A Commentary by Doug Draper

‘Don’t dare ever mention the A-word.’

As a journalist in Niagara, Ontario, I’ve heard variations of that line around municipal council tables in this region for the better part of for more than 30 years.

Niagara regional headquarters

It’s as if any talk of amalgamating municipalities in this region is akin to promoting some form of pornography or an apocalypse. And it’s as much to say; ‘Let’s continue on with a xenophobia and narrow, parochial vision that continues to prop up 13 municipal corporations in Niagara that have fail we, the people, so much that our region continues to suffer one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada, that continues to see young people coming out of college and university fleeing this region for greener pastures, and that continues to resist building a truly regional transit system that has been available in almost every other region in southern Ontario for more than a decade now.

So we should say thanks to Tom Rankin of Niagara-based Rankin Construction and to a handful of other prominent business people in Niagara for attending a roundtable of regional government this June and calling for another look at amalgamating our 13 – yes that’s right, THIRTEEN – municipalities in to one.

These business people and others in the past have tried to make a case that attracting more businesses and jobs to Niagara has suffered from the amount of bureaucracy that has to be gone through dealing with two levels of municipal government. But over and over again, due to too many mayors and councillors at the local level who place parochial interests above the interests of Niagara as a whole, these calls for a united region have gone nowhere. Continue reading →

News from the Sierra Club Niagara Group, Buffalo New York

Climate and Clean Energy Writers Group

Monday, July 6th, 2015 Session:

Haven’t had time to read the

       Pope’s Climate Encyclical?

Walk through Laudato Si with

Sister Eileen O’Connor, 

Member, Diocesan Care for Creation Committee            

6:00-7:30 PM

Unitarian Universalist Church

695 Elmwood at Ferry (Garden Entrance)

2nd Floor Alliance Room

Free and open to the public

For more information on the Sierra Club Niagara Group click on http://niagarasierraclub.com/ .

(Niagara At Large now invites all of you care to share your real first and last name to respond to this post below.)

A Commentary by Doug Draper

As this Canada Day was approaching, I have found myself feeling distant from – and sometimes even a little angry with – this country I grew up feeling so proud of.

The relentless craving for more and more tax cuts, followed by the gutting of services around health care, education, public and infrastructure renewal and environmental protection ignited that feeling of distance.

Then there was that pig-fest of a senate, the muzzling of what is left of our publicly-paid-for scientists, the war on citizen activists and our aboriginal people – as if they are enemies of out state ot terrorsits – and the transformation of our nation’s role in the rest of the world from peacekeeper to warrior – bomb, bomb, bomb!

All of it left me thinking about flying my Canadian flag upside down on this Canada Day. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Thirty years ago this June 23^rd, an Air India flight, carrying 329 passengers and crew, took off on Canadian soil and was blown to pieces by a bomb planted on board above the seas off Ireland, killing them all.

A piece of the Air India jet found floating in the north Atlantic 30 years ago this June

Thirty years later, it remains (in terms of high loss of human life alone) the worst act of domestic terrorism ever perpetrated on Canadian soil. And what is more than scandalous 30 years later, not one of the perpetrators of this horrific crime have been brought to justice yet – even though it is fairly well known, through various investigations and a public inquiry that ultimately went no where, who one or more of these perpetrators are.

Isn’t it something how quickly the Harper government can act to get a draconian anti-terrorist law (C-51) passed, less than a year after some domestic wack job murdered a sentry on duty at Canada’s tomb of the unknown soldier, then walked into the halls of the federal parliament wielding a gun before he was gunned down.

Could it be that Harper and company drew up and passed this law – an act many constitutional scholars in Canada fear compromises our civil liberties – so fast because there they were, huddled behind doors, with a gunman on the other side, hunting them down?

Boy, we sure don’t see that kind of response from this Harper government on the mounting numbers of aboriginal women and girls that have gone murdered and missing, do we? And where is Harper’s response to make true restitution for the victims of residential schools? Continue reading →

A Brief from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

If you survived the boredom of grade school English classes enough to still have a place in your heart for the plays of William Shakespeare, don’t miss a chance to enjoy two of his greatest ones in one of the most scenic settings in our Greater Niagara Region.

Shakespeare In Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York is back for 40th season. File photo by Doug Draper

The 40^th season of Shakespeare in Delaware Park is already underway in Buffalo, New York with Romeo & Juliet on now followed byTwelfth Night later this summer.

These performances remain free to the public after all these years despite government cut backs to the arts, which is why members of the cast will walk up the hill during the intermission asking members of the audience to place a small cash donation in a hat.

And it is always a wonderful cast, including some of the best theatrical actors in Western New York. Continue reading →

News from Niagara, Ontario’s Amalgamated Hospital System

Niagara Health System’s Annual Report titled Forward, which was released today at our Annual General Meeting, highlights our successes and milestones from the past year and our future planning.

