Author Archives: dougdraper

By Doug Draper

We humans like to think of ourselves as members of the most intelligent species on the planet.

A young Lois Gibbs, with her children in her Love Canal home kitchen, fighting for hundreds of families in her neighbourhood to be compensated for the destruction of the neighbourhood and their homes.

And yet when it comes to warnings received – even from the most eminent of scientists – about things we are doing to our natural world that could bite back at us in ways that do grave harm to ourselves and our communities, it too often seems to take a disaster before we act.

Such was the case with the unregulated dumping of tens-of-thousands of tons of some of the world’s most toxic manmade chemicals in leaky holes in the ground, near the shores of the Niagara River in Niagara County, New York. It wasn’t until the plight of a neigbourhood built over one of those dumps – a neighborhood called Love Canal – made international headlines 35 years ago this year – that the first steps were taken too address these migrating poisons that threatened to destroy a source of freshwater for tens of millions of Americans and Canadians downstream around Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. Continue reading →

A Submsission from the Fort Erie Museum in Niagara, Ontario 

Ridgeway in Fort Erie, Ontario  –  All eyes were on Ridgeway in 1866 and Fort Erie Museum Services brings a new look to the Battle of Ridgeway through an dynamic exhibit located right on the battlefield.  This exhibit traces the origin of the conflict to its result – the creation of Canada. Visitors to the battlefield will gain insight into what happened and appreciate the sacrifices made here almost 150 years ago.  

To mark this occasion the museum is hosting a free, special event on October 26 from 2-4 p.m. at the battlefield Activities for all ages will provide a hands-on look at 1866.  A working telegraph will demonstrate the power of instant messaging.  Participants can try their hand at being a war artist, like Alexander Von Erichsen who followed the Fenians and painted the invasion. Many of his watercolour images from the museum collection are included in the exhibit.  Members of the Queen’s Own Rifles and the Welland Field Artillery will be on site. Continue reading →

Submitted to NAL from the Office of Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath

Fort Erie, Ontario, October 1 – New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath was in Niagara today to attend the last races of the season at Fort Erie Race Track. She was joined by NDP horse racing advocate Taras Natyshak. From a grandstand packed with horse racing fans, Horwath rejected Kathleen Wynne’s view that there’s no future for the Fort Erie Race Track.

“Fort Erie Race Track is a big part of Ontario’s history and an important part of the local economy. We can’t let it disappear,” said Horwath. “By promising ‘a different kind of future’ for the Fort Erie Race Track, the Premier is gambling with the economic future of Fort Erie and the entire region. And by turning her back on horse racing at the historic Fort Erie Race Track Kathleen Wynne is turning her back on the people of Niagara.” Continue reading →

A Brief Comment from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

The accompanying image is one an NAL reader circulated as “something to be thankful for” this Canadian Thanksgiving.

You can click on this image to blow it up on your screen.

Indeed, this courageous teenager from Pakistan, known around the world as Malala, was my personal pick for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the organization that will be awarded the 2013 prize, is certainly a worthy recipient for its efforts to rid the world of these horrible weapons which, as recently as a few months ago, caused the agonizing deaths of hundreds of men, women and children in Syria.

But Malala, who was shot and nearly killed by Talaban zealots a year ago this October for standing up for the right for women in oppressed countries to get any education, is struggling for the kind of thing that gets at the root cause of poverty and conflict in the world. Here is hoping she will be a recipient of the prize in the near future.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)

A Brief Comment from Doug Draper, publisher, Niagara At Large

One of our regular  readers sent a link to one of Rex Murphy’s most recent columns on the depravity of Dalton McGuinty and what is left of his Ontario Liberal government mess.

Save for Mike Harris, this has got to be the worst prick Ontario has had for a premier in half a century.

A few days back, following the release of a report from the office  the Auditor-General of Ontario, concluding that the Liberal McGuinty government’s crass political move to pull the plug on plans to construct gas-powered energy plant in two Liberal ridings in Mississauga and Oakville could cost the province’s taxpayers more than a billion dollars,  this publisher posted a commentary on this pornography.

I also made it clear, just as Rex Murphy has since, that I am so jaded on politics in this province that I question whether the provincial Conservatives and NDP, as much as they are piling on over this scandal, would have done anything much different had they been in power. Such is the cynicism I am sorry to say most of my fellow citizens seem to express about polticians and politics in general these days. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

Canada’s relationship with First Nations peoples is a rapidly accelerating failure, borne of its contempt for international and national law, and an overarching moral weakness,  outgrowths of its atrophied sense of self.

Chief Tecumseh and many of his warriors gave their lives during the War of 1812, making it possible for a limited number of British troops beat o a U.S. invasion of Canada. They hoped for a better deal for their people for their sacrifice – they never really got it.

Selective historical amnesia (and the rewriting of history) urges us to forget that Tecumseh’s Confederation, allied with the British, successfully prevented the US from annexing Canada during the War of 1812.

Manufactured amnesia urges us, as well, to minimize the importance of King George III’s Royal Proclamation of 1763 which proclaims the honour of the Crown to protect the aboriginal rights of its allies for “as long as the sun shines, the rivers flow, and the grass grows….”

Internationally, we are also at cross-purposes with the United Nations, a core agency of world peace.  According to the United Nations Declaration Of  The Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), developments that might impact First Nations territories require the free, prior, informed, (and accommodated) consent(FPIC) of the First Nations involved. Continue reading →

A Brief Foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

It looks like the Fort Erie Race Track – a venue for horse racing for more than a century – is dead. 

There will be those in animal activist circles who see this as a good thing, but many others see it as a tragedy for the Town of Fort Erie, Ontario, for those who work at this old track and for those who breed and care for horses around the horse track industry. 

There is no doubt about it, wherever you stand on whether horses should be there for people to ride and race on or whether they should run free, this is another great blow to a Town of Fort Erie that has already seen the province pull the plug on a Slots venue for gambling, on a tourist centre and other private company jobs within the past two or three years. Continue reading →

The U.S. Coast Guard ship lost 100 years ago this fall off the Niagara, Ontario shores of Lake Erie.

Submitted by Paul Kassay

This year is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the United States Coast Guard Light Vessel 82, just off the Lake Erie shores of  Point Abino in the Niagara municipality of Fort Erie, Ontario. Six  U.S. Coast Guard sailors perished in that terrible gale that struck the Great lakes on November 10^th , 1913. and lasting for days.

More than 240 sailors from both Canada and the United States perished in that hundred-year-old storm overall.

In September of 2012, a plaque was dedicated to honour the six sailors that  drowned a few miles off the Crystal Beach shore.  Both U.S. and Canadian coast guards were in attendance with five vessels in the water at the Waterfront Park in the Fort Erie community of Crystal Beach. About 200 people attended the solemn ceremony in a cross-border remembrance. Continue reading →

A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large publisherDoug Draper

I woke up this October 9^th promising myself that I would stay away from the pornography around Ontario’s Liberal government pulling the plug on two gas-fired energy plants in Oakville and Mississauga – an act we should all now know has cost all of us who live and pay taxes in this province up to a billion or more dollars.

Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak on the attack

But when Ontario’s Conservative opposition leader, Tim Hudak, who expressed just as much interested as we now know the Liberals did in the months leading up to the last October 2011 provincial election in cutting the chord on these plants, now says that if his party wins the next election and he becomes premier, he will launch a “judicial inquiry” into this whole mess, it is hard for this commentator to stand down.

Hudak, a Niagara, Ontario area MPP who is probably facing his last battle as Conservative leader if he doesn’t lead his party to what it feels it is its just reward this time, can almost always be counted on to be the first to circle in for the kill if he thinks he smells some Liberal blood in the water. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

There was a question that was more often asked in our society when a person whose responsibility it was to serve the public violated that responsibility – ‘When is (he or she) going to do the honourable thing and resign’.

