Author Archives: dougdraper

A Brief Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

When I was hired to my first job in journalism at the St. Catharines Standard in 1979, my first assignment was covering the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Former Niagara-on-the-Lake Lord Mayor and federal MP Jake Froese

I had been away from the Niagara region, doing graduate studies at the Universities of Windsor and Western Ontario for a while, and I had some catching up to do on the local scene. But one of the first things I learned was that Jacob Froese – known to so many as Jake – was one of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s most beloved and respected public figures.

A tender fruit farmer by trade, he served as Niagara-on-the-Lake’s lord mayor from 1973 to 1978, and by the time I arrived in the town with pen and notebook, he was the federal Member of Parliament for a Progressive Conservative government led by Joe Clark, representing a riding that included his town and Niagara Falls. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Starting now, there will be a little less Mr. Nice Guy coming from the person sitting in the chairman’s seat at Niagara, Ontario’s regional council meetings.

Niagara, Ontario’s regional council chiairman Gary Burroughs.

Gary Burroughs – who had a reputation for being a nice guy as a councillor and a lord mayor of Niagara-on-the-Lake long, before he was voted by regional councilor’s to the Region’s top political job more than two years ago – made it clear this January 18, during the first meeting this year of regional council, that he will not hesitate to bang his gavel, if that’s what it takes, to a restore some semblance of decorum at council meetings that have had a habit of going off the rails over the past couple of years. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

Faced with what it describes as many of the same challenges other Ontario hospital systems are during a time of “economic downturn” in the province and no increase in funding for hospitals, the Niagara Health System is looking to find $13 million in savings this year.

Niagara Health System’s interim president and CEO Sue Matthews

  In an outline of facts and figures posted below and prepared for a Thursday, January 17 media briefing, Sue Matthews, the interim president and CEO for an NHS responsible for managing the operation of most of the hospital services in Niagara, Ontario, stressed that the savings will be found without making compromises to patient care. “We exist to provide the best possible patient care (and) we will continue to work creatively to minimize the impact of efficiency measures on those we are for and our staff,” reads the outline presented by Matthews. Continue reading →

A Niagara At Large News Brief

 As if Fort Erie, Ontario has not taken enough hits in the last year with the provincial government’s closing of the Slots and Ontario Visitors Centre, and the 115-year-old Fort Erie Race Track closed unless private investors come forward or the province agrees to a rescue, now a printing plant has suddenly closed down, costing about 100 jobs.

The printing plant, owned by Vertis Communications, an American company, and operated in the Fort Erie community of Stevensville, was  shut down this past Wednesday, January 16, leaving everyone working there without any further pay or benefits, according to a January 17 media release from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union  (CEP) representing the plant’s employees. Continue reading →

A Submission from Chorus Niagara

St. Catharines, Ontario – Niagara’s premier 100-voice choral ensemble, conducted by Artistic Director Robert Cooper, holds its 7^th Annual Singathon Fundraiser at “The Most Famous Food Court in the World” the Seaway Mall in Welland Ontario, Saturday, February 9^th from 10am-3pm.

File photo courtesy of Chorus Niagara

The Seaway Mall was the location for the Chorus’ 2010 YouTube viral flash mob, produced by Alphabet Photography, viewed over 41 million times.

The Singathon is a free concert, performed continuously for the public from 10am-3pm.  The Chorus performs a variety of works from their popular and classical repertoire, including the famed Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

“Don’t let racists break you down. Don’t let bigots break you down. Be proud of who you are.”

Idle No More march in Niagara Falls, Ontario begins with these young girls at the lead. Photo by Doug Draper

It is sad to hear anyone have to say that to a group of people in Canada – especially one that has lived in this country and on this continent for many more hundreds of years, if not thousands of years, before my European descendants arrived here. Why should people with so many more roots on this continent have to be reminded – as if they needed to be reminded once again – to show dignity if they are, in one form or another, spat on or hurled racial epithets. But unfortunately, that’s what they and all of us still have to deal with from some in this country.

Nevertheless, with those words, and with a cautionary note from an organizer to keep things peaceful, more than 250 Native people began a miles-long march this Wednesday, January 16 to the great falling waters of Niagara Falls, Ontario as part of a nation-wide day of protests by the Native-inspired Idle No More movement.

Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

While the Niagara Health System hosts public tours this January at the mega hospital it will soon open in Niagara, Ontario’s north end, citizens in central and south Niagara are organizing a rally to demand that services in their hospitals not be moved away.

Welland Hospital, along with the Niagara Falls hospital site, are due to soon lose maternity and other services. File photo by Doug Draper

The rally, planned for Saturday, January 19 at 1 p.m. near the hospital in Welland, is a response to continued plans by the NHS – the body responsible for managing most of the hospital services in Niagara – to move obstetric, pediatric, mental health and other services from the Welland and Niagara Falls hospitals to that new hospital, scheduled to open in west St. Catharines within the next few months. Continue reading →

A Submission to Niagara At Large from the public interest group Ontario Nature

 (A short introductory note by Niagara At Large – Why is an Ontario government – that of lame duck premier Dalton Mutiny and what is left of his cabinet – setting a January 21, 2013 deadline on comments for protection endangered species in this province when it has had the nerve, since this past October, to suspend parliamentary democracy in this province until it anoints a new Liberal leader?

 Talk about a government that deserves to reach the status of an endangered species in Ontario’s next provincial election – likely to be called as soon as this spring, and not soon enough! And don’t forget, this is the same government that thinks it knows what it is doing around managing and/or culling deer herds in Niagara, Ontario’s Short Hills Park.)

January 14, 2013 – We are very concerned about the most recent recommendation from the government to weaken protection of Ontario’s at-risk wildlife.

Ontario has left one of its most majestic wild animals – the cougar – endangered because we can’t seem to make enough room for it to live.

With your support, Ontario Nature worked hard to make sure the Endangered Species Act was passed into law. However, because of budget cuts, the Ministry of Natural Resources has recommended that industrial activities be exempt from key parts of the Act.

Please join Ontario Nature in opposing the new exemptions.  The government’s proposal has been posted for public comment on the Environmental Registry – EBR Registry # 011-7696. The deadline for public comments is January 21.

The proposed exemptions will allow industry to dodge crucial Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection. Continue reading →

By Delila Jahn-Thue

 (Niagara At Large is pleased to welcome a voice from another region of this continent to our table. It is a large continent, but at the end of the day, we are all in this together.)

Christmas was a relaxing break from what has been a winter of great change in this farmhouse.

 When I’d finally finished dehydrating, pressure canning and sausage making, it was almost Christmas so I started washing, repairing and painting walls.  Instead of being floored by the enormity of the task ahead, I kept filling a pail with water, grabbed an old cut up towel and started scrubbing.