Niagara Health System’s super hospital complex in west St. Catharines

In choosing the theme Forward, we are conveying the message that we are actively moving ahead on a new and exciting path.

“Part of this new way forward is a deep acknowledgment that to move ahead, we need to be working proactively with those we serve and partnering arm-in-arm with our 12 communities, and with other health service providers and agencies across the region and beyond,” says NHS President Dr. Suzanne Johnston.

Added Dr. Barry Wright, Chair of the NHS Board of Directors: “Our health system has experienced amazing successes and developments in the past year. We’ve attracted new leaders, staff and physicians and we are proud of our emerging culture. We continue to develop a culture of safety and quality, working with academic partners like Brock University, McMaster University and Niagara College. And we continue with the development for our ambitious future including a new South Niagara Hospital, and working with all communities to strengthen local healthcare.” Continue reading →

Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following on behalf of the good volunteers from Niagara Action for Animals

(Niagara At Large now invites all of you care to share your real first and last name to respond to this post below.)

 By Pamela Minns

“Everybody loves heritage – it is like mother and apple pie – EXCEPT when it costs money and interferes with what we call ‘progress’ “

There is only one heritage conference held in Ontario each year, so it is a big deal ! Former recent venues were Cornwall, Midland, Kingston and next year Stratford.

Our Niagara conference was held in Niagara on the Lake at the town’s beautiful Community Centre from April 30^th – May 3^rd, with opening and welcome Thursday night at Navy Hall. 

About 225 registered for this event, considerably less than I anticipated, given the popularity of Niagara on the Lake.

A lot happened at this conference – many speakers, bus tours, workshops, displays, networking and visits to various sites in the Region as well as AGMs at RiverBrink Art Museum in Queenston. Niagara is a perfect place for a conference of this type, with its rich history, built heritage and natural beauty.

The Keefer Inn in the Niagara, Ontario community of Thorold begain as the 19th century home of one of the region’s founding families and would have been destroyed had it not been for public and private partners at the local level working to save it, and convert it into a now beloved inn and restaurant. Photo by Doug Draper

Every time I attend one of these conference, I wonder why we have them at all when the people who should attend, don’t attend. I have attended many of these events over the years and I have met many wonderful, committed people involved in heritage, many of whom are still attending conferences.

BUT we are all “the converted”. We all know the importance of saving our heritage – we work at it every day. What about those who have no interest in heritage preservation, or are involved in things like real estate, law, development, insurance, municipal councils?

They deal with matters of designated heritage properties regularly, and based on many questions I hear from this group, most do not really understand designation. Some feel there is no use for an old building and that they should all be demolished to make way for new.

Do they ever think outside the box ? Those are the people who should be at these conferences to gain an understanding and appreciation of the absolute need for preservation. Do we need more building materials in our landfills? And if we have to boil it down to money — restoration is a huge economic driver! Continue reading →

A Brief Comment from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

It is a line attributed some eight centuries ago to St. Francis of Assisi, the Italian friar who understood back then (and more than many of our most pathetic political leaders do today) that the survival of we humans depends a mighty great deal on how well we respect and treat the natural world around us.

We break down and degrage the life-sustaining gifts we’ve been granted on this planet, and we are tredding down a road to hell – it really is just about as simple as that. If you shit enough poison into the atmosphere, there will be no more life-giving air to breath!

Jorge Mario Bergoglia, the Argentine cleric who rose to the head of the Catholic church and now takes his name after that great saint, released an unprecedented, 184-page encyclical t June 18^th, 2015 calling for a world-wide “cultural revolution” to move away from oil, coal and other fossil fuels to head off the destructive effects of “catastrophic climate” for present and future generations.

“The pace of consumption, waste and environmeantl change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary life-style, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes,” says Pope Francis in this encyclical. Continue reading →

Another of countless dead fish washed up along the Ontario shores of Lake Erie in a slime of killer algae the province’s Conservation Authority administrators and board members has failed to effectively address.

News from the Alliance for the Great Lakes • Environmental Defense Canada • Environmental Defense Fund Freshwater Future • Michigan League of Conservation Voters • National Wildlife Federation Ohio Environmental Council

Quebec City, Quebec, Canada – This June 12^th, , the Governors of Ohio and Michigan and the Premier of Ontario announced a significant commitment to restore Lake Erie by putting an end to harmful algal blooms like the one last summer that left nearly 500,000 Toledo-area resident without safe drinking water.

We applaud their commitment to reduce the amount of nutrient pollution, specifically phosphorous, flowing into western Lake Erie by 40 percent – and we look forward to working with U.S. and Canadian public officials to take action to meet that goal. 

