Author Archives: dougdraper

A Brief Message from Niagara At Large publisher Doug DraperAs you may know, Canada’s Harper government has decided to pull its funding from the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in the northwestern Ontario district of Kenora – an area that has served for more than four decades as a research site for studying the impacts of a changing environment, including climate change, on the Great Lakes and other vital freshwater resources.

Council of Canadians leader Maude Barlow speaks out for Experimental Lakes Area at Ottawa media conference

What is so tragic and so anger-provoking, quite frankly, is that it only costs about $2 million dollars a year to keep research projects at this cluster of small lakes going. That is hardly a fraction of the billions of dollars the government was moving to spend on over-priced fighter jets before critics forced a review on that venture or the mutli billons of dollars in revenue the government is losing each year to off-shore tax evasion schemes. Continue reading →

A Brief by Doug Draper

If you love going to movies like I love going to movies, you might also enjoy reading about them by great movie reviewers.

Roger Ebert at right with his best movie-loving buddy Gene Siskel. About the last of the best in the movie review/critic genre.

And few movie reviewers were better over the past 30 or 40 years than Roger Ebert, who died, at age 70, after a long battle with cancer this April 4.

Roger Ebert was a great movie lover and reviewer from Chicago, and he was also a great friend of what has become a Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF for short) that might not have grown, around the world, as successfully as it has without the endorsement of such a high-profile film reviewer as Roger Ebert.

Roger Ebert died this April 4^th and with him dies a good deal of what is left of any kind of thoughtful writing about movies. As someone who studied and did my best to practice good journalism back into the 1970s, 80s and for a few more years beyond that before the serpents of capitalism slithered under the tent, he was one of the last individuals left who had the integrity to tell it like it was about film and whatever movie was released at the time.

Now, movie coverage is more often about how many millions of dollars the latest ‘blockbuster’ made at the box office this week. Most broadcast or newspaper corporate chains would not dare to have someone like Ebert do an honest review on a movie that might, by the way, be produced by one of their corporate affiliates, for fear that a poor review might offend their corporate masters.

Roger Ebert was one of the last of the movie reviewers from the good old days when the best of people like him could give you and I the real goods on whether or not a film was worth a couple of hours of our lives’

No one is replacing him and it is a God-damn shame. His last words in a movie column as recently as a few days ago were; ‘See you at the movies.’

Next time I am in a movie theatre, will see you there in soul and spirit Roger. You and your old buddy Gene Siskel, who died about 20 years ago from cancer, were among the best in delivering the honest goods on movies.

And by the way, the loss of columnists like Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel falls in tandem with the loss of other journalists for national and local papers across the United States and Canada. The corporations that rule over most newspapers today could not give a fig if they have a Roger Ebert on staff.

That leaves us with a mission, if we care enough to clime on borad, to generate new voices  – free from fear or favour – on independent, online sites like this and others to replace them.

(Niagara At Large invites you to join in the conversation by sharing your views on the They NAL only posts comments from individuals who share their first and last name with their views.)

A Submission from Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory

A mother in the Niagara Region, Ontario would have to earn almost $38,000 a year to feel that it was affordable to return to work after having just one child.
 
That number – based on economists’ calculation that families spend between 20 to 30 per cent on the mother’s annual income on child care – shoots up with two or more children.
 
These are among the findings of a new brief released April 4 by Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory.
 
The brief, titled Can Niagara Families Afford Child Care?, outlines ongoing problems and issues of early childhood education and care faced by families in the Niagara Region and across the country.
 
“Middle-class families have been saying for years that high quality licensed child care is expensive and a strain on the household budget, yet the federal and most provincial governments have failed to significantly address the issue, primarily due to the high costs,” says the brief’s author Carol Phillips.
Continue reading →

A Commentary by Mark Taliano

Totalitarianism, aligned as it is with “rule by corporations”, is something that happens in incremental steps over time.  Nobody actually chooses it, it just happens, and it’s happening to Canada right now.

What are the conditions that foster these top-down, undemocratic trends?  Public conformity in matters of importance plays a large part.

Corporate “governance”, with its anti-social, anti-public orientation, is adept at manufacturing and perpetuating public conformity by employing subtle but effective tools that secretly subvert the populace.  These tools are employed to create what  Sheldon Wolin would describe as “inverted totalitarianism”.  The tactics persuade a population that what the government/corporation wants is also good for people, even when the opposite is the case. Continue reading →

From Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Forty-five years ago this Thursday, April 4, Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.

Robert Kennedy speaks to gathering of people in a neighbourhood in Indianapolis, Indiana on the eventing Martin Luther King was assassinated

That same evening, Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. Senator for New York, brother of the late, assassinated President John F. Kennedy and a candidate running for president on a stop-the-war-in Vietnam ticket, addressed a crowd of people in a predominantly black neighbourhood in Indianapolis, Indiana to share the terrible news.

Kennedy’s handlers urged him not to venture out that night since word of the assassination was already spreading and violence was breaking out in some cities across the country. Kennedy insisted on going anyway and the words he spoke that evening were unrehearsed and are still regarded as one of the most moving addresses delivered by a political figure on this continent in the past 50 years. Continue reading →

A Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper 

Going back to my years writing stories and columns on environmental topics for the then-independently owned St. Catharines Standard, I have decried the practice of capturing whales and dolphins from their ocean homes for our entertainment at aquarium and amusement parks like Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

This is where Orcas – alias ‘Killer Whales’ belong – in the ocean with their pods.

There are those who argue that by giving people an opportunity to get up close to these great creatures, such parks provide a valuable educational experience. This argument never impressed me as it repeatedly came from self-serving amusement park representatives wanting you to spend serious money at their gates to view these animals in very unnatural cement ponds in the middle of an amusement park with roller coasters and other cheap thrills like that.

If people are truly interested in learning more about these wonderful animals that we share our short journey on this earth with, there are fabulous nature documentaries available on television, online and through library collections. And as I have stressed for years, there are also opportunities to go out on responsible whale-watching adventures and view them in their natural habitat. Continue reading →

Submitted by Henri-Louis St-Martin, Executive Director of the Niagara Falls Community Health Centre

Niagara Falls, Ontario – April 3, 2013 –  A  Wednesday, April 3  announcement from Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor that the  provincial government  will invest  $3,357,000  means that 2,400 more people living in Niagara Falls  will have access to a primary health care model that improves population health, reduces health disparities and eases the pressures on the rest of the our health system.

Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor announces provincial funding for Community Health Ccentre.

“Niagara Falls Community Health Centre promotes the best possible health and wellbeing for those it serves,” said Joyce Morocco, Board Chair of  Niagara Falls Community Health Centre. “So the investment being made today will yield a very high return for tomorrow — preventing larger amounts of money being spent on sickness treatment and care.”

Ms Morocco also noted that because Niagara Falls Community Health Centre focuses on those who normally face numerous barriers to access to proper health care and whose health is most at risk, “this is also an investment in the fairer society Premier Wynne has promised us.”

Niagara Falls Community Health Centre is one of 12 CHCs and four Aboriginal Health Access Centres (AHACs) throughout the province that together have received a total of $71 million dollars to upgrade and expand their facilities.  Continue reading →

Submitted by the Social Assistance Network Of Niagara

(At a time when government in Ontario and all over North American are responding to the economic challenges we all face with rounds of tax and spending cuts, we need to ask the question – ‘Is that the best way to go or is it causing even more hardship for people?

Regardless of how you choose to respond to that question, this is a discussion we have to have. So mark the following event on your calendar.)

Trish Hennessy, Ontario director for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is a key speaker

Join Us On Wednesday, April 24^th, 2013, 1:00-2:30 p.m., Niagara Region Headquarters, Council Chambers, 2201 St. David’s Rd., Thorold Ontario 

The impact of austerity measures in 2012 had a negative effect on many Ontarians. Some communities are struggling to return to pre-recession economic health.