Quite amazed by the cobwebs and fly crap that had accumulated while I’d focused elsewhere, I refocused and change happened fast. Continue reading →

By Gail Benjafield

This year marks the 100^th year since the death of Harriet Tubman, the celebrated ‘Moses’ of her people, as she led enslaved blacks across the United States, by stealth, to the ‘North Star’, Canada.

The great slave emancipator and leader of the underground railroad from the 1800s, Harriet Tubman

Much has been written about Harriet Tubman in journals, articles and books. She lived for less than five years in St. Catharines, Ontario with her father and her brother, at various times, and our City of St. Catharines has honoured her with three different heritage designations – an Ontario Heritage plaque, a Municipal plaque and most recently, a Federal plaque, all at the British Methodist Episcopal (B.M.E.) church located at 92 Geneva Street, St. Catharines, and the only site site in the city to receive three heritage designations.

Allow me to say that much that has been written about Harriet Tubman is not based in sound research. Continue reading →

Niagara Region, January 14 – ‘Aging Well in Niagara’ is a community conversation about the needs of seniors. The project will help guide the evaluation and design future programs, services, and resources for seniors in Niagara.

Attend our Community Forums

Our Community Services department is holding a series of community forums to present the findings of its public consultations about the needs of seniors.

Residents are welcome to attend any of the forums to be held:

A News Advisory and Commentary from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

I don’t mind saying it. Few journalists in this region argued harder than I did, going back some eight or nine years ago now, against what I considered to be the bone-headed decision by the Niagara Health System – then led by CEO Debbie Sevenpifer – to build the only new mega-hospital this region of Niagara, Ontario was likely to receive approval for from the province for decades to come in west St. Catharines.

The new mega hospital complex for Niagara, located in possibly the dumbest location for it that could have been chosen for it, in the furthest reaches of west St. Catharines. Photo by Doug Draper

It was clear at the time, based on documentation I received from former NHS board members – that the Niagara Health System, an amalgamated hospital system for the region established by the former Conservative government of Mike Harris and Tim Hudak, would consolidate most of the acute care services in the region in this one new hospital.

That is why close to 100 brave doctors working at the NHS at the time took out full-page ads in local newspapers, recommending that the new hospital be located at a more central location in the region – possibly off Hwys. 406 and 20 around Thorold South and Pelham or off Hwy. 406 and East Main Street near the Welland Canal tunnel. They believed all of Niagara’s residents would have fairer access to its services that way. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

Niagara, Ontario’s closest American neighbor – New York State – may soon be home ground for the most restrictive laws on the trafficking and ownership of guns in the United States.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo

In his annual State of the State address this January 9, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his plan to enact the toughest laws in his country on removing military style, assault weapons and high-capacity clips for guns and rifles from circulation.

“End the madness now,” said Cuomo in the wake of continued mass killings by lone shooters with military-style weapons – two of the latest cases occurring in Newtown, Connecticut where 26 people, including 20 young children, were blown away within a matter of minutes, and a community near Rochester, New York where two firefighters were gunned down while responding to a fire a lone gun  nut started to lure first responders in for the kill. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

Media ownership in Canada is for the most part concentrated in the hands of huge corporations that benefit from tax cuts, tax avoidance, and corporate friendly policies, and this is reflected in the messages that they convey.

  If a person’s limited exposure to the media is restricted to corporate-controlled messaging, they will invariably inculcate some of these messages.

 The predominant main stream message today, for example, is that First Nations squander tax payer dollars and so, by extension, any legislation that unilaterally impacts them must be justified, even when these unilateral decisions are proven to be unconstitutional. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller

(A brief foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – The following release on a new report by Ontario’s independent environmental watchdog Gord Miller stresses that while energy conservation saves the province and consumers more money, not to mention being far better for the environment,  in the long run, the provincial government has not done enough to encourage all of us – governments, private businesses and residents across the province, alike – to practice more environment conservation.

But when you think of it, energy conservation doesn’t make many players in the energy industry any money and might even cost them. All it does is save us money and leave a lighter footprint on the planet.

Please read the release below and click on the link to read Gord Miller’s full report.)

January 8, 2012 – Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner, Gord Miller, says uncertainty about the future of electricity conservation programs is discouraging further energy savings in Ontario.

Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller pitches for energy conservation.

 Miller today released Volume Two of his 2011 Annual Energy Conservation Progress Report. This report annually reviews reductions in energy usage, increases in energy efficiency, and the progress and barriers to energy conservation. Volume One of the report was released in June, 2012.

• Watch videos of the Commissioner outlining key points of the report:
  • Main
  • Why Energy Conservation?
  • Schools
• Read the Commissioner’s Opening Remarks to the Legislature
• Download the report on your computer (.pdf)

The report shows that Ontario’s electricity conservation programs are cost effective and cheaper than generating power to supply demand. Continue reading →

A Submission from the public interest group Climate Action Niagara

We are deeply saddened at the passing of Joyce Hanlon on Dec 26, after a lengthy struggle with cancer.  She was a founding member of Climate Action Niagara who has been active throughout our six-year history.

Joyce Hanlon

 Joyce was one of the founders and held a Board position with Climate Action Niagara from 2008-2012.  She was also an active member of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, the St Catharines and District Council of Women, the Preservation of Agricultural Lands, was a long-time supporter of the Council of Canadians and the David Suzuki Foundation and was active in many organizations throughout her 60 years in Niagara. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano 

The following brief  commentary was submitted to Niagara At Large at noon hour on January 9, 2013

Derek Soberal of Occupy Canada being interviewed more than a year ago at an Occupy encampment in Toronto

Derek Soberal, founder of the Occupy Canada Facebook page, has been hacked. His Facebook password does not work; his hotmail account does not work; and his Occupy YouTube channel, with 4.8 million hits, and featuring activist/protest videos, has been taken down.

Derek explains that this happened just before he was about to publicly announce a schedule of protest rallies for January 11, 2013. Continue reading →

By Dan Wilson

 (Dan Wilson participated in protests this January 5 on the first day of a controversial deer hunt the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources approved for aboriginal people in Niagara’s Short Hills Provincial Park. Here is his report.)

 Some of my earliest encounters with “wildlife” took place in Short Hills Provincial Park. My grandparents used to be the caretakers at Camp Wetaskiwin, also known as the Boy Scout Camp, on Pelham Road outside St. Catharines.

A Native group gathers for day oneof controversial deer hunt in Short Hills Provincial Park. Photo by Dan Wilson.

 As kids, my sister, my cousins and me would explore the trails, and my dad would take us winter camping (we built our own lean-to) or into the bush to identify the various edible (and poisonous) plants. We also spent a lot of time discovering and befriending many of the creatures that lived within the park.