Thanks to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and company, shamed Senator Mike Duffy just keeps on chomping it up from the public trough.

Apparently at this point in our history, where so many in the community have come to almost expected that those serving in government may debase themselves and the office they serve in, words and phrases like “honourable,” “integrity,” and “doing the decent thing” are almost no longer part of any dialogue when it comes to government-sanctioned scalawags in our midst. Continue reading →

NAL more on gas plants,

More Gas From Queen’s Park On Cost Of Gas-Fired Plants

A Brief Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

In the months leading up to the last Ontario election in the fall of 2011, large numbers of residents living in the Greater Toronto Area communities of Mississauga and Oakville were expressing their anger at the then Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty over proposals to locate two gas-fired energy plants in their communities.

Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne can never seem to get past the costly mess her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, made of unplugging two gas-fired energy plant proposals in the Greater Toronto Area.

The opposition Conservatives and NDP plugged in to this opposition by each saying, in so many words, that they would make those proposals go away if they won the next provincial election. McGuinty beat them to the punch by pulling the plugs on those power plant proposals at a cost to Ontario taxpayers, as we now know from an Auditor General’s report released this October 8^th, of $675 million and counting.Of course, there is no reason to believe that the cost to Ontario taxpayers would be any less if the Conservatives or NDP prevailed in the last election and followed through on their pledge to unplug these two proposals. Continue reading →

A News Commentary by Doug Draper

Ontario’s Ministry of Environment has given its blessing to a plan going back at least five years and put forward between Rankin Construction and the Regional Municipality of Niagara to build five wind-generating turbines, rising about as high as the length of a football field, on private lands near the Lake Erie shores of Wainfleet.

These five turbines, which their private landowners said ‘yes’ to some five years ago and which would generate enough energy to keep all the electrical equipment working in fired up in 2,500 modern-day homes, have become another battleground in Ontario for those who wish to oppose anything that is described as a “green” or “renewable energy” project on the grounds that anything around wind or even solar is going to soak energy consumers across the province in the pocketbooks and may even be dangerous to our health. Continue reading →

From Brock University, St. Catharines Campus, Niagara, Ontario

Brock University will host its annual “General Brock Commemoration” this Friday, Oct. 11^th to honour the institution’s namesake Maj.-Gen. Sir Isaac Brock who died on Oct. 13, 1812 during the Battle of Queenston Heights in the War of 1812.

General Isaac Brock to be commemorated at Brock University in Niagara, Ontario. You are invited to join in the commemorations.

 
The public event begins at 11 a.m. with guests from the Friends of Fort George 41st Regiment of Foot Fife and Drum Corps, Lincoln and Welland Regiment, Second Lincoln Militia and Old Fort Erie Iroquois re-enactors.
 
The uniformed re-enactors will march along University Road, under the Canadian Tire bridge, up to the front of Schmon Tower where the service will begin with the lowering of the Tower flags.
 
An informal reception will be held in Isaac’s Bar & Grill on campus after the ceremony. Hot cider will be served. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper, publisher, Niagara At Large

As we continue to ramp up Niagara At Large following a forced shutdown due to the flooding of our home base this summer, we thought it might also be a good time to revive an on feature here that we call ‘Signs of Our Times’.

Photo by Doug Draper

We launched ‘Signs of Our Times’ three years ago as a periodic post on NAL for focusing on real signs or billboards in our region that say something about the times we live in or the some of the issues facing us as communities. For some reason that we don’t think had anything to do with a lack of interest, Signs of Our Times fell by the wayside. But here we are  re-introducing it with a billboard that was unveiled with some fanfare in the Niagara, Ontario city of Niagara Falls this past spring.

It is a billboard that this NAL publisher finally got around to visiting a few weeks  back on a  corner of Montrose and Lyons Creek Roads, near the QEW in the southwest end of Niagara Falls – a billboard that boldly declares that this will be the site of a new hospital for Niagara Falls and the southern tier municipalities of Fort Erie, Welland, Port Colborne and Wainfleet. Continue reading →

From the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority

The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority is pleased to present the 39th Annual Ball’s Falls Thanksgiving Festival, a long standing Niagara tradition. The event will run daily October 11 through 14, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Find great art and crafts and other fun for people of all ages the Fall colours at annual Thanksgiving Festival, File photo courtesy of NPCA

Bruce Timms, Chairman of the NPCA remarks “the Ball’s Falls Thanksgiving Festival is considered a favourite tradition for families and visitors who come from far and wide to partake in the festivities. In addition to the many items available for purchase, everyone can enjoy the magnificent beauty of Ball’s Falls, set amidst the majestic Niagara Escarpment and Twenty Valley” Continue reading →

A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper, followed by a post from Greenpeace and a petition to the Russian Embassy that you can sign

“John Lennon’s Imagine played mightily in the background (and) from the moment the word ‘Greenpeace’ was first uttered in public, we had it – or we thought we did. Ban the bomb and save the redwoods! Nukes harm trees! At least it was a good start.”

–         From the book ‘The Greenpeace to Amchitika’ by one of Greenpeace’s founding members,  Robert Hunter, recalling the founding of Greenpeace on the west coast of Canada at the dawn of the 1970s.

Paul Ruzychi, a Niagara, Ontario native and Greenpeace activist, charged with piracy while in a Russian jail.

Okay, Russia, enough is enough. When armed officers from your Coast Guard arrested 30 Greenpeace activists and crew members, including Paul Ruzycki, a native of the Niagara, Ontario town of Port Colborne, this past September and threw them in jail that was disturbing enough.

But charging them, as your courts proceed to do this October 4, with piracy – a crime of violence that carries a maximum jail term of up to 15 years in your country – is outrageous. Even your Russian President, Vladimir Putin, was recently quoted saying: “I don’t know the details of what went on, but it’s completely obvious they aren’t pirates.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

So at least some of us want to move away from our so very car-dependent culture. We are looking for other options for getting around.

Ontario’s  CarShare president Jason Hammond in Niagara for the lauch of the first care, we as a community, can share with each other. Photo by Doug Draper

Well, then let’s give two thumbs up to Community CarShare and important partners like the City of St. Catharines, the Quartek Group, a progressive-minded architects, engineers and planning company, and others, for launching an alternative to our car dominated culture – even if it involves cars.

This October 3^rd, Community CarShare and its partners, include this Niagara, Ontario city of St. Catharines and important private partners like Quartek, launched the first CarShare program in all of this region. It is a program that allows people to share cars, if and when they need it, without having to go through the expense of owning one. It is, in so many ways, a way out of a car-dependent culture that holds anyone who still owns a car hostage to the high costs of owning, maintaining and insuring a car. Continue reading →

NAL progress Matthews,

From the Office of Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews

(A brief note from Niagara At Large – Well, a few days back we ran a post from Ontario’s opposition Conservative Party charging that the decade of Liberal Party government in the province has added up to “10 lost years.” So in fairness, here is a post from one of the Liberal government’s veteran cabinet ministers celebrating the past 10 years. We leave it to our readers to judge the merits of the points made in these posts.)

October 3, 2013 – When I was elected as part of the Liberal team in 2003, the people of Ontario were suffering from years of reckless decisions by PC and NDP governments.

Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews

Across the province, people were dealing with blackouts, long hospital wait times and over-crowded schools. Relationships with our important labour partners were toxic and subway lines were being bulldozed over.

