Monthly Archives: April 2010

By Doug Draper

(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large for more news and commentary on this and other matters of concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)

Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak returned to his hometown of Fort Erie, Ontario this April 29 to promise that he is the province’s next premier, the Fort Erie hospital’s emergency room will be reopened.

Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak in front of his hometown hospital in Fort Erie, Ontario, promising to reopen its emergency room if he is elected premier.

“Today, I am committing that if elected premier, I will ensure that if this community wants the emergency room re-opened, a Tim Hudak government will re-open it,” said the Conservative leader at a media conference he held in front of Fort Erie’s Douglas Memorial Hospital.

Hudak went on to charge that the Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) ordered the closing of Fort Erie’s ER even as its Ontario Liberal government “appointees … helped themselves to fat pay increases – paid for by local health care dollars.”

At the Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant LHIN, the number of people making $100,000 or more has doubled since its creation four years ago, added Hudak. This includes the LHIN CEO who now gets paid $289,000 a year after being handed $53,000 worth of raises since 2006.

There are just a couple of questions this reporter has here. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large, an independent online news source for our greater binational region you can click on at www.niagaraatlarge.com is pleased to receive the following good news from Buffalo’s Olmsted Parks Conservancy on a neighbourhood revitalization program residents across our binational region may wish to follow and hold up as a model)
 
HSBC Bank USA has awarded $50,000 to the Community Action Organization of Erie County, Inc. (CAO) and $50,000 to the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy to further the work of the Better Schools Better Neighborhoods Collaborative.

Buffalo's Martin Luther King, J.R. park, a classic Olmsted-designed park.

The Collaborative is a demonstration project that seeks to revitalize the Martin Luther King, Jr. neighborhood on Buffalo’s east side into a great place to live, work, play and raise a family, while also achieving a comprehensive, integrated model for community development that can be replicated in other parts of the city and region in hopes of transforming distressed urban neighborhoods. Continue reading →

(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.)

By Doug Draper

Well here we are folks – a quarter of the way through the first year of the second decade of the 21^st century – and Niagara, Ontario has yet to launch an inter-municipal transit system for residents and visitors to this region.

We ought to be ashamed to admit that we are the last region of any size in all of southern Ontario that is not operating a region-wide network of buses, at the very least, as an alternative to ever more roads and highways and trucks and cars.

If I sound a little frustrated at this point, it is because I have been watching our local municipalities and regional government knock heads over the very concept of building a regional transit system going back to the dying days of my environmental beat at a St. Catharines daily newspaper more than a decade ago. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Fort Erie’s Point Abino Lighthouse may not get the care it deserves, but it certainly is getting some attention.

The iconic Point Abino Lighthouse, still standing off the shores of Lake Erie.

The stately old lighthouse, located along the shores of Lake Erie, is one of six Ontario lighthouses (and the only one in Niagara) featured in the latest spring/summer issue of ‘Boating Ontario Magazine’ – a publication that goes out to about 50,000 boaters through marinas and marine retailers across the province. Continue reading →

(Please click on www.niagaraatlarge for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary on this and other matters of interest and concern to our binational region.)

 The following April 26 report, from Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey,

Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey, speaking earlier this spring on hospital cuts, at a town hall meeting in neighbouring Welland, Ontario. Photo by Doug Draper

calls on Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his government to release a report by the province’s ombudsman, Andre Marin, on the state of the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) that is supposed to be representing Niagara and surrounding regions, around hospital services in the region. Continue reading →

This April 29, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak, a Niagara area MPP and native of Fort Erie, will be holding a media conference in front of the Douglas Memorial Hospital in Fort Erie.

The media conference will begin at 11 a.m. and Hudak is expected to speak on the Niagara Health System, the body responsible for managing hospital services in Niagara, the Local Health Integration Network responsible for working with the NHS, and the lack of health services in Fort Erie.

Sue Salzer, a Fort Erie resident and head of the Yellow Shirt Brigade, a citizens group fighting for a return of emergency and other hospital services the NHS has cut in Niagara’s southern tier, is urging as many area residents as possible to attend the 11 a.m. event in front of the hospital.

“We encourage everyone to once again join in to send the message to Queens Park that the closure of our medical beds, our operating rooms and our emergency room is not acceptable to our community,” said Salzer in a message shared with Niagara At Large.

(Please click on www.niagaraatlarge.com at Niagara At Large and scroll down to far more news and commentary about the screw up of our hospital services by the Niagara Health System.)

By Doug Draper

(Please click on Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com  to support this site with making a visit to it, and for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)

They’ve watched their rank and file shrink from some 10,000 in the 1980s to about 1,600 today. And year after year – especially during the last couple of years of great recession and tumbling sales for the North American auto industry – they braced themselves in fear that their jobs would be next.

Canadian Auto Workers' Local 199 president for the Niagara area, Wayne Gates.

Then finally, this April 27, General Motors workers in Niagara’s St. Catharines area got some welcome news when GM announced it is investing $235 million on the future of its St. Catharines engine plant.

“For us, it is great news for our members and it is great news for the community,”  Wayne Gates, president of the Canadian Autoworkers Local 199 representing many of Niagara, Ontario’s autoworkers told Niagara At Large following the announcement. “For the first time in 12 to 15 years, people now know GM is going to stay in St. Catharines. For the first time in a long time, I think my members feel they are going to retire on this job.” Continue reading →

(Please click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large for more news and commentary on this and other matters of interest and concern to our greater Niagara region.)

 By Doug Draper

The council of Fort Erie, Ontario voted overwhelmingly this April 27 to call on the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians to investigate and report on the impacts of emergency room and other hospital service cuts in Fort Erie and Port Colborne.

The closure of the ERs (or Eds for emergency departments, as the council calls them) in those two southern tier communities, carried out last year by the Niagara Health System, the provincially created body responsible for managing most of the hospital services in the Niagara region, was greeted with outrage by many residents in the region’s southern tier. Continue reading →

(The following post by Niagara-on-the-Lake resident Clifford James makes a case for an eco park for federally owned lands along Lake Ontario that are now being viewed by a consortium called Project Niagara for Tanglewood, Massachusetts-like summer-long music festivals.)

By Clifford James

 The public land administered by Parks Canada along the Lake Ontario shores of Niagara-on-the-Lake is the natural location for Tecumseh National Park.

Tecumseh, a Native American leader of the Shawnee and iconic War of 1812 warrior for the British, deserves a nature park in Niagara in his name.

For not only is this land environmentally unique, thus of scientific interest, it is also of national historical significance because it is where the U.S. Army landed on May 27, 1813 and the Battle of Fort George began.

At that time the land was owned by John Secord, a relative of our famous Laura, and a friend and contemporary of Colonel John Butler, the virtual founder of this town.

Colonel Butler commanded the Loyal American Regiment of Butler’s Rangers who were a thorn in George Washington’s side during the revolutionary war of 1775/83. He settled here in 1780, followed by most of his Regiment when it disbanded in 1784. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is posting this news due to the devastating impact Asian Carp – an invasive species to North America – could have on the entire fishery and ecology of the Great Lakes should they migrate in any numbers from the Mississippi River watershed to Lake Michigan. At the same time, Niagara At Large continues to ask where Canada’s federal and Ontario government are on preventing these ravenous fish, that could replace all our native fish species, from entering the Great Lakes?)