The commitment is an important step forward in keeping Lake Erie free of harmful algal blooms and, in turn, protecting our region’s economy, drinking water and way of life. The science is clear: dissolved phosphorus from agricultural runoff is driving the resurgence of harmful algal blooms. Continue reading →

 – NHS also better than provincial average in administrative expenses

News from the Niagara Health System, a Niagara, Ontario body responsible fr the operation of the region’s ‘s amalgamated hospital services

June 10th, 2015 – Niagara Health System (NHS) is pleased to report that the latest health performance indicators from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) show that we are performing better than the Canadian average in eight indicators and better than the Ontario and LHIN averages in Administrative Efficiency.

Niagara Health System’s super hospital complex in west St. Catharines

Highlights of the indicators released today as part of CIHI’s Your Health System initiative demonstrate NHS is performing:

• Better than the Canadian benchmark for Hospital Standardized Mortality Ratio (HSMR);
• Better than the Canadian average for obstetrical trauma (with instrument) — also highlighted as a top performer since our results have been in the best 10 per cent of performances over the last three years;
• Better than the Canadian average for low-risk C-sections;
• Better than the Canadian average for readmissions (all patients; medical patients; obstetric patients; patients 19 years old and younger);
• Better than the Canadian average for worsened depressive mood in long-term care;
• Better than the Ontario and LHIN averages in administrative efficiency.

Continue reading →

By Nick Fillmore

During the hour that it took the world’s elite G7 politicians discussing climate change to wander through an enchanting meadow of flowers in Germany’s Bavarian Alps earlier this week, at least 800 people died prematurely from the impact of air pollution, most of it caused by the burning of non-renewable fossil fuels.

The un-magnificent seven, otherwise known as the G7 leaders, do a photo op through a beautiful Gernan meadow before agreeing to wait until the end of this 21st century before ending their big oil addiction.

Wanting to show the world – particularly voters at home – that they care about the seven-million people a year dying from various pollution and carbon related causes, the leaders of the world’s richest countries, including Canada, signed a joint declaration calling for a global phasing-out of fossil fuels 85 years from now.

It’s unlikely that, during their deliberations in the picturesque Schloss Elmau at the foot of Germany’s highest mountain, anyone at the Summit reflected on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) report of a year ago that said in 2012 around seven million people died – one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution exposure. Continue reading →

A Commentary from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

There was a time when we humans seemed unafraid to give ourselves very tight deadlines to accomplish what seemed, at the time, to be some very ambitious, if not almost impossible, challenges.

We placed these challenges before us, the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy once stated, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Indeed, Kennedy made that statement in the early 1960s when he announced that his country would put a man on the moon before the end of that decade and bring him back safely. And with all of the will and resources of government and the scientific community put forward, it was done.

An earlier U.S. president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, directed General Motors and other auto manufacturers in his country to retool their plants, within a matter of months, to produce tanks, bombers and other military vehicles necessary to combat the Nazi threat and attacks by a then hostile ‘Japanese Empire’ following the outbreak of the Second World War. And that too was done.

One could go on with example after example of how we seemed once capable of accomplishing some very spectacular things over a very short period of time. The Empire State building – to this day, one of the most iconic skyscrapers of all time – was built from ground to top in the late 1920s, with construction technology primitive to what we have to day – in 13 months.

A NASA photo of our earth taken from the moon in the 1960s when there still seemed some hope it would sustain us for at least a few more centuries, if not more.

These days, we can’t even rebuild a simple two-lane bridge on DeCew Road, crossing a channel of the Lake Gibson system in the Niagara community of Thorold, in that length of time – and I know that the people who were waiting and waiting and waiting, and were wondering why such a relatively small project took longer than the building of the Peace Bridge between Fort Erie and Buffalo in the 1920s.

This all leads me up to this total joke and travesty of an agreement leaders of the G7, including Canada, the U.S. Germany, Italy, Japan, Great Britain and France, signed this June 8^th, 2015 to end the use of gas, oil and other fossil fuels contributing to a breakdown of our earth’s climate by the end of the 21^st century. Continue reading →

A Call to Canadians from Avaaz, a global online citizens organization which NAL supports and which makes as its “democratic mission,” closing “the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.”

Dear friends across Canada,

The ad thousands of us pulled together to create is done! It calls on PM Harper to stop blocking a historic climate deal — let’s make sure he sees it before the crucial meeting tomorrow.
  
By clicking here to see the ad, then tweeting it and sharing it to the Prime Minister’s official accounts, we can make sure he’s flooded with the message before he walks into talks with powerful countries like Japan and Germany. 
Avaaz staff are getting media lined up to watch this video spread. Let’s make it the biggest thing on the internet this weekend and put huge pressure on Harper before it’s too late:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/sick_of_apologizing_1/?bRUUpdb&v=60059
You might recognize the ad. It’s a spoof of a Canadian classic. It shows what binds us together as Canadians — including our desire for PM Harper to get out of the way of progress on climate change. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment from Doug Draper

The Canada I grew up in and was once so proud of had a world-wide reputation as a peacemaker, a beacon for common good services like education, seniors’ services and health care, and a leader on environmental protection.