That was 10 years ago. Since then, through the leadership of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne, the Ontario Liberal government has turned this province around. Continue reading →

A Commentary  by Doug Draper, Publisher, Niagara At Large

As I was about to cross the Canada-U.S. border this September 30 to pick up my wife at the Buffalo Airport, a CBC radio host was interviewing a Canadian newspaper columnist who believes that a merging of the two countries would be a great idea.

In her just-released book titled ‘Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country’, National Post business columnist Diane Francis argued that such a merger would make Canada and the United States more competitive in a world of rising economic giants like India and China.

All I could do as I listened to Francis, who is a dual (Canadian/ U.S.) citizen, is say; ‘Surely you are kidding? This has got to be a gimmick to sell books.’ Continue reading →

From the Office of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

Queen’s Park, October 2, 2013  – During Question Period today, Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, called on the government to protect jobs at the Fort Erie Race Track.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath

“For the second time in just over a year, workers at the Fort Erie Race Track got pink slips instead of assurances from this government throwing families and local businesses in Niagara into turmoil once again.” said Horwath.

“This government talks a good talk but will it pony up and provide stable long term funding for the horse racing industry instead of gambling with the economic future of Fort Erie and all of rural Ontario?” Continue reading →

A News Advance from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Populations of bees are crashing across North America and some who see them only as insects with stingers may not mind that so much.

But bees are also the world’s greatest pollinators of blossoming flowers and in regions like Niagara, where fruit orchards play such an important role in our economy, a crash in their numbers could prove catastrophic for a key industry. … not to leave out the impact it could have on our food supply.  Continue reading →

By Sue Corcoran

All the headlines agree. This has been an especially difficult year for Bangladesh.

A river ambulance, supported with funds from Niagara Volunteers for Bangladesh, responds to emergencies in remote areas of the country.

 A series of deadly factory accidents culminated in the worst industrial disaster on record in May, when a garment factory in Savar collapsed killing more than 1,100 people. Also, this past spring, Cyclone Mahasen struck the southern coast of Bangladesh with heavy rain and fierce winds that forced the evacuation of more than a million people. But the people of Bangladesh know adversity only too well and are resilient.

Niagara Volunteers for Bangladesh (NVfB) is an all-volunteer group founded in 2004 to work in partnership with established, local, grassroots NGOs, in Bangladesh, to lessen the hardships of extreme poverty. These partnerships have been very powerful in ensuring our efforts to reach the most impoverished and destitute. Continue reading →

By Elizabeth Chitty

This Friday, October 4^th, in the Niagara, Ontario city of St. Catharines, there will be an opportunity to pay heed to the national disgrace of missing and murdered aboriginal women.

We will gather at 10 a.m. Friday outside Rex Stimers Arena, facing Geneva Street in St. Catharines, and walk to Centennial Park via Gale Crescent to gather at the totem pole for drumming, singing and to share stories and the names of ‘Sisters in Spirit’. And all are welcome as I write this as an ally of aboriginal people who encourages other allies to join us and raise awareness of this appalling issue. Continue reading →

From the Office of Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak

QUEEN’S PARK – October 1, 2013 – While the Liberals will undoubtedly conjure the celebratory illusion that their 10 years in power Wednesday will not mark a lost decade, the Ontario PC Caucus will today shine the light that will lead Ontario out of its economic darkness.

Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak says we in Niagara, Ontario and rest of province have had 10 lost years under the Liberals.

“The way out of this black hole is to face the fact that the debt and deficit under the Liberals are already out of control,” says PC Finance Critic Vic Fedeli. “The reality is that a half million men and women wake up every day without a job to go to. And that’s just wrong.”

“All this has to change, and we will change it,” says Fedeli. “As Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak has said: it won’t be easy, but it can be done, and it will be worth it.” Continue reading →

A News Commentary by Doug Draper

It was a no brainer four months ago when Niagara area MPP Cindy Forster pressed Ontario’s Liberal government to pass a bill that would ban tanning beds for people 18 years old and younger, and it is a no brainer now.

Niagara students David Nguyen, left, and Sarah Lukaszczyk and Karen Babcock, to the right, present MPP Cindy Forster this past spring with more than 2,500 post cards, signed by young people in support of a tanning bed ban in Ontario.

So what is Premier Kathleen Wynne and her government waiting for ? What is the hold up when five other Canadian provinces have already approved such a ban and when public health experts across North America have been warning for years that the amount of UV exposure from these tanning systems increases the risk of skin cancer and raises that risk for younger people by as much as 75 per cent? Continue reading →

By Dr. Randy Malamud, Regents’ Professor of English at Georgia State University and chair of the department

(A Brief Note from Niagara At Large – With the September 27 screening of Blackfish in Niagara, Ontario in support of four individuals sued by Marineland, NAL has received permission to post  this insightful piece featured on the independent news and commentary site TruthOut this September 28. We thank Randy for granting that permission and hope its posting here enriches the discussion and debate around capturing and keeping marine mammals in captivity for reasons of commercial proft and amusement.)

In  Blackfish, Gabriella Cowperthwaite’s sleeper hit documentary about a tragedy at Orlando’s SeaWorld, audiences are tempted (or at least I was) to empathize with Tilikum, the orca who killed his trainer Dawn Brancheau during a 2010 performance. The whale had been abused for decades in the service of mindless human entertainment masquerading as environmental education. (“SeaWorld artfully combines education and entertainment in a way that connects people to the sea and sea life like nowhere else,” their webpage boasts.)

I felt a kind of poetic justice in the whale’s eventual revolt against the handler, who must have epitomized, for him, the humiliating institutions of captive animal displays where he had had the misfortune to spend his life.

He was a “killer whale,” and he killed – what part of this was unexpected?

To continue reading  this commentary by Randy Malamud please click on  http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18954-a-tale-of-a-whale  , then after you have read this piece return to Niagara At Large at www.niagaratlarge.com and leave your views on Randy’s commentary here so we can keep the discussion on this issue going.

By John Bacher

 “Way down upon the Maumee River, Far, far, away, There’s where  my heart is turning ever, That’s where the algal stays, Up and down old Lake Erie, Sadly I roam, Still longing for clean beaches, Without slimy foam, Old Lake Eire  is sad and dreary, Everywhere I roam,  Oh,   how my heart grows so weary, Making me moan and groan …”

The fish are dying in Lake Erie, alright. This one swamped up along the shore, surrounded by algae we humans are, most indeed, responsible for. Lake Erie dying for the second time in half a century? When are we ever going to learn.

“All around the beach I wandered, When I was young, Then may happy days I squandered, Many songs I sung, When I was playing with my brother, Happy was I, Now the green algae is piling  higher, Making the fish die. …”

Words  by John Bacher to the tune of ‘Way Down Upon The Swanee River

It may seem strange to those in Niagara, Ontario and the Buffalo/Erie County, New York area  that way down upon the Maumee River far, far away in Ohio  there is an impact on our region from the phosphorous loadings of the American corn belt. Continue reading →

Ontario NDP Health Critic France Gelinas

A Statement from the Office of Ontario NDP Health Critic France Gelina 

(A Brief Note from Niagara At Large – Some of us who choose to pay attention may recall that this is the same Ontario eHealth agency that blew away about a billion dollars in consultant contracts to create a provincial health records registry I don’t believe is fully functional to this day.)

September 27^th, 2013 – “ Ontario’s precious healthcare dollars should be invested in helping people get healthy and stay healthy. Not golden parachutes for eHealth Executives. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Ontario’s Liberal government ought to stop talking about expanding Go Transit services into the Niagara region and start doing it by getting a regular Go Train service on the rails, says Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster.

Cindy Forster, representing the Niagara, Ontario riding of Welland in the provincial legislature, calls for more train transit servces between this region and the Greater Toronto Area. .