Asian Carp crash through the surface of the Mississippi River watershed on their way to the Great Lakes. Photo courtesy of Jason Lindsey. Visit his website at jasonlindsey.com.

Joel Brammeier, president of the U.S. citizens organization, Alliance for the Great Lakes, issued the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 26 denial of Michigan’s request to permanently close Chicago-area shipping locks to prevent the advancing Asian Carp from entering the Great Lakes:

“Carp may be blocked from the Supreme Court, but recent environmental DNA tests show they still aren’t blocked from moving toward Lake Michigan.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The Niagara Parks Police – one of the oldest police forces in Ontario and a force responsible for policing 36 miles of Niagara River corridor on the province’s side of the Canada/U.S border – is now fighting for its very existence.

Niagara Parks Police cruisers front a world-wide icon they patrol best. Photo courtesy of Niagara Parks Police.

If the provincial government doesn’t soon step in and make some amendments to its Police Services Act and/or any other legislation, making it possible for the Niagara Parks Police to share the same rights to bear arms and perform their duties as other police forces in Ontario, the 123-year-old Parks Police force could be staring its own obituary in the face by the end of this year.

The Niagara Parks Police’s lawyer, Stuart Ellis, made a plea to Niagara, Ontario’s regional council this April 22 to support the force in appealing to Premier Dalton McGuinty and his government to do whatever it can, including amending the province’s police act.

“Time is short,” stressed Ellis as he appealed to the regional council to do what it can to press the province to save the police force. “Time is short,” Ellis warned as dozens of Niagara Parks officers and members of their families filled the council’s public gallery. “A year and a half has gone by (since the Niagara Parks police began making a case for status that would keep the force alive) and nothing, nothing has happened, and there isn’t much time left.”

Fortunately, for the Niagara Parks force, the region’s council voted unanimously this April 22 to join it in making a case to the province for keeping the force alive. Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

The great debate among Niagara, Ontario’s regional councillors over our household waste finally seems is over – at least for now.

Sometime after midnight this April 23, Niagara, Ontario’s regional councillors finally settled on a new collection contract for residential waste across the region.

It will kick in next March and be carried out by a new contract, Emterra Environmental that will be replacing Modern Landfill, the contractor that has been doing the collection job in the region for more than a decade now.

The new, seven-year contract, will also cost about $3.9 million less than bids by Modern and other contractors, making for at least a bit of relief on the property tax front.

Just as importantly for residents, it will allow them to continue placing out waste destined for the landfill every week – the idea of collecting that part of the waste stream only once every two weeks proved to hot to handle for many regional councillors who’ve been getting negative reaction from their constituents over that one – and it will allow them to place out both their blue and grey recycling boxes out every week, instead of on alternating week.

As for that waste destined for landfill, the current two-bag limit will be reduced to one, which should also encourage people to put more waste in their recycling boxes and green bin.

Last but not least, regional councillors finally decided to approve a ban on collecting grass clippings at curbside, although residents will continue to be able to put every other kind of organic waste, including kitchen and yard material, in green bins and those big brown paper bags for weekly collection. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Forty years after the first Earth Day, industries in Canada and the United States are continuing to treat the Great Lakes like a toilet for their toxic fallout.

Mercury and other air-borne poisons emerge from the stack of a coal-fired energy plant. A U.S. Department of Energy photo.

A report released this April 21 by the Toronto-based citizen organizations, Canadian Environmental Law Association and Environmental Defence, the latest figures from governments in the two countries show that in 2007 some four million kilograms (more than 8.8 million pounds) of air-borne pollutants known or suspected of causing cancer have drifted into the waters of the Great Lakes.

These pollutants are reaching all five Great Lakes and their adjoining watersheds from countless smokestacks and exhaust pipes from all over the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes region and beyond, including private industries and publicly owned facilities that burn coal and other fossil fuels to generate energy.

“Chemical threats to the Great Lakes need the attention of our governments more than ever,” said Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association CELA following the release of the report. “Our governments must commit applying an elimination and prevention approach to persistent toxic chemicals and other toxins including cancer causing chemicals.” Continue reading →

 By Brent Gibson

The founding of Earth Day 40 years ago marks one of several milestones in the formation of an environmental movement.

Our Great Lakes from space. Photo from NASA archives.

In the Great Lakes, the first Earth Day came less than one year after the Cayahoga River caught fire for the 13th time. The fire itself was small – it lasted only 30 minutes and caused $50,000 of damage. But, for the Great Lakes, the burning of the Cayahoga was the spark that enflamed a smouldering concern over the health of these waters. Continue reading →

By Fiona McMurran

This is Earth Week — not to be confused with Earth Hour, back in March, when we all turned off our lights for an hour. I don’t know about you, but I found it very restful to sit in the dark. I’d like to try it more often.

Celebrate Earth Week at a special Eco Fair on one of Niagara, Ontario's great beaches. Call Friends of Fort Erie's Creeks at 905 871-3050 for additional information.

Kudos to Councillor Paul Grenier of Welland, Ontario and the Welland Conservation Committee, including our own Gary King, for their hard work organizing the Earth Day event held on Merritt Island on Saturday, April 17. Good for all the student participants, and for those who turned out, despite the unseasonable cold. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

I can still hear the clinking of the empty pop cans as if it were yesterday.

A younger Doug Draper, sporting a gas mask and sign reading; 'If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the pollution', in front of a polluting mill in Welland, Ontario during the first Earth Day, 40 years ago.

But it wasn’t yesterday. It was 40 years ago this April 22 and those cans weren’t heading for a recycling bin. They were clinking off a chain-link fence between about four or five high school students (I was among them) and workers who were throwing them at a Union Carbide plant in Welland, Ontario – a plant that was, at that time, one of the most notorious air polluters in the region.

“Get out of here,” one of the workers yelled after another can was hurled against the fence. “Go back to school!”

It was April 22, 1970, the date of the very first Earth Day, observed around the world by millions of people, and my high school allowed the four or five of us out for the day to picket in front of this very-filthy Union Carbide plant that was, at the same time, part of a company that employed hundreds of people in our community. Continue reading →

Vincent Del Buono, an international lawyer, human rights activist and, most recently, chief executive officer of the Niagara War of 1812 Bicentennial Legacy Council, died April 13, 2010. He was 60.

This portrait of Vincent Del Buono was done by a Nigerian artist during Vince’s work in that country prior to his return to Canada and appointment as CEO of Niagara’s War of 1812 Bicentennial Legacy Council.

Having moved to Canada at age four, Vincent Del Buono grew up in Toronto and graduated from York University , subsequently earning Master’s and Law degrees from University of Toronto. He served as Senior Counsel with Law Reform Commission of Canada and the Department of Justice. He was founding President of the International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law and the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy of Vancouver, BC. 

Vincent Del Buono also served in a variety of senior positions world-wide, including United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (Vienna), United Nations Peacekeeping Mission (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Amnesty International (London), British Council’s Access to Justice Program (Nigeria), University of Buffalo, McGill University, University of Ottawa, University of British Columbia and Southwestern School of Law (Los Angeles, CA).
 
A memorial service for Vincent Bel CBuono will be held at 2:00 PM May 2, 2010 at Unitarian Church, 223 Church St., St. Catharines, Ontario.