Meanwhile, Ontario has become the second worst province in Canada for growing inequality.  It’s time to look beyond austerity and consider the steps we can take to make Ontario more equal and more socially, as well as economically, sustainable. Continue reading →

A Brief Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

One of many tributes left at the doorsteps of Peter Kormos’s home. Photo by Doug Draper

Given the many moving comments Niagara At Large has received in the wake of the sad news this past Easter weekend that former Niagara, Ontario area MPP and regional councillor Peter Kormos was found dead at age 60 in his Welland home, we want to get the following notice up as soon as possible.

The notice let’s all who are interested know that a “memorial tribute and reception” will be held at the Pleasantview Funeral Home & Reception Centre  in Thorold, Ontario starting at 1 p.m.on Saturday, May 11^th. It also includes a link to an online book of condolence that you can share your thoughts with Peter’s friends and family.

Here is the notice –

 (Niagara At Large invites you to join in the conservation by sharing your views on the content of this post below. For reasons of transparency and promoting civil dialogue, NAL only posts comments from individuals who share their first and last name with their views.)

A Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

A week ago this Wednesday, April 3, he went to Toronto to buy a cookbook, according to an April 1 story in The Toronto Star by my old colleague and friend Richard Brennan. Who would ever know, except maybe his closest friends, that such a rebel and juggernaut for the working class enjoyed collecting cookbooks?

Flowers left in cowboy boots – footwear that was a piece of the man’s character, left on the front porch of the home of Peter Kormos, where he was found dead at age 60 this March 30. Photo by Doug Draper

Yet that is what Peter Kormos was doing only three days before he was found dead in his Welland home, according to Richard’s story, when he collapsed there and was rushed to Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital. As the story goes on, the hospital wanted to run some tests on Peter to find out why he collapsed but he wanted to get back to his hometown of Welland. He wanted to get back to prepare a eulogy for a friend’s mother.

That was Peter – always putting others before himself. As Richard’s story suggested, who knows if he might still be alive today if he had of stayed for the tests and received whatever treatment that might of come out of them.

Richard’s story in The Toronto Star is a good one, well worth the read from a reporter who has been one of the best over the past three decades when it comes to covering provincial and federal politics. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Niagara Arts Centre

 On Friday, April 5, acclaimed writer and social justice advocate Jamie Swift will visit St. Catharines, Ontario to speak on the themes of his newly co-authored book Warrior Nation: Re-Branding Canada in an Age of Anxiety.

In Warrior Nation, co-author Ian McKay, a Queens University historian, and Swift document a campaign of Canada’s ‘new warriors’ to distort Canadian military history.

Through this neo-conservative-led campaign, martial culture is glorified while the imperialist politics of war are obscured. Fear mongering, romanticization of past wars and celebration of militarism underlie Canada’s rearmament and its emerging national image as a warrior nation, prepared for perpetual war. Continue reading →

A Submission to NAL from Niagara, Ontario’s regional government

 (A Brief Foreword from NAL – Ontario’s Greenbelt was established by the provincial government eight years ago, effectively sparing large tracts of prime farmland in the Niagara and GTA ‘Golden Horseshoe’ area from further urban sprawl. It has been hailed by some as a savior of vital tender fruit and other food-growing areas in southern Ontario and vilified by others who see it as an intrusion on private property rights. 

Niagara’s regional government wants your input on the Greenbelt as it moves forward with planning for the region’s future. The media release is for a public meeting on the Greenbelt to be held at the Niagara regional headquarters in Thorold this April 3.)

The greenest patches on this map show the greenbelt in full belt.The grey areas are forever gone to cement and asphalt.

 NIAGARA REGION – Media and residents are invited to attend a follow-up public engagement session on Greenbelt Plan implementation in the Niagara Region.

The Greenbelt Plan identifies where urbanization should not occur in order to provide permanent protection to agricultural lands as well as ecological features and functions occurring on the landscape. Continue reading →

A Submission to Niagara At Large from Chorus Niagara

St. Catharines Ontario – Chorus Niagara, Niagara, Ontario’s premier 100-voice choral ensemble, with Artistic Director Robert Cooper, present Giuseppe Verdi’s masterwork Requiem Saturday May 4^th, 7:30pm, at the historic Lake Street Armoury, 81 Lake Street, St. Catharines. Audiences are invited to attend a post-concert reception for the historic lighting of Chorus Niagara’s 50^th Anniversary Candles and to enjoy a sample of the anniversary celebration cake.

Chorus Niagara in perforrmance. Photo courtesy of the Chorus

This 50^th Anniversary season finale features over 200 singers and instrumentalists and showcases a brilliant quartet of Canadian Opera stars.  Joining the 100 voices of Chorus Niagara are Choralis Camerata and Chorus Niagara’s Community and Side-by-Side High School Chorales.  The Niagara Symphony Orchestra accompanies the massed choir. This gala performance celebrates not only the Golden Anniversary of Chorus Niagara, but also the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi, Italy’s most celebrated operatic composer. Continue reading →

A Post from CATCH, also known as the ever relentless watchdog group, Citizens at City Hall in neighbouring Hamilton, Ontario

(Niagara At Large is posting the following piece from the Hamilton online site CATCH because there are still strains of interest, even in this 21^st century as some look for more earthly favourable transportation alternatives, to run a multi-lane highway from the car and truck congested GTA, through Hamilton and Niagara, above the Niagara Escarpment, where this Robert Moses 1950s auto track would cut through some of what is left of the best crop and livestock lands in southern Ontario.

Niagara’s regional council is going to Queen’s Park this spring, around what it calls ‘Niagara Week’, to promote a movement forward on what is calls a transportation “corridor” which could mean rail or some other transporation mode, or could be a euphemism for a highway for the middle half of the 21^st century for all we know – even as the soaring price of gasoline and diesel fuel might quite likely make other modes of transportation look like a free ride, for all we know.

Now here is the following piece by CATCH and let me repeat, CATCH is  a great site that is all about grassroots democracy and telling what the mainstream media, including that all-mighty Hamilton Spectator newspaper is not all that ready to tell, and Niagara At Large encourages you to visit Catch regularly.)

A mid-pennisula highway would cut a swath above the Niagara Escarpment, through numerous kilometres of croplands and wetland, watershed and other natural areas to drive ever more cars and trucks back and forth from the U.S. to the GTA. Is it worth it? How much sense does another high-cost highway make by the time it might open, in the middle of the 21st century.

Hamilton councillors and the senior city staff are continuing to lobby for a mid-peninsula highway to the aerotropolis despite an exhaustive provincial study that concluded three years ago that there is no need for the controversial project. Provincial officials who explained the recommendations of the Niagara to GTA study to council last month were accused of pushing a “political” decision and their responses dismissed as “hogwash” by both Brad Clark and Terry Whitehead. Continue reading →

NAL kormos death not suspicions

‘No Suspicious Circumstances’ Found In Death Of Niagara, Ontario Political Icon Peter Kormos

(Niagara At Large is posting the following April 1 media release from the Niagara Regional Police Service for our readers information.)

The Welland, Ontario home of Peter Kormos, where the politician many honoured as a a heroic and unrelentless voice for ordinary people, was found dead this March 30 and where a shrine of flowers is beginning to take shape on his front porch. Photo by Doug Draper

On Monday April 1, 2013, a post mortem examination was conducted regarding the death of Peter Kormos. The cause of death has been determined and the results of the examination revealed no suspicious circumstances regarding his death. Police investigation regarding the death of Mr. Kormos has been concluded.

