Daily Archives: July 24, 2010

By Doug Draper

Niagara, Ontario’s regional government is spending more to treat and pipe water and wastewater across the region than it is getting back in charges for water use, and that can only mean one thing.

One of Niagara Region's wastewater treatment plants in the St. Catharines community of Port Dalhousie. Photo courtesy of Niagara Region.

Get ready to pay more – and in some Niagara municipalities, significantly more – for the water you use in your homes and businesses.

That was the overall message Niagara’s directly elected regional councillors and mayors of local municipalities received from the Region’s public works and corporate services staff at a special committee-of-the-whole session this July 20 to discuss how best to set water and wastewater rates over the next four years.

“We have got to get this right,” said the Region’s public works commissioner, Ken Brothers, of the need for a new way of charging residents and businesses for water – a way that addresses a shortfall in revenue for operating water and wastewater works that has added up to about $22 million over the last six years alone. “Without the appropriate revenue, we are heading down an unsustainable path.” Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

How do you get municipal honchos in Toronto so hopping annoyed that they are hopping higher than the CN Tower?

A view from Niagara Parks Commission lands of the rapids foaming above the Horseshoe Falls. Photo by Doug Draper.

Try running a few ads on Toronto-area television stations and a website urging people to consider Niagara as an escape from all of the gridlock, noise, crime and other chaos in the city. That might do it.

In case you have not yet heard all the crying from across the lake, Toronto has its knickers tied in a knot over something a Niagara body said about it in a bundle of ads late this July. The Niagara Parks Commission launched an ad campaign – featured on its website and on Toronto TV stations – encouraging Torontonians to visit its scenic parklands along Falls and Niagara River corridor, as well as other Niagara area attractions. And why? To “shake off the city,” that’s why.

Suffice to say, Toronto officials and some media outlets based in that city seem ready to throw at least a few people down our way over the Falls in the wake of these ads. Continue reading →