(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)

 By Cody Boyko

“Students are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” as Katharine Giroux-Bougard, the national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, words it.
 
University students are being forced into debt to pay for the schooling they will inevitably need.

“With record high tuition fees and mortgage-sized debt loads, students are deeply concerned about their future,” said Giroux-Bougard.

Giroux-Bourgard explained that students carry a debt load of an average of $25,000 for a four-year undergraduate degree.  Many at Brock are undoubtedly concerned, as costs rose for incoming students again this year. Although Brock is not alone; the average tuition costs are now $5,000 for a regular eight-month term. Brock is rounding out at about $5,700 for a fulltime eight-month undergraduate year, which puts the university at the higher end of the Canadian scale. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Are you a retired person out there trying to make ends meet on Canada’s ‘Old Age Security pension? And if you are, did you enjoy an increase of 10 per cent in your pension payments last year?

Canada's federal members of parliament and senators get piggish about pension hikes for themselves while many of the rest of us struggle to get by.

Of course not!

As a follow-up to a report Niagara At Large posted on this site on April 17 entitled; ‘Ontario Being Pushed To Improve Pensions For Seniors In Need’, it would be a gross oversight on NAL’s part not to point out that Canada’s federal government had no bones about rubber stamping a 10 per cent hike in pensions for MPs and our un-elected (should summarily have their jobs abolished) senators.

This “gold-plated pension fund,” as a recent story in The Toronto Star called it, has been approved in apparent total denial of the realities facing many of the rest of us out here who are struggling to recover from the worst recession that has rocked the economy this country and others since the Great Recession of the 1930s. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Should Canada’s federal government be killing any further debate on approving a free trade deal with Columbia, a country in South American that continues to pile up human rights violations?

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper shake hands after signing a Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The agreement has yet to be approved by Canada’s parliament. Photo from the National Union of Public and General Employees website at www.nupge.ca.)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are moving to seal off further parliamentary discussion on a trade deal with Columbia as early as this Monday, April 19 – despite ongoing reports from Amnesty International and other human rights group that this country is persecuting and killing organizers for workers’ unions in that country and committing other acts that defy the rights of free speech and assembly, and democracy. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Well, Hamilton, Ontario should have no problem getting that NHL franchise now!

And why?  Because according to the top story on the front page of The Hamilton Spectator this April 16, Sarah Palin, the former Alaskan governor who has turned her failed 2008 run for the U.S. vice presidency into a gold mine, has come onside as a booster for the city’s franchise bid.

‘Palin casts her vote for the city’s NHL dream,’ read the gushy headline above a story about Palin’s speech to a sellout audience of more than 900 in the Hamilton area this April 15.

“I’m overlooking Copps Coliseum and I thought, what a great place for an NHL franchise,” the Spectator quoted Palin saying to an adoring crowd that paid $200 a piece to hear her speak at a charity fundraiser in the city long known for its steel mills and love for sports. “You’re all set up for it (and) if I ever meet the president of the NHL, I’ll put a little bug in his ear,” she added as, reportedly, only two protesters, one of them holding a sign reading; “Honk For Our Health Care,” kept vigil outside the banquet centre.”

How sad that a newspaper that has a relatively good reputation compared to so many other failing dailies across the province, makes this its top story on a Friday and leads with Palin’s pandering over the NHL franchise. Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

To the extent a society can be judged by the way it treats its senior citizens, Ontario may have a little explaining to do – especially when it comes to pensions.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

At the Ontario legislature earlier this April, the province’s NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, once again urged Premier Dalton County “to get off the fence” when it comes to whether or not his Liberal government supports affordable public pensions for the two-thirds of aging residents across the province who don’t have a pension plan at work.

“The government’s silence on the pension issue is paving the way for banks and insurance companies to fill the void with a bloated, fee-laden private plans that leave retirees with less,” said Horwath in a media release. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

One Of Niagara’s champions for social justice had a tree planted in his honour this April 17 in a conservation park he helped found in Thorold, Ontario.

Sitting on a memorial bench for Thelma Swart, wife of the late Niagara MPP Mel Swart in the Mel Swart-Lake Gibson Conservation Park in Thorold, Ontario – near a silver maple tree just planted in honour of Bill Lidkea, an old friend of Mel and one of the park’s founders – is (from left) Bill’s wife Wilma, members of the Lidkea family David Lidkea and Sara Kollaras, and one of Bill’s fellow NDP members Tom Balint. Standing (from left) is friend Jeremiah Dominic, relatives Deborah Martin and Erie Sones, and NDP colleague Sheila Shirokoff.

Member’s of Bill Lidkea’s family and his friends gathered in the Mel Swart-Lake Gibson Conservation Park along the scenic shore of that lake to plant a silver maple tree for Lidkea, who dided suddenly this March at age 73.

Bill Lidkea was a longtime advocate for social justice issues across the region, an avid environmentalist and a member of a committee that established the park in the name of his friend, the late Mel Swart who served Niagara as a provincial member of the New Democratic Party (NDP) and whose own activism stretched back more than five decades to the years when the legendary Tommy Douglas (whom he knew personally) was waging his national campaign for Medicare.

A memorial service was held for Bill Lidkea earlier this April in Thorold.

You can learn more about the Mel Swart-Lake Gibson Conservation Park by visiting 
http://www.niagaragreenbelt.com/index.php/site-map/196-mel-swart-lake-gibson-conservation-park.html.

(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com Niagara At Large where you will find an earlier obituary on Bill Lidkea along with much more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.)

By Doug Draper

Imagine a time when a whole week goes by and you can’t put out a single bag of garbage for curbside collection.

Depending on the outcome of an ongoing debate over a new waste, recycling and organics collection contract for Niagara, Ontario, that time could be coming early next year to a curbside near you.

The new collection contract, scheduled to come before Niagara’s regional council for a possible final decision on April 22, includes the option of picking up that part of your household garbage that goes to a landfill site (alias ‘the dump) once every two weeks instead of weekly – and only up to three bags or containers at a time.

On the other hand, the contract would allow residents across the region to put out all of the recyclables and organics (with exception of grass clippings) they want, every week of the year. No more of this alternating with blue boxes for cans, glass bottles and plastics one week, and gray boxes stuffed with newspapers, cardboard and other paper the next.

All of this is aimed at achieving at least two great environmental goals, as we get ready to observe Earth Day this April – increase the amount of household waste that is recycled and reduce the amount heading off to the dump.

The question is; will a majority of Niagara’s mayors and directly elected councillors sitting on regional council take the leap during a municipal election year and embrace a contract that reduces the collection of garbage hell-bent for a landfill site and bans the collection of grass clippings completely – especially when at least some of their constituents out there may see this as a cut in services rather than a plus for the environment? Continue reading →

By Becky Day

So Niagara Region’s public works committee decided we will have curb side garbage pickup every two weeks starting in 2011.

Living across the Welland Canal from Walker Industries in the spring and summer is already a challenge. I can’t wait to add the smell of neighbourhood garbage to the equation in the heat of summer.

Growing mounds of grass clippings at Walker Industries' composting facility in Thorold, Ontario. Photo courtesy of Walker Industries.

Regional officials made the decision in an attempt to control the amount of waste that is diverted into the landfill. I’m not a rocket scientist, but won’t this still be the same amount of garbage?