Stephen Harper, Canada’s Tar Sands Prime Minister, places the dirty oil of his coporate masters over a more carbon free, greener energy future – a plan many economic analysts and energy experts belive will leave Canada behind almost every other developed country, including the United States, Germany and China, that is forging a path to a healthier, more sustainable energy future.

Indeed, during the many years I was a fulltime reporter on environmental issues in the 1980s and 90s, Canada had rules and regulations, and state of the art research and monitoring programs for environmental protection that were looked upon as models for other nations around the world.

But no more. 

In Stephen Harper’s Canada, almost anything to do with environmental protection has been burned in the ovens and Environment Canada s scientists have been muzzled to a point where, unless they get special permission from Prime Minister Tar Sand’s office, they cannot publicly discuss any of their research findings – research, by the way, that we, the taxpayers of Canada, paid for.

The sad fact is that Environment Canada and related agencies like the federal department of Oceans and Fisheries, and Natural Resources have been so hollowed out under Prime Minister Tar Sands and his corporate masters in the oil industry that it would hardly matter if those federal bodies, at this point, were abolished. Continue reading →

A Foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper 

It seems, all too sadly in this Canada these days, that we are addressing episode after episode of injustices committed against others –whether it be injustices committed to wildlife, or to our aboriginal peoples, or to our environment. Not to forget the injustices perpetrated against all of the rest by embezzlers appointed to the Senate.

John Pruyn being dragged away by police in riot gear – for sitting on the lawns of Queen’s Park listing to speakers at a G20 rally.

Then there is this one – plainly described in a report a few years back by Ontario’s official Ombudsman Andre Morin, and by countless civil liberty lawyers and groups as one of the most egregious assaults on citizens’ rights to gather in the spirit of frexpression in this country’s history.

This one unfolded five years ago this June in the streets of Toronto where, as one cop not wearing his usual badge, told a young person walking in the downtown area that “this is not Canada anymore” and where armies of police, dressed in Darth Vader gear, kettled thousands of people and arrested more than a thousand – locking them in makeshift cages for what turned out to be no reason. Continue reading →

A Brief Commentary by  Doug Draper

By now, anyone who still gives a shit about what has been happening to this once-proud, sinking ship called Canada– if you have any moral compass left for this once decent land – might feel some shame over the report released early June, 2015 by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada on residential schools.

An image of a residential school in Canada. Don’t the kids look like they are having fun? Many of them did not come out alive and were buried in unmarked graves.

If you are a Canadian and you still don’t know what a residential school is or was in this now-bullshit excuse for a country of ours then then fuck you!

And if you think that my use of the words shit and fuck are obscene, I could go a hell of a lot further on the bad word scale and it still wouldn’t add up to the disgusting obscenity Canadians of European background put hundreds of thousands of first nation, aboriginal people – people who lived her thousands of years before we showed up with our diseases – in Canadian-government sanctioned residential schools that were not much better than Nazi-run concentration camps.

Of course, those of us who grew up through are cappy public and Catholic elementary and secondary school systems in this country were never taught anything about that.

That God-damned drunk, John A. McDonald, we were told, was our founding father, according to our school propoganda. Never mind that he supported policies to starve native people to death. Continue reading →

By Nick Fillmore

During a flight from Montreal to Halifax I missed a chance to carry out an act of defiance – “shaming” – against a person who has greatly abused his position of authority in Canada.

Given how powerless ordinary folk and public interest groups have become, I would like to see people embarrass the hell out of those who take advantage of the public by lying to us, cheating us, or destroying our priceless environment. 
As I made my way down the aisle, I spotted the square jaw, the glasses and the prematurely-balding head. I was going to get my chance to walk right up to the Right Honorable Peter MacKay.

MacKay has lied to us enough times that cartoonists depict him with a Pinocchio nose. As Justice Minister, he lied that he didn’t know information ignored by the Department would mean a law the government passed violated the Constitution, and worst of all, in 2007, he misled the House of Commons over what he knew about the possible torture of prisoners handed over by Canadian troops to the Afghanistan government.
As I got closer to MacKay, who was already seated, our eyes locked. I squinted angrily, and then. . . .  I walked right by, not saying a word!

Damn! Opportunity lost! Continue reading →

A Brief Comment from Doug Draper

This is another one of those stories about the ignorance and violence that too often plays out around our relationship with other great creatures on this earth that makes me furious.

The Newmarket black bear, moments before it tried climbing down the tree and was shot to death for, so far, harming no one!

So furious that I had to let a day go by before I posted this column for fear it would be peppered with George Carlin’s list of the seven words you can’t say on television.

The story I am talking about is one of a recent sighting of a black bear in the Greater Toronto Area community of Newmarket that ended this June 1^st with a decision by York Regional Police to shoot the bear to death when it began climbing down from a tree it was hiding in.

