Author Archives: dougdraper

Posted by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Tragically, we don’t have too many reporters left in Canada who have the will or resources to fearlessly investigate this country’s tar sand follies and other environmental transgressions.

Canadian investigate reporter and author Andrew Nikiforuk visiting region.

That is why you might want to take the time to drive to Hamilton, Ontario this coming November 28 for a rare evening with Andrew Nikiforuk, one of the few journalists left in the country with the courage to challenge the propaganda the mainstream media seems only too willing to pipe out there for the tar sands industry Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano 

All governments use words freely to sell their deeds and misdeeds, but repressive governments do it with such regularity, that the words have basically become meaningless.

Historical perspective sheds light on the otherwise obscure origins on some of today’s pervasive nomenclature.

The “free market” theory originates from an economic theory of Milton Freidman and the Chicago school, and it was first implemented in Chile. 

Essentially, the CIA orchestrated a coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile, and replaced it with the infamous dictator Pinochet.  

Then, for the first time, Freidman and his free-marketeers had a blank slate upon which to test their economic theory.  Interestingly, the testing field required repressive governance, otherwise the people would not have tolerated it.  Free markets and repressive governments make good marriages. Continue reading →

By John Bacher

(Following a public hearing, a provincially appointed member of the Ontario Municipal Board recently tabled a decision that will allow a controversial plan for a giant motor-racing track to be built on more than 800 acres of land in Fort, Erie, Ontario. In this post, Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society member outlines the group’s reasons for appealing the decision.)

At 9 a.m. this past November 13^th, 2012, the Niagara-based Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society filed an appeal with the Ontario Municipal Board of its decision to allow plans for a giant motor racing facility in Fort Erie, Ontario to move forward.

A stretch of Miller Creek on the property where a proposed motor-racing track would go in Fort Erie, Ontario. Photo courtesy of the Preservation of Agricultural Society

Our appeal of OMB member Susan de Avellar Schiller’s decision following a public hearing to approve the zoning for Canadian Motor Speedway seeks to maintain the current Good Agricultural zonings and official plan designations with the Niagara Region and Fort Erie that now protect the 827 acres of land where the raceway would go.

In making the appeal, PALS was careful to confine ourselves to the limitations of such cases that are considered under Section 42 of the Planning Act.  Such appeals cannot attempt to repeat the arguments of the hearing. They must confine themselves to errors of fact and law made by the OMB member who heard the case.

One of the most serious errors in law, in our view, was the disqualification of PALS expert witness Dr. Hugh Gayler in land use planning on the grounds that he was a self-defined member of our society. In making her decision Schiller relied upon the notion put forward by the raceway proponents of PALS as an “advocacy group.” Continue reading →

From Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

There is this fragile finger of sand curling out into the Atlantic Ocean off Massachusetts that my family migrates to each late November for a gathering of close friends for American Thanksgiving.

The Old Sea Pines Inn on Cape Cod will be Niagara At Large’s point of dispatch for the next week. We will be back in Niagara with a journalistic vengeance by the end of the month. Something has to be done to make up for the gutting of chain newspapers here.

That is where this publisher will be by Sunday evening and for the next seven or eight days, yet I want you to know that we will continue filing dispatches for Niagara At Large from there. There are issues I’ve covered in recent days and weeks I have yet to comment on, and there are some posts on issues contributed to some of our many supporters.

No doubt, we will be on slow speed during this period because I have to take a bit of time off to walk on a beautiful ocean beach every once in a while. We all do, and I am just thankful that in spite of some tough economic and family challenges over the past 12 months, that I still can. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

In a letter he is sending to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Niagara, Gary Burroughs, the chairman of Niagara, Ontario’s regional government is urging the EPA not to remove one of the notorious toxic waste dumps in the Niagara River/Lake Ontario watershed from list of priority hazardous waste sites in need of attention.

Niagara, Ontario Regional Chair Gary Burroughs

“This is a concern for the Niagara Region because we are located on the shorelines of both the Niagara River and Lake Ontario where there are concerns that hazardous waste from the Hyde Park site may still be migrating,” says Burroughs in his letter. “Water quality in Lake Ontario is an important issue for the Region because it is a major drinking water source for resident of Niagara. … There are (also) aquatic biota (fish, birds and other creatures living in and off the river and lake) that are dependent on these waterbodies.”

What Burroughs and the Niagara, Ontario regional council are responding to is a burial ground for about 80,000 tonnes of some of the most chemicals ever created by human science, including a ton of the deadliest form of dioxin, sitting on a floor of fractured bedrock rock just above the Niagara River gorge, in the Lewiston, New York area. Continue reading →

Submitted from the office of Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster

Saturday, November 17, 7:00 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.) Club Social, 810 East Main Street, Welland.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath will be there, at Welland, Ontario meeting.

This Saturday, November 17, MPP Cindy Forster will share some new ideas from the Ontario NDP, about Restoring Our Health Services and Tackling Poverty through Job Creation.

Dalton McGuinty may have prorogued the Legislature, but Andrea Horwath and the Ontario NDP caucus are hard at work planning policy for a better, fairer Ontario. And they want input from the people of this province.

 The Welland NDP Riding Association presents Cindy Forster, Malcolm Allen, Peter Kormos, and special guest, Ontario NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, in an evening of discussion—over pie and coffee—on major issues of concern to local residents.

A Commentary by Doug Draper 

Elwy Yost, the original host of TV Ontario’s Saturday Night at the Movies, must be spinning in his grave like a film reel on a projector.

Elwy Yost, one of the late great ambassadors for TV Ontario, would likely be heartbroken to hear about the province’s cuts to that public broadcasting network now.

The current Liberal government, in an effort to reduce a multi-billion-dollar deficit and make up for its squandering of hundreds of millions of dollars on eHealth, moving sites for gas-fired power plants to protect the butts of some of its caucus members and other chicanery, had to include its only public broadcaster as a target with a cut totaling about $2 million. Continue reading →

–         Where Is The Regional And Provincial Government On This?

 A Commentary by Doug Draper

Most of us, if not all of us, look up to our police as models and protectors of the law, and almost each and every one of our police officers earn and deserve that kind of respect for the difficult and dangerous work we expect them to do.

Niagara Regional Police officer continues to collect pay while awaiting sentencing for “international criminal activity” in a Buffalo, New York court

 They, along with our firefighters and our paramedics, are among the first responders we count on during times of trouble and emergency.

But there are times when that respect is shaken and the news that came first from CBC this Tuesday, November 13 may, for at least some of us, be one of them. 

According to a CBC report, Niagara Regional Police Constable Geoff Purdie, who pleaded guilty in a Buffalo, New York courtroom this past October of smuggling thousands of dollars of steriods across the border from the United States to Canada, and “flashing his badge” at customs authorities while he was doing it, will be allowed to continue collecting his salary – money that comes out of the wallets of Niagara, Ontario residents – at least until he is sentenced this coming February 28 to up to 10 years in jail and a $500,000 fine.

Yet a so-called “disciplinary tribunal,” run by the Niagara Regional Police, decided at a hearing in St. Catharines, Ontario this November 12 to allow Purdie to go on collecting his salary, which could easily range above $80,000 annually give the wages of police these days, until he is sentenced. And that is apparently because Purdie reportedly “declined to enter a plea” during the tribunal hearing.

The fundamental question we all should be asking our elected representatives at the regional and provincial government level is this? Why should we go on paying the salary of anyone in public service who has been found guilty in a court of law of committing a criminal act? Continue reading →

–         Regional Group Invites You To November 17 Annual Meeting     Featuring Guest Speakers On Heritage Topics

Submitted to Niagara At Large by Pamela Minns

 ANNOUNCEMENT.