On March 30, 2013 at 10:45 a.m. members of the Niagara Regional Police Service, Welland Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services responded for a medical call at the residence of Niagara Region Councillor and former Welland MPP, Peter Kormos. The Niagara Regional Police can confirm that Mr. Kormos has died. At this time, cause of death is still under investigation. An autopsy has been scheduled for Sunday March 31, 2013.

(Niagara At Large invites you to join in the conservation by sharing your views on the content of this post below. For reasons of transparency and promoting civil dialogue, NAL only posts comments from individuals who share their first and last name with their views.)

By Doug Draper

In the wake of the sad news this March 30 that Niagara, Ontario political icon Peter Kormos, the Niagara regional councillor and former Ontario MPP, was found dead in his Welland home, the tributes have been pouring in from other political leaders and ordinary citizens alike.

Long-time Niagara, Ontario political leader Peter Kormos

“This is a very sad day for Welland and Niagara,” said St. Catharines regional councillor Andy Petrowski in a statement he prepared before hosting a two-hour tribute and phone-in program for Kormos on CKTB radio this March 31. “I have come to know Peter as a very kind and genuine man, a true friend who demonstrated extraordinary bravery and dignity in the face of his health challenges,” added Petrowski in the statement. “Ontario has truly lost one of its most professional and dedicated public servants. I will miss my seat mate on Regional Council and my co-host on local radio. May God be with him.”

Numerous people from across Niagara called the radio program, which is called ‘The Region’ and which Kormos co-hosted with Petrowski each Sunday up to this one since its launch earlier this winter, with stories about how much Kormos did to help them with a problem they had, whether they lived in his riding or voted for him or not, or how much he did to inspire them to get involved in public affairs. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

He was a towering figure in the life of Niagara and Ontario – so much so that it is almost impossible to believe he, who was only 60 years old, is so suddenly gone.

Peter Kormos, at a citizens’ rally in St. Catharines in 2010, protesting police actions and mass arrests at the G20 Summit in Toronto. File Photo by Joanne McDonald.

Those of us who have followed the journey of Peter Kormos, from his early days as a student activist in the 1960s, through his years as a lawyer defending people he believed were getting a bad rap from the law, and his years as a free-spirited, fiery voice in municipal and provincial politics, knew over the past could of years that something was going terribly wrong with his health. But it was not something he cared to discuss, at least not publicly anyway.

When you phoned or crossed paths with him and began with a; ‘Hi Peter, how are you doing?’, he’d typically respond with his trademark; ‘Howdy’ and; ‘I’m doing just fine. Then it was on to the issues. Peter was not much for talking about himself. He always wanted to get on to the issues at hand. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

 “A working class hero is something to be.”

– a lyric by John Lennon

“I don’t change my values the way some people change their socks.”

– Peter Kormos

(This profile of Peter Kormos, Niagara regional councillor and former Ontario NDP representative for the riding of  Welland who was found dead in his home died this Saturday, March 30 at age 60, was first written by Doug Draper for a magazine published by the Metroland/TorStar media chain more than seven years ago.  It was never published because the magazine quickly went the route so many mainstream publications go these days and became the equivalent of a shopper and a feature article of this nature was no longer welcome.

Niagara At Large lifted it from the vaults and posted it in late 2010 and is reprising it once again as another tribute to the dedication and courage of an iconic political figure who has left us all too soon.)

In the dimly lit banquet room of Club Social on Welland’s gritty east side, a raucous chant of “Peter, Peter, Peter” rolls up from the floor. It is the night of the October, 2003 provincial election and, to no one’s surprise, the numbers on a nearby tote board show Peter Kormos leading his nearest challenger by a margin of two to one.

Peter Kormos being dragged away by police at a 1960s protest for public access to our lakeshores at Sherkston Beach on Lake Erie. – from the photo collection of Peter Kormos

Kormos, in this election, is one of only seven New Democratic Party candidates across Ontario to survive what some political pundits are describing as a “catastrophic night” for the NDP – leaving it one seat short of the number it needs to hold on to official party status. But there is no hint of catastrophe at Club Social on this night.

For a fifth straight election since 1988, when he replaced the retiring NDP stalwart Mel Swart in what was then the old riding of Welland-Thorold, this reputed ‘bad boy of Queen’s Park’, who many in this room regard as a working class hero, will be going back to the provincial legislature to, as many of them are proud to say it, ‘give em heck’ again. Wearing his dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck and his trademark cowboy boots, Kormos finally takes the stage and the chant of “Peter, Peter, Peter” breaks into cheers. Continue reading →

Submitted by the Office of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

Queen’s Park, March 28, 2013  –  New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath renewed her call for a hard cap on public sector CEO salaries following the release of the 2012 Sunshine list.

Kevin Smith, supervisor of the Niagara Health System and CEO of the St. Joseph’s Health System in Hamilton was high on the Sunshine List with a 2012 salary totalling around $721,000.

“When public sector CEOs are getting pay hikes that are bigger than most people’s pay cheques something’s not working. We need a hard cap on CEO pay in the public sector,” said Horwath.  “Money that should be going to frontline health care or lowering tuition fees, is being spent on CEO salaries, and that’s not fair for families who are struggling.”

Horwath has reiterated her call to cap publicly-paid executive salaries at double the salary of Ontario’s Premier. The Premier’s current salary is $209,000. According to the provincial sunshine list, there are over 25 public sector energy executives making more than twice the Premier’s salary, and while everyday Ontarians are told to tighten their belts, public sector executives continue to receive generous raises on top of six-figure salaries. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

While media in Niagara, Ontario focused late this March on the lack of parking needed for those visiting the just-opened hospital complex in west St. Catharines, there is also the question of whether visitors to a hospital should have to pay a fee for parking.

That question will be explored this Friday, March 29 on CBC TV’s public affairs program Marketplace, scheduled to air at 8 p.m. on CBC’s Cable 6 channel – a program which asks if charging fees for parking at a hospital is not just one more “tax on the sick.”

It is a question well worth asking at a time when the Niagara Health System – operator of most of the hospital services in Niagara, Ontario – recently raised parking rates for both visitors and staff, to $2 per half hour, $4 an hour and up to a maximum of $8 a day to help beat back a multi-million-dollar annual operating deficit.

Yet in fairness to the NHS, it is far from the only hospital system in Ontario and across the country charging more than many municipalities do per hour to park your car along a downtown street. According to the Marketplace report, hospitals across the province and country resort to parking and other user fees because they are not getting enough funding from federal and provincial governments to cover their operating costs, and perhaps we all have to ask ourselves why that is the case. Continue reading →

A Submission from Niagara Recycling

(A brief foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – This not-for-profit recycling organization and partner of Niagara, Ontario’s regional government was one of the first bodies of its kind in the province and the country to launch a curbside recycling program. Niagara Recycling, managed back in those days by Brian McMullan (who went on to become mayor of St. Catharines) and these days by Norman Kraft, has also had a long-time record of giving people with developmental disabilities an opportunity to work.

Sorting lines at Niagara Recyclings processing plant in Niagara Falls, Ontario

NAL also wishes to applaud the efforts of Niagara Recycling, along with one of its other long-time regional partners, NTEC, to raise public awareness about individuals and families faced with f autism, and about what we can do as a society to make life better for people living with this disorder.)

Niagara Falls (March 28, 2013) – As Niagara’s leading social enterprise company committed to helping people with developmental disabilities, Niagara Recycling wants to turn the spotlight on a disorder whose rates are said to be steadily climbing in Canada. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Now wait a minute. Wasn’t it just a little over three weeks ago this March, at an official ribbon cutting gala for Niagara Health System’s new hospital in west St. Catharines that was orchestrated in concert Niagara, Ontario’s Sun Media newspapers, that we were treated to one NHS honcho  after another praising themselves over the great vision and planning that went into this hospital?