Or, are citizens going to find ways to make less garbage because they can only put it out on a bi-weekly basis?

The committee also decided to ban grass clippings from the organics bins. Hallelujah! Those of us who have had to endure odours from Walker’s organics recycling centre were told the grass was a major component. Hopefully this will improve the situation. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

One of the great natural places left – relatively unravaged -on either side of the border of our binational region is the Niagara Glen – a magical place and one of the few left on the Canadian side of the Niagara River that can still take us back to the days when the first Europeans set eyes on this place in  the world.

Photos of Niagara Glen along the lower Niagara River courtesy of the Niagara Parks Commission.

With all of the wonder and discovery of that in mind, the Niagara Parks Commission and Friends of Niagara Parks is hosting an event this April 24 that will focus on the beauty of what they rightly describe as an “undeniable treasure trove of natural beauty.”

This Earth Day oriented event is all about encouraging residents and visitors to our region to visit and appreciate, and do their part to protect and preserve natural site like this one along the shared waters of our binational Niagara River.

Niagara At Large is posting the media release by the Niagara Parks Commission circulated below on the April 24 Niagara Glen event. If you have never visited this great spot, do it on this time or any other time you can. This land, under the Niagara Parks’ trust, is truly a treasure for now and, with our care, for generations to come . Continue reading →

A rally outside Toronto’s Royal York Hotel earlier this week, where Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews speaking to elites in the Canadian Club on the inside and residents from Niagara and other parts of the province were rallying for hospital services on the outside, was captured on video.

Niagara residents particpate in rally for hospital care in Toronto this April. Photo courtesy of Merilyn Athoe.

The video, produced by the Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU), is now available on You Tube and Niagara At Large is providing a link for it here. It is called ‘Dalton McGuinty Listen Up’ and you can view it by clicking on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A623eu02kQ or if the link, for some reason, doesn’t work go Google or Yahoo and key in You Tube Dalton McGuinty Listen Up and you will find it.

By the way, in the weeks ahead, Niagara At Large will begin featuring more video pieces on this site to compliment our written content.

If you have quality video clips of interest to offer on matters that may be of interest or concern to other residents across our greater binational Niagara region, feel free to share them by emailing them to drapers@vaxxine.com.

In the meantime,  click on www.niagaraatlarge.com  for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary of interest and concern to residents in our region.

By Doug Draper

Who owns the shorelines along our Great Lakes?

One of the fenced-off beaches along Lake Erie in Fort Erie, Ontario. Photo courtesy of Stephen Passero, Ontario Shorewalk Association.

Should members of the public have access to them for, if nothing else, a peaceful stroll along a beach? Or are they the private domain of the privileged few who own homes, cottages and businesses along the shoreline side of the road?

Many residents in our Niagara, Ontario region have had the following  experience in the summer.

They have parked their car along one of the few remaining places left in the region where there is some open access to a beach along Lake Erie or Lake Ontario. They begin walking along the shore and before they know it, there is a fence or a rope line right out to the water, with signs reading; ‘Private Property’, ‘Keep Out’, No Trespassing’ or something slightly more delicate like; ‘No Loitering’.

And so much for enjoying our lakeshores!

Now, Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor is trying once again to grant the residents and visitors to our Niagara, Ontario region at least some access to our Great Lakes shores with the reintroduction of the ‘Great Lakes Shoreline Rights of Passage Act, a private members’ bill he has tabled this April in the Ontario legislature. Continue reading →

 
(The following media release was circulated by Brock University on April 14.)

Brock University’s planned fine arts campus in  downtown St. Catharines is now clear to proceed, after the Government of  Ontario today announced $26.2 million in funding for the major  project.

An artist's rendering of Brock University's planned arts centre for St. Catharines, Ontario.

St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley announced the funding  this morning at a public event held beside the abandoned textile factory that  will be transformed into the new home of Brock’s Marilyn I. Walker School of  Fine and Performing Arts. The province will provide the funding over four years. Continue reading →

(The removal of a giant “ice boom” at the upper mouth of the Niagara River each spring – a boom tied from shore to shore in Buffalo and Fort Erie each winter by U.S. and Canadian agencies to keep Lake Erie ice from taking a potentially destructive run down the river – has become an occasion for an annual celebration hosted by the not-for-profit environmental group Riverkeepers.Niagara At Large is posting Riverkeepers’ media release on its ‘Boom Day’ celebrations and its websites at www.boomdays.com and www.bnriverkeeper.org if you would like more information on joining in these festivities celebrating our region’s shared binational waters.)

The ceremonial tipping of the big orange ball from the Peace Bridge to the waters of the Niagara River during last year's 'Boom Days' celebrations. Photo courtesy of Riverkeepers.

“Boom Days” is the region’s grass roots celebration of the advent of spring, commencing each year with the lifting of the Lake Erie-Niagara River ice boom. This year is the 8th annual celebration. 

Each spring – a boom tied from shore to shore in Buffalo and Fort Erie each winter by U.S. and Canadian agencies to keep Lake Erie ice from taking a potentially destructive run down the river – has become an occasion for an annual celebration by the not-for-profit environmental group Riverkeepers. Niagara At Large is posting Riverkeepers’ media release on its ‘Boom Day’ celebrations and its websites.

Festivities will begin Thursday, April 15th, with the ceremonial Ice Boom Ball Drop as the mayors of Buffalo and Niagara Falls NY, and Fort Erie, Niagara-on-the-Lake, and Niagara Falls Ontario tip an orange, 7-foot diameter ball over the railing of the Peace Bridge and watch it gently drift the length of the Niagara River. The E.M. Cotter, the world’s oldest operating fireboat will be on hand with a full water-jet salute. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Ontario’s NPD leader Andrea Horwath has put the province’s Liberal government on the line, once again, over the closing of hospital services in Niagara.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, at a town hall on health care in Niagara Falls earlier this April.

“The gutting of healthcare services in Niagara Region has created enormous strain and anxiety, and deserves the government’s immediate attention,” said Horwath during a debate this April 12 in the provincial legislature.

Horwath, who held a town hall meeting on health care in Niagara Falls a week earlier, went on to say that; “families I spoke with last week in Niagara Falls have been forced to stand by and watch while the McGuinty government closes their emergency rooms with one hand and doles out huge pay hikes to the hospital CEOs with the other.”

“The government’s negligence is putting the health of Niagara families at risk,” Horwath said. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

After all the ugliness that has been hurled President Barack Obama’s way during his battle for health reform in the United States, possibly one of the last things he needs is some columnist from north of the border comparing him to Tommy Douglas.

Or maybe Obama has so much on his plate at this point, from chronic joblessness in his country to any one of a number of powder-keg issues abroad, that any comparison some columnist from Canada might make between him and a professed socialist from north of the border would hardly make a difference.

Most likely, anyone in his country who is going to carry on with the Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin crowd, calling  him everything from a socialist to Adolf Hitler, is never going to give him credit for anything he does to advance health care or any other issue for his fellow Americans anyway.