According to one Toronto area media outlet, the final moments of this bear-sighting saga ended like this; “The animal was located in a backyard of a Newmarket, Ont. home on London Rd. near Yonge St. and Davis Dr. Monday morning.

Officers had the bear surrounded and were waiting for Ontario ministry wildlife experts to arrive prior to the shooting.

Police say the animal had made it up a tree and was climbing down when it was shot.

“Bear began coming down from a tree and became a risk to people in the area,” tweeted York Regional Police. “Officers have shot the bear due to having no other options.”

In fairness to the police, they are not wildlife experts and it would be unreasonable to expect them to be when they are already tasked with addressing everything from traffic violations and domestic disputes to robberies, assaults, homicides and possible terrorist attacks. They are also not equipped with tranquillizer guns..

However, there were other options. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

 There’s an old line that speaks to the right all of us should cherish in Canada and the United States to freedom of expression, and it goes something like this – ‘I may not always defend your view on an issue, but I will always defend your right to express it.’

The billboard you were not allowed to see in Niagara, Ontario. Banned as it was by certain ‘thoght police’ in the region.

In that spirit, I find it more than a little disturbing that a billboard sign by a group of animal activists in Niagara, Ontario, supporting a vegan diet and opposing the eating of eggs, was pulled down in the Niagara city of St. Catharines this May 2015.

If you know anything about a vegan diet, it excludes everything or virtually everything to do with animal products, including milk, milk-related foods and eggs. It is a diet, I must confess, that is a bridge way too far for me. And as much as those who embrace a vegan diet may be appalled by this, I just had two hard-boiled eggs before I posted this. And just before I went to bed the night before, I had a glass of milk. 

Very sorry if the vegans out there can’t deal with that.

 Nevertheless, let’s get back to the right of people in our part of the world, where we like to pride ourselves in still being free to express our views in whatever is left of a democratic society.

Where is that right when a special interest group – in this case some egg farmers – can lobby a commercial sign firm to take their billboard sign down, simply because they are vegans who don’t like eating eggs? Do these egg farmers actually think that this billboard will persuade me and most others not to eat eggs? Do they feel that threatened that they have apparently successfully lobbied the billboard sign firm to rip the sign down? Continue reading →

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

(A Brief Forward from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – The move by Ontario’s Liberal government to at least partially privatize Hydro One – the hydro delivery piece of a once-proud Ontario Hydro plundered by the former Ontario Conservative government of Mike Harris – should be of concern to everyone who uses and pays for hydro services in the province. 

Somehow, Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne argues that this move to sell off some portion of Hydro One to private shareholders will bring much needed money to the province for other things like public transit, infrastructure renewal, etc. That seems very suspect given the history of privatization in other jurisdictions, including Margaret Thatcher’s Britain where the privatization of public services like water led to a significant rise in water costs, a crumbling of water delivery infrastructure and an explosion of boil water advisories (due to dangerous fecal bacteria, etc. in the water) all over the country. 

Finally, what we may all want to consider as the Wynne government moves quickly in the days ahead to approve this hydro privatization plan is that private corporations and their shareholders have a history of placing profits and dollar returns to them above everything else. We, the consumers of hydro services, are lucky if our concerns around hydro costs come a distant second.) 

From the Office of Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath 

Queen’s Park, May, 2015 – This May 22^nd, 2015, Andrea Horwath, Leader of Ontario’s New Democrats called on the Liberal government to separate the portions of Bill 91 that relate to the proposed sell-off of Hydro One and to travel the committee across the province. Continue reading →

The Great Lakes from space. The largest single basin for fresh water in the world. Do we still care enough to save them?

News from the Alliance for the Great Lakes  •  Freshwater Future  •  Michigan League of Conservation Voters  Ohio Environmental Council  •  National Wildlife Federation

(A Brief footnote from Niagara At Large – Nutrient pollution from both sides of the U.S.?Canada borders of the Great Lakes could suffocate theses greatest of frehwaters to a point where there is no live living n them for fish or the rest of us. Note here that no Canadian group is involved in the important post below. Not Polluton Probe, the Council of Canadians or anwyone else. Apparently they have all given in to Harperland and an attitude in Canada that there is no more hope for anything around protecting the life-sustaining resources of our planet.)

Chicago, U.S.A. – May 2015 – Solving the nutrient crisis facing the Great Lakes requires an all hands on deck approach. The report released today by Ceres – Feeding Ourselves Thirsty: How the Food Sector is Managing Water Risks – is a clear call to action for increased private sector engagement to improve water quality not only at their facilities but also throughout their supply chains from farm to factory. Continue reading →

News from GardenWalk Buffalo

(A Brief Foreword Note from Niagara At Large – GardenWalk Buffalo has grown in to one of the largest and most awesome urban tours of its kind in North America and it is free, held annually and every last full weekend of July. For further details, click on the GardenWalk Buffalo link near the end of this post.)