A computerized rendition of Niagara’s new hospital in west St. Catharines.

And now – less than a week after the hospital’s March 24 official opening and a media release from the NHS, telling us how “smooth” the whole move to the hospital was going, I am reading and hearing reports in the local media, and receiving email from readers to this site on a shortage of parking at the new hospital site.

“The new hospital in St. Catharines has only been open a few days and officials are starting to realize they may need more parking,” ran one report this March 27 on St. Catharines’ CKTB radio news.

Now wait a minute again. Didn’t the Niagara Health System – the body created by Ontario’s former Conservative government more than a decade ago to implement an equally smooth amalgamation of hospital services in Niagara – tell citizens across the region way back when that one of the reasons it needed to locate the new hospital out in the western fringes of St. Catharines, on former farmland, rather than somewhere in or around an urban centre was that it needed all of that extra acreage for parking? Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath 

QUEEN’S PARK – March 27, 2013 – Today the New Democrat motion to give Ontario families a break by reducing auto insurance premiums by 15 per cent passed in the legislature. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says there’s a lot more work to do to lower rates but says today’s vote is a sign that politicians are feeling the pressure from frustrated drivers.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

“We’re hearing lots of positive talk, but now the rubber has to hit the road. Insurance companies have seen their costs reduced. Now it’s time to give the Financial Services Commission a mandate to lower rates by 15 per cent over the next year,” said Horwath. 

In 2010, the Liberal government made changes to the auto insurance industry which slashed benefits paid out to accident victims by 50 per cent.  These changes saved the industry $2 billion annually, yet in the past two years the premiums that auto insurance drivers pay have gone up 5 per cent. New Democrat Consumer Critic Jagmeet Singh says that’s not fair. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

Throw a stone in the water, and ripples extend outward.

David Kawapit’s vision of a journey for his Native people

 Chief Theresa Spence’s Sacred Fast on Victoria Island did not produce a meaningful dialogue with the Crown and the Prime Minister, but it did produce something entirely different and more enduring – a vision.

Seventeen year old David Kawapit Jr., from Quebec’s Whapmagoostui First Nation on the coast of Hudson Bay, had the vision.  In it, he saw a wolf and a bear. The wolf, he explains, is the First Nations’ peoples, and the bear is the government.  Singly, the wolf is destroyed, but when the wolf is accompanied by its brothers and sisters, they can easily take down the bear.

And so began the journey, in the northern cold of minus 50 degrees Celsius. Six young Cree, all under the age of 21, led by the “White Wizard”, Issac Kawapit, aged 46. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

In a month of March when residents of Niagara, Ontario have honoured the memory of Harriet Tubman – a former black slave from America who went on to lead many enslaved people to freedom north of the Canada/U.S. border and spent time living in St. Catharines, Ontario in the 1850s – U.S. President Barack Obama has now designated a national monument in Maryland to her.

This  tribute statue to Harriet Tubman is in Harriet Tubman Park in Boston, Massachusetts, a state that was strong on abolitioning slavery  long before the Civil War.

This first black president of the United States made this designation during a month that many, including members of the Historical Society of St. Catharines and parishioners of the Salem Chapel (also know as the B.M.E. Church) in St. Catharines where this heroic conductor of the ‘underground railroad’ once worshipped, are paying tribute to her on the 100^th anniversary of her death. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Just when it looked like it would be the end for more than 100 years of horse racing in Fort Erie, Ontario, the province’s premier has announced that some “transitional funding” will be made available to keep this track and others at Flamboro and Georgian Downs galloping on for at least one more year.

The details of the deal with the three tracks have yet to be announced, but Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor, a Liberal government representative who has been fighting to save the Fort Erie track for years, told Niagara At Large this March 26 he hopes more information will be made available at a media conference scheduled in Fort Erie later this week. The public should no any and all details of taxpayers money spent to save these tracks, he said.

In the meantime, Craitor, whose Niagara Falls riding includes Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie, called the deal “positive news.” Continue reading →

A Submission to NAL from Niagara Parks Commission

Niagara Falls, Ontario – Beginning this weekend, The Niagara Parks Commission’s Floral Showhouse will once again feature a seasonal favourite, the annual Easter Display, a Niagara tradition for over 65 years. The popular addition of real chicks and bunnies will also return, which is a treat for kids and adults alike.

Photo courtesy of Niagara Parks Commission

 The Easter display features a cross of lilies surrounded by colourful and fragrant spring flowers such as daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and azaleas. The warm and serene setting is bursting with gorgeous blooms, orchids and exotic tropical plants as well as beautiful songbirds to get you in the mood for spring. Continue reading →

Submission to NAL from Niagara College

The arrival of spring and a rise in temperatures goes hand in hand with
a less welcome seasonal challenge: potholes.

Just in time for the season, Niagara College’s Niagara Research department is about to unveil its work on a new and improved pothole
patching machine for a local company.

In May 2012, Niagara Research began a project for Ryan Industrial
Technologies. The Grimsby-based machine fabricator approached Niagara
College with the idea of developing a new asphalt pothole patching
machine to be sold to construction contractors and municipal works. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

In the 1982 Hollywood movie Tootsie, one of the characters in the film had written a play about a family returning to their home in the Love Canal.

The old Love Canal neigbhourhood with one of the world’s worst toxic wast dumps in the middle. Is it leaking into the neighbourhood and into creeks flowing to the Niagara River again?

The idea of anyone moving back to the Love Canal seemed crazy and had everyone in the theatre laughing of course, since the neighbourhood bearing that name in Niagara Falls, New York had, only a few years earlier, been the setting of a toxic waste disaster that made world-wide headlines as hundreds of residents fled homes there and the first-ever ‘national emergency’ for a neighbourhood poisoned by migrating chemicals was declared by a president of the United States.

Yet in what turned out to be a case of real life imitating art, a New York State-sponsored group called the Love Canal Area Revitalization Agency was, by the beginning of the 1990s, overseeing the sale of more than 200 previously abandoned houses within one or two golf shots from the perimeter of a dump containing an estimated 20,000 tonnes of some of the most deadly chemicals produced by modern science. The homes were sold on an assurance U.S. state and federal government agencies that the dump had been securely walled off with drains, pumps and other devices, and that any contaminants detected in outer rings of the neighbourhood hosting homes that would be sold were found in concentrations that were “acceptable,” according to standards governments set in consultation with the petro-chemical industry, for human habitation.

Now we learn from a series of stories published in The Buffalo News earlier this year, that some of the people who have moved into these discount homes in the Love Canal zone have filed a $113 million lawsuit against government agencies, alleging that the dump, which contains poisons as life-zapping as dioxin (one of the most active ingredients in the God-awful defoliant used in the Vietnam War), is leaking again. Could it also be leaking , once again, to the Niagara River and Lake Ontario? Continue reading →

Submitted by the Niagara Health System

(This Sunday, March 24 marked the official opening of the Niagara Health System’s new hospital in west St. Catharines, Ontario. Up and down Fourth Avenue, running between  Hwy 406 interchange and the hospital site,, medical transfer vehicles could be seen, one after another, taking patients from the St. Catharines General and other hospitals to the new site.

 What follows is a report from the NHSt on the first day of activities at the new hospital.)

Patient transfer vehicles buzz in and out of west St. Catharines hospital site on first official day of hospital’s opening. Photo by Doug Draper

A milestone in healthcare was marked in Niagara today with the successful opening of the new St. Catharines hospital. Close to 200 patients were safely transported to the site during a complex move that took approximately six hours.

