Daily Archives: July 30, 2010

(Niagara At Large is posting the following media release by Conservative MPs in Niagara and will be posting more on the visit to Niagara, Ontario today by Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff later.)

Michael Ignatieff “Just Visiting” Niagara
 
 
Today (July 30), the Honourable Rob Nicholson, P.C., Q.C., M.P. for Niagara Falls, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Parliamentary Secretary Rick Dykstra, M.P. for St. Catharines and Dean Allison, M.P. for Niagara West – Glanbrook, are calling Michael Ignatieff’s “Just Visiting” tour an insincere attempt to reach out to the people of the Niagara region.

Niagara Falls, Ontario Conservative MP and federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson

 ”Mr. Ignatieff must tell the people of Niagara during his bus ride why he and his Liberal caucus continue to flip-flop on supporting victims of crime and law-abiding Canadians,” stated Minister Nicholson. “The ‘soft on crime’ Liberals don’t have any good ideas of their own when it comes to justice issues. While our government has consistently put the rights of victims first, they would rather allow criminals to roam our streets.”
 
The Liberal approach to crime is clear. After all, it was a Liberal government that:
 
· Granted the “faint hope” of early release to first degree murderers;
· Brought in conditional sentences allowing violent offenders to walk away free;
· Excluded protection of society as a principle of sentencing in the Criminal Code;
· Instructed courts to use less restrictive sentences and consider all available sanctions other than imprisonment for all offenders; and
· Cut the RCMP by 2,500 officers. Continue reading →

 A Commentary By Susan Howard-Azzeh

Canadians need to step back and analyze what is really at play here regarding the G20, specifically regarding civil liberties, participatory democracy and foreign interference, or Canada, as we know, it may be changed beyond recovery.

Representatives of unions, environmental and other activist groups march in the streets of Toronto during the G20 summit this June.

Yes, there were decent and reasonable police at the G20 who showed restraint and tried to diligently perform their duties to maintain public safety. However, there were also those who did not, and all en masse were used as political pawns by (Canada’s prime minister) Stephen Harper, (Ontario’s premier) Dalton McGuinty, G20 organizers and foreign agendas.

It is vital that we have public access and democratic input into what takes place behind closed doors by world leaders. Many believe the G20 should not take place at all and certainly not in downtown Toronto. Tactics chosen by the minority Black Bloc were designed so that no other city in the world would want to host the G20, which would satisfy
Black Bloc political aims because they feel the G20 is illegitimate, doesn’t represent the peoples’ best interests, and are the rich and powerful making decisions regardless of their impact on the world’s disempowered and often poor majority.

We already have the UN so why the G20? Because business interests, profits and economic globalization are not the number one priority at the UN. Continue reading →

By John Nicol

The human spirit endures many threats to its desire to commune.

Niagara, Ontario's Emil Breur

In Niagara, politicians play with our hospitals, amalgamate towns and create regional governments distant from our front doors. Schoolboards become such fiefdoms, ignorant of the desire for a sense of community, that they poach kids from, let’s say, Niagara-on-the-Lake, such that the town doesn’t have enough students for its own high school.

“Progress” wiped out hamlets like Homer (the Welland Canal), Glen Elgin (river mills were passé) and there are places like St. John or McNab where only the churches mark an olden day commingling at the crossroads.

Bucking these forces have been neighbourhood barbecues, ethnic clubs, and sporting organizations that allow us to form our own societies.

And then there’s the Emil Breuer Soccer Tournament, it’s own Brigadoon that, for the last 25 years, has sprung to life every Simcoe Day weekend on the once-remote grounds of German Village in Niagara Falls.

The weekend is a community gathering at its finest, a magical snapshot of what life should be, all inspired by a charismatic man named Emil Peter Breuer. Continue reading →

A Commentary By Mollie Stovell

It’s always nice to see a local resident really making a name for themselves. It always gives me a sense of pride, having grown up in Niagara. Then, once in a while you come upon a story, with a name, that diminishes that joy you once shared with your neighbours.

Omar Khadr then and more recently

For me, most recently, that story stars our (Niagara Falls) MP, Mr. Rob Nicholson, and his involvement with the Omar Khadr case. One could argue that Mr. Nicholson is merely doing his job by following the direction of our Prime Minister. However, as Canada’s Minister of Justice he must be held accountable for upholding our rights as Canadians, and, as his title implies, ensuring that justice is served.

For Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, he has not only failed on this front, but continues to fight against those standing on the just side of the law, that is, the Federal Court and previously, the Supreme Court of Canada. Continue reading →

A Commentary By Dan Wilson
 
If Facebook is any indication, there are a whole lot of people out there upset that all the farm animals at Happy Rolph’s petting zoo are gone.

These goats are among the many animals recently removed from popular Happy Rolph's park in St. Catharines, Ontario where animals were violently assaulted by still-unknown persons this spring. File photo by Doug Draper.

Paul Vanderzanden, the West Lincoln turkey farmer who leased the animals to the park, announced earlier this week that he had removed them after a number of questionable decisions (questionable to Mr. Vanderzanden anyways) were made by the city.
 
Regardless of what those decisions were, the fact remains that the animals are gone. Is this a bad thing? I say no. I’ve never really been a big fan of petting zoos and the only reason I go down to Happy Rolph’s is to photograph the ducks and turtles.
 
I personally don’t see what’s so appealing about seeing animals in cages. Of course, they’re not exactly cages, more like enclosures, but the principle is the same: they’re locked up and they can never leave. Their whole world is a pen measuring 10 feet by 10 feet, or in the case of the larger animals, 20 feet by 20 feet. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large Is pleased to post the following media release from the Binational Economic & Tourism Alliance, a not-for-profit organization representing members of the toursist industry and others across our greater binational Niagara Region.)

The Buffalo Sabres, hosts to the 2011 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship taking place December 26, 2010 to January 5, 2011 in Buffalo NY, have endorsed the Binational Economic & Tourism Alliance (BETA) and Niagara Sport Commission (NSC) as the Southern Ontario leads for the upcoming games.
 
The BETA and NSC, both members of the Host Organizing Committee for the Championship, will work together with a consortium of Canadian and U.S. partners, to assist with the coordination of Southern Ontario community stakeholder communications, visitor packaging, border-crossing logistics and providing one point of contact to ensure quality delivery, ease of transportation, and customer/fan satisfaction during the World Junior Hockey Championship. Continue reading →

By Catherine Ens

Several members and friends of Niagara Action for Animals last year celebrated David Suzuki’s World Ocean’s Day in an ad hoc fashion, by picking up rubbish along the Green Ribbon Trail and Martindale Pond.

Some of the discarded fishing line and other rubbish retrieved around St. Catharines' Martindale Pond.

 It was decided to expand this effort and on a regular basis since, we have armed ourselves with buckets, bags & gloves.  On a recent Sunday afternoon, eight of us spent a couple of hours retreiving what others decided to throw in and around the water; the ubiquitous take-out coffee cup, pop/beer/beverage cans, cigarette butts, plastic bags, bottles – both broken & intact – and more…. All in all, about 10 buckets full of out and out garbage. 

But most unfortunately – we found yards and yards, perhaps miles of fishing line, lures and hooks, tangled into the trees, along the waters edge, among the rocks and even on the ground. Continue reading →