I am a member of the Steering Committee of the Niagara Heritage Alliance, which is an organization formed about 3 years ago and which represents communities across Niagara.     N.H.A. is committed to heritage preservation and enhancement, including natural heritage, agricultural lands and built heritage which are considered to be of cultural, environmental, historical and/or architectural significance.  A full explanation of this organization can be viewed on their web site at : www.niagaraheritagealliance.org 

The Riverbrink Art Museum in historic Queenston, Ontario is the venue for this forum on preserving our region’s heritage resources

  They are holding a general meeting Saturday, November 17th, 2012 from 9 a.m. until 12 noon, (coffee at 8:30 a.m.) at the picturesque Riverbrink Art Museum, 116 Queenston Street, Village of Queenston (Niagara on the Lake).   Their web site at :  www.riverbrink.org   shows a map with the exact location. Everyone is welcome !  It is free ! Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

 The Niagara Health System – the decade-old almalamated body responsible for most of the hospital services in Niagara, Ontario – is reaching out for applicants to fill a new hospital board.

Debbie Sevenpifer, the former CEO and board chair of the NHS, and some of the other screwballs on the former NHS board that turned this hospital system into such a mess, at one of the board’s annual meetings just a couple of years ago, File photo by Doug Draper

 It may not be the way some want to do it. There are no elections being held here for hospital board members. If you are interested, concerned or outraged over where we have and are going with hospital services in this Niagara region, you have got to apply if you feel that being a member of a new NHS board will make any difference.

 Let’s just hope that enough good people from the working class and what Mitt Romney, the failed U.S. Republican Party candidate for the presidency, might call the 47 per cent of us that are bums because we pay little or no income taxes, get a fair shot at these board positions. Let us hope that we don’t end up getting the same usual suspects from the narrow band of elites in this region. We had that the last time on this board, and it was a disaster. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

Just when some of us began to think that the governing Ontario Liberals won’t win enough seats in the next provincial election to fill a broom closet, Gerard Kennedy has thrown his hat in the ring for the besieged party’s leadership.

Gerard Kennedy enters Ontario Liberal leadership race

Kennedy, who was a popular MPP and cabinet minister for the provincial Liberals until he left six years ago to win and later lose a Toronto area seat federally, might be the one individual who could keep the party from being reduced to a rump if he manages to replace outgoing Premier Dalton McGuinty in a leadership contest scheduled for this coming January.

Unlike the other individuals who have declared their intention to run for the party’s top job, including recent Liberal cabinet ministers Charles Sousa, Kathleen Wynne and Glen Murray, and former cabinet minister Sandra Pupatello, who did not run in the 2011 provincial election to take a job in the private sector, Kennedy has been away from the provincial party scene long enough to put some distance between himself and the so-called “scandals” facing the Liberals over the costly cancelation of gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga, and such health care messes around eHealth and the ORNGE air ambulance service. Continue reading →

One More Remembrance Day note from NAL publisher Doug Draper

This just about sums it up around the travesty of wars and what Remembrance Day in Canada or Veterans Day in the United States should be all about.

It comes from the legendary folk singer Buffy Sainte Marie, and it comes out of her great song from the 1960s called ‘Universal Soldier’, which was also made famous or infamous, depending on your take on it, by the Irish folk singer Donovan.

This Youtube video, featuring Buffy, pretty well tops every thing this NAL publisher has tried to say about remembering our soldiers – well on top of some government voices that choose to blow bluster for more wars.

I thank Fiona McMurran, a Niagara representative for the Council of Canadians, for sharing this with Niagara At Large.

Check out the Buffy video by clicking on – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGWsGyNsw00&feature=youtu.be .

(Feel free to share your views below.)

A Comment by Doug Draper

In Canada’s capital of Ottawa there is something called a “national war memorial” and there is also a “war museum.” I am not so sure that that the United States, as much as militarism has been part of that country’s culture, has a national “war” memorial or museum quite like that.

Canada’s “War Memorial” in country’s capital of Ottawa, Ontario. Why isn’t it a ‘Peace Memorial’?

On this Remembrance Day – call it Veterans Day in the U.S. – I keep reading and hearing on radio and TV the same sad stories we all keep hearing each year at this time about the waste of life at battles no one can now justify fighting during World War One, in particular. Isn’t it interesting how the older these wars get in history – the First World War goes back almost a century ago – the smarter we get in realizing what a waste in human life wars are. 

Yet we have government in Canada  today – this Conservative government in in particular, that is so inclined to prorogue or shut the doors on a democratically constituted parliament any time it suits its special interests – that is so bullish on war and military might that it would rather focus a solemn day like Remembrance Day on war than peace. Continue reading →

A Submission to Niagara At Large from the Toronto-based Ontario Health Coalition

(A brief foreward from NAL – Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews was in Niagara, Ontario earlier this November for an economic summit wherein she told reporters that if mayors of municipalities in Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Welland, Port Colborne and Wainfleet and others can’t get their act together and agree on one site, rather than “squabble over two possible sites – one in Niagara Falls and one in the Welland area – for a new hospital – they might not get a new hospital.

This after her government went along with the former Niagara Health System board of Debbie Sevenpifer, Paul Leon and Betty-Lou Souter to locate the only new super hospital now being constructed and ready for opening this 2012 in west St. Catharines rather than at a more central location in the Niagara region. There might not be any need for a discussion of where a possible second new hospital should go in the region if the Liberal government had the guts to tell Sevenpifer and company that the hospital now about to open should have been sited somewhere in the centre of the region.)

The Ontario and Niagara Health Coalitions responded to Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthew’s threat to cancel the proposed new hospital for Niagara. According to Matthews, if Niagara municipal leaders criticize her appointee’s choice of location for a still-fictional new hospital, the project – which has never been approved anyway – may be cancelled.  Legitimate concerns about cuts to and loss of hospital services in local communities have been termed “bickering”.

Ontario Health Coalition Natalie Mehra accuses the province’s health minister of “bullying” Niagara over hospital services.

“Whether or not a new hospital is planned for a community – and its location — should be a result of a sound planning process, based on community need for health care services, not crass politics,” she added. Continue reading →

A Brief Note from Doug Draper

“I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight or to die.”

–         From the Jackson Browne song, Lives In The Balance

This Remembrance Day – Sunday, November 11 – is once again a time to pay homage to those who fought and died in wars which, after all, are so often a failure of the ones at least a percentage of us entrust to resolve conflicts between peoples and nations in more peaceful and constructive ways.

An iconic Veterans Memorial in Chippawa Park, Welland, Ontario.

As for the men in the shadows, and they mostly are men (except for the odd few women like former Bush secretary of state Condoleezza Rice who helped push the lies for justifying an invasion of Iraq that ultimately wiped out more than 100,000 American and Iraqi lives), Remembrance Day should never be a time for celebrating a militaristic agenda or culture.

I’ve always found it interesting that those who talk toughest about going to war are so often those who have never gone to war themselves, and have often gone to some trouble to dodge any duty that might place them in a combat zone. Both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney managed to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War years. And most recently, the U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who gave the impression in his rhetoric that he might be prepared to engage in a war against Iran, exercised a Mormon missionary duty option to avoid going to Vietnam and none of his five sons, all of eligible age, volunteered to serve in the armed forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In Canada, there is tough talking Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, if he had been prime minister with a majority government at the time, would have sent young Canadians off to fight and die in a war in Iraq that most Americans now agree was a tragic mistake. We also endure the hawkish bluster of Harper’s minister of defense, Peter McKay, and minister of foreign affairs, John Baird. None of them have ever served in uniform on some killing floor where the bullets fly.

A memorial to those who died in past wars in Memorial Park, Thorold, Ontario.

 But enough of the chicken hawks.

I’ve also always been struck by the fact that some of the most moving speakers against the War in Vietnam during that period were Second World War veterans, just as some of the most passionate opponents of invading Iraq or the continue war in Afghanistan are Vietnam War veterans – people who know what bloody hell war is for both the soldiers and the civilians who happen to be in the way of the bullets and bombs.

Unlike the men in the shadows and chicken hawks, they have witnessed the blood and the horror, and beg us all to find a way to resolve our differences without war. They know what Jackson Browne sings in that song.

“There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire.”

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post below.)

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Let me start this with a few predictions you don’t have to be any kind of a soothsayer to make.

