Daily Archives: March 16, 2010

By Doug Draper

St. Patrick’s Day, in all its greenery, seems like the perfect prelude to the first day of spring, and no city or town in our greater binational region anticipates it with as much gusto as Buffalo.

This spirited group gathered early for Buffalo's St. Patrick's Day Parade. See more pictures by Doug Draper of the Buffalo St. Patty celebrations below.

Maybe it is because Buffalo – located right inside the bulls eye, at the stormy eastern tip of Lake Erie – is famous for bearing so much of the brunt of our long, cold winters. Or maybe its because the city has hosted one of the larger populations of Irish Catholics per capita, going back to the heyday of the Erie Canal and its formative years as an industrial powerhouse in the 1800s.

Whatever the reason, Buffalo’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which marched up Delaware Avenue to waves of cheers for more than two hours this past Sunday, March 14 and three days before St Patrick’s Day this March 17, is our region’s equivalent of the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Residents in the Crystal Beach area of Fort Erie opposed to plans for a high-rise condo in their lakeshore community may feel encouraged by a recent decision from the Ontario Municipal Board.

A virtual image of the condo tower planned for the Fort Erie community of Crystal Beach.

That decision, tabled earlier this March, ruled against plans by a Toronto-area developer to build a 27-storey high-rise condo in the west end of Toronto, in the Parkdale-High Park area of that city near the water.

The OMB ruling argued that the proposed high-rise was “simply too large” and “inappropriate for (a) site” of mostly one-to-three-storey buildings.

That argument sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Continue reading →

By Kim Craitor, MPP for Niagara Falls

I have received so many emails and phone calls about the efforts of Andrew Peller Limited and Vincor’s attempt to get the government to rescind the government’s recent initiative to ensure that 100 per cent of the Ontario grape crop gets put into bottles and not end up on the ground that I feel I should publish this response as an open letter to the industry so Niagara’s grape growers can decide from a position of knowing another point of view on this issue.

Niagara grape growers displayed this sign in St. Catharines, Ontario last fall. On the side it says - "growers forced to dump 15,000 tons of local grapes while wineries import 40,000 tons." Photo by Doug Draper

The so-called Winery and Growers Alliance is in fact a lobby group for the handful of giant wineries that enjoy a monopoly position in the trade of “Cellared in Canada” (CIC) wines.

Unfortunately, they own this monopoly at the expense of the grape growers and taxpayers of Ontario – and now they are using their privileged position to threaten the livelihood of Ontario grape growers. Continue reading →