Buffalo, New York – In celebration of the uniting of Garden Walk Buffalo and the National Garden Festival, the new organization, Garden Walk Buffalo Niagara is pleased to present an exhibition of artwork done during its Open Gardens event last July.

Some artists’ posters from GardenWalk Buffalo events in years gone by.

The exhibition runs June 5-27, at Studio Hart located at 65 Allen St, Buffalo. Hours are Tuesday-Friday 11:30am-3:30pm and Saturday from 12:00-4:00pm.

The Opening Celebration will be held Friday, June 5 from 6:00-9:00pm.
In conjunction, the group will show original art which has inspired Garden Walk Buffalo posters over the years. Many artworks, as well as prints of the posters, will be available for purchase. Continue reading →

News from Carla Carlson and Niagara Nature Tours

Join Niagara Nature Tours third annual Victoria Day bird watching tour on May 18, in the north end of St. Catharines, led by Jean Hampson and her husband Bob Highcock. Hampson who recently helped conduct a birding study in this same area said, “

We had a great day with twelve species of warblers, including Northern Waterthrush, Palm and Canada Warblers. Also, Veery, Indigo bunting and Ruby-throated hummingbird. I was able to take photos of a Black-throated Green warbler and a Chestnut-sided Warbler.”

It will be easy walking along gravel paths and trails. They will be exploring two new locations this year, looking for colourful spring warblers and other songbird migrants, before the little birds fly north across the lake. Continue reading →

Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

Do you want to have a truly wondrous ‘whale of a time’?

Then get on the New York State Thruway, continue onward and eastward to the Massachusetts Turnpike until you reach the 495 cut-off to Cape Cod. Then drive out to the tip of the Cape, to Provincetown, where you can board one of the whale-watching vessels owned and operated by the Dolphin Fleet.

The crew of the Dolphin Fleet, accompanied by the good people from the Centre for Coastal Studies, will take you out beyond the sand dune shores of the Cape to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary where you will have the opportunity to view Humpbacks, Finbacks and other magnificent members of marine mammal community, frolicking free in their natural habitat.

That’s my way of urging all and any of you ought there to show your respect for these great mammals we share this earth with by not purchasing a ticket to an amusement park to be titillated by the perverse sight of witnessing members of this marine community performing tricks and being fed and pet in concrete tanks. Continue reading →

News from the RiverBrink Art Museum in the Niagara, Ontario community of Queenston

May, 2015 – In its 32nd year of operation as a fine art museum, RiverBrink Art Museum celebrates the Victoria Day Weekend by offering free admission to the public from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday May 16 through Monday May 18. Victoria Day Weekend also heralds the start of summer hours for the museum, which will be open daily from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm through October 25.

RiverBrink Art Museam

Four new exhibitions, curated by Debra Antoncic, Associate Curator will be on view throughout the summer season.JOSH SILBURT: ARTIST IN TURBULENT TIMES

May 15 2015 to October 25 2015 Continue reading →

News from Ontario’s  Niagara Parks Commission

(A Note from NAL – The Niagara Parks Commission presides over green, landscape jewels of space along the Canadian side of one of the world’s most scenic rivers. Support it and support parks efforts on the American side of this great waterway too.)

Niagara Falls, Ontario – The Niagara Parks Floral Showhouse is currently featuring one of its seasonal specialties, the annual Hydrangea Display, with their gigantic spheres of colour. Among this year’s features are enormous hanging baskets – some over five feet wide, overflowing with colourful Hydrangeas.

File photo courtesy of the Niagara Parks Commission

In addition, forced Foxglove and Delphinium will complete the spectacular display of blues, pinks and whites within the Showhouse. All the blooms are close to their peak right now, and a visit to the Floral Showhouse is a great way to enjoy the beauty of the season. The Hydrangea Show will run until early June, when staff will begin working on the next popular display: Regal Geraniums. Continue reading →

A Brief Commentary from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

“It’s still hard to believe I had to write this song,” Neil Young once said of ‘Ohio’, a song he composed and recorded with Crosby, Stills & Nash in the days following the fatal shooting of four students by a regiment of U.S. National Guardsman during an anti-Vietnam War rally on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio.

On the 25th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, a little girl place flowers on a spot where one of the students fell. File photo by Doug Draper

“Probably the biggest lesson ever learned at an American campus,” Young continued of the shootings, and to this day he may be right.

Like millions of other young people growing up in Canada and the United States in the hyper-naïve, idealistic times of 1960s, I joined in raising whatever small voice I could lend at the time for civil rights for people of colour, and for an end to war- especially the one then raging in Vietnam that wiped out the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and more than a million Vietnamese and neighbouring Cambodians, many of them civilians who fell into the faceless, anti-septic realm of “co-lateral damage.” Continue reading →

News from Jane Hanlon,  Greening Niagara and the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation

Niagara, Ontario, April 2015 – Niagara residents are invited to join the first Jane’s Walk in St. Catharines on May 3^rd at Richardson’s Creek in Martindale. The walk will be led by Greening Niagara, a local non-profit organization focused on environmental education and community action projects. Residents will learn about recreational opportunities in St. Catharines, along with issues relating to urban encroachment on natural areas.