I still spend a lot of time in Short Hills. Whether I’m hiking or doing my waterfall photography, I’m amazed and delighted when I spot a group of deer resting underneath the hydro towers, a lone coyote walking along the Bruce Trail or a new kind of beetle. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Niagara At Large Publisher Doug Draper

I find it interesting that at the same time some Canadians are sending comments to this news site and others accusing Native Chief Theresa Spence of using what they consider to be a bogus hunger strike to “blackmail” Prime Minister Stephen Harper into meeting with her and other First Nation representatives, little of the same kind of noise is being made over the many millions of dollars of our tax money Harper is dishing out to multi-billion-dollar auto corporations to keep them from pulling the plug on more plants here.

Cars rolling off a GM plant floor. Autmakers in Canada get plenty of help in grants and tax cuts, but what guarrantee is there they will not pull the plug on plants here the first time they find a place with cheaper wages and more tax cuts elsewhere?

Indeed, while much is also being made out of what Chief Spence and her council have done with a reported $90 million or more in government aid they have received since 2006 to improve living conditions in the northern Ontario native community of Attawapiskat – with some going so far as to accuse the chief of gross mismanagement of public funds and even embezzlement – what is going to become of the $250 million Canada’s prime minister and his Conservative government announced this January that they will be giving to General Motors, Ford Chrysler and other auto-related corporations for so-called “research and development and innovation projects?” Continue reading →

A Niagara At Large News Brief

For the last few years, there has been debate – albeit hardly enough – in Canada’s mainstream media over the Harper government’s recently approved get-tough-on-crime legislation and how it could lead to overcrowded jails that do more to breed criminals than rehabilitate them.

One of the organization that has repeatedly addressed its concerns to the Harper government about this is the nation-wide, not-for-profit John Howards Society of Canada – a time-honoured group that has dedicated itself to seeing that Canada’s correctional and justice policies embrace the principles that are “effective, just and humane.”

 The St. Catharines & District Council of Women, a not-for-profit public interest group that features meetings on a host of topics of interest and concern to the larger community, will be hosting a meeting this coming Thursday, January 10 at 8 p.m. on this topic and you are all invited to come. Continue reading →

Submitted by Niagara, Ontario’s Public Health Department

NIAGARA REGION, Jan. 7, 2013 – The flu has arrived in Niagara with a total of 84 lab confirmed cases of Influenza A. Of those cases, 61 have been since Dec. 23, 2012. In addition, there are currently 20 institutional outbreaks, 12 of which are lab confirmed influenza outbreaks.

An image of Influenza A, an awful and potentially life-threatening flu for some, up way too close and personal. Niagara Region’s Public Health department is offering tips here to keep it away.

The flu spreads easily from infected persons through coughing and sneezing, or by touching contaminated surfaces such as toys, doorknobs, eating utensils, and unwashed hands. 

Niagara Region Public Health reminds residents to take the following precautions to reduce the spread of flu: Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

I made a New Years resolution that I would better control my temper this year in the face of government malfeasance. So much for that  resolutions. I hope you can keep yours.

Canadian Native Chief Theresa Spence.

I blew that resolution around noon this December 4 when Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper – holding a media conference at a Ford Motors plant in Oakville, Ontario to announce $250 million in tax bribes to keep American auto makers operating in Canada – was asked about Attawakiskat Native Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike, by then up to its 25^th day.

 With those dead, shark-like eyes and that droning tone of voice that sounds like a message you would get if you called Rogers Communications or some other  of Harper’s corporate friends to complain about the service you are receiving from them. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

In relatively short order, Canada has been condemned by three international humanitarian agencies. 

 The United Nations criticized us for our failures to provide food security  to Canadians.

 UNICEF condemned us for stopping a bill that would have provided developing world countries with cheaper drugs, thus sealing the fates of a multitude of victims who might otherwise have been cured.

 Amnesty International criticized us, this time with reference to Bill C-45, stating that “changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Act, and the proposed Safe Drinking Water For First Nations Act   have profound implications for the rights of Indigenous peoples as set out in treaties, affirmed in the constitution, and protected by international human rights.”

 Additionally, the international community has condemned us as being the first and only nation to drop out of the international KYOTO agreement. Continue reading →

By Don Smith

(A short note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – As a long-time environment writer, I often noted to audiences I have been invited to speak to that any concerns they may have over the possible health effects of wind farms, or parts per billion or trillion of chlorobenzenes and other industrial chemicals in the air we breathe or water we drink, people should be followed by this question – ‘If our governments are not prepapred to ban a known killer like cigarettes due to the profits they bring to the economy and to government tax coffers, why should anyone expect our governments to act on other potentially lethal assaults on persons and the environment?

 In other words, the continued legal manufacture and sale of cigarettes are proof positive that our governments are still willing to lace dollars ahead of public health. As long as our goverments are prepared to allow for the suffering and deaths of countless ten-of-thousands of people over a confirmed carcinogen like tobacco for profit, why should we expect our governments act on any other proven or potential danger from a product with wealth-producing potential in our economy?

Remember that we now live in a world where the accumulation of wealth, by whatever means, ranks above almost anything else. Forget about the collateral damage. Now let’s move to Don Smith’s commentary.)

 This is a current headline taken from a national newspaper – “Is it not time to ban this addictive and lethal drug? “

Every time I see a headline such as this one I think back to a discussion I had with my son’s late father-in-law, a tobacco farmer in the Tillsonburg area in the late 1990s. At that time, he told me that if and when cigarettes are declared illegal and banned that his tobacco growing friends, neighbors, and relatives all agreed they would willingly sell out their farms to the federal government and change to planting corn, gin sing, or peanuts. Continue reading →

A Submission by Niagara Action For Animals

 (Niagara At Large is posting the following submission for your information and opportunity to comment.

 The planned deer hunt in Niagara’s Short Hills Provincial Park was approved by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and is restricted to Native peoples only using hunting bows. The park will be closed to the rest of the public while the hunt is in progress on the dates of January 5,6, 12 and 13.)

 January 2013, St. Catharines, Ontario – Niagara Action for Animals (NAfA) is strongly opposed to  the deer hunt scheduled to take place in the Short Hills Provincial Park on January 5-6th and 12-13th. NAfA does not condone the hunting of animals for any reason; killing animals for sport, tradition, or food is unnecessary, inhumane and unjustified.

Courtesy of Dan Wiison, this photo was taken of a deer in another Ontario park near Georgian Bay.

 While we take little quarry with people who have absolutely no choice but to hunt to survive, in contemporary society, “meat”, “fur”, and “leather” are not necessary for survival. We strongly believe that morality, not tradition, should be the standard for our actions as moral human beings.