Liberal elites Sandra Pupatello and Dalton McGuinty during better times for their governing party. Pupatello has announced her intention to fill McGuinty’s position as the province’s premier, and is also declaring that if she wins the top job, she will keep the doors on the provincial legislature locked until she wins a riding seat somewhere in Ontario. That could keep parliament closed for the better part of next year or more.

 The first prediction is that there will be a provincial election in Ontario sometime in the coming year unless the governing Liberal Party can somehow weasel its way out of one by pushing its current and most arrogant and undemocratic prorogation of the legislature into 2014. And given the amoral, give-a-flick-of-the-finger-to-the-people-of-the-province compass the Liberals seem to be guiding themselves by these days, I would not be surprised if they drag this suspension of parliamentary democracy on that long.

Second, some of the scandals closing in on the province’s Liberal government will continue to metastasis whether the legislature is sitting or not. Most particularly is the scandal over the use of possibly hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to abandon plans to build gas-powered power plants in Liberal ridings in Mississauga and Oakville, for fear the opposition would harm the chances of Liberal candidates, before last year’s provincial election.

According to a story on the front page of The Globe and Mail this November 8, the governing Liberals allowed some $190 million of that money – our money to fall in the hands of hedge-fund manipulators in the United States and to financial fixers in the Cayman Islands were our money can make profits for them.  For this reason alone, this Liberal government and everyone in it should be impeached as soon as possible.

Third, Sandra Pupatello, a former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister until she decided not to run in the 2011 provincial election and a darling of the party by many accounts, has just announced her intentions to replace outgoing Dalton McGuinty as the party’s leader and the province’s premier. However, she noted in her announcement to run for the leadership that, should she win her party’s leadership, she would not end the prorogation or suspension of the legislature until she wins a seat in some by-election somewhere in the province. That, as CBC radio news reported this November 8, could put off any return to legislative democracy in this province until sometime into late 2013, if not later. And all so Pupatello can dawn what many party faithfully feel is her rightful crown. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

The late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau once had this to say about Canada’s relationship with our neighbours to the south. – “Living next to the United States,” he said, “is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even tempered is the beast, … one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

Obama campaign office at work in Buffalo, New York. Photo by Doug Draper

Given the close economic and cultural ties Canada continues to have with the United States, there is no reason to believe that Trudeau’s observation is any less relevant today than it was 30 or 40 years ago. And with that in mind, it continues to matter a great deal to the interests of Canadians (whether some of us care to believe it or not) who Americans elect as their president and commander –in-chief.

This November 6 presidential election, which saw U.S. President Barack Obama thread the needle to wind a second term in what was one of the tightest races for the White House in recent American history, held a good deal at stake for Canadians and Americans alike. For progressives in both countries and for everyone else among us who want to see us move forward with environmental protection and addressing the causes and impacts of climate change; who want to see a continued shift away from our dependence on coal and oil and to toward more sustainable, renewable sources of energy; who want to see us  move toward more sustainable transportation systems; who want to see us spend less on military ventures and more on educating our young people; and who want to ensure work toward the continued delivery of health care and other public services in ways that best serve those who need them at an affordable cost, a win by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would have been a disaster. Continue reading →

A Brief Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper

On Saturday, November 3, I reported seeing a long caravan of hydro trucks from Ontario crossing the Peace Bridge border crossing, on their way to hurricane-ravaged regions of New York State and New Jersey to help restore power to millions of people there.

Ontario hydro trucks line up at border, on their way to hurricane-stricken regions of northeastern U.S.  – Image from Hydro One website

It isn’t the first time Canadians have come to the aid of our American neighbours during times of pressing need, of course. As recently as this past June, when a monster wind storm swept through Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, leaving millions of people in those and adjoining states without electricity during a near record heat wave. A friend of mine – a former Ontarian now living in Maryland – called me later to say how grateful he and his neighbours were to see hydro crews of Ontario assisting their local utility workers in restoring their power. Continue reading →

 By Zainab Elghul

Hunger is a vital issue. In order for humans to be able to focus on enhancing their personal life they must satisfy their basic needs which include but are not limited to water, food, and shelter.

Working to bring people out of the cold.

In the Community and Justice Services (Correctional Worker) program at Niagara College, our Professors Michelle Swaerdens and Terry Holub encourage us be active in our community and support those in need. 

A very important part in assisting a person better their life is to help them be able to take care of all their basic needs on their own.

One of our assignments is to fundraise for the Out of the Cold program hosted by Harvest Kitchen in Welland. We will host an All-You-Can-Eat pasta dinner at Casa Dante in Welland on Saturday, November 10th from 6 PM. Continue reading →

A Submission from Niagara Region’s Public Health Department

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following information from Niagara Region Public Health for your information.)

 Are you a parent? Concerned with bullying issues? Attend our free parent workshop

 NIAGARA REGION, Nov. 6, 2012 – Niagara Region Public Health is hosting a free workshop on bullying featuring keynote speaker Michael Reist. Reist is a teacher with over 30 years of experience in the classroom and is a frequent speaker to parent groups and at health and education conferences across Canada.

WHAT: Free parent workshop addressing bullying for parents with childrenfrom kindergarten to grade 12. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

Start your engines. You are off!

Architects’ rendition of NASCAR speedway facility planned for Fort Erie, Ontario.

The Ontario Municipal Board – a body appointed by the provincial government to hear concerns about proposals for development – has said no to any and all concerns expressed over plans for a giant NASCAR speedway facility in Fort Erie, Ontario. Continue reading →

A Niagara At Large Brief

Should federal, state and provincial governments around the Great Lakes allow the discharge of chemically contaminated water used in extracting natural gas from bedrock to a Great Lakes basin tens-of-millions of Americans and Canadians rely on as a source of drinking water?

Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario councillor Jamie King was among the first to stand up against the unregulated dumping of chemical wastes from gas fracking in the Great Lakes.

That question came close to home over this passing year when petro-chemical companies made a bid to use the wastewater treatment plant in Niagara Falls, New York to discharge continuous volumes of  chemically contaminated water from a gas-extraction process called “fracking” to the Niagara River and Lake Ontario.

The first Ontario politicians to step up to the plate and say; ‘No (and I paraphrase), this can’t happen if there aren’t even any laws in the United States to tell us what chemicals are contaminating that water,’ was Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario councillor Jamie King. His efforts, combined with those of a few other groups, including those of Buffalo, New York -based Great Lakes United, a major coalition of non-government and government groups dedicated to protecting the lakes in both countries, may have played a role in a decision by Niagara Falls, New York’s council earlier this year to ban fracking wastes from the municipality. Buffalo, New York’s council quickly followed with a ban of its own. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Here’s what I think might be a nice story for you – a bit of news that people on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border can truly feel good about.

Peace Bridge carries a caravan of help and hope from Canada to hurricane-stricken regions of northeastern United States.

The story began for me when my wife and daughter and I were driving a friend to Buffalo, New York this Saturday, October 3 for her flight back home to Florida. As we approached the Peace Bridge crossing the mouth of the Niagara River and border, we looked up and the bridge looked clogged with trucks. Our first response was; ‘Oh know, we are going to have a 40-minute wait at the bridge and we only have an hour to get to the airport.’

Then came the good news. The trucks were only taking up one lane of the bridge and the second lane was relative free for us to pass. And as we passed, we looked over and noticed that most of these trucks where hydro trucks from Halton, Guelph and other regions all over Ontario. It was a caravan of what seemed like 40 or 50 hydro trucks from Ontario, on their way to hurricane-stricken, coastal communities in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Connecticut, and we found ourselves welling up with feelings of warmth and pride as we passed this caravan of hope for more than a million people still freezing in the dark almost a week after Hurricane Sandy’s cruel landing. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Cindy Forster and Kim Craitor – two members of provincial parliament who represent the Niagara, Ontario ridings of Welland and Niagara Falls respectively – urged a federal Commission on Electoral Districts this October 29 to leave the boundaries of their ridings alone.