“The move went very smoothly thanks to the hard work and cooperation of the many physicians, staff, volunteers, and our community partners including Niagara Emergency Medical Services,” says Susan Kwolek, Vice President Patient Services, Executive Lead, St. Catharines Site. “We want to thank patients and their families for their patience and trust in us during the transfer.”

Highlights: Continue reading →

A Brief Foreword by Niagara At Large Publisher Doug Draper

Following a commentary I wrote and posted on Niagara At Large this March 19, expressing relief that Canada did not bend to the pressure of the U.S. Bush/Cheney administration to become a military partner in the Iraq War, a number of readers from both sides of the Canada/U.S. border sent me a copy of the following letter by U.S. marine veteran Tomas Young, which was beginning to make rounds in the blogosphere.

U.S. Iraq War veteran Thomas Young at one of many rallies against the war.

This open letter to former U.S. president George W. Bush and his vice-president Dick Cheney was written by Tomas Young, who was wounded and partially paralyzed in the early days of the Iraq War and who later became a vocal opponents of the war. Young wrote his “last letter” on the war this March as he prepared to stop being kept alive by a feeding tube. It is a moving testament and it speaks for itself.

So with just one last passing thought from me, that Thank God it was unnecessary for a Canadian veteran to write a similar letter to Canada’s leaders about this equally unnecessary and costly war, here is Thomas Young’s letter. Please read it and share your thoughts below. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Pat Scholfield

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – Pat Scholfield was one of the first Niagara residents, a decade ago, to know that hospital services would be consolidated in fewer and fewer, and possibly one hospital in this Niagara, Ontario region.

Niagara, Ontario resident and citizen health care activist Pat Scholfield

She was one of the only few who was on record speaking out at the time for locating a new mega-hospital for Niagara, opening this March 24 in the north Niagara community in St. Catharines, Ontario, in a more central location in the region for all Niagara residents.

Few listened and few paid attention to whatever few reporters, including this one working for the old Thorold News and Niagara This Week at the time, wrote about consultant reports for the Niagara Health System, going back to a decade ago, recommending that most acute care services be pulled out of older hospitals in Port Colborne, Fort Erie, Welland and Niagara Falls and be located at one hospital site.

Pat Scholfield does not regard herself as a hero. She just paid attention while others chose, for whatever reason, to ignore reports going back ten, eight and six years ago that gutting hospital services at the older Niagara sites and consolidating them in a new hospital was in the offing.

Pat was one of the few citizens at the time who did pay attention while others, including the Ontario Health Coalition/NDP coalition wanted to go on living in a fantasy world that smaller aging hospitals could go on operating as fully functioning acute care centres into the indefinite future.

Pat’s narrative, in my view (and please don’t blame her for this foreword – come after me)  is more about working, in a non-partisan spirit, with open minded MPPs like Welland riding MPP Cindy Forster and Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor, and with trying to cross a bridge or two with the current Liberal government health minister Deb Matthews to find some common ground in a world where everywhere – not just in Ontario – hospital services are being cut back and consolidated as new out-patient and home-care services are coming to the fore to address the escalating costs of serving aging populations.

This NAL reporter has thrown more than a few stinging comments at Deb Matthews over the past two or more years, but Matthews at least deserves credit for meeting with me and others, coming off a bus from Welland who she knows are terribly upset over what is happening around the restructuring of hospital services in Niagara. As a reporter of local, provincial, national and international news for the past 34 years, I have watched far more politicians in Matthews’ position running away from a meeting with citizens so upset. She at least had the courage to wade in and listen.

So read Pat’s dispatch with that in mind, and knowing that she at least tried to speak out about why a new super hospital in Niagara should be located more centrally in the region before so many others did.)

By Pat Scholfield

We came back from our bus trip to Queen’s Park in Toronto on Thursday, March 21 with the slight feeling that there might be a glimmer of hope, particularly after Ontario’s health minister, Deb Matthews graciously granted  to have a private meeting with a small delegation within the group. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent

NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. – March 22, 2013 – Today, the Honourable Peter Kent, Canada’s Environment Minister, announced a major investment under the Great Lakes Sustainability Fund to support 57 clean-up projects in officially designated Great Lakes Areas of Concern.

Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent

“Today, as we mark United Nations World Water Day and this year’s theme of water cooperation, we reflect on the importance of our water resources globally, and how to protect them,” said Minister Kent. “Our Government is working with many partners to protect the Great Lakes for generations to come. This investment will help us continue to work towards our goal of restoring water quality in all Canadian Great Lakes Areas of Concern.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

It may seem hard to believe given the relentless wintery weather we are enduring, but the Welland Canal officially opened to shipping this March 22.

We are back to the big cargo ships like this again in the Welland Canal. File photo by Doug Draper

So get set for the bridges to rise, if you cross them for work, and the big cargo boats to float by.

Some of us in cars or trucks may be cursing those bridges as they lift, especially if we feel in a hurry to corss them.

But let’s not forget that the Welland Canal is worth numerous tens-of-millions of dollars in commerce to the Niagara region each year, including countless numbers of visitors who come to this region because they are in to major canals like this one, and the boats that ply them.

 Let’s also not forget that marine transportation is one hell of a lot more environmentally friendly than car or truck transportation, when you add up what car and truck emissions, versus boats, do to the atmosphere.

The Welland Canal is one more feature of the greater Niagara region that perhaps far too many of us take for granted.

 (Niagara At Large invites all of you who care to share your first and last names with your comments to join the conversation by sharing them below.)

By Doug Draper

Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews told Welland MP Cindy Forster the provincial government stands behind a decision to move maternity and other acute care services to a new hospital in west St. Catharines from other hospitals in Niagara “and we have no plans to reverse that decision.”

Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews insists hospital restructuring will mean better health care for Niagara residents

Matthews made that statement in the Ontario legislature this March 21 as about 60 Welland area residents looked on from the gallery while Forster told the health minster “they have come here because they are concerned about access to health care in their community.”

 “The residents in my community are sick of being ignored,” added Forster of the continued lobbying residents in Niagara’s southern tier have done to keep services from being cut or completely closed down in hospitals in Welland, Niagara Falls, For Erie and Port Colborne. “The Welland hospital essential to the well-being of my community and we are watching as our hospital is being dismantled.” Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by NAL Publisher Doug Draper

I’m not going to dwell on this much longer because I already posted a commentary this March 16 on the death grip Americans have on their guns despite repeated mass shootings, including the one last December that snuffed out the lives of 20 young children at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Report in the American media that I referred to in that commentary, that efforts by everyone from U.S. President Barack Obama to victims of gun violence to get some reasonable gun control legislation passed are dying under relentless lobbying pressure from the Niagara Rifle Association, were confirmed this March 19 when Harry Reid, leader of the Democratic Party controlled U.S. Senate, said there are not enough votes in the senate to pass a ban on the sale of military style assault weapons.

The image I am posting here, of the front page of the New York Daily News, featuring a headline that reads; “Shame on U.S.,” along with the faces of the children slaughtered in Newtown by a deranged young man with an assault weapon and high-capacity magazine, pretty well sums this appalling state of affairs up. Continue reading →

A Submission from Niagara, Ontario’s regional government

Event: Information Forum and Interactive Workshop

Date: Monday, April 8, 2013. Time: 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Location: Welland Community Wellness Complex, 145 Lincoln St., Welland, Ontario.

Presentations and collaborative work of the forum will include:   

• “Building a Master Aging Plan – the Brantford/Brant County Experience” – Jean  Kincaid & Lucy Marco, Grand River Council on Aging Continue reading →

A Submission to NAL from the RiverBrink Art Museum

RiverBrink Art Museum announces the opening of a new exhibition “The Battle of Lake Erie” curated by Debra Antoncic, Associate Curator, on Saturday, March 23, 2013. This exhibition is a continuation of RiverBrink’s commemoration of the War of 1812-14.