Given the sensitivity and complexity of the issue at hand, we would like to be clear is stating that our objection with the deer hunt is not about human versus animal rights, legal versus illegal activities, or respecting versus rejecting treaties. For us, as animal activists, the issue is about the rights of the animals who reside in the Short Hills to live peacefully and free from exploitative human interference. Continue reading →

 A Submission from the Office of Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten

 (Niagara At Large is posting the submission below from the Ontario Liberal Government As Written, and will strive to post the reaction of provincial opposition parties and teacher union representatives as they become available.

 Already Sam Hammond, president of the Ontario Elementary School Teachers Federation, is calling the move “a surprise and an extreme disappointment,” and unprecedented in the almost 100 years the federation has been in existence and been negotiating with the province on behalf of its members.

 NAL will also be weighing in to this serious matter with our own take on it in the days ahead. Now her is the release from the Education Minister’s office.)

McGuinty Government Putting Students First – Fair and Balanced Collective Agreements Introduced, Putting Students First Act (Bill 115) Will Be Repealed

Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten

 January 3, 2013 – Ontario is moving forward with the implementation of collective agreements for all teachers and support staff that meet the province’s fiscal targets while protecting the classroom experience and the gains made in education. All new contracts are retroactive to Sept. 1, 2012 and will expire on Aug. 31, 2014.

Today, Laurel Broten, Minister of Education, approved all 65 locally negotiated and ratified  agreements submitted by school boards prior to the Dec. 31, 2012 deadline set out in the Putting Students First Act.  CUPE has been given until Jan. 14 to ratify 110 local agreements. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

 “They’ll go into this pool,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenny was quoted saying in The Globe and Mail this January 2 of unemployed people in other parts of the world, “and then employers (in Canada) or my department and/or provinces will be able to fish out of that pool.”

Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. ‘Citizenship Not for Sale?’ Not unless Kenney and his Harper Conservatives can find someone from another country that will work cheaper for their corporate bosses than one of our young Canadians.

 “It’s like a dating site,” Kenny continued, as if to make it sound like all our loving nation of Canada wants to do is get up close and cozy with unemployed people in other countries on the planet – just to see if we can fix them up with a nice job here.

 Well, isn’t that nice and how generous of us –  and at the risk of sounding like I’ve got something against immigration, which I bloody well don’t coming from a family of immigrants –  what about our own young people here who are looking for a job and a promising future? Don’t they deserve to have their place in this pool and be apart of this dating game too? Continue reading →

 A Commentary by Doug Draper

It could very well be the most important election in Ontario in decades.

 That election is expected to be called as early as this coming spring when Tim Hudak’s Conservatives and Andrea Horwath’s NDP finally pull the plug on a floundering minority Liberal government, at which point the stakes could not be higher for young people struggling to get through school and find a job, aging people in need of health care and other social services, and everyone in between.

Tim Hudak, left, and Andrea Horwath – the only two clear choices in an upcoming Ontario election where the stakes will be high for all who live in the province.

So here is a New Year’s resolution I urge everyone of voting age in Ontario to embrace – get engaged, if you are not already, in what is going on in politics in this province, and get engaged now! There is, I will stress again nothing less than our future as individuals, families and communities in this province at stake.

To paraphrase one of my favourite bumper sticker lines; ‘If you are not outraged (at what has been going on in this province for the past 16 years or so of Mike Harris/Dalton McGuinty government), you are not paying attention’. So start paying attention, goddammit. If for no other reason, do it for yourself. Continue reading →

By David Boese

Because of the STUPID NHL lockout, I think it’s time to re-think how we manage and view the game of hockey.

If I had the power, I would drop out of the NHL and create an All Canadian Hockey League, with 10 or 12 teams. It could be patterned after the very successful Canadian Football League and players would be playing more for their fans, than for the money. I would create an atmosphere, where there would never be another lockout! It is after all Canada’s game and it belongs just as much to the fans, as it does to the owners of these teams. Continue reading →

By Wes Prankard

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper –

 Wes Prankard, a 14-year-old, now possibly 15 or going on 15 from Niagara Falls, Ontario, is someone I feel privileged to have met on a ‘Meeting on the Bus’ – an event held by other local citizens to promote use of regional transit in Niagara.

 Wes was there to discuss the amazing work he and others were doing to make like better for Native peoples in the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat, by raising money for playgrounds for the children there and promoting support across Canada for other needs in that community.

 This extraordinary young Niagara resident became and friend of the Native peoples of Attawapistat and of its beloved Chief, Theresa Spence, who is now on a hunger strike she is prepared to carry through until death unless Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, agrees to meet with her and other Native representatives across the country to discuss treaties Canada once signed with First Nations peoples that should have afforded them a better life than many of them are living today.

Niagara At Large is pleased to run this piece by Wes Prankard. Please read it with an open heart and do what you can to convince Canada’s federal government to show even a fraction of the interest it has in tar sands and spending billions of our dollars on fighter jets on improving the lives of Canada’s First People.)

Now here is Wes Prankard’s message

Wes Prankard, a Niagara Falls, Ontario resident and young advocate for Native Peoples, gives a necklace to his friend, Chief Theresa Spence, on day eleven of her hunger strike in Ottawa.

‘I am very worried about Chief Theresa Spence of Attawapiskat. Right now (as of this writing on Saturday, December 29, 2012) she is on day 19 of
her hunger strike and, because I know her and have spent time with
her, I know that she is prepared to die for her people. She has always been.

When I first met Chief Spence, she was living in the homeless shelter with
her daughters because she had given up her house to a single mom whose
house burnt down. That is the kind of selfless leader Chief Spence is – and
that’s why I worry about her. Continue reading →

By Dan Wilson

Being a Canadian and living in Canada, I’m not very familiar with American gun laws. And either by ignorance influence or just plain stereotyping, I’ve always thought of members of the National Rifle Association as gun nuts, rednecks and weekend warriors.

Guns, guns, guns. Do they look like hunting rifiles to you or military-style mass killing machines?

 Basically, I’ve thought of NRA members as people who love to kill others (including animals) but can’t because of the law (except animals). This is probably wrong on my part.

I’m also a peace advocate, and live my life by a simple rule: Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t harm others. I devote my life to ahimsa, which means kindness and non-violence to all living things (including animals), unless my life, or the lives of those around me are in mortal danger. Continue reading →

 By Don Smith

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – As a reporter who spent many years writing about environmental issues for a daily newspaper in the Niagara region, I have often wondered to what extent stories produced by reporters like me about the dumping of hazardous substances in our rivers and lakes contributed to the growth and prosperity of the bottled water industry.

The madness of buying water in plastic bottles has got to end. Rediscover your kitchen tap.