Ontario Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster

Craitor, a Liberal MPP who was accompanied by the Fort Erie Chamber of Commerce at a one-day hearing the commission held in Niagara Falls, stressed that the Town of Fort Erie has “forged a common bond” with Niagara Falls and should remain in a Niagara Falls riding that, along with the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, also shares a world-renown Niagara Park  System along the Niagara River and international border.

“There is much that binds us (as a Niagara Falls riding),” continued Craitor in his statement to the commission. “The Niagara River, four international bridge crossings, the tourist industry and a host of social and commercial interests.” Continue reading →

–  Sign Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May’s Petition BeforeIt Is Too Late!

A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper 

As soon as this Thursday, November 1, Canada’s Neo-Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper will try to use the majority government far less than half of Canadians gave him last year to sign a trade agreement with Communist China that could seal our countries fate when it comes to however much control we still have left over protecting our environment and finite natural resources.

Canadian Prime Minister sells our country down the Yangtze River to the same thugs that slaughtered Chinese students on Tiananmen Square and continues to jail environmental activists.

What is disturbing is how few Canadian political leaders and other bodies, including the country’s media chains – all of them in a position to warn citizens across the country about the dangers of this agreement – have bothered to do so even though this boulder has been rolling down the slope for months now. They and the cultures of citizens they have been pandering to have had far more to say about an NHL lockout which, lets face it, has at least kept multi-million-dollar role models for the word kind of bloody, non-sportsperson-like behaviour off of our television screens.

So thank goodness that at least Elizabeth May – the leader of Canada’s Green Party and the only member of that party now holding a seat in federal parliament – has urged you to sign a petition against this sell-out agreement between Harper’s Neo-Conservative government and China’s Communist nationalists before it is too late. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

It is coming our way folks. And it may come crashing through within hours. This extraordinarily rare, high-power buzz saw of a storm called Hurricane Sandy promises to make quite the mess of our region on the continent.

Hurricane Sandy, from a view in space, racing up to our Great Lakes region.

The remnants of Hurricane Sandy – and what weather experts are saying of this one, remnants may be too light a word when the full force of this storm arrives here – keeping in mind that it is already socking our friends and neighbours along the Atlantic coasts of New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland, and even up to Connecticut and Massachusetts, one helluva lot harder, and let’s all please support our friends and neighbours as they suffer through this horrible storm.

In the meantime, Sandy, with all of its damaging rains and winds, is whirling its way up here, into  Niagara, Ontario and Erie and Niagara Falls Counties, New  York and there are warnings and news advisories from our local and regional governments we all ought to obverse. Niagara At Large is posting some of that news and links to news from just the same. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

As the friendly crystal-ball gazer Professor Marvel said to his horse as a tornado was the winds turned violent during the opening scenes of the movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’, “We better get under cover Sylvester. There is a storm blowing up … A whopper!”. Looks like it is going to be a whopper.”

According to projections, here comes one storm, destined to blast Western New York and Southern Ontario with a vengeance. .

According to one of the reports I heard on CBC this October 28, the St. Catharines, Ontario area could be “the bull’s eye” for this storm as it rages its way, with flooding rains and winds on steroids, on a northwestern trajectory through Western New York and into Southern Ontario.  All of this drama is expected to begin for our area sometime during the middle or later hours of this Monday, October 29 and continue through the following Tuesday. Continue reading →

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – The following commentary by John Bacher speaks to  an example of where Niagara regional government once again fails us as a region. In the case documented below, instead of adhering to progressive planning principles around growing residential and business growth toward the southern tier of Niagara, where there is plenty of land ready to go within the existing urban boundaries, the regional council bows to parochial pressures to expand onto lands that should be protected as gifts to this region’s green and agricultural heritage. 

In the specific case of West Lincoln, instead of the regional council collectively saying we will pool resources from across Niagara to sustain this municipal member as a valuable food belt, it has essentially said to hell with that. So much easier to go back to the old days of approving more urban, regardless of the consequences for Niagara’s future as a rich tapestry of urban and rural communities, and regardless of the consequences for, in this case, a magnificent Twenty Mile Creek/Balls Falls watershed we should all strive to protect and preserve for present and future generations.)

By John Bacher

For the past three years, there have been closed door meetings between Niagara’s regional government and the Township of West Lincoln – one of 12 local municipalities in Niagara, Ontario – over proposed amendments to the Niagara Regional Official Plan that came about  because of the adoption by the provincial government’s Growth Plan in 2005.

A popular trail along the below Balls Falls in the Twenty Mile Creek watershed. What will the impact of more urban expansion be on this natural treasure? Photo courtesy of the fine photography of Dan Wilson.

The Growth Plan is aimed at curtailing urban sprawl in parts of Ontario experiencing growth pressures and one of its basic principles was to place urban boundary expansion approvals in the hands of regional governments, and not lower-tier municipalities.

Together the Niagara regional government’s planning department and a called Dillon Consulting Limited examined if Niagara had any justification for an urban boundary expansion. It was concluded that since there was a 41-year supply of residential land across the entirety of the Niagara region that no such urban boundary expansions could be justified. Together they prepared an official plan amendment text that would not permit any urban boundary expansions within the next five year planning framework. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper 

I think I am beginning to understand why Cogeco TV – Cable 10 in Niagara, Ontario just to make clear for those of us who are or are not on cable on the Ontario side of the Niagara River– would rather carry local hockey games or anything else, up to and including a festival on potted plants on a Thursday night than carry Niagara regional council meetings live.

Niagara Regional Headquarters. Maybe we ought to yank the elected councillors out of there and run this place as a business.

Covering these council meetings, the way they are going these days, is like covering something that swings back and forth between an Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter show (and that, sad to say, is the most interesting part) and watching paint,, which is the television equivalent of dead air. So let me apologies for any complaints I’ve maid in the past about Cogeco not carrying this dysfunctional, moribund group of political partisans and obsessive-compulsive parochialists live.

Those now sitting on Niagara regional council should also feel grateful that their council sessions are not carried live. For if they were, I am sure more people than are out there across Niagara today would be in favour of scrapping regional government. And this council should be aware, if they aren’t already, that there are a good many people out there who have little or no knowledge of regional government or what it contributes to Niagara by way of services or building economic opportunities across the region, and would therefore not know or care enough about the regional council if there was a move to abolish it in favour of, let’s say, the 12 local municipalities in Niagara operating regional services like waste management and water and sewage treatment as a utility. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Ontario Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak

(A Brief Foreward by Niagara At Large – Whether you are an Ontario Conservative Party supporter or not, you may wish to sign the petition below to get the provincial legislature back to work.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s move to prorogue, as in completely shut down the provincial legislature for possibly months to come is outrageous given the many issues and challenges this province faces today.

McGuinty had the nerve to say this October 24 that he called the legislature to a halt because in his view, it was getting out of control. Well maybe, just maybe, it was getting out of control because of the rolling thunder of questions being asked of him and his caucus around where gas-fired power plants should be located and other controversies. Why does that give any one person in Ontario, up to and including a premier, the right to close down the halls of democratic debate?)

Get Back To Work, Liberals

Hudak Launches Online Petition Demanding Recall of Legislature

Beamsville – Niagara West – Glanbrook MPP Tim Hudak and the Ontario PC Caucus launched an online petition demanding that Premier Dalton McGuinty bring the Legislative Assembly of Ontario back to work immediately.

This image, which seems so in there given McGuinty’s slamming the doors on Ontario’s legislature for possibly months to come, has been burning up the internet in recent days.

“We’re facing a made-in-Ontario jobs and debt crisis.  By shutting down the House, the Premier is blocking work that would kick-start the economy and encourage job creation,” Hudak said.  “We’ve launched this petition to send a message to the Premier and Ontario Liberals that we owe it to Ontarians to continue to work, to focus on jobs and reining in government spending, during this crucial point in our history.” Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

If there is one group of people in Ontario most pleased to see the back of Premier Dalton McGuinty, I would bet what’s left of my money on people living in rural communities where his Liberal government has been hoping to locate wind farms.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty gutted all principles of home rule to site wind farms in rural communities.

