Email Follows Councillors’ Reprimand of One of Their Own – Councillor Harold Jonker – For Continued Involvement in ‘Illegal” Ottawa ‘Freedom Rally’ Chaos
A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper
Posted August 4rth, 2022 on Niagara At Large
“It is disturbing and that’s putting it mildly,” West Lincoln Councillor William Reilly told me of the email that he and other fellow councillors received late this July from a party that did not have the courage to identify themselves.
The email, that called Reilly and fellow councillors “scumbag Canadians” who, in the online troller’s view, committed “disgusting,” and “shameful actions,” was an apparent response to the West Lincoln’s council to accept a report from its integrity commissioner that called fellow Councillor Harold Jonker out for continuing to participate in a ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest in Ottawa this past winter, even after it was deemed illegal by police authorities.
This vile email sent to these councillors has reportedly been forwarded to Niagara Regional Police and hopefully the NRP and any partner police agencies it may need to employ will use any forensic means possible to track down the source of the email. Continue reading
Toronto | Traditional territories of the Huron-Wendat, the Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Chippewas and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation – In a move that should shock and enrage Canadians and people around the world, a group of plastic companies that include DOW and NOVA Chemicals, have filed a legal action to block the federal government from implementing a ban on several non-recyclable single-use plastics.
(This Wednesday, July 27th), Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with His Holiness Pope Francisand the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the Citadelle of Quebec.
(A Brief Foreword by Doug Draper at Niagara At Large – I post the following piece less than two months after roughly 18 per cent of eligible voters in Ontario who bothered to vote elected a second majority government for Doug Ford and his Conservatives in the province for the next four years.
Launched in the summer of 2021 by Niagara Coastal, VAST engages coastal residents, visitors, community groups and other local organizations in collecting data to fill knowledge gaps across our Great Lakes shorelines.
Well here we go with the first jack boot hitting the ground in the dictatorship Tory Premier Doug Ford is going to impose on Ontario, a mere six weeks after winning a majority government thanks to a pathetic 18 per cent of the province’s eligible voters.
A Statement from Julia Levin, National Climate Program Manager for Environmental Defence, on Export Development Canada’s New Climate Targets
Ontario NDP calls Ford’s Health Care Cuts Dangerous Amid Rash Of ER Closures
(A Brief Foreword from Doug Draper at Niagara At Large – With provincial government ministries and agencies, historically responsible for environmental and natural ecosystem protection missing in action and often unwillingly to openly communicate with the public and media about concerns in these areas – except through a lens contaminated by political interests – it is becoming more and more important that we have partnerships and projects like this.
It is becoming ever more clear that citizens have to play the lead role in protecting and conserving our environment. At a time when every region of the world, including ours, is vulnerable to damaging and deadly climate-related disasters, we can no longer count on government-based bodies to do it.)
Toronto | Traditional territories of the Huron-Wendat, the Anishnaabeg,Haudenosaunee, Chippewas and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation – This Plastic Free July, Environmental Defence is highlighting that plastic pollution is not just an oceans problem.
This May Canadian house prices finally fell for the first time in two years, a period during which the average house price had skyrocketed by an astonishing $300,000.
You don’t have to follow he news from the American side of the border too much to arrive at the conclusion that the country, which has long branded itself “the world’s greatest democracy”, is sliding down a slippery, slimy slope to full-fledged fascism.
Whether we want to blame it on how easy social media sites make to trash people, on a growing crisis of confidence in government and our public institutions, on the pandemic, on a Trump cauldron of anger and hate metastasizing through not only bodies of Americans, but the bodies of at least some on our side of the border too, or on a combination of all these and more, it is hard to deny that we are in a darker place than we were even a decade or so ago.
Sorry Buffalo. You want to call yourself the ‘City of Good Neighbours’?
I was barely in my teens when a rock group called The Beatles crossed the Atlantic from Britain ignited music mania with their first big appearance on an American television show that received record-breaking ratings that night.
“This is not the first time a statue of (the late civil rights icon) Harriet Tubman has been violated in St. Catharines. No one in Niagara can rest in comfort thinking that the escalation of white supremacist and anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ violence will escape us.” – Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association (NRARA)
Seventy-Eight years ago this June6th, thousands of young Canadians joined their British and American allies in storming the beaches of Normandy, France in an epic military assault against Hitler’s fascist forces.
The following video, featuring a message from a fellow Ontario citizen and writer named Paul Chato, was sent to Niagara At Large earlier today by one of our readers.
(A Brief Foreword by Doug Draper at Niagara At Large – Mere days after the horrific mass shooting massacres across the American border in Buffalo, New York and at an elementary school in gun-happy Texas, Canada’s prime minister and his Liberal government have introduced some of the toughest gun restriction in generations.
After the horrific slaughter this May 24th of 19 children and two teachers in a Texas elementary school, one of the many thoughts that went through my mind was a conversation I had, pre-pandemic, with a store owner in Buffalo, New York.
Inflation, the impact of rising costs on families and the possible responses of workers, unions and progressive governments will be at the centre of a free public webinar next week.
Once upon a time, at least some of us across Niagara and Ontario hoped that our health care, our natural heritage and other valued community services and resources would fall into safer, more caring hands following this spring’s provincial election.
We have succeeded in winning clear promises from the NDP, and more recently, the Liberals and Greens to end for-profit long-term care. That is *our* collective work! Well done. We have made privatization an issue that has been raised by media (not enough but it is being raised) and is all over on social media. It matters. But we have some bare spots and could do more…
Ottawa, Ontario – The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today (this Math 18th, 2022) issued the following statement on Finland and Sweden’s application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Alliance:
Niagara At Large 