So in the midst of all this, this commentator decided to dive right in and make the comparison between Obama and the late Tommy Douglas, Canada’s father of universal health care, in a column that ran on the front page of the Viewpoint section of The Buffalo News this April 11 – a column you can access by clicking on http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/04/11/1015744/canadian-health-care-works.html

In that Viewpoint piece, I try to argue that  fair, affordable access to health care should be a fundamental right in developed countries like Canada and the United States. I also try to explain why the blow back from the Sarah Palin, -Rush Limbaugh,-Fox News juggernaut south of the border is wrong , from a moral and social justice point of view, for millions of Americans who have no insurance for health care in what is still considered one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest country in the world. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Who says one of the worst jobless rates in Canada is right here in the Niagara region.

A sad 'sign of our times' for jobs in Niagara. Photo by Doug Draper

Niagara’s jobless rate may be in the double digits. But there are all kinds of job opportunities in this region if you are willing to go to work as a “chicken catcher” or – as I witnessed it this on a weekend this April 11 – stand out on a busy street corner, with a cardboard box shaped like a house covering you from the top of your head down to your knees, with a few balloons tied at the top.

Consider it another sad sign of our time – part of a series of ‘Signs of our Times’ Niagara At Large continues to feature – that some of our fellow human beings are so desperate to make a little money they have to stand at a busy street corner in north Niagara this with a cheap cardboard box over their heads. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The news of the jet crash that wiped out the lives of the president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and more than 90 others of the best and brightest of dignitaries and scholars in that country, is a tragedy we all should mourn.

Maria and her husband, President Lech Kaczynski of Poland, were among the best and brightest of that country wiped out in a tragic jet crash. Photo from Polish president's website.

How many more tragedies can the people of this great country live through? The people of Poland seem so strong and resilient, one gathers that they can live through many.  But why?

I recall, as a young reporter for a daily newspaper in Niagara, attending a commemoration some 20 or more years ago at a Polish Hall in St. Catharines, Ontario for Polish veterans of the Second World War. These veterans had fought their way through Italy, and through a particularly bloody battle involving a Catholic icon in that country called Monte Cassino. The Polish troops suffered an inordinate number of casualties in that battle as they and other allied troops fought their way through a Nazi stronghold and onward to Rome. Continue reading →

Climate Action Niagara is gearing up for its third annual Eco Fest Niagara event this April, showcasing dozens of Niagara’s greenest vendors.

Eco Fest Niagara is a free family event with a great line-up of presentations, local food, guided tours, and of course, greener products and organizations.  Mark it on your calendar and pass it on.

The event takes place on Sunday, April 18 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Niagara College’s Glendale campus off the Hwy. 406/Glendale Avenue interchange in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

Says Jane Hanlon, executive director of the not-for-profit Climate Action Ontario; “With the collapse of the federal retrofit rebate program and our manufacturing sector losses, it’s more important than ever to celebrate these very special businesses and organizations.”

For more information on this event, contact Climate Action Niagara at
289-820-6440 or can.info@cogeco.net
)

 By Doug Draper

 Tim Hudak has used his pulpit as Ontario’s Conservative Party leader to aim a hard punch from the right at the Liberal government’s Niagara Falls backbencher Kim Craitor, accusing him in an April 9 media release of being “powerless and isolated” within his party’s caucus.

“Craitor admitted he was ‘caught by surprise’ by the decision not to reappoint (Larry) Iggulden (the now-gone Niagara Regional Police Services board chairman) and ‘disappointed’ that nobody in the premier’s or minister’s office bothered to inform him in advance of this controversial and highly political move,” states the media release from Hudak’s office with reference to news earlier this April that the Liberal government had decided not to reappoint Iggulden to the board.

“The decision to freeze Craitor out of the decision to block Iggulden’s reappointment is just the latest sign that, even within the McGuinty government, Craitor is already viewed as having one foot out the door of his MPP responsibilities as he prepares for a potential run for mayor (of Niagara Falls).”

“This is unbelievable,” said Craitor during an interview with Niagara At Large shortly after the media release went into circulation. “I am wondering why he (Hudak) is saying this (and) as far as the suggestion that I have no influence or say with the premier and the party, that is an outright lie.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Port Colborne Vance Badawey is inviting Ontario’s health minister to come to his south Niagara city has been doing to rebuild primary health-care services in the wake of service cuts at the city’s hospital.

Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey

“Over the past year, we have worked diligently with the NHS (Niagara Health System), HNHB LHIN (Local Health Integration Network), and the MOHLTC (Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care) to enhance Community-Based Primary Health Care, in turn, relieving pressure on emergency services,” said Badawey in an April 9 letter to Health Minister Deb Matthews.

“We believe we’ve developed a blueprint for what a ‘Rural (Small Community) Emergency Centre’ should and can be,” the mayor added in the letter. “Come to Port Colborne. We’re doing some great things. Be my guest, and take the ideas we are implementing to the rest of the province.”

Badawey and his council, in concert with members of the local medical community and others, began working on plans for a new primary health-care system for the community before the Niagara Health System, the body responsible for managing most of the hospitals across the region of Niagara, Ontario, followed through last summer on its controversial plans to convert Port Colborne’s emergency room into an urgent-care centre. Continue reading →

 By Janet Truckenbrodt

Keeping a proud watch over Lake Erie, the Point Abino Lighthouse is one of the greatest of its kind in Canada.

Built in 1917-1918, the lighthouse and keeper’s dwelling are a local, provincial, and federal landmark with a unique history.  This light station was one of 40 built during the last period of manned lighthouse construction.

Preservations want this 'keeper's dwelling' for the historic Point Abino Lighthouse kept in public hands. Photo courtesy of Paul Kassay.

At the end of Point Abino, a large rocky shelf projects into the lake making it necessary to build the lighthouse at a considerable distance from the shoreline.  In stormy weather and at high-water periods, the lighthouse was inaccessible on foot.  For that reason, the keeper’s dwelling required a site on the adjoining shore. 

A portion of land, just over half an acre, was purchased from Allan Holloway, a Buffalo developer, for $1 million at today’s value.  Designed to be in harmony with the environment and the upscale homes in Point Abino, the keeper’s dwelling has a Tudor-like appearance.  It is a two-story ornamental stucco home, with basement, well-constructed and very suitable for continued use and enjoyment.  Some restoration is needed but mostly of a cosmetic nature.  The septic system and plumbing need replacing.

In 1998, the Point Abino LIghthouse Preservation Society was successful in obtaining a National Historic Site designation for the Lighthouse.  The dwelling did not have significant architectural features to be included in the designation.  However, it was deemed important as an integral part of the functioning and history of the site.  In 2009, the Town of Fort Erie obtained a heritage designation for the dwelling through the Ontario Heritage Act. Continue reading →

Canada’s federal government is providing $1.9 million in funding for renovating Port Dalhousie’s historic ‘Inner Range Lighthouse’ and for other improvements to drainage systems and trails in this St. Catharines, Ontario lakefront community.

Port Dalhousie's historic 'Inner Range Lighthouse' is finally receiving some funds for renovating its exterior. File photo courtesy of David Serafino/Dalhousie Peer magazine.

The federal funding was announced this April 8 by St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra and a total of $180,000 of funds will go repairing and repainting the exterior of the iconic lighthouse.