Downwind of McGuinty’s surprise announcement this past October 15 that he is stepping down after nine years as Ontario’s Grand Poobah, I’ve heard on radio talk shows and read in newspapers and blog sites no end of ‘hallelujah’ responses from people living in the countryside in Niagara, Ontario and elsewhere in the province – people who are fighting proposals to locate towering wind turbines near their homes and farms.

And I have got to say, even as a longtime environment writer who believes that renewable sources of energy like wind and solar must be advanced as an integral part of any sustainable prosperity in our 21^st Century future, I can’t blame these people for feeling this way. As I have said over the past few years, in columns published here and in Niagara This Week, McGuinty’s decision, through his Green Energy Act, to sweep away any local say in where wind and solar facilities go is an assault on communities and on the principles of home rule.  Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

It is hard not to think about George McGovern, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate who died at age 90 this October 21, without also giving a passing thought to Watergate.

My mother Lillian, the late U.S. Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern, and my sister Nancy in Washington, D.C. during the Watergate hearings in 1973. Photo by Doug Draper Sr.

Not that a politician as decent and honest as McGovern was, according to virtually everyone who spent more than a few moments with him, deserves to have his name indelibly linked to a scandal as vast and damaging to the country he served so courageously both in times of war (as a bomber pilot during the Second World War) and in times of fighting for peace as Watergate.

Yet there is no escaping the fact that the Watergate scandal began with a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. when McGovern was running as the Democratic candidate for presidency against then Republican incumbent Richard Nixon, and ended with Nixon’s resignation – the first time in the then two century history of the United States that one of that country’s presidents was forced to resign from office. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

During the Second World War in Germany, Hitler’s Nazis made the laws, so they didn’t break the laws.  Their systematic murder of 11 million people was done in a very rational fashion.  It was a well-administered, rationally conducted holocaust.

From a military point of view, though, it was bereft of common sense.  The victims could have been used to serve the war effort.  Even more important, of course, is that the holocaust serves as an icon of horrific evil. 

Rationality, argues John Ralston Saul, in Voltaire’s Bastards, is indifferent to common sense or morality. Furthermore, he argues, technocrats fall into this same trap.  They have a narrow band of intelligence which is divorced from reality, from common sense, and from morality.   Technocrats love power, they are obsessed with structure, and they believe in certain “absolute truths”.  This is their downfall in the real world which has its own logic. Continue reading →

This Post submitted by the Niagara Health System

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following news from the Niagara Health System – the body responsible for operating most of the hospital services in Niagara, Ontario – with this brief comment from NAL publisher Doug Draper.

In all due respect to the individuals chosen for this committee – most of them executive members of Niagara’s business community – it might have been helpful to include at least one member from the labour committee and someone from the public interest groups that have dedicated so much of their time in recent years performing a watchdog role  over the region’s amalgamated hospital services. This might help make out for some of those voices in the Niagara community that felt so shut out of the decision =making process around our hospital services for most of the past 12 years. – D.D.)

Dr. Kevin Smith, Niagara Health System Supervisor, is pleased to announce the appointment of the Community-Based Nominating Committee.

NHS supervisor Kevin Smith

This committee, first mentioned in Dr. Smith’s interim report to the Minister of Health, and also recommended in his final report, will evaluate applicants and recommend acceptable candidates for the new NHS Board of Directors. This important committee is designed to be arms-reach from the Board, and will help continue to ensure the Board is composed of members with the skills and collective ability to govern a large and complex organization. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Their deaths at age 90 this October 19^th and 21^stare a reminder that as cynical as many of us may have become about those haunting the halls of government, we have had voices of courage, compassion and decency in public life.

Lincoln Alexander

It is almost a sad comment on Canada that most of the obituaries on Lincoln Alexander, who was born in Toronto and later became a proud citizen of Hamilton, Ontario, began with the fact that he was the country’s first black member of parliament and cabinet, and later became Ontario’s and the country’s first black lieutenant-governor.

Perhaps to the surprise of younger generations of Canadians in their teens and 20s today, whose life experience includes a black president in the White House and growing numbers of people of colour serving at all levels of government in both countries, Lincoln Alexander’s ascension to high office in the 1960s and 70s was a major breakthrough in race relations. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Welland, Ontario Riding MPP Cindy Forster

Friends,

This week the Queen’s Park doors were sealed shut. For how long no one knows.

Welland, Ontario MPP Cindy Forster

It was only a little over a year ago that Ontarians went to the ballot box to send 107 MPPs from across the province to Queen’s Park to do an important job, but McGuinty and his party believe the Liberal leadership campaign is far more important than the will of the people. 

And after nearly 10 years of arbitrary decision making, it seems like many of our fellow Ontarians have become numb, with many seemingly expecting this sort of behaviour from such a scandal-prone government. 

We need to remind Ontarians what’s at stake, because it won’t be the Liberal party who will have to suffer the consequences — it will be the people of Ontario. Continue reading →

A Submission from the office of Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak

QUEEN’S PARK, October 19, 2012 – Premier Dalton McGuinty’s irresponsible decision to shut down the Legislature is nothing but a cynical and crass political attempt to hide from the full extent of the truth being uncovered about scandals at Ornge air ambulance and the gas plant debacles, Ontario PC House Leader Jim Wilson said today.

An empty Ontario legislature. Is that the way we want it for months to come?

Wilson sent a letter to Government House Leader John Milloy today, calling on the McGuinty Liberals to immediately recall the Legislature and to release all remaining documents on their $1-billion gas plant boondoggle.
Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

When Pete Townshend of the legendary rock band ‘The Who’ wrote the lyrics back in the 1960s; “Hope I die before I get old” for a song called ‘My Generation’, I took it to mean that it would be better to die than grow up to be like our parents at the time.

Peter Kent, a Baby Boomer and the worst federal environment minister Canada has ever had. His theme – ‘anyone who advocates for environmental protection is a radical’.

Now, as I approach my senior years and watch my aging Baby Boomer peers and the havoc our collective self-centeredness is wreaking on the planet and the lives of younger generations who will be burdened for decades to come with the mess we have made, I almost do wish that our generation had died before it got much past the age of 30, which was the cut-off age for our generation back then. Remember that other old line from the 60s; “Don’t trust anyone over 30.”

If you think I am being unfair to a generation of post-Second World War babies that went on to cry about love and peace and communing with a verdant, sun-kissed Mother Nature, let me say one more time that I am part of that generation and I find that generation to be wanting. It is a generation that had the nerve to rebel against its parents and grandparents who struggled, rather heroically, through the Great Depression and a Second World War they were actually willing to sacrifice and pay for rather than expect tax cuts. The people from that generation, to the extent they are still alive, is going down as the ‘greatest generation’.

What will the Baby Boomers go down as?

I believe that the Baby Boomers  – even if I must include myself in this greedy, self-absorbed, who-gives-a-shit-about-anyone-else mess of a generation – will go down as a bunch that always cared more about their narrow asses than they do about anyone else. I mean, it is all about health care and other coming seniors care entitlement for themselves, and who gives a shit about the health and welfare of future generations. Continue reading →

A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper 

Let me begin this one by throwing my bias right out there.

Thanks to Dalton McGuinty, Ontario’s house of democracy has been shut down.

I never cared all that much for Dalton McGuinty, going back some 16 years ago when, as an MPP from Ottawa, ran for and successfully won the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party’s leadership. Compared to Gerard Kennedy, who challenged him for the leadership of the party in 1996, I always felt that McGuinty was stiff and arrogant, and (save for Mike Harris) far more conservative than any premier the province has had going back to the 1960s. 