During Question Period in the Ontario Legislature this September 25^th, Forster called on the Liberal government to get going on a promise it has previously made to move toward regular, daily Go Train service between communities in Niagara and the Greater Toronto Area.

“It’s bad enough that VIA Rail service (a federally funded rail transit system) has been slashed,” said Forster, “but it’s even harder for Niagara families to understand why this government keeps wavering on expansion of Go Train service. …. The Liberal government,” she added, “is so focused on sticking Ontarians with the bill for more transit promised in the GTA, that it seems to have forgotten that commuters depend on buses and trains to get them to work in regions like Niagara.” Continue reading →

NAL Final Reminder Blackfish,

From NAL publisher Doug Draper

This Friday evening at 7 p.m., you have the opportunity to view an exclusive screening of Blackfish – a crtically acclaimed, Oscar contender of a film that dramatizes the plight of whales being exploited for peoples’ entertainment at amusement parks – at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School on 101 Glen Morris Drive, below the Niagara Escarpment and  off Glenridge Avenue in St. Catharines, Ontario.

An Orca – a species of whale dubbed so wrongly and unfortunately as “killer whales” – does what it was trained to do at an amusement park somewhere in North America.

And by buying a ticket to attend this special event, which will include expert speakers on marine mammals, you will be supporting four advocates for the freedom of marine mammals, including three former employees from the Marineland Park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, who have been slapped with million dollar lawsuits for speaking out about the park in ways the park’s owners and operators allege were damaging to its interests.

You can purchase tickets to this event for $15 at the door or for $10 in advance at the Rise Above Restaurant on 120 St. Paul Street in downtown St. Catharines.

You can also find out more about the film, the purpose for this event and click on a link for a trailer for Blackfish by visiting a story NAL posted here about a week ago. Find that story by clicking on https://niagaraatlarge.com/2013/09/15/critically-acclaimed-documentary-to-premiere-in-niagara-ontario-in-support-of-defendants-slapped-with-marineland-lawsuits/ .

 (Niagara At Large invites all of those who dare to share their first and last name with their views on this issue to share a comment in the space below.)

By Dan Wilson

So it appears we’re going to have another Native deer hunt in Short Hills. That will be the second one this year, only this time the park will be closed for all four weekends in November, up from two weekends back in January.

Ontario parks officers and Native representatives face off with opponents of a deer hunt in Sjhort Hills Provincial Park in Niagara, Ontario. Photo by Dan Wilson

The announcement came from the Ministry of Natural Resources on September 19^th  at White Meadows Farms in Pelham, where the MNR staged an impromptu open house to answer the public’s questions.

A few representatives of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy also attended to clear up any misconceptions people might have about the “harvest” and why we (anyone not Native to Canada) need to respect the Natives’ culture. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

For years now, the federal government has been censuring, muzzling, de-funding, and laying off scientists, librarians, archivists, statisticians, and researchers in its efforts vacate government involvement in core research, and to shift its focus to industry-specific needs.

Scientists forced to rally for science in Harper’s Canada.

There are three granting councils that allocate federal funding for research in Canada: the  Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council (NSERC), and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR).  In constant dollars, from 2007-2013, base funding for SSHR has decreased by 10.1%; funding for NSERC has decreased by 6.4%; and funding for CIHR has decreased by 7.5%. Meanwhile, NSERC funding aimed at “company-specific” problems has increased (between 2001-2012) by 1178%, while success rates for CIHR grants has dropped by 61 per cent. Continue reading →

News and Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Less than six months after we learned of the death of Peter Kormos, one of Niagara, Ontario’s and this province’s political icons, we are suddenly struk by the news that Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor is resigning from politics.

Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor, speaking out at a rally to save hospitals in south Niagara, a move that might not have won many brownie points with his own Liberal government. File photo by Doug Draper

Not that Kim Craitor, just a few days away from celebrating his 67^th birthday, has taken the final exit, as Peter Kormos so unfortunately did when he was found dead at his Welland home late this past March. Kim is still very much in this world for himself and his family. But he has suddenly announced, this September 24^th afternoon, that he is leaving public office just the same.

In a brief written statement, and I’ve been told that Craitor was not doing interviews this day as much as he has always been available for interviews in the past, he said that “while it is never a good time to leave, after ten very productive and rewarding years, now I need to put my health and family first.” One of Craitor’s close friends and helpers told NHL that when it comes down to it, Craitor has given it his all and feels physically and mentally burned out. Continue reading →

By Daniel K. Wilson

(A Brief Foreword from Niagara At Large Doug Draper – I first met Dan Wilson close to two decades ago while still covering environmental issues for the late, great, independent St. Catharines Standard.

Dan was one of the earlier individuals in this Niagara, Ontario region who worked to raise awareness about the wrongness of imprisoning magnificent ocean mammals like orca whales and dolphins in cement tanks in amusement parks like Marineland in Niagara Falls. For his efforts he was later sued by Marineland – a lawsuit that was later dropped, but not before Canadian scientist and CBC Nature of Things host David Suzuki spoke her to raise funds for Dan’s defense.

 What is also true of Dan, and what I learned much later, is that he is also a very talented nature photographer and Niagara At Large has been fortunate to feature some of his photos here during the first couple of years this site has been doing its best to offer something new and independent in this region of the world.

This October you can enjoy some of Dan’s fine photography on display at the Pelham Public Library, located at 43 Pelham Square in the town of Fonthill. For further information on the library and its location and hours click on www.pelhamlibrary.on.ca/ .

 Now I leave it to Dan to discuss this exhibit of his work in his words.)

Dan calls this photo ‘Angry Bull Tree’. 

I see faces everywhere; always have. When I was a little kid I did what other little kids did: I looked up in the sky searching for faces and animals hiding in the clouds. But being a creative and somewhat obsessive little guy I didn’t stop there. I would look for faces in floor tiles, on trees or floating around in my cereal bowl.

And I still do. I can spend hours at Little Cove near Tobermory scouring the beach in search of boulders that seem to be staring back up at me, or carefully inspecting every frozen puddle I come across in Short Hill Provincial Park hoping to find something that catches my eye. Continue reading →

By Pamela Minns

Where have all the letters gone ?

Rosemary Hale, former Dean of Humanities at Brock, University, championed a performing arts centre for Niagara, Ontario

I have been a subscriber to The St. Catharines Standard for probably over 40 years and the one section that I enjoyed reading the most was the Letters to the Editor — opinions that came from the community.

I have noticed recently, that this section of the newspaper is almost non-existent – possibly two or three letters a week – there used to be hundreds of them !  I was a regular contributor, and there was always a “line up” to get a letter printed – but it did get printed !   I think if I were in business one of the things that would be of utmost importance to me would be the feedback from my customers – that is the only way to make things better;  but, it would seem that the readers are not the customers any more – it is the advertisers ! Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

For some time now, opponents to equitable, universal health care have been smearing proponents of Canada’s “signature” social program, Medicare, by using a corporate “communications” strategy known as “FUD”, which stands for Fear Uncertainty Doubt.

Rallies for saving public health care are becoming more common in Canada

In the U.S, the dynamic played out fairly recently, with the launch of Michael Moore’s film, SICKO.  According to Wendell Potter, an American insurance industry whistleblower, the insurance industry, horrified by the poignancy of the documentary, targeted Michael Moore with a “FUD” attack.