 I had people as far back as 20 to 30 years ago calling me up, having read my stories and others like them, and telling me that they had switched to bottled water because they no longer trust the water coming from their tap. These calls always disturbed me for the following reasons:

• I got the impression from many of the callers that they now felt ‘safe enough’ in their personal lives. They had found security for themselves in a bottle and therefore no longer had to worry or bother governments over the pollution being dumped in our rivers and lakes.
• There was little or no recognition among these callers that even if bottled water were the answer, not everyone in the community can afford to buy enough of it to satisfy their domestic needs.
• There was also little or no recognition of the possibility that the water in that plastic bottle is not necessarily any cleaner, according to comparison tests published by the Toronto Public Health Department and other agencies, and reported by this writer and others, than the water pouring from a home tap after it has been filtered through a municipal treatment plant.
• Finally, there seemed to be little or no concern over the fact that all of those plastic bottles had to be recycled or, worse yet, ended up buried in a landfill site. Continue reading →

From Rory O’Conner

(When Dave Brubeck, one of the great jazz artists of the last 60 years, passed away early this December, Niagara At Large paid a little tribute to him with a post titled Goodbye To A Jazz Giant Who Was A Great Friend Of This Greater Niagara Region .

NAL received a number of nice comments to that tribute, including this latest one from Rory O’Conner from the Buffalo, New York area which we feel is worth highlighting as a post on its own, given the close contact Rory had with Dave Brubeck as he lent his talents to a good cause in the region in the last years of his life.

Here is Rory O’Conner’s tribute to the great artistry and generosity of Dave Brubeck)

Jazz icon Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck was … ‘a very wonderful and solid citizen of the world. I live in Buffalo and was fortunate to sit on the Board of Directors of a wonderful not-for-profit entity called Computers For Children.As part of our mission to minimize the digital divide, we raised funds in a variety of ways, one of which was our Annual Gala Event, usually right before Christmas. Continue reading →

A Holiday Season Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper

 “It’s coming on Christmas, They’re cutting down trees. They’re putting up reindeer, And singing songs of joy and peace. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.”

There are all those upbeat Christmas carols like ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. Then there are the opening lines above from this 1970s Joni Mitchell song called ‘The River’. 

‘The River’ speaks to a Christmas season that may not be as happy or joyous as all of the hype would have us believe it should or even must be for all of us.  Continue reading →

By Robert Reich, December 23, 2012, Robert Reich’s Blog

(One of my favourite American  public policy people is this guy, Robert Reich, who was a secretary of labour for former U.S. president Bill Clinton, and who remains a strong advocate for fair play for the 99 per cent of us who are getting more and more screwed each day by the upper one per cent. Here is a piece from him Niagara At Large wishes to share with you this Holiday Season. It was written with the United States in mind but we think it is just as relevant, in many, to the state of things in Canada these days.)

‘It’s easy to feel discouraged about the bullying by right-wing Republicans and their patrons over everything from gun control to taxes and social safety nets to trade unions and jobs.

Robert Reich

Every year about now I watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” again to remind myself what Frank Capra understood about America — its essential decency and common sense.

In many ways the nation is better than it was in 1946 when the movie first appeared. Women have gained economic power and reproductive rights; we enacted Civil Rights and Voting Rights and, through Medicare and Medicaid, dramatically reduced poverty among the elderly; we began to tackle environmental devastation; we stopped treating gays as criminals and have even started to recognize equal marriage rights. We elected and then re-elected the first black president of the United States. We have enacted the bare beginnings of universal healthcare. Continue reading →

A Brief News Comment by Doug Draper

Four years ago, when General Motors  operations across North America were on the verge of total financial collapse, Ontario, along with Canada’s federal government, invested more than $10 billion of our tax dollars to help bail the automaker out. 

Ontario’s unionized auto workers did their part to save GM jobs in Ontario by agreeing to an unprecedented number of  wage and benefit concessions – all on faith that the corporation would do everything possible to keep its production lines in the province running.

Now General Motors is paying workers and governments in Canada back by announcing its plans to cease production of its Chevrolet Camaro in Oshawa, Ontario – a decision that could reportedly wipe out more than 3,500 good-paying jobs in that already struggling auto-manufacturing town – and could affect jobs at GM operations in Niagara, Ontario where engines are built for the car. Continue reading →

A Brief News Commentary by Doug Draper

You may have read stories in some of Niagara, Ontario’s mainstream media this late December that there are more than a thousand carcasses of whales and other mammals buried on the back grounds of the sprawling Marineland amusement park in Niagara Falls, and that the province’s Ministry of Environment is finally investigating in the event the remains may be contaminating surrounding groundwater.

A killer whale – orca – in one of Marineland’s ponds – pre-burial site.

Let me respond by saying this. There is nothing knew about this news that Marineland has been backfilling the remains of whales, dolphins, bears, deer and other mammals that have expired at the park toward the back area there, near the coaster ride or whatever it is. That has been going on for most of the more than four decades Marineland has been in business. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Niagara Health System

(This post, submitted by the Niagara Health System, the organization responsible for the operation of a majority of the hospital services in Niagara, Ontario, reports that the NYHS has received an “excellence-in-quality” seal of approval for its performance. We share this post with you – free of commentary from Niagara At Large – for your information.)

December 21, 2012 – The Niagara Health System is accredited for another three years following an extensive process that evaluated the organization’s performance against national standards of excellence in quality and safety.

Niagara Health System interum CEO Sue Matthews

“We are extremely pleased to receive full accreditation from Accreditation Canada,” says Interim President and CEO Dr. Sue Matthews. “The value of accreditation is both in validating our strengths and learning how we can improve quality in specific areas.”

In their report, the Accreditation Canada team of surveyors noted that they were impressed by our commitment to patient/client centred care, improved community partnerships, resiliency as an organization, and dedication to developing a culture of patient safety. Some of our challenges and opportunities lie in the flow of patients in hospital and the standardization of some processes across our sites. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

There are only a few shopping days left until Christmas and Niagara At Large reminds you to celebrate the Holiday Season by giving one of the greatest gifts you can to the economic well-being of the greater Niagara communities we live in – buy what you can and all you can, through this Holiday Season and in to the New Year, from our local, independent retailers. 

We all know that it is so tempting to go in after the ‘door buster’ sales that big box corporate chain stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and K-Mart advertise in the flyers stuffed in corporate-owned newspapers we get shoved in our doors every week. And some say; ‘Well, that’s a good buy and I ‘m not doing so well in the income department right now. I can’t afford not to take advantage of it,”  Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

It was two months ago, October 15, that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced his intention to pack it in as the province’s top boss and, at the same time, shut the doors on our legislative assembly until his ruling Liberals pick a new leader.

Queen’s Park – Now one of the most useless public buildings in Ontario. Maybe we should sell it.