One of the many classic works of art to be featured in the War of 1812 exhibit, this one of U.S. Navy Commandant Oliver Perry’s victory on Lake Erie.

The Battle of Lake Erie, one of the most significant U.S. American victories in the War of 1812-14, took place on Sept. 10, 1813 off the coast of Put-in-Bay, Ohio, near Pelee Island, Ontario. This exhibition features representations of the naval engagement in various media, including a series documenting specific moments in the battle by U.S. American artist Thomas Birch (1779-1851). The Birch series, from the collection of Samuel E. Weir, is accompanied by views of the battle and participants in different media, along with archival documents and objects related to 19^th -century marine warfare. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

This March 19, our American neighbours are marking the 10^th anniversary of the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney-led invasion of Iraq with some grim statistics.

Tony Blair of Britain joins George W. in marching off to the war in Iraq

Those statistics include at least $2.2 trillion in costs to American taxpayers – $$2.2 trillion that could have been invested on domestic energy and other programs aimed at building the United States a continued leadership role in the 21^st century – more than 4,400 American lives lost and more than 30,000 other young Americans wounded, many of them maimed for life. And let’s not forget the more than 120,000 Iraqi lives, most of them innocent civilians, snuffed out in the crossfire.

On this 10^th anniversary of what Bush/Cheney called ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’, Canadians should perhaps take a moment to be thankful that Stephen Harper was not prime minister of our country then and that we are not facing equally grim statistics on this side of the Canada/U.S. border. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

The March break for Ontario’s elementary and secondary school students is now over and already we are hearing whining once again from parents and some students over the continued suspension of extra-curricular activities in the province’s schools. 

Ontario’s teachers have been withholding their supervision in almost every form of extra-curricular activity, from football and basketball to music, theatre and other clubs, since the start of the school year last September as a way of letting the province’s Liberal government know how upset they are over its suspension of their collective bargaining rights. 

Now, whether you support the teachers in their concerns over the erosion of their bargaining rights or not, at least one thing has to be kept firmly in mind. Teachers in Ontario were never – and that means they have never, ever, ever, to this date – been mandated to organize or supervise after-school, extra-curricular activities for parents’ kids as part of the job they are obligated through any legal contract with the province to do.

So if you are one of those parents out there, whining about the loss of extra-curricular activities because you think the school should be there to play nanny to your kids while you pursue your career opportunities into the event hours, to hell with you. Why should the rest of us expect teachers we already pay generous salaries and benefits to perform an after-school activity service for your kids?  Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Three months have passed since America and the rest of the world turned on televisions sets to the horrific news that a deranged young man walked into an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut and blew to pieces 20 young children and six of their adult educators with military-style assault weapon owned by his mother, who he also murdered.

Gun sales soar to record levels in U.S. following shooting of children at Conneticut elementary school

In the days and weeks following this blood bath, and as millions of calls and letters of sympathy poured in from around the world to families of the victims, we heard over and over again from politicians and other leading Americans that ‘things have changed this time” – that this time some meaningful legislation would finally be passed in America to control the type of guns and bullet magazines, and who they would be sold to.

Three months later, it is beginning to look like the only thing that changed was the length of time it took for Americans to move on from the Newtown massacre, relative to the shorter time it took to get past other mass shootings that have become epidemic in the country in recent years, and for things to return to business as usual for the gun industry. Continue reading →

Submitted to NAL from Niagara, Ontario’s regional goverment

(A Brief Note from NAL – Kevin Smith from the Niagara Region’s EMS services should not be confused with Kevin Smith, the temporary, Ontario government appointed supervisor for the Niagara Health System in charge of most hospital services in the region.)

NIAGARA REGION, March 14, 2013 – Niagara Region Public Health is pleased to announce the new chief of Niagara Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Kevin Smith, effective April 28, 2013.

Niagara’s incoming EMS chief Kevin Smith

Smith has spent his entire paramedic career in Niagara and area with over 21 years of proven excellence in clinical and administrative emergency medical service environments, including operations superintendent and commander of operations, and most recently as Niagara EMS deputy chief since 2008. He is known for his lifelong learning, through both formal and continuing education. This has been demonstrated most recently as he received his Bachelor of Applied Business: Emergency Services, with distinction, in 2010. Knowledge exchange is two-way for Smith, as he’s also spent nearly ten years as a Paramedic Program Educator with Niagara College. Continue reading →

A Submission to NAL from the Office of Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey

Port Colborne, Ontario, March 2013 – Festivals and Events Ontario has once again accredited Port Colborne’s Canal Days Marine Heritage Festival as one of Ontario finest by naming the event to the list of Ontario’s Top 100 Festivals.

Canal Days on one of the most historic canals on the North American continent. File photo by Doug Draper

 The Top 100 is a designation created by Festivals & Events Ontario, and sponsored by VIA Rail Canada, which represents excellence for the province’s festivals and events industry. The winners are selected through a nomination process that included a predetermined set of criteria; Canal Days edged out over 3000 other festivals in Ontario, to obtain Top 100 status.

Festivals & Events Ontario is a professional association for the festivals and events industry in Ontario, providing a network for festival and event professionals to share information and resources. The association is involved with collaborative advocacy, policy development, marketing and the provision of educational opportunities for members.

“I am extremely proud that Festivals & Events Ontario has recognized Port Colborne’s signature event, Canal Days”, Mayor Vance Badawey said. Continue reading →

Submitted to NAL from the RiverBrink Art Gallery 

Following a successful series of artist’s demonstrations over the fall and winter, RiverBrink is pleased to announce the first of its artist’s workshops.

A sample of the art in this special RiverBrink exhibit

Lillian Asquith will conduct a mini-workshop in the art of silk dying. In this “beginner” workshop, students will create their own silk scarf while learning the principles of colour and design. Scarves will be created using silk dyes and will be set using the microwave heat-setting technique. Scarves will be ready to wear when the student leaves.

Lillian Asquith comes originally from Sarajevo. As a Canadian her life has been surrounded by creativity. Of the many US and Canadian artists who have influenced her work, she speaks most highly of Tom Lynch. Her studies have led her to oil painting and watercolour on both paper and canvas. Silk painting however, brings out the freedom of expression in Lillian’s work. Continue reading →

Submitted to NAL by the Office of U.S. Congressman Brian Higgins 

Buffalo, New York area Congressman Brian Higgins announced that U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (this March) with Canada authorizing two phases of primary inspections of commercial cargo in Canada, including one at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo.

Buffalo, New York area Congressman Brian Higgins

“The economic future of Western New York will be linked to our integration with Canada, said Congressman Higgins, a member of the House of Representatives Committees on Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs as well as the US-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Group.   “The Beyond the Border Action Plan was symbolic of that, and this agreement is a concrete step in that direction.”

The MOU is a codification of commitments in the Beyond the Border Action Plan which originally authorized the pilots to take place. Phase One will take place in Blaine, Washington.  Phase Two will be at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

If the opposition party of federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is – as the party hopes Canada’s ‘government in waiting’, then Canadians may soon have a government that joins U.S. President Barack Obama in believing that climate change is one of the most serious issues we humans on this planet face in the 21^st century.

Canada’s federal NDP leader, Thomas Muclair, embraces a Barack Obama future in Washington, D.C.

And wouldn’t that be a striking contrast from a Conservative Stephen Harper government that treated climate change and environmental issues as a joke right up until a few months ago, when Obama one a second term of office and gave climate change prominence in his January 21 Inaugural Address with these words; “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”

“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms,” Obama added.