Potter explains that the CIGNA insurance company tried to undermine Moore by portraying his as a communist, or a socialist, and as someone who was trying to undermine the American Dream. Continue reading →

A Foreword by Doug Draper, publisher, Niagara At Large

(We’ve heard most of the crap, over and over again, from Tim Hudak/Mike Harris/Tea Party-type s in ths region, around how these wind farms are going to destroy their health and diminish the value of their properties. And of course, if they keep up this negative rhetoric they are being spoon-fed by from corporate interests in the nuclear, gas and coal industries, and over and over again from a Hudak, some of their worst fears might come true. Self-fulfilling prophesies, if even half of these idiots know what a self-fullfilling prophecy is, have a way of coming true – specially the part about their property values.

Thanks to a majority on Niagara, Ontario’s regional council, we may never see this here. How pathetic. How unprogressive this regional government is.

Just keep telling the rest of the world, over and over again, ad nausea, that wind farms or solar panel farms are the worst things you can have in your community, and you might just devalue the value of property even more than it might be devalued if a coal-fired power plant or nuclear power plant, which are apparently your alternative energy sources, were located in your neighbourhood.

Now Niagara At Large wants to offer you the full text of an alternative voice from the Niagara, Ontario community of Lincoln, Ontario who tried to speak to a Niagara regional council whose majority of members would eventually re-vote for a position the council approved this past spring, essentially saying that Niagara, Ontario is unfriendly to renewable energy industries.

Here is the test of the talk by Lincoln/Beamsville, Ontario resident Virgil Nose. Keep in mind that it took a lot of courage for this individual to deliver this speech with many dozens of anti-wind farm people in the audience who, at times, audibly hissed him.)

Good evening,

My name is Virgil Nose and I am a resident of Beamsville.

I want to talk about a divisive subject – Wind Turbines. As I understand it, there are many people against the construction of Wind Turbines in Niagara. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

So we may wonder why Niagara, Ontario has one of the highest unemployment rates in all of Canada, and why so many young people feel the need to leave for greener pastures in a region that is hostile to any progressive thinking around public transit, governance reform or almost any other change that might move it forward.

Niagara’s Ontario Region has made it clear, once again, that it is a ‘no zone’ for a 21st century renewable energy industry.

Well, this September 19^th, anyone who bothered to pay attention – which is far too few of us, I’m afraid – got another whiff of the 1950s stench that keeps this region from moving forward economically, environmentally and almost any other way. This one came when a majority of the regional government’s councillors voted in favour of keeping entrenched a motion many of the same councillors endorsed this past spring – to declare at least two local municipalities in this region “unwilling hosts” for wind turbines capable of generating renewable energy.

What these councillors bluntly said to a rapidly growing renewable energy industry around the world is; ‘Go to hell. We don’t want you here in Niagara.’ And this is coming from a region where, one might laugh if it were not so sad, had the audacity to declare itself “the Green Energy Capital of Canada” somewhere around a year ago. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

In a letter to top U.S. environment officials, Ontario’s environment minister has urged them not to take a dangerous chemical waste dump near the brink of the Niagara River gorge off of their ‘National Priority List’ where it would continue to remain an object of close scrutiny.

The Hyde Park dump is located just outside the lower right corner of this photo of the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge, near the brink of the Niagara River Gorge. When it was leaking, full blast, through the cracked bedrock to the river below, its poisons spread throughout Lake Ontario and helped almost destroy a healthy fishery in the lake. Two countries – Germany and Japan – once stopped purchasing fish products from Lake Ontario due to the high concentrations of chemicals in the fish flesh, associated with this dump.

“Ontario continues to oppose deletion of the site from the NPL,” said Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley in a letter he transmitted this September 19^th  to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and EPA’s Mew York emergency and remedial response division director Walter Mugdan in response to plans to possibly de-list the Hyde Park chemical dump in Niagara County, New York from EPA’s decades-old Superfund Site program.

“We are concerned about the potential for failure of the aging remedial infrastructure at the site and the lack of clarity around the party or parties responsible for perpetual maintenance of the remedial works. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

May seem hard to believe or maybe not for the 20-something bunch out there, but it was 50 years ago in 1963,  that the fourth and most recent bridge crossing the Niagara River between Canada and the United States – the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge – was opened.

The Lewiston-Queenston or the Queenston-Lewiston, call it what you want, it was the last bridge built across the Niagara River between two neighbours.

This September 19^th,  Canadian and American dignitaries will be celebrating that anniversary in what has been described by bridge authorities as a “private ceremony for regional dignatiaries and border operators..” This private celebration follows, in case we all missed it a large fireworks display over the Horseshoe Falls in nearby Niagara Falls, Ontario and New York that apparently had something to do with remembering the opening of the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge or, by the way, the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, whichever side of the border you are on and whichever way you want to look at it. Continue reading →

A Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

They have become more and more common over the past 30 or so years. And it has reached a point where they and members of the legal fraternity that launch them for whatever deep-pocket clients hire them, could scare all too many Canadians away from exercising whatever right they have left in this country to a free expression of their views.

If we lose that right, God damn it, we might just as well go live some God-awful piss hole of a place like Syria, North Korea, China or Russia.

So what this post is all about, whether you are a liberal or conservative or something else or none of those, is about is protecting what is left of what past generations of our country people fought for on the beaches of Normandy and elsewhere in this world where they laid their lives down for democracy

This is about asking all of you to support Canadian public interest groups like the Niagara-based Marineland Animal Defense (MAD), the Council of Canadians, members of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Greenpeace, and more than 130 other citizen groups across this country to urge your Ontario MPP and the Ontario government at large to do what is right. It is about askng asking this Ontario government of Kathleen Wynne to do what other provinces across this country and many states across our neighbouring United States have already done and make it harder for those with deep pockets to hire lawyers with few principles that have anything to do with the spirit of this great country to shut the rest of us up with what are called SLAPP suits or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

We have witnessed this again in Niagara with the SLAPP suits filed against a number of people, including former employees, who have expressed their concerns about alleged mistreatment of mammals at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Among other things, these “defamation” suits are intended to shut people who believe that concrete tubs in places like this is no place for whales and other marine mammals.

What is amazing so far, is that it hasn’t shut them up. If anything, citizens across this country of Canada and the United States are rallying to their defense. When will the Ontario government by putting an end to SLAPP suits that do little more than enrich lawyers and cost taxpayers more to support our court system, and most of all, strive to kill or chill free expression in a province and country that is supposed to stand for democracy for all!

Now here is a news release posted today by Marineland Animal Defense, Greenpeace Canada, The council of Canadians and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression on behalf of groups representing hundreds of thousands of citizens across this great country.

140 groups call on Ontario legislature to make public advocacy bill top priority

September 18th, 2013 (Toronto) – Over 140 groups, including environmental organizations, unions and freedom of expression advocates, are calling on the Ontario legislature to adopt strong legislation to prevent Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) from being used to limit freedom of expression, public participation and prevent the abuse of libel laws.

These legal suits are all about stopping this. Canadians who believe in freedom of speech have to stand up against SLAPP suits now.

Anti-SLAPP laws, which have already been adopted in Quebec, a majority of U.S. states and several other countries are designed to prevent powerful companies and individuals from lodging meritless lawsuits, often for defamation, which are designed not to protect reputation but to silence critics. These lawsuits burden defendants, often public interest advocacy groups, with massive legal fees, draining their resources and distracting them from their core work. As such, they exert a chilling effect on freedom of expression and make it more difficult for civil society to act as watchdog of the powerful. Continue reading →

A Short News Brief and Comment from Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

As a follow-up to a recent post on NAL involving a disturbing story about a dog in Welland, Ontario  that was impaled by an arrow launched from someone’s bow, Niagara Regional Police announced this September 13^th that they made an arrest that case.

Tara, before the arrow was surgically removed. Photo courtesy of Welland & District Humane Society

Police arrested a 13-year-old Welland boy and charged him with one count of posession of a weapon for dangerous purposes. The boy was not named because he is considered a minor under the law and police also reported that they did not think the arrow shot that wounded the dog was intentional.