The decision by McGuinty – who still serves as Ontario’s lame duck premier – to prorogue parliamentary democracy in this province has gone on for two months now and, quite depressingly, there seems to be very little outrage one hears on main streets or the back streets of our communities in Ontario over it. Continue reading →

By Karl Dockstader –

A collective in Hamilton to support the Idle no more movement! Meet at City Hall to voice our discontent with Steven Harper’s agenda and Bill C-45. First Nations people are here to protect Mother Earth. We need to stand in solidarity to exercise that right.

This message has been circulating for only a few short days.

 Niagara’s First Nations are buzzing that this is our chance to stand up to the Canadian government’s arbitrary rule changes in an effort to erode our rights and merchandise Mother Earth’s gifts on Turtle Island.

The Government of Canada has a long and contentious relationship with First Nations people. From breaking the Queen’s treaties, kidnapping our children and adopting them out in the 60’s scoop, the raping and murder of young innocent Native children at the hands of the administrators of residential schools, to systemic racism and tendencies akin to over a hundred years of attempts at cultural genocide, there is a laundry list of atrocious and egregious government sanctioned attacks against the once proud and free Native persons of Canada.

It took until 1996 to close the last residential school and it will take a lot longer to rebuild the relationship between the government of Canada and the First Nations, Metis and Inuit people of Canada. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

 (At least some of our readers on the Canadian side of the border may wonder why Niagara At Large is weighing in on the gun issue in the United States at a time when people in that country and around the world are mourning the murder – by rapid gunfire – of young children and their teachers in a small-town school in Connecticut.

Canada’s Harper government blows away national gun registry in deference to gun lobby.

 Those readers may say it is one thing to share our prayers for the victims and their families, but what business do Canadians have addressing the issue of guns in America?

 Well, for starters, there are a number of us on the Canadian side of the border who have friends and relatives who live in communities like the one in Sandy Hook, Connecticut and to that extent, searching for ways to prevent further blood baths like this is one we should all share.

 At the very least, many Canadians travel across the border to shopping malls, movie theatres and other places where random gun murdering like this is now occurring far too regularly and that, at the very least, should tickle our interest.

 To bringing the whole thing closer to home, our own police departments in the Greater Toronto Area have estimated that about 70 per cent of the guns now being used in violent crimes here are likely being smuggled across the border from regions in the United States where gun controls are so lax.

 Finally, we have a Conservative government in Canada, headed up by Stephen Harper and supported full heartedly by his justice minister, Niagara Falls MP Rob Nicholson, who celebrated the gutting of a gun registry most police forces in Canada supported as an important crime-fighting tool. And who knows how many concessions Harper, Nicholson and company will continue to make to a lucrative gun industry in the United States and its National Rifle Association affiliates, determined to grow markets in Canada for its killing-edge weaponry in Canada.

 Now let’s move on to the commentary.)

 “Happiness is a warm gun.” – from a song by the late Beatle John Lennon who was gunned down in America 32 years ago this September by someone who had a record of mental illness and yet was able to purchase guns and ammo without any background checks.

Like many of us this past Friday, December 14, I turned on the television to scenes of adults with horrified looks on their faces, clutching young children near an elementary school in a sleepy little New England town in Connecticut. Continue reading →

A News Commentary by Doug Draper

The Toronto Star – the newspaper that featured a number of front-page stories this past summer and fall on alleged cases of animal abuse at Marineland in Niagara Fall, Ontario – reported this December 14 that Marineland has slapped a $1.25-million lawsuit against one of its former trainers.

Marineland protester at a demonstration in front of the park last summer. File photo by Doug Draper

The Star story says that Marineland filed the suit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines , Ontario against Christine Santos, who worked at the amusement park for 12 years before she was fired this fall. In an October 18 story in The Star, Santos alleged that Kiska, Marineland’s one and only remaining “killer whale” (more kindly known by marine biologist as an orca), had been bleeding “off and on” since last July. 

The Marineland suit, according to the latest Star story, claims that cuts on the whale were minor and that Santos’ allegations were “calculated to disparate Marineland in its business. The paper reported Santos responding that the allegations in the suit filed against her are “ridiculous” and she plans to fight them “all the way.” Continue reading →

A Submission from Brock University

 St. Catharines, Ontario, December 14, 2012 – Besides being Canada’s most famous criminal lawyer, Edward Greenspan has also made his mark as a journalist, author, television host, legal commentator and social advocate.

Renown lawyer Eddie Greenspan to teach at Brock

Now the Niagara (Ontario) native can add another notch to his resume: Brock University teacher.

Greenspan has stood before packed courtrooms to defend everyone from Premier Gerald Regan to Conrad Black, Karlheinz Schreiber, Robert Latimer and the leading death penalty case in Canada, Burns and Rafay.

Now he brings his passion to Brock, where he will teach a credit course in political science during the winter term. The weekly class will be offered to top students over 12 weeks, starting Jan. 7. And, as one might expect with Greenspan, the focus will include a strong and lively examination of the link between crime and politics. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Niagara Health System

(Niagara At Large is posting the following news, as submitted, for our readers’ information from the Niagara Health System, the body responsible for managing most of the hospital services in Niagara, Ontario.) 

Thursday, December 13, 2012 – Today the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) will release its annual Hospital Standardized Mortality Data.

We are pleased to announce that Niagara Health System continues steady improvement year-over-year in reducing the number of preventable deaths in hospital. Continue reading →

 A Submission from the Office of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

QUEEN’S PARK, December 12, 2012 – New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath says the Auditor General’s Annual Report paints a picture of an arrogant and out-of-touch government that’s ignoring the challenges facing families in tough times.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath .

“Today’s report has shown that the McGuinty Liberals are wasting hundreds of millions of precious public dollars when families are being asked to sacrifice more,” said Horwath.

In his Annual Report, Auditor General Jim McCarter found numerous examples of across the board mismanagement of public money that will cost people more:

• Ontario’s Diabetes Strategy has done little to stop or slow the rapid growth of Continue reading →

Like A Piece of Raw Meat, Harper Throws Canada’s Sovereignty On To Chopping Block

By Mark Taliano 

“Those skilled in war subdue the enemy’s army without battle.  They capture his cities without assaulting them, and overthrow his state without protracted operations.  Your aim is to take the opponent’s country intact.  This is the art of offensive strategy.” 

These are the words of legendary Chinese general and tactician Sun Tzu, thought to be the author of The Art Of War, written before the time of Christ. 

They are also words which describe the brilliance of modern day China’s strategy to control what is currently Canada’s “economic engine”.  Continue reading →

A Brief from Doug Draper

(Well here we are again. Less than a week after saying goodbye to jazz legend Dave Brubeck, we are back to say goodbye to another towering figure in the world of music. The passing of the great figures in music from the past half century is coming all too fast now. Who will it be next week?)