This past Monday, October 15, that arrogance reached full throttle when McGuinty decided he was not going to step down as Ontario’s premier without also slamming the doors shut on parliamentary democracy in this province for what could be many months to come. Why he somehow feels that the business of the legislature cannot continue while he makes his exit and his party chooses a replacement is an expression of personal arrogance that shows no respect for the people of a province he was entrusted to serve all these years. Continue reading →

From  Emma Ruby-Sachs for Avaaz

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following piece, calling on all of us to support the efforts of Malala Yousafzai, a 14-year-old girl from Pakistan, who remains in critical condition following an assassination attempt, to fight for all girls in her country and around the world to have access to an education. 

We are all neighbours on this small oasis of life – the only one we know in the universe – for a little while. Please read the following request from Avaaz, a global advocacy site for social justice, to speak out against those working to block the way for every person to fulfill their dream of living a peaceful and prosperous life on this planet.)

Dear Friends,

Malala has dedicated her childhood to championing education for girls like her in Pakistan. As she lies in a hospital bed, a tragic victim of Taliban gunmen, let’s help make her dream come true.

Malala Yousafzai

One part of Pakistan has already started a successful programme of paying families which send their girls to school regularly. But in Malala’s province the government is dragging its feet. Senior politicians have offered Malala help, and if we act now we can get them to commit to rolling this out nationwide.

Before the media spotlight moves on, let’s raise our voices to demand that the government announces funding for all Pakistani girls who attend school. In days the UN Education Envoy will meet Pakistan’s President Zardari and he says hand delivering 1 million signatures will strengthen his case. Sign and forward this email, and let’s help make Malala’s dream come true:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/malalahopenew/?bRUUpdb&v=18768 . Continue reading →

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty Is jumping ship

A Commentary by Doug Draper 

Like him or not, at least Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty had the sense to quit before he was fired by the province’s electorate.

That is far more than can be said for most politicians who stick around long after they appear to have forgotten what ideas or principles propelled them to seek public office in the first place. Some of them seem more interested in setting a record for longest serving member in parliament, even if any effective role they once played on behalf of their constituents is reduced to attending enough ribbon cuttings to keep their name in the news while at the same time doing everything possible to avoid encounters with the media and their constituents when it comes to hot-button issues. Many of these politicians remain glued in their seats like barnacles until their health  fails them or they are finally given the boot in an election.

Perhaps McGuinty watched the humiliating defeat late this summer of Jean Charest, his Liberal counterpart in Quebec, and made up his mind he was not going to hang around until that happened to him. Whatever the reason for his sudden, if not “shocking” (to quote the word most used in the mainstream press) announcement this October 15 to leave provincial politics, my hunch is that many of my fellow Ontarians wish others in the legislature would take a cue from McGuinty and do the same. Continue reading →

A Foreword by Doug Draper 

If you are a lover of fine art and have never been to or heard of the RiverBrink Art Museum in the Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario village of Queenston, here is a chance to sample the more than 1,400 works of art in this museum’s collection and to get an opportunity to see a rare portrait of Canadian War of 1812 icon Sir Isaac Brock.

Portrait of Sir Isaac Brock. Image courtesy of RiverBrink Art Museum

This Saturday, October 20th and Sunday, October 21^st  the museum located along the Niagara Parkway in Queenston will be open for free to the public for one last glimpse of the Brock portrait, considered to be the only true likeness of him produced during his lifetime, before it is returned to Brock’s birthplace on the British island of Guernsey.

The portrait has been on exhibit at the RiverBrink Art Museum as part of the bicentennial commemorations for the War of 1812 and the Cultural Capitals of Canada program organized in Niagara this year by the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Region of Niagara.

You can find out more about the unique history of the RiverBrink Art Museum and how to find it by visiting the museum’s website at http://riverbrink.org/ .

Niagara At Large is posting the media release for this special exhibit immediately below.  Continue reading →

A Brief by Doug Draper

If you are a political junkie like I am or you know some political junkies – one of whom informed me in this case – sometime early this Monday evening, October 15, Dalton McGuinty announced his intention to resign as premier of Canada’s largest province.

McGuinty’s announcement reportedly took many, even in the more inner circles of his Liberal Party, by surprise even though the walls appeared to be closing in on him over a number of controversies. The most recent of those controversies swirled around accusations that his government blew more than $200 million moving plans for two gas-powered energy plants out of Liberal-held ridings in the Oakville and Mississauga areas because large numbers of people in those ridings didn’t want the plants there.

McGuinty’s sudden announcement ends a nine-year reign as Ontario’s premier and 16 years as his party’s leader. It also accompanies another announcement by him that is already reportedly enraging members of the Conservative and NDP opposition. That announcement is to prorogue provincial parliament for an unspecified period of time, possibly until his Liberal Party – now a minority government – chooses a new leader and may be in a position to more strongly contest an election if and when the opposition Conservatives and NDP pull the plug on it. Continue reading →

A Brief Foreword by Doug Draper

He was “the good soldier.”

General Isaac Brock

This Saturday, October 13, 2012 will mark 200^th anniversary of one of the most storied battles of the War of 1812 at Queenston Heights on the Ontario side of the Canada/U.S. border. It was on that date that Brock was killed while leading British troops up the steep face of the Niagara Escarpment to push back an army of invading Americans entrenched on the Heights. The Niagara Parks Commission, the 127-year-old provincial agency responsible for protecting lands along the Niagara River, including Queenston Heights, will be hosting a re-enactment of the battle that ultimately drove the Americans back across the border under Major-General Roger H. Sheaffe, who took over command of the British troops and Native American allies after Brock was struck down.

This re-enactment of the Battle of Queenston Heights and related events is all part of the continuing 200^th Anniversary War of 1812 Commemorations being observed in both counries over the next two years and is open to all of the public and Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following post from the Niagara Parks Commission with details on the event. That post is followed by one from the Royal Canadian Mint on the pressing of a coin in honour of Brock. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

It was ground zero for the bloodiest battle of the War of 1812.

A memorial for the War of 1812 Battle of Lundy’s Lane at the Drummond Hill Cemetery in Niagara Falls, Ontario.  Photo by Doug Draper

This hallowed ground off the all-too-tacky Lundy’s Lane in Niagara Falls, Ontario, where more than 1,500 Americans and British (Canadians) were killed, wounded or went missing in one horrific day of fighting in July of 1814, is the final resting place for some of those soldiers, and for Laura Secord, a Canadian heroine of the War of 1812 who lived on into the 1860s. 

That resting place and centre ground of a  pivotal battle of the last war the young United States and its then British Canadians to the north ever declared and fought against one another is now known as the Drummond Hill Cemetery and this October, every weekend it is open to tours you can find out about  by reading the information immediately below, submitted to Niagara At Large by the City of Niagara Falls Museum. In this first year of remembering the War of 1812, those who fought and died in that conflict, and the two centuries of relative peace we Canadians and Americans have celebrated ever since, heritage places like this can be very moving and meaningful places to go. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Ontario Government with a Foreword by NAL publisher Doug Draper

By Doug Draper 

In the wake of a series of hard-hitting Toronto Star reports on charges of animal abuse at the iconic Marineland amusement park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, the province’s Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services Madeleine Meilleur has, this October 10. tabled amendments to relatively week legislation for protecting marine mammals kept in captivity in Ontario.

Ontario Community Safety Minister Madeleine Meilleur Moves On Marineland Controversy

Despite the tears Meilleur claimed she wept when reading the first Toronto Star stories this August, there is also no indication that she would look past the OSPCA and Niagara Falls Humane Society that failed to alert her ministry to concerns over animal treatment at Marineland for more than two decades and put together a blue ribbon panel of marine mammal experts to investigate parks like Marineland and offer the government recommendations for change in the laws. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The gates of Marineland are now closed for the 2012 season but not before several dozen protesters marched through them and took their campaign against keeping marine mammals in captivity into the heart of the sprawling Niagara Falls, Ontario amusement park.

Hundreds rally in front of Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario on Canada’s Thanksiving weekend to protest keeping of animals in captivity. Photo by Doug Draper

The unprecedented breaching of Marineland’s ticket gates by protesters had the few Niagara Regional Police officers at the site this October 7 calling for reinforcements that arrived in several cruisers racing into the parking lot with lights flashing. To their credit, the police managed to escort the protesters out of the park without any violent incidents as some of the more than 500 other animal activists, lining the shoulders of Portage Road in front of Marineland, shouted to police that they should instead be going after John Holer, the founder and owner of the 51-year-old park.