The Harper government in Canada, faced with the loss of U.S. Republican presidential contender and kindred spirit Mitt Romney, who surely would have ditched climate change and related environmental issues had he bumped out Obama, has been scrambling ever since with a phony campaign aimed at convincing the U.S. administration it cares about the environment – all of this orchestrated to win U.S. approval for the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry crude from the tar sands of Alberta to oil refineries in Texas. Continue reading →

Another of many protests against the tar sands and Keystone pipeline in front of the White House

A  Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

 While so many newspapers and broadcasters in Canada’s mainstream media function like marketing agents for the Alberta tar sands and proposed Keystone XL pipeline for carrying crude from these filthy pits to refineries in Texas, one of America’s largest and most influential newspapers is urging U.S. President Barack Obama to say no to the pipeline.

“The U.S. State Department’s latest environmental assessment of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline makes no recommendation about whether President Obama should approve it. Here is ours,” reads a lead editorial that ran in the New York Times this March 10. “He (President Obama) should say no, and for one overriding reason: A president who has repeatedly identified climate change as one of humanity’s most pressing dangers cannot in good conscience approve a project that — even by the State Department’s most cautious calculations — can only add to the problem.” Continue reading →

A story posted this Wednesday, March 13 wrongly stated in the headline that a bus trip of citizens to Queen’s Park to call for the saving of hospital services at the Welland, Ontario hospital is scheduled for March 24.

Actually, this bus trip, which all concerned citizens are invited to take, is scheduled for March 21st. The new hospital in St. Catharines, Ontario is opening March 24.

Sorry for the error which has been corrected in the post, which NAL urges you to visit by clicking on www.niagaraatlarge.com and reading the information in the piece submitted by Pat Scholfield for further details.

Submitted to NAL by Pat Scholfield and the Welland Health Care Committee 

On March 24th the NHS will be removing Obstetrics and Paediatric Services (Mat/Child) from Welland Hospital and transferring them to the new hospital in St. Catharines, Ontario.

This hospital in Welland, Ontario will be seeing maternity and related services closed by the end of this March – another migration of hospital services from Niagara’s southern tier to a new hospital in north Niagara.

The removal of these services will have a dismantling effect on Welland Hospital and there is a concern Orthopedics may also be transferred in the near future as NHS supervisor Kevin Smith has proposed consolidating Orthopedics and the Hospital Improvement Plan recommends moving Orthopedics out of Welland Hospital. Continue reading →

Submitted to NAL by the Office of Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak

March 12, 2013,

Dear Premier, I write to express my mounting concern that, after a third of a year since Prorogation, no progress has been made in the Legislative Session to confront the biggest jobs and spending crisis of our lifetimes. Not a single Liberal Bill has been tabled to deal with these challenges.

Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak

Nor have you targeted even one of Dalton McGuinty’s unaffordable spending items for postponement or reversal. On the contrary, backed by the NDP, you repealed the only wagenfreeze legislation ever tabled by your govemment, keeping Ontario on a path that your own hand-picked economic advisor, Don Drummond, wamed would take Ontario off the deficit cliff. Ontarians are watching, and they rightly expect a renewed sense of confidence in our economy and our future. They too know that Ontario is on the wrong path. I therefore feel it is my responsibility to lay out a series of emergency steps required to set Ontario onto a positive path toward balanced budgets, sustainable spending and renewed job creation. So if you refuse to lead on these challenges, we will. Continue reading →

By Pamela Minns

Heritage in Ontario is in trouble ! 

At present it is under a ministry called the Ministry of Tourism, Culture & Sport – the Minister is Michael Chan;  this has just been confirmed as part of the new cabinet for Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario……and as always, it is last on the list of Ministers announced !

The gutted remains of the historic old Welland Club along the canal in Welland, Ontario. Abandoned and ultimately a target of arson – another case of what heritage activists sometimes refer to as “demolition by neglect.” Photo by Doug Draper

Heritage is buried in “culture” and is squeezed in between Tourism and Sport — we don’t have a name and we don’t have a hope unless we do something to change it !  We need a proper Heritage Minister in this province — one who will stand up for heritage and, as legislation allows, will indeed fight for it and intervene when necessary.

Please see the letter I have written to the new Premier;  I hope those of you who are involved in heritage preservation will write to the Premier about the sad state of affairs we now have in heritage and urge her to appoint a proper Heritage Minister. Continue reading →

A Submission from the New York State citizens group New Yorkers Against Fracking

(A short foreword from Niagara At Large – The debate over whether or not to drill for gas in layers of shale below the surface grounds of New York State, using a controversial method known as “hydraulic fracturing” or “fracking for short, has been raging on in that state for at least two years now. And residents in Ontario ought to pay close attention, because the same debate may be coming to tracts of land near you.

Geological studies have shown that there is plenty of gas in the layers of shale below our feet in southern Ontario and there are already petroleum companies interested in exploiting those deposits. The question is – ‘What risks does this practice pose to human health and the environment?’ So keep an eye on this one. Stay tuned.)

Dear Friends:

Good news!  Our voices are being heard:  Yesterday, in an overwhelming 103-40 vote, the New York State Assembly passed a bill that mandates a two-year moratorium on fracking in order to allow studies on the health impacts of fracking. This is a clear recognition of our momentum and an auspicious sign for the days ahead. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

We’ve moved our clocks forward an hour and there is a slight smell of spring in the air. Robins are once again beginning to bob on the lawns of our yards and flocks of geese, migrating back from the south, are honking overhead.

Celebrating one of the first great green parties in the greater Niagara region. File photo by Doug Draper

Finally, we can get away from the dead brown and cold, pitch-black mornings and nights of winter and start looking forward to forward to green.  And one of the greatest green parties of all this time of year is the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Buffalo, New York, ready to roll out of the gates in Buffalo’s downtown this coming Sunday, March 17, which just happens to be St. Patrick’s Day, spot on.

If you can handle a nice long walk through beautiful neighbourhood from where you may have to park your car to the parade route along Delaware Avenue, this parade is one fun way to usher in the spring. It is one of the biggest St. Patrick’s Day parades east of Chicago west of Boston and New York City, and south of Toronto, and you only have to be Irish for a day to be there. Continue reading →

Submitted by the Niagara Falls, Ontario-based Niagara Parks Commission 

(A brief note from NAL – For families remaining in Niagara and neighbouring regions during this March break, Ontario’s Niagara Parks Commission has always put together a host of activities that feature some of the world’s most wondrous plants and animals – not to mention a host of exotic butterflies and reptiles – and the great falls of Niagara.

Here is this year’s list of NPC activities for the March break.) 

Niagara Falls, Ontario – The Niagara Parks Commission (NPC) has put together a great lineup of activities for visitors and families this March Break holiday.  Come out and enjoy all that Niagara Parks has to offer, including:

A slice of the spring warmth in the Niagara Parks Floral Showhouse. File photo courtesy of NPC

Venom Exhibit at the Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory

2405 Niagara Parkway, Niagara Falls, Ontario

March Break Hours: Open daily from 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

This hands-on, interactive learning environment allows kids of all ages to explore the various aspects of life systems. The travelling exhibit, which was created by Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo of Ottawa, includes tarantulas, scorpions, highly poisonous toads, rattlesnakes, vipers and one of only two king cobras on display in Canada. Admission: $13.50 adults 13+; $8.80 children 6-12, and children 5 and under free. Season pass upgrades are available for an additional $5 and parking is also $5. Continue reading →

A Front-Line Dispatch from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

It was closing in on 10 a.m. this past Thursday, March 7 when I entered the sprawling parking lot of the new hospital complex scheduled to open this March 24, and finally found a place to park my gas guzzler.

It’s a parking lot that you, by the way, will have to pay dollars per hour to park in once this place is open and you may be unfortunate enough to have a loved one needing treatment here. But let’s leave the parking fee column for later, and get back to the grand ceremony at hand.