Renowned urban author and activist, Jane Jacobs, inspired many in her writing and her impact is still felt today. Jane’s Walk is a movement of free, citizen-led hikes in communities throughout the world. The walks allow residents to tell stories about the communities they live in, connect with their neighbours, and learn more about their town.

Continue reading →

News from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, April, 2015 – As early as November 2015, the British Columbia Supreme Court will begin hearing a challenge to the provincial Medicare Protection Act (MPA) that, if successful, will impact all Canadians in every province and territory, says a report released this April 27^th by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The report, by CCPA research associate Colleen Fuller, examines recent attempts by private sector advocates to challenge the right to universal public health care in the courts, with a focus on the current Charter challenge before the B.C. Supreme Court, led by Brian Day’s Cambie Surgeries Corporation. It reviews the evidence on the impact of for-profit providers and payers on wait times and looks at the potential consequences a successful bid could have on Canada’s most valued and cherished public program.

“This is not the first or only Charter challenge to provincial and federal medicare laws,” says Fuller. “However, it poses the most serious threat to the principles of equality and universality that Canada’s public health care system is built upon.” Continue reading →

News from the Toronto-based public interest group the Ontario Health Coalition

April 23^rd, 2015 – For the fourth consecutive year Ontario’s hospitals will suffer real-dollar budget cuts according to today’s Ontario Budget.

The Welland Hospital in the southern half of Niagara, Ontario. Will it survive.

This is the longest unbroken period of real-dollar public hospital cuts in Ontario’s history. Already, Ontario has cut hospital beds more drastically than virtually anywhere else in Canada, or the industrialized world. Maternity units, entire wards, even entire hospitals are threatened with closure.

Despite all rhetoric and false claims, these are not services that are being replaced in community care. The hospital cuts are resulting in accelerated privatization, hardship for patients and unsafe hospital overcrowding that now ranks among the worst in the developed wor Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

This April 22^nd, 2015 marks the 45^th anniversary of Earth Day which, if nothing else, ages the hell out of me as a participant in the first one.

There we were on the first Earth Day, we poor dumb schmucks. Where did it get us 45 years later?

I was just some young, full-of-himself kid at Centennial Secondary School in Welland, Ontario – playing out what was left of the 1960s bullshit dream that our generation would change the world for the better – when, on that very first Earth Day, our school’s principal – a person I would say was one of the more progressive education administrators of the day named Joe Krar – was good enough to say; ‘Okay, I will let five or six of you go there. Don’t worry about missing classes.’ Continue reading →

News from Ontario’s Liberal Government

(A Brief Fore Note from Niagara At Large – One of the refreshing changes in provincial governance since Kathleen Wynne has taken the helm over McGuinty, is the regular release of news on private and public companies the province has charged and at least fined, if not had someone sentenced to jail, for working conditions that caused injury to those who are down there on the floor, doing the grunt work.

This one, posted below, is on a China-based company in the Niagara, Ontario community of Thorold that pleaded guilty to conditions that seriously injured one of its workers.)

St. Catharines, Ontario, April 17^th, 2015 – TSP Canada Towers Inc., a manufacturer of wind towers in the Niagara, Ontario municipality of Thorold, has pleaded guilty and has been fined $80,000 after a worker was crushed by components being moved along a line. Continue reading →

News from Niagara, Ontario’s Niagara Health System

April 16^th, 2025 – A member of Niagara Health System’s Oncology department is the first Niagara nurse to achieve one of the highest designation levels by de Souza Institute. A leader in cancer care excellence, de Souza Institute provides ongoing educational support and career counselling to more than 6,000 oncology nurses across Ontario.

Niagara, Ontario nurse Tammy Powell receives presigious honour

Tammy Powell, a registered nurse at Niagara Health System’s Walker Family Cancer Centre, plays an important role in achieving the organization’s main priority – safe and quality care. “My patients hold a piece of my heart and I’ve had the opportunity to support them through their cancer journeys for 25 years now,” says Tammy. “People are diagnosed with cancer every day, and showing support, love and care can make their time that much easier. I am honoured to be able to provide the best quality care possible, by applying the advanced knowledge and expertise developed through de Souza Institute.” Continue reading →

A Statement from the Offices of the Premiers of Ontario and Quebec 

(Niagara At Large has long been in step with a majority of scientists around the world who view climate change as one of the greatest threat to our safety and security in this 21^st Century. In that spirit, we are posting the following statement for our readers’ information.)