Just the same, one cannot help but wonder if this young boy was using a bow and arrow given to him by parents or other adult parties in his life and if it ever occurred to them to make sure he did not use what is a potentially lethal weapon, after all, in an urban area without proper supervision. Even if all the kid did was fire the arrow into the air, as I remember doing in a country field when I was that age, the arrow has to come down somewhere. And to do it in an urban environment is reckless, to say the least. Continue reading →

Submitted for Public Release by Niagara College

September 17, 2013 – Edward Greenspan, one of the most prominent defense lawyers in Canada, will speak to NC students, staff and the public during a distinguished speaker event at the Welland Campus on September 18th.

One of Canada’s best known lawyers, Edward Greenspan, to speak at Niagara College

The event begins at 7 p.m. in the Applied Health Institute Auditorium,
and Greenspan will speak for 45 minutes before taking questions from the
audience.

A limited number of seats are still available, and can be reserved by
contacting Kathryn Beacham via email at kbeacham@niagaracollege.ca.
Reserved seats will be confirmed by email. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper,  Niagara At Large

Harry Schlange, who is no stranger to Niagara and municipal politics here, has been named as the Region’s new chief administrative officer, replacing recently retired Mike Trojan in that top staff position.

Niagara Regional Headquarters in Thorold, Ontario

Schlange last worked in Niagara a few years back as the CAO for the Town of Fort Erie, before taking the CAO position in 2011 in Loyalist Township, a municipality of about 15,000 with a seven-member council (including the mayor) near Kingston, Ontario.

Niagara Regional Chair made the announcement this September 17, five days after regional council chose him from a large field of candidates at during a closed door session that lasted about two hours. The announcement of the councillors’ decision was delayed in order to inform Schlange that he was chosen and to give him an opportunity to break the news to his current employers. Continue reading →

A Media Release from the Ottawa based citizens group Council of Canadians

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – NAL posted commentary on this site earlier this year, expressing concerns about plans to pump tar sands crude from Alberta, eastward through pipelines that run through a Great Lakes basin that millions of Canadians and Americans, including hundreds of thousands of residents in our Greater Niagara River, depend on as a source of drinking water and for other purposes.

Should a serious rupture of these lines occur, as they have in other regions on this continent where pipelines have been used to transport this asphalt-like material, it could spell catastrophe in a Great Lakes region that is home to one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. The fact that federal and provincial governments in Canada have gutted legislation and resources for monitoring potential sources of environmental contamination in recent years, and have all but eliminated the need for a full environmental review of projects of this magnitude, do little to assure members of the public that environmental protection will be among the priorities if and when the crude starts flowing through these lines.

It is with all that in mind that NAL is pleased to post the following media release from the Council of Canadians.)

September 16, 2013 – The Council of Canadians is raising concerns about the potential threat that expansion plans for the Alberta Clipper, a pipeline also known as Line 67, would have on the Great Lakes. The expansion project would also destroy wetlands along the route in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and threatens three species at risk in Canada.

Please right click on this image to enlarge it for better viewing purposes. This image accompanied Council of Canadians media release.

On September 9, 2013, the National Energy Board sent a letter to Environment Canada warning that approval of the expansion would result in the permanent loss of wetlands along the pipeline route and that it threatens the Northern Leopard Frog, Barn Swallow and Sprague’s Pipit, three species named under the Species At Risk Act. Continue reading →

“When will they ever learn,” sang the great old American folk singer Pete Singer in one of his classic songs,’ Where Have All The Flowers Gone’.

An American police officer runs to latest mass shooting incident in that gun-happy country.

My answer is they, in America, will never learn, not when it comes to gun violence in their country. As an outsider looking in, I’ve come to the conclusion that this country can and will sustain any amount of gun-related violence, as long as it makes for engaging cable TV and especially so long as it protects it protects its sacred second amendment right to bear arms at whatever bloody cost.

So this brings me to the big news on all of the American cable channels on this September 16^th day – that of the “mass shootings” as America’s President Barack Obama described them at a federal naval facility in Washington, D.C. The cable channels in the U.S. ran on about this non-stop since the first word of the shootings got out around 9 a.m. and continued for hours to call it “Breaking News.”

At the risk of sounding a bit callous for those and their families who have died in this latest American gun massacre – at least 13 dead as I bang out this and many others injured – this is not “breaking news” in America any more. It is old news, and it seems like it is getting to the point where the bang-bang-bang of the semi-assault weapons the wackos in that country carry into these scenes of carnage have become nothing more than background noise. Continue reading →

A Submission from Erie County, New York and Niagara Region, Ontario

(A short front note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper– The growing interest in this binational environmental conference, organized by county and regional governments on both sides of the Niagara River border, is great news. Is it possible that environmental conferences are finally regaining broader interest after a couple of  decades of environmental issues falling to the wayside and not getting the attention they deserve? As a veteran environment reporter going back to the days of the Love Canal disaster in this region of the world, I pay tribute to Thomas Hersay, Deputy Commisioner of the Erie County, New York Department of Environment & Planning and Patrick Robson on the Ontario side and Commissioner of Integrated Community Planning for the Niagara Region, for their efforts in pulling this greater Niagara regional forum together.)

BUFFALO, NY — People from around the world will convene in Buffalo next month for what was expected to be a modest bi-national environmental conference for local governments in Western New York and Southern Ontario.  Organizers were shocked, however, when inquiries began pouring in from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Patrick Robson, a commissioner for Niagara, Ontario’s regional government, helped put together this binational conference on the grounds that environmental challenges transgress national boundaries.

“The global attention we’ve received was completely unexpected, although certainly well deserved,” said Thomas R. Hersey, Jr., conference organizer and Deputy Commissioner of the Erie County Department of Environment & Planning.  “The quality of environmental management programs advanced by governments, non-profits, and private enterprise across New York and Ontario is exceptional, and we’re honored that the world is turning to us for insight and guidance.”

For nearly a year, Hersey and others from the Erie County Department of Environment & Planning and the Niagara Region Integrated Community Planning Department have been planning the 2013 Conference on the Environment: A Bi-National Sustainability Summit.  The conference, which takes place October 3-5 at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in Buffalo, is designed to appeal to a diverse audience of environmental professionals, officials, and members of the public, and will feature over 30 presentations by leading environmental experts from the U.S. and Canada. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

A film reviewer for the great alternative media voice, called ARTVOICE in Buffalo, New York, recently wrote that Blackfish – a documentary film that takes an uncompromising look at the lives of whales performing at amusement parks that go out of their way, as the film reviewer says, brand themselves as “family friendly – is “seriously inappropriate” viewing for children.

An image from the film Blackfish

Although I have only seen a few graphic outtakes and read a number of write-ups on the this film, and have not yet sat through the entire film as the ARTVOICE reviewer has, I am tempted to take issue with any idea that the film ought not to be viewed by children. After all, more than a few elementary school teachers, with the apparent blessing of the school boards that employ them, have taken their classes on day trips to marine mammal parks like Sea World and, closer to home, Marineland in Niagara Falls, on the grounds that it is an “education experience” for the young ones.

Well if that is true, then why not offer these same children a more well rounded education by exposing them to a viewing (perhaps it should even be mandatory viewing in our schools) of this critically acclaimed film? After all, they are probably going off in a dark corner, when their dopey parents are more pre-occupied with other matters revolving around careerism and binging consumerism than they are around the obscene crud their kids are watching online or on some cable programs. So why not watch a film that includes some images of captive whales in a marine mammal park quite literally chewing up some of what might be, more politely called, their guardians. Should that not be part of the educational experience as well? Continue reading →

A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Once upon only six or more years ago, there were Fort Erie, Ontario citizens like Sue Salzer, along with Port Colborne allies like Pat Scholfield, who knew that the amalgamated Niagara Health System – the hospital board for this region amalgamated under the former Ontario Tory Harris/Hudak government – were getting ready to concentrate most of the acute care health services in the region in one new hospital site.