 This December 12^th morning, I took out my original copy of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, album  that I ran out and bought with my saved-up school lunch money, the day it was released around the world – 47 years ago this December.

The great sitar master Ravi Shankar and his most famous student to the left, Beatles guitarist George Harrison

I was 13 years old at the time and followed everything The Beatles recorded with passion, including who wrote and sang each song, and who played what instrument on them. On the back cover of the Rubber Soul album, under the song “Norwegian Wood, one of the credits read; ‘George on sitar’. Sitar, I thought. What is that? Continue reading →

A Submission from Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath

(Niagara At Large is a non-partisan news and commentary site with a record of posting submissions from all of Ontario’s political parties. This one is from the province’s New Democratic Party leader Andrea Horwath.)

Friends,
 
As the holiday season approaches we often think more about our friends and families, and what an important part they play in our lives. It’s the wish to see our loved ones healthy, happy, and well cared for that makes Ontario’s health care system such an important issue for all of us.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath

Today, we’re asking to hear your experiences when trying to access health care in Ontario. We want to know where you’ve seen the system fail or succeed, so that together we can continue to focus on the things that most need to be fixed in Ontario’s health care system.

• Your experiences in ER?
• Wait times?
• Caring for older family members?

 
My team and I recently released Delivering Access, a consultation paper that asks Ontarians for feedback about their experiences with our health care system, and how they think it might be improved. Continue reading →

This image came from Stop 100

A Foreword by Doug Draper

When I began receiving media releases from this group – calling itself Stop100 – a year or so ago, I thought it was some sort of spoof. But apparently not.

This Oshawa-based citizens body, which has received some publicity for its cause in The Toronto Sun and other mainstream publications, is pushing the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to have the speed limits on the province’s 400-series highways from 100 to 120 to 130 kilometres per hour (and that is somewhere between 75 and 80 miles per hour for you Americans out there).

Now I always thought a couple of things about the speeds we drive on our highways, but perhaps I’ve been sorely misinformed. Continue reading →

Overall Hike Kept Below Two Per Cent. Regional Councillors Settle For Zero Salary Increase

By Doug Draper

It was a long night but Niagara, Ontario’s regional council final got it approved – a budget for 2013 that will mean a 1.97 increase on the regional government’s portion of the property tax bill, adding up to an additional $25 next year for the average homeowner.

Niagara, Ontario’s Regional Headquarters

The passage this December 6 of the 2013 budget follows several weeks of debate over how much should be spent operating a host of regional services  from waste management, roads, water and wastewater to policing, health, affordable housing and a fledgling regional transit system., and on the capital costs of building and maintaining roads and other infrastructure. In the end, the council, made up of directly elected representatives and the mayors of Niagara’s 12 municipalities, settled on an operating budget of $303 million for the coming year and a capital budget of $218 million. Continue reading →

A Submission by Karl Dockstader

(Just a little foreword from Niagara At Large – While we are fighting over wind and solar energy and where these facilities should go, rapidly developing nations like China and India are moving forward with newer wind and solar technology that could blow us away, and win the future on safe, boundless energy production. U.S. Barack Obama once said that those countries that does the best job of making renewable energy alternatives work will be the leaders iofthe 21^st century. So far this tar sands nation of Canada is not looking like much of a contender.)

Toronto Convention Center, January 4th. Energy Minister Chris Bentley addressed a crowd of solar industry professionals, entrepreneurs and advocates yesterday and announced that 200 MW of Feed in Tariff(FIT) and microFIT contracts would be awarded starting December 14th.

Solar panels being installed on a residential rooftop in somewhere U.S.A.

This announcement is bittersweet as it has taken the entire calendar year to roll out the program that has become politically embattled due to PC opposition. It is also unclear what role FIT will continue to play in the provinces long term energy plan.

At the Canadian Solar Industry Association conference 2012 yesterday optimism amongst vendors was scarce. The future of FIT, despite it’s resounding success in countries like Germany, has become tangled into the unusually contentious relationship between exiting Premier Dalton McGuinty and PC leader Tim Hudak. Continue reading →

A Brief from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

(As those of you who are regular readers of Niagara At Large know, we go out of our way here sometimes to honour the death of the odd milestone person among us. And here is one now.)

 One of the great jazz adventurers from the mid-20^th century and on, in to this 21^st century, passed away this December 5.

Jazz legend Dave Brubeck

His name was Dave Brubeck and some of you who follow music closely and love jazz music in particular may remember him for the classic 1959 album ‘Time Out’. On that one was a tune called ‘Take Five’, an interplay between his piano and the alto sax of Paul Desmond, that broke barriers when it came to the typical 4/4 timing in jazz and the blues. It was a sound that everyone in jazz and blues and rock, including The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, Sting and U2. Continue reading →

A Brief Foreword by Doug Draper

 Tim Hudak, a Niagara area MPP and leader of the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario, is recycling the idea of privatizing the province’s liquor retail stores.

Are the province’s profitable LCBO outlets on the chopping block again? Photo by Doug Draper

A media release circulated by Hudak’s office this December 4 reads as follows; “The province should consider all options for increase choice and competition, Hudak said, ranging from the sale, partial sale or greater private franchising of non-core assets like the LCBO.”

These words may tickle the hearts of that part of Hudak’s conservative  base that see privatization as a tool for shrinking government down to its bare-bone core. But what sense does it make to sell off an ‘asset’ like the LCOB  – as non-core as it may be – that generates billions of dollars in revenue that can be used to cover the costs of health care, education and other core services at least some of us may still want government to run? Why would anyone – even someone as dumb as too many of those we have serving in elected office these days – ditch a cash cow like this unless they are desperate for fast money? Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

The waters of the world-famous Niagara River – at one time known for being plagued with some of the deadliest chemical contaminants in the world from notorious dumpsites like Love Canal and Hyde Park in Niagara County, New York – are showing significant improvement, according to a report released this December 6 by Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory in St. Catharines, Ontario.

The world-famous Falls on the Niagara River has had more than its share of toxic wastes contaminating its waters over the past half century

“Overall water quality in the Niagara River has improved significantly … since 1987” when” remedial action plans” for both sides of the river were launched under the umbrella of the Canada/U.S. International Joint Commission – the official binational watchdog for Great Lakes waters, and other relevant federal, state, provincial and local agencies, says the report prepared by Niagara College instructor Annie Michaud for the Observatory.

Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, when tests found the Niagara River and its aquatic life loaded with dioxin, PCBs, mirex and a cocktail of other highly toxic chemicals – many of them oozing in from dumps along the American side of the river – continued testing shows concentrations of 18 priority toxic pollutants have declined by as much as 99 per cent. Continue reading →

Environment Commissioner Gord Miller

A Submission from the Office of Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller

(Niagara At Large is posting this important information on the status of efforts to address greenhouse gases and climate change in Ontario from the province’s provincially appointed environmental watchdog Gord Miller.)

Dec 4, 2012 – Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner, Gord Miller, says the Ontario government is backing away from its plan to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). Gord Miller today released “A Question of Commitment,” the 2012 edition of his annual review of the government’s Climate Change Action Plan. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

“Virtue is regularly redefined to reflect fashion,” writes John Ralston Saul, “Sometimes it refers to honesty, sometimes to personal virtue, sometimes to devotion to the people’s welfare.  Over the last twenty years, it has tended to refer to the virtue of personal enrichment.”

The “virtue” of the Harper Regime, sometimes cloaked in Christian evangelism, is the deformed notion that the 1% should enrich themselves at the expense of the 99%.  It is a “virtue” that teaches us that the poor of the world are not worthy of our care, that the poor and marginalized of Canada are obstacles to surmount, and that people are subservient to the parasitical needs of corporate entities and the managerial class. Continue reading →

Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak (right) and his former Tory boss Mike Harris. Hudak follows Harris in pushing privatization

A Submission from the Office of Ontario Conservative Opposition Leader Tim Hudak

(This December 4, Ontario PC leader and Niagara area MPP Tim Hudak was in Niagara Falls, Ontario to make a pitch for privatizing some gambling operations in the province and using the savings from that move to improve health care and educational services. In the following media release, Hudak is making a pitch to apply that same privatization medicine to the province’s profitable retail liquor stores.

Niagara At Large is posting this release for our readers and we look forward to any comments you may have on this news, which is likely to be a subject of debate in a provincial election expected next spring or summer, in the space below.)

TORONTO,  December 4, 2012  – It’s time to challenge why the government needs to run businesses that distract its focus from core services we all value, like health care, education and infrastructure, Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak said today. Continue reading →

A Brief Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Governments in Ontario and Canada have never had the best record in the world of protecting biodiversity, which at the nub of it means protecting other forms of life we humans need to a healthy and fulfilling life on a planet that – believe it or not – is not all about us.

Indeed, whenever there has been a choice between the preservation of valued natural resources and bulldozing or asphalting over ever more land, the bulldozers and asphalt trucks win almost every time. Developers won’t tell you that. They want us to believe that there are too many rules and regulations and tree huggers, standing in the way of their enterprises, but all you have to do is study the past three decades of continued low density sprawl in this region to discover that that’s not true. Continue reading →

A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Over the past 24 yours and up to now, at noon on Thursday, November 29, Niagara At Large has been experiencing technical problems around posting both news and commentary from our contributors, and comments from our readers. Due to difficulties that also involve our server, we have not been able to send or receive email messages.

We ask our many loyal readers and those of you who may have sent us comments within the past day or so to be patient. We will be back up and running as soon as the problems are resolved.

How About Hosting Some Wastes From A Nuclear Power Plant?

 By Doug Draper

 To all of those vocal opponents of wind energy in Niagara, Ontario and other regions of this province and others in Canada and the United States, here is a question for you.

The Darlington nuclear power plant cost Ontario energy consumers billions in over-riding costs

 If not wind or solar in your backyard or the backyard of someone else’s community, then what are the alternatives? Would you settle for more nuclear, coal or gas-fired plants to answer an ever-growing energy demand, unless we are prepared to turn off those air conditioners, etc. and get into some radical energy conservation.

 Would you be prepared to host a nuclear, coal or gas-fired facility in your community? How about accepting a depository for the spent radioactive waste from a nuclear power plant in our community? Continue reading →

A Submission to NAL from Niagara College

Niagara College graduate David Pratt has been announced as a winner of
College’s Ontario’s 2012 Premier’s Award.

Award-winning Niagara College graduate David Pratt

Pratt, who graduated from Niagara College’s Greenhouse Technician
program in 2007, was one of six Premier’s Awards winners honoured for
making significant contributions to their communities and achieving
excellence in their careers. The winners were announced at an annual
Colleges Ontario conference held in Toronto on Nov. 26.

His win in the Recent Graduate category recognizes the great strides he
has made in the industry since graduating only five years ago.

Pratt’s success as head grower at Sundrop Farms in Outback Australia
has the potential to make the world’s deserts come alive. While
agriculture uses about 70% of the world’s fresh water supply, Sundrop
discovered a cost-effective method of producing food using the sun’s
warmth to remove salt from seawater, saving millions of litres of fresh
water and millions of barrels of oil. Pratt has developed a sustainable
greenhouse growing system that enables the technology to be used
worldwide in coastal, arid areas. Sundrop is undergoing a $30-million
expansion, and starting a Sahara Forest Project in the Middle East. Continue reading →

A Submission from Lynda Goodridge, Fort Erie Arts Council Arts Council

 The Fort Erie Arts Council is mounting a posthumous art exhibit featuring works by a local legend and man of mystery, Tom Foster.

A Tom Foster painting. Image courtesy of Ken Trinka

 We are launching the show with an open house on Friday, November 30th, from 5 to 10 pm, at the Sanctuary Centre for the Arts as part of the Spirit of Christmas celebrations.  There will be articles about the artist on display, as well as taped interviews with those who knew him.

 Here is some background information about this colourful character.  If you need more information, you can contact Ken Trinka, who is coordinating the exhibition, at kjtrinka@gmail.com. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

As a supporter of renewable energy, I was pleased to look down from a bridge I was crossing to Cape Cod, Massachusetts this November and see two towering wind turbines, their blades turning proudly in the wind blowing off nearby Buzzards Bay.

One of the wind turbines on Cape Cod, Mass. Photo by Doug Draper

One of the first thoughts that came to mind at the sight of these wind turbines was this. If these turbines are spinning above the line of trees, and homes and businesses occupying a region that has become a haven for tourists and for people affluent enough to still be able to afford to live here, then what is all of the fuss over them possibly operating in rural regions of Niagara, Ontario or any other part of the province, for that matter?

To get closer to the point, if wind turbines cause the health problems and the depreciation of property values some people say they do, it is hard to believe that these two turbines would ever be erected in this picturesque New England town on Cape Cod called Falmouth, let alone turned on.

Then, a few days after we arrived on the Cape for an annual Thanksgiving gathering with our American friends, there was a front-page story in the Cape Cod Times about these turbines with a headline that read; ‘Closed for the Holiday’, and a sub-heading that read; ‘In a good will offering to abutters, Falmouth selectmen vote to turn off two wind turbines on Thanksgiving and Christmas’. Continue reading →