“We don’t care if the Niagara Regional Police want to protect a multi-millionaire,” said Dylan Powell, head of the animal activist group Marineland Animal Defense as the largest protest rally the park has weathered in more than two decades continued on. “We will hold John Holer accountable.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Have a nice Thanksgiving.

I have been saying it all week to people to most of the people I have had any sort of a chat with on the Canadian side of the border –people I’ve talked to on the phone, the store clerk that showed me which shelf the cat food was on and the guy who sold me a new clothes dryer.

Funny thing is that it wasn’t until the Saturday of this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend that someone said; ‘Have a nice Thanksgiving’ to me before I said it to them, and as someone who is a native Canadian  but is also somewhat of a closet American, in spirit anyway, I find that a bit strange. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

 This Thanksgiving weekend in Canada is also the last open weekend of the year at Marineland.

Marineland? You may have heard of the place given that ubiquitous jingle so many mainstream radio and television stations have been making a big advertising bucks off for the last 20 or 30 years – the jingle that says ‘everyone loves Marineland’. – and animal activists are determined to make the weekend one the owners and operators of the sprawling Niagara Falls, Ontario amusement park will never forget. 

In the wake of two months of stories spearheaded by Toronto Star investigative reporter Linda Diebel, highlighting charges raised by former Marineland trainers and other employees of animal mal-treatment at the park, a Niagara-based citizens group called Marineland Animal Defense is leading up a protest rally this coming Sunday, October 7 it is hoping will be the largest in more than 20 years.

The rally, to take place along the shoulder of Portage Road in front of Marineland from 12 to two p.m., follows rallies of more than 200 protesters this August and will feature a line-up of music and speakers, including former Marineland trainer Phil Demers, Ontario NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, who has been pressing for tougher provincial legislation to protect animals in commercial zoos and aquariums, and Ric O’Barry, whose decades-long fight to protect dolphins was featured in the recent Academy Award-winning documentary ‘The Cove’. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

It may be one of the important questions the residents of Niagara, Ontario and their municipal councillors should address in the weeks and months ahead.

How should we be governed at the municipal level in the future? Should we stay with the current system of two tiers with 12 local councils and a regional council? Or should we move to fewer local councils and regional council? How about eliminating the local councils and having only one regional council to govern all of Niagara or keeping the local councils and saying goodbye to 42 years of regional government?

St. Catharines Regional Councillor Tim Rigby, a former mayor of that city, will argue at public forum for one ‘City of Niagara’

So one must applaud long-time Niagara resident activist Gracia and the St. Catharines and District Council of Women for attempting to bring this important issue to the fore with a panel discussion it is holding this coming October 10, featuring three regional councillors with three different views on how we should be governed in the future. Continue reading →

NAL bangledesh,

Niagara, Ontario Volunteers To Hold Fundraising Dinner For People Of Bangladesh

(A Brief Foreword from Niagara At Large – Many people in the western world first learned about the suffering and death of millions of people living in Bangladesh in the early 1970s when former Beatle George Harrison held a celebrated fundraising concert to aid the poorest people of that populace South Asian nation. 

Unfortunately, the suffering continues in that country and a group here called Niagara Volunteers for Bangladesh is holding its 9^th annual fundraising dinner this coming October 13 to aid people in that country and they hope you will consider showing your support and attend. Below is a media release from the Niagara Volunteers for Bangladesh and information on the reasons for the fundraiser and who you can contact to buy a ticket.)

A Submission from Sue Corcoran, a founding member of the Niagara Volunteers for Bangladesh

The Village Elder said ‘One Fly is Deadlier Than 100 Tigers’.

A slice of life in poverty stricken Bangladesh. Photo submitted by Niagara Volunteers for Bangladesh.

Sanitation is not a popular subject for ‘polite’ conversation but it is a matter of life and death. The World Bank reports that every second a child dies as a result of poor sanitation and that one billion children are without access to basic sanitation. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.8 million people (90% are children under the age of 5 years) die annually from diarrhoeal disease. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley has joined Environment Canada in urging the United States Environmental Protection Agency not to take a major toxic waste dump above the Niagara River Gorge in Niagara County, New York off its priority ‘Superfund’ list.

Ontario Environment Minister Jim Bradley

Their calls have followed concerns raised by environmental groups on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border, that delisting the Hyde Park dump – possibly the largest repository of dioxin and other poisons in North America – could be a recipe for ecological disaster.

In a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and dated this past September 14, although only released this October 2 to Niagara At Large, Bradley makes it clear that Ontario “does not support the deletion of the Hooker (Hyde Park) site from the NPL (National Priority or Superfund list) at this time. … Due to the continued source of dioxins and furans entering the Niagara River from this site we believe that the proposed deletion of the Hooker (Hyde Park) site is premature.”

The Hyde Park dump, for those who may not be old enough to remember, earned a reputation in the 1970s and 80s as one of the most dangerous graveyards for chemical poisons in all of North America, and it was a significant source of dioxin and other toxins detected in fish and other wildlife through Lake Ontario, and in the flesh of beluga whales in the lower end of the St. Lawrence River. One Canadian government study found the fingerprints of chemicals known to be buried in  this dump in the remains of humans who lived in the Kingston, Ontario area. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Column writing is one vocation that is guaranteed to come with its highs and lows. It hardly matters how well or responsibly a column is researched and written, or what position the columnist may take on an issue, the highs and lows are a given.

This photo of the now-besieged, award winning Globe and Mail reporter has appeared on several online sites, more recently the great news and commentary site Rabble at rabble.ca .

There have been the highs when something I wrote may have contributed to a favourable outcome on some matter that has been troubling for people in the community. And there have been the lows that come with the inevitable email a columnist gets, more than a bit of it anonymous and quite crude, from those who take such issue with what I write that they want to see me burned alive or at least banished from the media forever.

Yet none of this comes close to the flogging Margaret Wente, an award-winning columnist for The Globe and Mail, has taken over the last week of this September. Then again, Wente has found herself in boiling water in recent days not for positions she has taken on issues, which have often inflamed lefties, but for accusations of committing something that can often be a career killer for a writer – plagiarism. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Ontario Environment Commissioner Gord Miller

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following news from the office of Ontario Environment Commissioner Gord Miller, a provincially appointed, independent watchdog on environmental protection for the people of Ontario.

It must be stressed for those out there ready to use any reason to kill wind energy projects, that Miller makes it clear that he “fully support(s) wind power” as he releases this report. What the report speaks to, in NAL’s view, is the lack of consideration Ontario’s McGuinty government has given to the placement of wind farms.)

Toronto, October 2, 2012 – The Ontario government should put additional areas of the province off-limits to wind power projects to safeguard birds, bats and their habitats, says Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller, who released Part 2 of his 2011/2012 Annual Report, Losing Our Touch,today.

Environment Commissioner Gord Miller

“I fully support wind power. Together with energy conservation, renewable sources of energy such as wind are necessary to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and protect the environment,” says Miller.  “However, the use of wind power must be balanced by the equally important goal of protecting birds and bats. To accomplish that goal, we need to be smarter about where we place wind power facilities.”

The government has released guidelines for evaluating and reducing harmful effects on birds, bats and their habitats during the planning, construction and operation of wind power projects. The Environmental Commissioner praises the government for giving special attention to birds and bats as wind power development increases in the province, but notes “there are some significant shortcomings in the guidelines that continue to put birds and bats at risk.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

More time should be given to Niagara, Ontario residents to comment on something so important as changing the electoral boundaries they vote for federal and provincial representatives in, says Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster.

Welland, Ontario Riding MPP Cindy Forster speaks for Niagara residents’ chance to have say in electoral boundary changes.