Interim Niagara Health System CEO Sue Matthews trumpets palliative care services at former hospital in Fort Erie, Ontario.

That is why they, along with more than 100 brave doctors and numerous equally brave nurses across Niagara, spoke out against the Niagara Health System’s consolidation plans. Many of them argued that if there was to be only one new mega-hospital for Niagara’s future, it should be located at a more central location in the region, and not in the crazy north Niagara place it is now in west St. Catharines.

But it is there now, thanks to former NHS CEO Debbie Sevenpifer and all of her enablers on her handpicked hospital board, media whores at the St. Catharines Standard and others. And that also means thanks to all of those good citizens – including citizens in the central and south ends of Niagara who, for one reason or another, weren’t paying attention to what Sevenpifer and company were doing six or seven years ago – and there is nothing we can do about it.

So here we are. The former Douglas Memorial Hospital in St. Catharines is now a “centre of excellence” or whatever they want to call it for palliative care, and there may still be the “urgent care centre” that replaced the emergency room there, and so on. Continue reading →

A Submission To NAL from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

(A Brief Note from Niagara At Large – This is important stuff for our children’s future. Niagara At Large will be posting more on this and other examples of “generational theft” when it comes to the children of Canada and America later.)

OTTAWA—Average tuition and compulsory fees for Canadian undergraduate students are estimated to rise almost 18% over the next four years, from almost $6,200 in 2011-12 to over $7,300, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The study looks at trends in tuition and compulsory fees in Canada since 1990, projects fees for each province for the next four years, and examines the impact on affordability for median- and low-income families using a Cost of Learning Index.

“Since 1990, with very few exceptions, the tuition fee burden across the country has been increasing faster than incomes. Between 1990 and 2011 the average annual increase in tuition fees and ancillary fees in Canada was 6.2%—nearly three times greater than the rate of inflation,” says Erika Shaker, co-author of the study and director of the CCPA’s education project. Continue reading →

NAL new ceo region,

By Doug Draper

Niagara, Ontario’s regional council has finally chosen an individual to occupy the top municipal staff post in the region, but we probably won’t be told who that individual is until the week of September 16^th – unless, of course, someone on the council leaks the name of the individual out.

Niagara, Ontario’s regional headquarters.

The council met in closed session for about two hours this September 12^th to choose a new chief administrative officer from a list that, at one point this summer, included as many as 126 names.

“It was a full house (meaning all 31 regional councillors were in attendance) and we had a good debate,” said Niagara Regional Chair Gary Burroughs following a closed meeting that final y found a replacement for Mike Trojan, who served as the Region’s CAO for 13 years and held other key positions for the regional government for 14 years before that. Continue reading →

A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

“What’s The Use Of Being A Writer If You Can’t Irritate A Great Many People” – the late Pulitzer Prize winning writer Norman Mailer

In the next day or two ahead, Niagara At Large will be filling our supporters and others in on how we plan to keep this site alive as an independent news and commentary voice for the Greater Niagara Region.

We also plan to add more clarity to the mission statement this online site tried to describe when it entered the internet world three years ago. We will make it clearer than ever, if we have to (and we appear to for some), that this site does not have a “political” or “partisan bias”. It is here for building communities for the betterment of us all. Those who can’t or won’t accept them are free to take a walk to other news venues that support their ideologically warped points of view.

So stay tune. See you tomorrow – maybe!

By Liz Smith – The Brock Press

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post this piece by Liz Smith, a reporter for The Brock Press, the student newspaper for Brock University in Niagara, Ontario. The Brock Press, in our view, does a better job of covering issues of interest and concern to younger people than corporate-run mainstream  newspapers across this region. We thank Tim Stacey, Brock Press’s chief editor, and Liz Smith for allowing Niagara At Large to post this piece and we will leave you with a link to read more on The Brock Press below.)

Advocates for animals line the main street in front of Marineland’s sprawling amusement park in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Remember Marineland? That place [in Niagara Falls, Ontario that] your family took you to when you were a kid with the catchy, can’t-get-out-of-your-head jingle (“Everyone looooooves Marineland!”), a proximate location that Canada’s Wonderland couldn’t compete with and oh yes, a captive terrain for a range of wild animals for patrons to awe over. Well in case you haven’t heard (or have been fed the propagandist-spin from our corporatized local media), there are some pretty significant developments around the park lately that ought to spark debate around a multitude of serious issues. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

When Kathleen Wynne was sworn in as the 25^th premier of Ontario this past winter, one of the first things I recall her saying on an open-line CBC radio program was that the Liberal government she had served as a cabinet minister in and taken over from her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, had not done enough on environmental protection.

The Fowler’s toad, a species at risk along the shores of Lake Erie, never seems to be much of a species at risk when a big developer wants to build a condo or some other structure along the shoreline. That is when Ontario’s Ministry Of Natural Resources say – go ahead and build. … it is okay. Many Fort Erie residents have learned that lesson the hard way.

As a long-time environmental reporter going back to the late 1970s and 1980s when toxic chemicals poisoning our Great Lakes was a major issue, I was pleased to hear this because I never had the impression that protecting and preserving Ontario’s natural heritage – a heritage, the quality of which, very much impacts on the lives of our Buffalo area and other American neighbor, by the way – was more than a pin prick in McGuinty’s agenda. Wynne, at least, always showed an interest in environmental issues and certainly one of the first things she should do is reverse the gutting, by the former McGuinty Liberal government, of the province’s endangered species legislation. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

The U.S. Pentagon’s most recent best friend forever just identified itself, and it happens to be al Qaeda.

One of many Canadians who protested recently in front of a U.S. embassy office in Toronto

It turns out that Canada, too, has been supporting Al Qaeda by sending money for propaganda promotion, one of Harper’s specialties.  The pro-war government of Stephen Harper has so far given $5.3 million to the Al Qaeda rebels for such purposes.

Despite the identity of this new “friend” that is being financed by the U.S, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey– to murder people in Syria, the drums of war continue to beat.

Fewer than 10% of American citizens support an invasion of Syria …. But the drums beat, as if by themselves.

Nobel Peace Laureate Maudie Maguire describes the Syrian tragedy in these words: Continue reading →

A Submission from the City of Port Colborne in Niagara, Ontario

The City of Port Colborne has begun two major community economic development projects through the Economic Development, Tourism & Marketing Department. The Business Retention and Expansion (BR+E) project, is designed to stimulate economic development and growth by assisting existing businesses. This project will also be done alongside a Skills Inventory project that will survey residents and high school students across Port Colborne.

Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey

“These projects play an important part in the City’s priority of business expansion and retention while looking for ways to connect our residents to good jobs in Port Colborne,” said Mayor Vance Badawey. “By getting out into the businesses and manufacturers across our City and hearing the actual needs and concerns of business owners in Port Colborne, we can better understand what we need to do to make this an even better place to do business.”

“Helping our existing businesses is the primary objective of the project. Many of Ontario’s most successful communities have had very good results with BR+E and Skills Inventory projects,” said Stephen Thompson, General Manager & Director of Economic Development, Tourism & Marketing with the City of Port Colborne. “Before considering these projects, we talked to community leaders in several other areas that have used a similar approach to communicating with residents and businesses in their communities. They were very positive about the results.” Continue reading →

A Message from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

To echo the words of the late Gerry Garcia;’ What a long, strange trip it’s been.’