The Inner Range Lighthouse has been a landmark in Port Dalhousie since its was built in the late 1800s and received a heritage designation from the province a decade ago. It was also  a decade ago that the former federal Liberal government transferred the ownership of this lighthouse to St. Catharines, the city that includes Port Dalhousie within its boundaries. Continue reading →

Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper is seeking citizens to join the Spring Shoreline Sweep, to help clean up the shorelines in Western New York on Saturday, April 17th, 9:00 a.m. to noon. 

“We encourage all volunteers to participate in the movement to beautify Buffalo and Niagara’s waterways,” said Julie O’Neill, executive director of the for the not-for-profit citizens group. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Would you like to see the number of politicians sitting on the regional council for Niagara, Ontario cut by more than a third?

Is Niagara's regional council too stuffed with regional councillors? Should we cut some of the seats they sit in out?

After 40 years of regional government, is it time for a real shake-up in the way Niagara is governed?

“I want to put this out there for discussion,” Fort Erie Mayor Doug Martin told Niagara At Large of a report he tabled late this March at one of his town council’s meeting with an eye to circulating it to other councils across the region for review.

Martin’s proposal for reforming municipal government in Niagara calls for reducing the number of councillors sitting on the region’s council from 30 councillors plus a chair to a total number on the council of 19. Those councillors would include the mayors of Niagara’s 12 local municipalities, a regional chair, and three directly elected councillors from St. Catharines, two from Niagara Falls and one from Welland.

The remaining municipalities, including Port Colborne, Fort Erie, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Lincoln, Grimsby, West Lincoln, Pelham and Wainfleet, would only have their mayors representing them at the regional level.

Whether you agree with a regional council that might look like that or not – one that Martin feels is fairer for municipalities like St. Catharines that have been advocating for more representation by population, and one he feels would promote more cooperation and less parochial bickering on the council – the Fort Erie mayor at least deserves credit for raising the idea of municipal reform when any discussion of it was shut down by a majority of those who sat on the regional council in the year leading up to the 2006 municipal elections. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large, in its capacity as an alternative to old, mainstream media in this region, is running this piece as a passionate expression of the upset the editors of this site gather many felt over the outcome of an Ontario Municipal Board hearing over plans to pave a condo development over one of the last stretches of open Lake Erie beach in Wainfleet, Ontario.)

By Lee Bott

The recent OMB appeal against the Lakewood Development held Jan 13-15, 2010 was based totally on the laws of the Wainfleet Official Plan (present and the proposed one); the Regional Planning Act; The Provincial Planning Statement; The Places to Grow Act, Endangered and Species at Risk Act. 

Another of the last open stretches of lakeshore in Niagara that is gone, thanks to an Ontario Municipal Board that seems to be in bed with condo developers.

Ask yourself a question, if Mr. Rasetta, Mr. Terrio, Mr. Smart, Mr. Kirkland were such fine upstanding people with great designs to offer why has every one of their development projects been under so much controversy. All exceed height restrictions, conformity to surrounding homes, not taking into consideration the natural features of the property, etc. All waterfront condos, taking the waterfront away from The People. And as reported in the St. Catharines Standard, these people owed $700,000 in back taxes to St. Catharines. One has to wonder where else they owe property taxes.

The OMB decision allows them to:
· destroy the habitat of a Species at Risk.
· have a communal septic system not allowed by anyone else in Wainfleet.
· build in a dynamic beach hazard zone
· building on top of a former and existing septic system (against the Regional Planning Act)
· 1/5 acre property size per unit
· build up property placing all existing homes north of property in flood hazard.
· communal septic system next to a municipal ditch draining into the Casey Drain and into Lake Erie.

My opinion of our governing agencies that should have protected this area:
The Conservation Authority’s mission statement:
Strive to address the impact on the watershed from current human activities and the effects of urban growth and rural activities. Our programs focus on environmental protection and preservation and watershed management activities. These include planning, regulations, water quality monitoring and improvement through stewardship and restoration, community outreach, and conservation through land acquisition and public ownership.
Apparently not as when it came to preserving the former Lakewood property from demolition – they refused to uphold environmental laws.

The Ministry of Natural Resources’ mission statement:

Working to promote healthy, sustainable ecosystems and conserve biodiversity.
· Implementing the new Endangered Species Act
· Promoting, marketing and enhancing the protection of natural heritage in southern Ontario

Destroying a habitat of Fowler’s Toads is protecting the natural heritage of Southern Ontario?

First send a map showing the activity zone of the Fowler Toad on the Lakewood Property stating no building should take place in that area. Later stating if they purchase a Special Permit they can build wherever they want. So much for the toads – EXTINCT!

Ministry of Environment

Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment (MOE) has been protecting Ontario’s environment for over 30 years. Using stringent regulations, targeted enforcement and a variety of innovative programs and initiatives, the ministry continues to address environmental issues that have local, regional and/or global effects.
The Ministry of the Environment is responsible for protecting clean and safe air, land and water to ensure healthy communities, ecological protection and sustainable development for present and future generations of Ontarians.

WRONG – The MOE never addressed any of the major environmental issues concerning the Lakewood property. I wrote and called them on several occasions with no response.
Easter Seals Society
Obtaining the property valued at $50,000 in 1953 to use as a camp for handicapped children. Sold the property at a considerable profit at $3.4 million. Never paying property taxes on that property for 52 years. Received substantial revenue through donations from OUR community.
Your donation dollars – many of the items purchased for the camp are still there: hospital beds, furniture, books, bedding, wheelchairs, pianos. That’s what Easter Seals thought of your well-intentioned dollars.

The Ontario Municipal Board:

A system based on promoting development – right or wrong. We’re still waiting to receive our copy of the decision. Everyone else was notified a month ago.

No one paid Ms. Konc, Mr. Watt or myself to testify. We gave of our time and took time off work to attend the trial. All the developers’ testimonials were paid for by the developer. But apparently paid testimony whether factual, theory or lies is more valuable than unpaid fact-based testimony.

I am not a NIMBY. Our Mayor recently said we need a sense of community. I spoke on behalf of all my neighbours who gave up on our political powers saying they don’t listen to the taxpayers concerns. I thought our voice had to matter for something. NOT. Taxation without representation.

We all know that this development is going through on one premise – The Big Pipe.
I feel betrayed by Mayor Henderson, Town Council, Niagara Region for not listening to the taxpaying residents of Wainfleet. They were told at Council meetings and at the recent Visioning Exercises for the new O.P. that we don’t want this type of development and they are doing it anyway.

Don’t you always seem to know that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone – they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

I would like to apologize to my neighbours, my community. I tried my best to save our community. My voice was not heard.

(Lee Bott is a Wainfleet resident who fought plans to build a multi-unit condo development along one of the last open stretches of Lake Erie beach left in her community.)

(Click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.)

Niagara Region is looking for individuals, businesses, community groups, non profits, youth, schools and Niagara’s Greenest Family who have made significant contributions to safeguarding Niagara’s natural environment.

Donna Lemon of Niagara-on-the-Lake joins with a councillor for that town, Tom Braybrook, to receive a regional environmental award on behalf of her late husband Edgar who, among other things, showed through science that natural wetlands are great purifier of contaminated waters.

Celebrating their 21st anniversary, the Niagara Region Environmental Awards is one of the longest-running Environmental Awards programs hosted by any municipal government in Ontario.