Wendy Metcalfe, Sun Media editor in chief for the St. Catharines Standard and affiliated media products, plays master of ceremonies for the NHS.

For a few minutes, I sat in my car, thinking about how many dollars each hour visitors to this hospital will soon have to pay just to park in this lot, and listening to a CBC radio newscast followed by a nice eulogy Jian Ghomeshi was airing on his Q show for Stompin’ Tom Conners. All that while, hundreds of invited guests – many of them well-dressed members of the St. Catharines area business elite – were filing in to the new St. Catharines hospital site for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Continue reading →

Submitted to NAL by the Office of Welland, Ontario MPP Cindy Forster

(A brief foreward by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – While St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley was attending an official ribbon cutting ceremony this March 7 for the new hospital opening this March  24 in his St. Catharines riding, Welland MPP Cindy Forster , an NDP member of the provincial legislature, opted out of an opportunity to attend the ceremony to make the following statement in the legislature to the Liberal government of which Bradley is a member.)

QUEEN’S PARK, March 7 – Today in question period, Welland MPP Cindy Forster called on Health and Long-Term Care Minister Deb Matthews to cancel plans to move key health care services from the south Niagara area to a new St. Catharine’s hospital.

Welland, Ontario MPP abd NDP member Cindy Forster

“People are worried that the ribbons that are being cut today at the new St. Catharines hospital will mean out of business signs for south Niagara,” said Forster. “Residents know that re-establishing the services close to home is years away at best. This gap in services is unacceptable.”

Important services including obstetrics and paediatrics are being moved to the new St. Catharines hospital. For many residents, accessing these services will require driving over an hour, or travelling by public transit for over four hours. Continue reading →

Submitted by the Niagara Health System

March 7, 2013 – The ribbon has been cut, and the final countdown is officially on for the March 24 opening of the new St. Catharines hospital site.

Kevin Smith, supervisor of the Niagara Health System in Niagara, Ontario. speaking at ribbon cutting for the new hospital in west St. Catharines. Photo by Doug Draper

With just 17 days until opening, community partners from around the province joined the Niagara Health System this morning for the ceremonial ribbon cutting of the new St. Catharines Site. There is a tremendous amount of excitement within the NHS and the broader community as the opening of this state-of-the-art facility approaches.

 “We were very pleased to have a large number of political leaders, health care partners, staff, physicians and volunteers join us this morning for this important milestone for healthcare in Niagara,” says Dr. Kevin Smith, NHS Supervisor.  Continue reading →

Submitted by the Office of Welland, Ontario MPP Cindy Forster

(A Note from Niagara At Larger – Niagara Health System honchoes mentioned Cindy Forster’s name and wondered why she might not be there this March 7 at the ceremonial opening of the new mega-hospital complex located in the north Niagara, Ontario area of west St. Catharines.

Welland, Ontario riding MPP Cindy Forster

While St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley was continuously praised at the ceremony for the new hospital as a champion for the opening of the facility there, in his riding, Forster was at Queen’s Park making one more plea for some justice for 100 employees who were summarily dumped by a U.S.-based corporation when it closed its doors on a plant in Fort Erie, Ontario.

While there is so far no indication that the Liberal government Bradley is part of will do anything to uphold labour laws in Ontario that might at least deliver these workers some severance pay, Forster at least tried to speak for them one more time. NAL is posting her comments this March 7 in the provincial legislature below.)

Ontario, Queen’s Park Hansard, March 7 – Ms. Cindy Forster: I rise on an issue having a devastating impact on workers in my riding and in the Niagara Falls riding. When US-based company Vertis Communications declared bankruptcy and laid off some 100 employees, they strategically avoided paying these workers their owed severance pay to the amount of $2.7 million. ” Continue reading →

A Short Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper

 I’ve got to admit, I never quite wrapped my mind around Stompin’ Tom Conners. Try as I must, I just didn’t get it.

If some conclude that makes me less of a Canadian, so be it, since he , by so many accounts was such an unwavering, giant one. I’ve always been more of a Gordon Lightfoot fan and have followed his path around any troubadouring for Canada and for where ever else in the world. I’ve also remained a true fan of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, who fell into the category of Canadian artists Stompin’ Tom felt jumped our border to acquire larger bags of gold, state side.

Yet there is no doubt, upon the death of Stompin’ Tom Conners, at age 77,  this March 6, that he was much beloved by many Canadians. All you had to do was listen to the phone-in calls to CBC radio over the past 24 hours, and the love for this man comes across loud and clear. Continue reading →

A News Analysis by Doug Draper

Niagara regional councillors will be heading off to Queen’s Park this May with a list of priority projects for the region it hopes the provincial government will support through whatever means, including tax dollars if dollars are what the project calls for.

Niagara Regional Headquarters

High up on the list of priorities the councillors have decided to ask government ministers to support at their annual Niagara Week at Queen’s Park is funding for the construction of what some of them have taken to calling the “hospital interchange.”

For those who may not know or may need a reminder, the hospital interchange is the one Niagara’s regional government is planning to run on and off the 406 Highway as it swings through the north Niagara community of St. Catharines. It would connect with Third Avenue Louth  and would assist an existing Fourth Avenue  interchange in taking growing volumes of traffic off the highway to a sprawling collection of strip malls and big box stores already doing business in St. Catharines’ west end, and to a super hospital for the region the Niagara Health System is opening later this March in the same area. Continue reading →

Submitted to NAL by the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce

Niagara, Ontario, March 6, 2013 – The Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce today announced telecommunications giant TELUS has joined as a presenting sponsor of the Niagara Technology Summit, taking place on May 8 at the Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls, Ontario where the summit will be held

The Summit is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and businesses from across Niagara to take part in an interactive event featuring the latest technological innovations. The event includes a trade show, informative demonstration sessions and a keynote speaker in the field of business and technology. It will also provide an opportunity for local businesses in Niagara to showcase their work and innovations in the area of technology development and support. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

If you live in Ontario, you may very well remember the horrific news a year ago this coming June of the roof of a shopping mall collapsing, killing two people and seriously injuring many others.

This March 4, Ontario’s government does what it typically does in a case like this, where higher private and public interests may be criminally culpable for a disaster of this nature, and began a public inquiry.

And we should all know what a public inquiry means in Ontario by now. Months and months and months of questions and answers and depositions drone by, and it is a feeding frenzy – one honking pig out for lawyers and consultants. And at the end of it all, there are some “findings” and “recommendations” tabled for a government that usually yawns at that point. No criminal charges are ever laid. Continue reading →

Submitted by the Office of PC leader Tim Hudak

 QUEEN’S PARK, March 5 – Ontario can return to balanced budgets and job creation – but not while property taxes are going up to pay for unaffordable increases in public sector salaries and benefits, PC Leader Tim Hudak said today.

Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak

 “Under this government, public sector compensation has gotten way out of line with private sector realities,” Hudak said. “We need to act on behalf of the 85 per cent of Ontarians who aren’t on the government payroll and have made far more sacrifices in these difficult times.

“In the name of fairness, it’s time to fix a broken system that sees arbitrators hand outsized wage settlements to local public sector workers regardless of a municipality’s ability to pay.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Niagara and other municipal governments across Ontario may finally be making some progress with provincial arbitrators in controlling the ballooning costs of policing, says Niagara’s regional council chair Gary Burroughs. 

The Ontario Police Arbitration Commission, which has powers under the province’s Police Services Act, to settle contract disputes between municipalities and  their police departments, has finally expressed an interest in giving a municipality’s ability to pay more consideration when demands by police unions for wage and benefit hikes come before it, said Burroughs at a February 28 regional council meeting. Continue reading →