In an open letter to Justice George Valin, chair of a federal government Electoral Boundaries Commission, dated this October 1, the NDP representative for the provincial riding of Welland urged Valin to give Niagara residents more time to comment and grant them more than one public meeting on the subject. 

“Some areas in Ontario have two days of public meetings while the Regional Municipality of Niagara consisting of four different ridings and a population of 430,000 has one afternoon in Niagara Falls on October 29, 2012,” added Forster in her letter. “I would ask for serious consideration of more time on such a paramount issue to ensure people have an opportunity to make their views known on line or publicly. Please extend the deadline and more public meetings in the Niagara Region.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

Whether or not you like the federal or provincial government representatives you now have, you may wake up one day and find out you are living in another riding.

Federal bureaucrats in Ottawa have recently drawn up new boundaries for electoral ridings across Canada and in Niagara, Ontario, it looks like the communities of Fort Erie and Thorold would be affected the most.  Continue reading →

A Commentary by Mark Taliano

9/11, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Taliban. … The west creates its own monsters. And it’s happening again.

The setting is marginally different; this time it’s Iran, but the story is the same.  Accusations of nuclear weapons are filling the air, diplomats are withdrawn, the UN is ignored, and industrial warfare is on the cusp of murdering thousands. 

It is about oil and conquest, just like Iraq.  It is not about justice, a better world, democracy, or freedom. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

We already know that Niagara, Ontario suffers from one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada.

Image from online version of Niagara Community Observatory’s report on cost of poverty in the region.

Now – according to a research report released this September 26 by the Niagara Community Observatory at Brock University – we are learning that poverty in Niagara is costing the region’s overall economy $1.38 billion annual in lost productivity, health care, social assistance payments and other expenses. And that, say the report’s authors Doug Hagar and Sophia Papastavrou, is based on conservative estimates. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

In the strongest statement it has ever posted on the issue, the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies is speaking out against the confinement of whales and other marine mammals at amusement parks like Marineland in Ontario.

One of a number of protest rallies in front of Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Photo by Doug Draper

 The CFHS (believes that the conferment of marine mammals causes physical and/or mental pain and suffering, therefore fails to meet their health, behavioral and environmental needs,” reads the statement by the national organization which goes on to support a complete ban on parks like Marineland importing whales caught in the wild for exhibition. Continue reading →

McGuinty Government Argues It Is ‘Protecting Public Services While Eliminating Deficit’

A Submission from the Office of Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan

(Niagara At Large is posting the following release for our readers’ information. This announcement follows in the wake of a recently passed bill, tabled by Ontario’s minority Liberal government and supported by the opposition Tories, imposing a two-year wage freeze and strike ban on the province’s elementary and secondary school teachers.)

 Queen’s Park, Sept. 26, 2012,Ontario is planning to introduce and consult on draft legislation that, if passed, would restrain compensation for employees of the Broader Public Sector (BPS), as well as all executives and managers across the BPS and Ontario Public Service (OPS). 

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan

The Protecting Public Services Act would, if passed:

• Restrain compensation for two years for unionized employees of the BPS and require employers to negotiate agreements that do not reduce services.
• Freeze earnings for two years for managers who are eligible for performance pay in the BPS, OPS and agencies so they would not earn more this year and next than they did last year.
• Introduce a permanent salary cap for new executives at no more than double the Premier’s salary. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper 

It was predictable given the parochialism that has been crippling progress for most of the 42 years the residents of Niagara, Ontario have been living with a system of governance that includes a regional council and 12 local municipalities.

Niagara Health System supervisor Kevin Smith outlining his recommendations this spring for restructuring Niagara, Ontario’s hospital services, including a recommendation for a new hospital in the region’s southern tier. Photo by Doug Draper

Kevin Smith, the supervisor the provincial government brought in to the region last year to try to mop up the mess former Niagara Health System CEO Debbie Sevenpifer and her board made of our hospital services, held a media conference last May to outline his recommendations for restructuring Niagara’s health care services for the future.One thing Smith could not recommend was physically removing the nearly completed super hospital Sevenpifer and company stubbornly decided to locate at a west St. Catharines site in Niagara’s north end and placing it in a more central location in the region where it should have gone in the first place. That would have required some kind of other-worldly levitating powers Smith has more or less admitted he does not possess. Continue reading →

Historical group to unveil plaque memorializing sacrifice of six U.S. coastguardsmen 99 years ago – and you are invited

This Post submitted to Niagara At Large by Paul Kassay

FORT ERIE, Ontario– It took six years and a lot of help from generous donors on both side of the border, but a small group of Canadian history buffs has achieved their goal of creating a plaque to memorialize the sacrifice of six U.S. coastguardsmen who sacrifice their lives during a Lake Erie storm almost 100 years ago.

The ill-fated U.S.Coastguard vessel that sank in a storm off Fort Erie 99 years ago, taking all its crew with it.

The plaque will be unveiled during a public ceremony Sept. 29 at 11 a.m. at Waterfront Park, in Crystal Beach.

“We’re so excited,” says Rick Doan, who, together with fellow Fort Erie residents Paul Kassay and John Robbins, is a member of the LV-82 Group. 

“The story of LV-82 is one of duty, courage and ultimate sacrifice.  It’s an important piece of local history and it will finally be publicly memorialized so that these heroes will not be forgotten.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

For someone who loves records, it was like my inner child walking into the world’s greatest toy or candy store.

Sam the Record Man founder Sam Sniderman

Walking through the doors of the flagship Sam the Record Man store on Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario in the 1960s and 70s was, for me, like the doors swinging open to the Emerald City. Inside was a treasure trove of delights for anyone immersed in pop culture at the time. I bought the first album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience there when it was barely released, after hearing  Purple Haze blaring from the store’s intercom. As I recall, I also picked up one of the earliest editions of Rolling Stone, with Hendrix on the cover, when the now-slick magazine was still being rolled out like a street sheet, on cheap newsprint, and you could barely find it anywhere else in Canada, except for that store. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

 By now, many of you who follow what is going on in the news probably know that U.S. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is in one dung pile of trouble over remarks he was caught making on video to a bunch of $50,000-per-plate rich dudes he’s counting on to finance his trip to the White House.

U.S. Republican presential candidate Mitt Romney delivering his hell fire to those who can’t make the million-dollar club

By Doug Draper

The Canadian government is urging the United States Environmental Protection Agency not to remove the Hyde Park landfill – one of the most potentially dangerous toxic waste dumps in North America, located above the brink of the Niagara River Gorge – from its list of priority sites for special attention.

Just upstream, as the waters of the lower Niagara River flush under the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge, the Hyde Park dump – one of the most dangerous chemical waste sites in all of North America – sits on fractured bedrock just above the Niagara River gorge.

The Hyde Park dump in Niagara County, New York, a virtual hole in the ground that was used by the Hooker/Occidental Chemical Corporation in the 1950s, 60s and 70s as a graveyard  for at least 80,000 tons of some of the most toxic chemicals created by modern science, also contains at least a ton or two of the most poisonous strain of dioxin – the 2,3.7.8, tetrochlorodibenzo variety (alias TCDD), considered deadly in amounts invisible to the naked eye. An article in a 1982 article in Rolling Stone Magazine describe the Hyde Park dump as a “time bomb,” containing far more of the ‘Agent Orange’ chemicals that were ever sprayed as a “powerfully corrosive chemical defoliant” across the landscape during the Vietnam War. 

Yet now, the EPA – the lead environmental protection agency in the United States and normally a good one at that – is prepared to delist the Hyde Park dump as a site that needs priority attention. And of all the tens-of-of-thousands of toxic waste dumps across North America, this one needs priority attention! 

“So help me God, you can’t delist this site,” said Doug Hallett, a former senior scientist with Environment in a recent interview with Niagara At Large.”It wouldn’t take a great deal of disturbance, such as increased seismic activity or some man-made event, to release a chunk of that waste to Lake Ontario. ..; And if a couple of shovels full of that waste got into the lake, it would contaminate the water supplies around Lake Ontario for millions of people.”  Continue reading →