These awards recognize contributions to environmental conservation in Niagara in the following areas:

· conserving the existing environment
· repairing damage done in the past
· increasing public understanding and awareness. Continue reading →

Professor emeritus Kenneth Kernaghan was invested into the Order of Canada yesterday. He was one of 43 Canadians who received the honour on April 7 in Ottawa from Governor General Michaelle Jean at Rideau Hall.

Brock Professor Emeritus Kenneth Kernaghan is honoured with Order of Canada.

The 69-year-old professor who is a leading expert on ethics, accountability and the public interest has been involved with Brock’s Department of Political Science since 1968. He was also the founding director of the University’s Faculty of Business.
 
“Throughout his lengthy career, Ken has been recognized both nationally and internationally as a leading authority on all aspects of public administration,” says William Mathie, associate professor and chair, Political Science. “Over the years, he has made a tremendous contribution to Brock — especially to the Political Science department and its students — as an outstanding scholar and teacher.”
 
Kernaghan is a past winner of the Brock University awards for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity, for Distinguished Teaching and the Faculty of Social Sciences Award for Excellence in Teaching.

He received this most recent accolade “for his contributions to public administration as one of Canada’s foremost scholars in the areas of ethics and accountability for more than 30 years,” the Governor General’s office said in a news release. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

More than 40 Niagara residents joined hundreds of others outside Toronto’s Royal York Hotel this April 7, protesting cuts to hospital services across Ontario.

Niagara residents join others in rally in front of Toronto's Royal York Hotel this April 7 to protest hospital cuts while Ontario's Health Minister Deb Matthews talks up province's health care initiatives inside. Photo courtesy of Merilyn Athoe.

Meanwhile, the province’s  health minister, Deb Matthews was inside the hotel, speaking to members of the prestigious Canadian Club about “building the health care system Ontarians deserve.”

Fiona McMurran, a Welland resident and community activist representing a local chapter of the Council of Canadians, returned from the rally in Toronto reminding others that the words ‘Patients First Means Quality First’ were also included in the title of Matthews address to the Canadian Club. Matthews, said McMurran, “is either the most appalling hypocrite or dearly in need of an education. It may be the latter, since she told the Globe and Mail Earlier today that she hasn’t heard enough from Ontario residents about their concerns over hospital restructuring, in particular ….

“When, if ever, is Deb Matthews going to bother to learn her job? Before she oversees another round of nursing cuts, maybe she should just make a start on doing her own job adequately.”

There were quite likely others who feel Matthews is doing her job adequately as she delivered her speech on the province’s health care system inside the Royal York Hotel. The full text of that speech, shared with Niagara At Large courtesy of the minister’s staff is posted below. You can read it and share your own comments by clicking on ‘keep reading’ link at the end of this sentence. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is posting the following release on health care, delivered by Ontario Conservative Leader and Niagara area MPP Tim Hudak in Grimsby, Ontario this April 7 in the Niagara municipality of Grimsby. We encourage you to share your views on the Conservative leader’s remarks in the comment boxes at the bottom of this post.)

GRIMSBY – New evidence confirms that Dalton McGuinty’s Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) appointees were involved in many of the same contract and spending abuses that led to the billion dollar eHealth scandal.

Ontario Conservative Leader and Niagara area MPP Tim Hudak

 Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak today released evidence that confirms that the
Liberal appointees at the Hamilton – Niagara – Haldimand – Brant LHIN handed out a $75,000 contract to a private U.S. health care consultant for undefined “community engagement” products.

Further documentary evidence confirms that Dalton McGuinty’s American health care consultant, despite being based in Michigan, nonetheless proceeded to bill Ontario taxpayers for multiple flights to and from sunny Florida. Adding insult to injury, the same American health care consultant also filed frivolous expenses that included a stop at a Tennessee Starbucks and fast-food meals in Detroit. All expenses were paid out of Ontario health care dollars.

Last week, the release of Ontario’s Sunshine List revealed that, while families in Grimsby and await approvals for their long-overdue new hospital, the amount of money being paid in six-figure salaries to LHIN executives and managers has nearly doubled to more than a million dollars since 2006. This includes the LHIN CEO whose salary has shot up by 24% –from $236,000 to $289,000.

QUOTES
“Every dollar that the McGuinty Government spends on untendered contracts, U.S. consultants and frivolous expenses at the LHINs is a dollar that should be going to frontline patient care. Local families have waited long enough, they deserve better than to see their tax dollars go to waste.” – Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak
n 
“Diverting health care dollars away from patients and families and towards high-flying U.S. consultants – is proof that the LHINs are not working. Dalton McGuinty’s LHINs model is broken and has to go. — Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak

QUICK FACTS

· Dalton McGuinty created a new layer of bureaucracy with his so-called “Local Health Integration Networks” (LHINs). Since 2006-2007, more than $176 million health care dollars have been diverted away from Ontario families and directed towards salaries and administration at these boards.

· In just four years, the number of LHIN appointees making more than $100,000 per year has increased from 40 to 114 — a 185% increase. This includes 19 employees who are making more than $200,000 per year.
· In 2006, three employees at the Hamilton – Niagara – Haldimand – Brant LHIN made six figure salaries and their total compensation totaled $534, 000. Today, six LHIN executives are making $1,007,000. During this time, the salary of the LHIN CEO has shot up from $236,000 to $289,000.

· LHIN appointees handed out a $75,000 untendered contract to private U.S. Health Care consultant Jay Connor for “community engagement projects”.

· Despite being a Michigan – based consultant, Connor nonetheless billed Ontario taxpayers for multiple trips to and from Florida. Connor also billed Ontario taxpayers for frivolous expenses including a stop at a Tennessee Starbucks, bridge and highway tolls at the Canadian border,  and dinners in his hometown of Detroit. All expenses were paid out of Ontario health care dollars.

· The Hamilton – Niagara – Haldimand – Brand LHIN also handed out a $98,000 contract to consultant Dan Banko to do just two months worth of work in “community engagement”.

By Doug Draper

In a world where so many suffer and sometimes die from a scarcity of water, those of us fortunate enough to be living in this greater binational region of Niagara are truly blessed.

The lakes, rivers and adjoining watersheds coursing through and around our region sustained the Native Americans who lived here for thousand of years, and have contributed to the health and wealth of generations of people of European descent who began settling here more than 300 years ago.

Yet we have not always done the best job in the world of protecting this life-sustaining resource. Industrial pollution and sewage, urban sprawl, along with any one of a number other misuses and abuses of our vital freshwater resources have taken quite a toll.

This Saturday, April 10, the Niagara Frontier (New York) Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club is hosting a free forum titled; ‘Conservation Conversations 2010 – Buffalo Waters – The History, Present and Future of One of Our Planet’s Most Water-Rich Environments’.

You can read more about this forum that is being held for all of us, on both sides of the U.S./Canada border, who care and share these precious waters by clicking on the ‘keep reading’ tab at the end of this sentence. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Families across the Niagara region have a “right to good-quality health care close to home”  and not more cuts to health care that put them to risk, said Ontario’s NDP leader Andrea Horwath during a town hall meeting this April 6 in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Joy Russell, a Fort Erie resident and member of the Yellow Shirt Brigade, a Niagara citizen group fighting for hospital services in the region, speaks as Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Welland Riding federal NDP member Malcolm Allen listen on.

