by Parks Canada. The site contains a magnificent Carolinian forest – one of the last on the shores of Lake Ontario. It contains beautiful creeks and estuaries. It includes an important War of 1812 battlefield: the site of the Battle of Fort George. It is the place that United Empire Loyalist John Secord, one of the first settlers of the area, called home. It is now the home of numerous birds, fish, amphibians and mammals.

Although it has been decades since a full and formal Species at Risk inventory has been conducted and published, we do know that it is home to the rare Red-Shouldered Hawk and at least one threatened plant species. Despite its ownership, historical importance and scientific significance, this property is not a park, and is not open to the public. Instead, the site has suffered through over a century of neglect and abuse.

Parts of the property have been variously used for a dump site, for sewage lagoons, and for an army rifle range and training site – showing a spectacular lack of appreciation for both our heritage and the environment. Despite this failure of stewardship, the property is serenely beautiful.

As anyone who has ignored the No Trespassing sign will attest – from dog walkers to senior citizens who grew up in the town – the property inspires feelings of reverence and awe.

This special place should be an eco-park – a natural heritage park that focuses on both our heritage and the environment. Continue reading →

By Fiona McMurran

Thanks to the hard work of individual citizens and organizations, as well as some local politicians, Niagara’s fight for accessible hospital services for all residents in the region has been recognized all across the province.

And yet the McGuinty government still doesn’t seem to be listening. So the Ontario Health Coalition, a non-profit group that speaks for Ontario residents, is giving concerned Niagara residents another opportunity to have our voices heard.

You may recall that last spring David Caplan, then-Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, responded to growing anger expressed by citizens across the province about the cuts to services and, in particular, the closures of emergency departments and hospitals in small, rural and northern communities, by creating a Rural and Northern Healthcare Panel to look into the provision of healthcare services in remote, small-town and rural Ontario.

There was rejoicing amongst those of us here in Niagara who had been giving much time and energy to the fight to keep hospitals in Fort Erie and Port Colborne open, and to oppose the Niagara Health System’s Hospital Improvement Plan, which calls for the cutting of major departments at the Welland General and the Greater Niagara General, and the integration of these departments into the new hospital complex the Niagara Health System is building in west St. Catharines. Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

 This coming March 1, the council of Fort Erie may very well support a plan to build a multi-storey condo tower that would be completely out of place in the historic, lakeside town of Crystal Beach, and would cast a shadow on the future on one of the last open beaches for the public in the Niagara region.

Bay Beach in Crystal Beach, Fort Erie may soon be lost as one of the last open access, public beaches in all of Niagara.

That beach is Bay Beach, usually packed with mostly young people and families having a wonderful time walking the sands and wading the waters of Lake Erie in the summertime. But a Toronto area development consortium, called the Molinary Group, thinks it has a better idea for the lands in front of this beach – to build a multi-storey condo tower for the rich and privileged.

And most of Fort Erie’s council, seems perched to swallow the plan, hook, line and sinker. 

For the rest of us – those of us who live in this region and are blessed to live near two of the greatest freshwater lakes in the world –this plan just about seals the fate on any stretches of the Lake Erie or Ontario shorelines we or any visitors to this region have free access to.

That means we can just about forget about any opportunity a bunch of kids, a young family or any of the rest of us have to get out of a car in Niagara and take a simple walk along the beach. And that should be a concern to all of us including, these Fort Erie councillors and councillors in our regional government who claim they favour public access to the shores of our lakes and river. It should even matter to those in business – particularly the tourist industry – that want to draw visitors to this region. Just ttry telling people who may want to visit or move here that despite the fact we are surrounded by all this beautiful lake water tsouth and north of us, there is barely a place left to take a simple walk along a beach without either paying at some toll gate for it, or being shooed away by private property owners lining the shoreline.

Keep reading below for my further take on this, followed by the transcript of a  plea Wayne Redekop,  a Fort Erie resident and former mayor of Fort Erie, made to the town’s council to keep Bay Beach open this February 22. Continue reading →