As Bob Dylan once sang; ‘Ah but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.’ A young and naive Doug Draper at a desk at the St. Catharines Standard – an environment reporter at the time still stupid enough to believe that daily newspapers like this one would – free and independent – might last forever. Boy, was I ever wrong.

It was 15 years ago this August that I left the newsroom at the St. Catharines Standard for the last time. I made my departure almost 19 years to the day that I began my first job as a reporter there – a job I once loved so much that for many of those years, I spent more of my waking hours buzzing back and forth between that newsroom and stories I covered than I did at home with my wife and family.

I was one of the last of many reporters, editors and photographers from The Standard, when it was still owned by the local Burgoyne family and before it fell into the clutches of Lord Conrad Black and his corporate chain machine, to leave the paper (in my case, I took a voluntary buyout following an ugly, three-week strike in the spring of 1998. Continue reading →

Submitted To Niagara At Large by Gracia Janes, St. Catharines & District Council of Women.

Join us on Thursday September 12^th at  8 p.m. at the St. Catharines Centennial Library,  54 Church Street, in downtown St. Catharines, Ontario  for a free public forum on the problem of child poverty in Niagara, Ontario.

A portrait of child poverty somewhere in a Canada that can well afford to address this terrible problem

Child Poverty !    Why are so many children living in poverty? What are the consequences? How does it feel to be a child living in poverty? What are the benefits of eliminating child poverty? Why not ACT NOW.

These are some of the very difficult and pressing questions  that will be tackled  by lead speaker Anita Khanna,of the child -poverty elimination  group Campaign 2000, and response panelists   Mary Beth Anger, a Welland community activist,  Chonie Anger, teen speaker for the Niagara Poverty Reduction Network, and    Marc Todd of Niagara Community Services . Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Tara was lucky.

An arrow pierced through the back of Tara, a dog in Welland targeted by a yet to be apprehended animal abuser. Photo courtesy of Welland & District Humane Society

When the arrow struck her from the bow of some sicko who fired it at this beautiful black lab/boxer mix of a dog, it pinned her to the ground before she managed to get up and limp back to her owners in Welland, Ontario.

It is the second time this summer that someone using arrows (the first incident involved a person or persons using a cross bow a and shooting at a cat in neighboring Harold, Ontario) has reportedly committed an act of cruelty – an act that falls under the criminal code – in the region of Niagara, Ontario. And I say reportedly because who knows how many more times these depraved acts have been committed on animals without any reporting of them? Continue reading →

The Austerity Brothers – Who Is Canada’s Meanest Politician?

By Nick Fillmore

(A Brief Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper – Before Niagara At Large was so rudely interrupted this July by flooding rains that knocked out our basement offices for the better part of two months, I was pleased to hear from long-time journalist colleage Nick Fillmore.

A veteran Canadian journalist who worked for CBC, This Magazine and the not-for-profit Canadian Association of Journalists, an organization dedicated to fighting against enormous odds to keep fearless news coverage and commentary alive in this country, Nick fortunately found his way through cyberspace to this independent news and commentary site and offered to share with Niagara At Large some of the commentary he writes for his own online site ‘A Different Point Of View …’ which offers up a provocative gathering of thoughtful opinions on so many of the issues challenging us today, and which we will provide a link to at the end of this, his latest contribution to NAL, which begins now.)

The ‘austerity brothers’, Canada’s finance minister Jim Flaherty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It means more bags of gold for the upper one per cent and austerity for most of the rest of us.

Who is the meanest politician of them all, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Finance Minister Jim Flaherty?

It must be Harper because he has proudly given billions-of-dollars to corporations and the 1 per cent while there has been an increase of 31 per cent of Canadians using food banks since he came to power.

On the other hand, it could be Flaherty. He is removing a staggering $10-billion a year from government revenues so the Conservatives don’t have the money to help look after the chronically poor, the working poor, and those with mental issues, etc.

Take your pick. Continue reading →

By Alice Jay, from the global media organization Avaaz at Avaaz.org

Dear friends

Just weeks ago the kids in this image were gassed to death in their sleep, but it feels the world has forgotten them and got stuck in a debate between US strikes or doing nothing. Now there is a glimmer of hope for a peaceful way to stop these massacres.

Syrian citizens dead or dying from recent nerve gas attack

Syria’s bloody war has been fuelled by rivalry between Iran, Assad’s main backer, and the US and their allies. But this vile chemical attack has changed their discourse: Iran’s new moderate president condemned the gassing and Obama signalled he’d work with “anybody” to resolve the conflict. Let’s urgently call on both leaders to sit down to talks and bring the warring parties together before any more lives are lost. Continue reading →

A Submission from the citizen activist group Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War

(NAL is officially re-launching this site today, this September 9th,  and apologizes for not getting this September 9^th event posted earlier. Hopefully it is not too late for some of you out there who may wish to attend. Whether you agree on a military attack on Syria or not, this may go down in history as a milestone moment for our present and future. Follow it closely!)

Barack Obama is leading the world down the warpath vs. Syria;

-on the flimsiest pretext: weapons of mass destruction;

– before the investigative results are in;

-without the approval of the United Nations Security Council,

-under the guise of a “humanitarian intervention”;

-which might lead to a global conflict: the US vs Russia and China.

Stephen Harper currently says Canada has no plans to participate in the US-led attack on Syria. But he has lied to us before: four times, in fact, he promised there would be no extension of the war in Afghanistan. Now, he is even refusing to recall Parliament to debate the Syrian crisis. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

A court order restricting what demonstrators can do and say in front of Marineland did not stop about 50 individuals from demonstrating in front of the sprawling Niagara Falls, Ontario amusement park this Labour Day.

A recent court order awaded to Marineland did not stop animal activists from demonstrating in front of the Niagara Falls park this Labour Day.

Dylan Powell, head of the Niagara, Ontario-based activist group Marineland Animal Defense, told Niagara At Large at the rally site that 50 was the number he expected to show up at what has long become an annual demonstration along the main road in front of Marineland. He called the event a “dress rehearsal” for what he is confident will be a much larger demonstration involving several hundred animal activists from in and outside the Niagara region on Marineland’s closing day this coming October 13^th. Continue reading →

Some Niagara Residents Go Out Of Their Way To Say ‘No’ To Bombing Syria

A Niagara At Large News Brief by Doug Draper

A small but determined group of Niagara, Ontario residents took to the sidewalks in front of a Canadian cabinet minister’s Niagara Falls constituency office this August 31^st to say ‘no’ to a possible U.S.-led bombing of military-related targets in Syria.

Niagara, Ontario residents express their views on a military assault on Syria in front of Niagara Falls MP and Canadian Defense Minister Rob Nicholson’s constituency office.

The Niagara residents picketing in front of the office of Niagara Falls MP Rob Nicholson, who was appointed by his Conservative government this summer to serve as Canada’s minister of defense, was one of many such demonstrations held in front of federal politicians’ offices across the country in recent days.

Of course, Nicholson was nowhere to be seen which is almost always the way with demonstrations in front of a constituency office of any MP or MPP, regardless of their political stripes, when it comes to a heated issue.

And indeed, by the time you read this post, the bombing may already have started. Or maybe not. Since this August 29, when U.S. President Barack Obama and his secretary of state John Kerry, sent out strong signals that a military spanking was in order for the recent horrific nerve gas assault by the Syrian Assad regime on thousands of its own citizens, a number of governments in Great Britain, France and elsewhere and a number of people, including many in the United States, have expressed opposition to military action as an answer to Assad’s brutality. Continue reading →