“Hospitals in the Niagara region are buckling under the strain of the government’s decision to shut down local emergency rooms,” said Horwath of the provincially appointed Niagara Health System board’s decision to close emergency rooms at hospitals in Fort Erie and Port Colborne to save little more than $1 million annually – even as it passes the cost of additional ambulance services, estimated at more than $3 million, to send emergency patients off to hospitals in Welland and Niagara Falls on to Niagara’s regional government and its property taxpayers.

“Dalton McGuinty (Ontario’s Liberal government premier) is handing out $4.5 billion in corporate tax cuts but says the well has run dry for local health care,” added Horwath. “Families deserve better.” Continue reading →

The Brock Animal Rights Club from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario is hosting its 2nd annual Radio-Action for Animals concert on April 11th 5:30 pm at L3 Nightclub on 6 James Street in St. Catharines.

Pierre is one of many "discarded" primates in this province that needs our help to live some semblance of a quality life outside his natural environment.

This year, the proceeds from the concert will be donated to Storybook Farm Primate Sanctuary which is located in Sunderland, Ontario.

Storybook Farm Primate Sanctuary is the only primate sanctuary in Canada that provides safe and permanent homes for primates discarded from years of exploitation in the entertainment industry, biomedical research, substandard road-side zoos, or from the exotic pet trade.

In addition to raising awareness about and funds for organizations dedicated to helping non-human animals, the concert offers an opportunity to raise awareness about the plight of non-human animals in today’s society and to encourage people to make more compassionate choices. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

They call her ‘Debbie Sevenfigures’.

Debbie Sevenpifer, CEO for the Niagara Health System, once again makes top ten on annual Sunshine List.

Indeed, I’ve heard that play on the name of the Niagara Health System’s CEO used so many times over the past few years – even by people who turn around and quietly confess that they work for the NHS – I’ve actually had to remind myself  from time to time that her real name is Debbie Sevenpifer.

 ‘Sevenfigures’ is an obvious reference to the fact that, compared to most of the rest of us who live and work in this region, Sevenpifer gets paid a pretty generous sum of money – about 10 times more than the media n income in Niagara, as a matter of fact – and that’s not including other bonuses and other perks.

I would only say that in fairness to Sevenpifer, it is not a seven-figure salary. It is six figures, which makes me wonder if Debbie might be a little better if she changed her last name to ‘Sixpifer’.

But that is about as fair as I am prepared to get because paying the chief executive for Niagara, Ontario $340,467 a year – the figure contained in the latest ‘Sunshine List’ released by the provincial government for public servants making $100,000 or more in 2009 – is outrageous when our hospital system is many millions of dollars in debt and front-line services to patients are being cut. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath will host a town hall meeting in Niagara Falls this Tuesday, April 6 to discuss cuts to hospitals and other local health care services with residents across the region.

Members of the Niagara citizens group the Yellow Shirt Brigade, from left, Merilyn Athoe, Joy Russell and Linda McKeller, in front of a sign protesting the loss of emergency and other services at Fort Erie's hospital. They plan to join other residents at a town hall meeting in Niagara Falls this April 6 and a rally for protecting public health care in Toronto this April 7.

Horvath and her party, along with Tim Hudak’s Conservatives, have been hammering away at the province’s Liberal government almost daily over the past few weeks over the closing of emergency rooms at hospitals in Fort Erie and Port Colborne, and other cuts, and over what they believe to be mismanagement of services and funding by the provincially created Niagara Health System and Local Health Integration Networks. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following media release from Buffalo, New York’s Olmsted Parks Conservancy, a not-for-profit group of residents dedicated to preserving and enhancing the beauty of Delaware Park, Martin Luther King Jr. Park and other great green spaces in the city.)

It’s Tree Planting Time in the Olmsted Parks

Volunteers are needed to plant 600 trees this spring throughout Buffalo’s historic Olmsted Park System.

Volunteers planting trees in Buffalo's Olmsted Parks. Photo courtesy of Olmsted Parks Conservancy.

As part of the Olmsted Parks Conservancy’s master plan, The Plan for the 21st Century, the Conservancy and volunteers will plant understory, flowering and canopy trees in April and May. Over the next decade, 10,000 new trees will be planted in Olmsted green spaces. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

While many residents across the Niagara region continue to express worry and concern over the future of hospital services here, at least one bureaucratic body Ontario’s Liberal government has set up to oversee changes to our hospitals has recently been given less reason to worry.

Peter Kormos, Welland riding NDP representative says scrap LHIN health care bureaucrats.

The Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) for the Niagara and Hamilton areas, along with several other high-priced, appointed bodies of bureaucrats like it across the province – is being granted immunity from legislative review by Premier Dalton McGuinty and his government so it can go on doing the government’s dirty work of reducing services at smaller hospitals across the region.

Members of the opposition Conservative and NDP parties discovered late this March, while taking some infra-red light to the fine print of the budget papers the McGuinty government dumped on us that a legislative review of the four-year-old LHIN bureaucrats for our area and others – a review that is in no small part about checking out their performance and spending practices for public accountability purposes, by the way – has been brushed forward from happening now – meaning the end of this March or  sometime in the future, or maybe never, for all we know.

(Click on ‘keep reading’ at the end of this sentence for more news and commentary on this topic.) Continue reading →

By Jim Armstrong

After reading Doug Draper’s excellent article in Niagara At Large regarding the Whirlpool Jet Boats, I thought the following information might also be of interest to those who are concerned about the Niagara River.

A Jet Boat gets ready to unload passengers on a dock in Queenston, Ontario along the lower Niagara River with the iconic monument of War of 1812 hero Sir Isaac Brock looming behind. Photo courtesy of Louise Howe.

The Ontario Court of Appeals recently overturned a decision by Justice Quinn that defined the operation of Whirlpool Jet Boats at the Melville Street dock in Niagara-on-the-Lake as an illegal use. This reversal of a well-written and unequivocal decision has been met with great disappointment and disbelief among the members of the Niagara River Coalition, and with good reason. 

The process of challenging the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake on the legality of the Jet Boat lease was long and expensive, and launched in the interest of protecting the integrity of the dock area and the Niagara River.  The Coalition is now faced with the prospect of either abandoning their case or facing another lengthy and costly process.

 Unfortunately, this scenario is all too typical of situations in which citizens groups seek to challenge what they believe to be unacceptable activities.  Continue reading →

By Becky Day

The arts and culture are the vital threads that weave the region of Niagara together, says Rosemary Hale, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University in Niagara.

The historic Canada Haircloth mill in downtown St. Catharines could be transformed into a performing arts centre for Niagara. Photo by Doug Draper

Hale stressed that point late this March during a talk she gave as part of an ongoing special dinner series being featured through this year at the Keefer Mansion in Thorold, Ontario.

Hale’s talk, titled ‘Arts, Culture and a bit of Haircloth’, also focused on a unique vision for the Canada Haircloth heritage property and is one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts, an extraordinary facility to be located in St.Catharines, Ontario’s downtown. Continue reading →

By John Bacher

On March 13, 2010, Niagara lost one of its most effective champions for social justice and protecting the environment

Bill Lidkea, who died at age 73, was for 52 years the loving husband of his wife and partner Wilma in these great passions for the earth and human dignity. Continue reading →