April 13^th, 2015 -Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Québec Premier Philippe Couillard released the following statement today concerning Ontario and Québec’s collaboration on cap and trade:

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard sign unprecedented bi-provincial agreement to tackle climate change.

“Climate change is endangering the air we breathe, the water we drink and the health of our children and grandchildren. It is already costing the people of Ontario and Québec — it has devastated communities, damaged homes, businesses and crops, and increased insurance rates.

In November of 2014, Ontario and Québec signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in which both provinces agreed to collaborate on their efforts to fight climate change and to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy. Today, we are deepening our collaboration on combatting climate change by signing a letter formalizing our intent to work toward linking our cap and trade systems, once Ontario has developed a mechanism compatible and coherent with the Québec and California carbon market. Continue reading →

 News from Brock University, Niagara, Ontario 

April 10^th, 2015 – Mayors are the political heads of Canadian municipalities, but chief administrative officers (CAOs) are the ones behind the scenes who have a major impact on the efficient operation of the city.

Often the highest-paid municipal public servants, CAOs or city managers, are tasked with providing advice to council and running the day-to-day operations. They’re hired, not elected, and they’re often overlooked and not well understood.

In his new book, Leaders in the Shadows, Brock University Political Science Professor David Siegel shines a light on the CAO, examining the leadership qualities of effective municipal managers. 

Siegel uses two active and three retired CAOs from across Canada as examples of exceptional city managers and shows what leadership traits, skills and behaviours helped make them successful. Continue reading →

By John Bacher

One of the most insidious aspects of urban sprawl is that it kills our waters.

One of numerous Niagara, Ontario wooded and water areas on death row due to continued low density urban sprawl sanctioned by our municipal councils in the region.

Once watersheds become urbanized, even at a level as low six per cent of the land mass, the streams within them begin to die. The aquatic biota within them become progressively less diverse, in response to pollution from road salts, automotive fluids and eroding sediment.

There is no healthy watershed in Ontario with streams that have been urbanized beyond the 30 per cent level. In all of Canada the most polluted stream, the Don River watershed in the Greater Toronto Area is in the heaviest urbanized watershed with over 80 percent encased in urban zoning. Continue reading →

News from the Organizers of Garden Walk Buffalo

(Niagara At Large is always pleased to run news for the volunteers in Buffalo, New York who organize one of the greatest garden walk tours on the continent each last full July weekend of each year. This event is also a showcase for the wonderful heritage architecture in the heart of this Greater Niagara city. 

If you love beautiful gardens and vintage neighbhourhoods from a century or more ago, when building equally beautiful homes was still king, write this year’s Garden Walk Buffao on your summer calendar. Read on for more details.)

April 2015 – Garden Walk Buffalo invites gardeners from the Peace Bridge to Main Street and from Canalside to the Scajaquada to be part of the 2015 Garden Walk Buffalo, to be held Saturday and Sunday, July 25 and 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Share your garden and show your pride in our neighborhoods and city.

Garden Walk Buffalo hosts the largest free garden tour in the country with 60,000+ visitors coming from all over the states, Canada, and even further abroad. It has an estimated economic impact of $4.5 million. There is no contest and no prizes – the objective of the Walk has always been to encourage neighborhood beautification and to promote community pride. Just fill out the application and your garden can become part of this wonderful event. Continue reading →

News from the Office of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

Welland, Ontario – This past Thursday, April 9^th, 2015 Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath met with Niagara area nurses, frontline healthcare staff, Welland Mayor Frank Campion, and MPPs Cindy Forster (Welland) and Wayne Gates (Niagara Falls).

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

The healthcare roundtable focused on healthcare cuts and the Liberal government’s plan to further damage healthcare in the Niagara Peninsula.

“The Niagara Health System is already overcrowded, but Kathleen Wynne is shutting down hospitals in Niagara, including the Welland Hospital,” said Horwath. “By closing hospitals Kathleen Wynne is putting families at risk. Every time the Liberals find themselves facing a scandal they can find the money to make it go away, but when it comes to healthcare for people in Niagara they say the cupboard is bare.” Continue reading →

News from Niagara’s Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster

Queen’s Park, Ontario – This past Thursday, April 2^nd Cindy Forster, the NDP MPP for the Niagara, Ontario riding of Welland, called on PremierKathleen Wynne government to stop its plans to shut down Niagara hospitals following a report that warns of the impacts of current plans to close five hospitals in the Niagara region.

Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster

“Today, we are calling on the Minister of Health, to re-evaluate the closures currently planned for the Niagara Health System,” said Forster. “This report confirms that the decision to close Niagara’s hospital is not backed by sound evidence and will have a detrimental impact on healthcare services for Niagara families that depend on them.” 

The report, Niagara Health System: Under Threat,  by Dr. John Lister, an U.K. international health policy expert from Coventry University and Director of London Emergency Health, was released at Queen’s Park today by the Ontario Health Coalition. Continue reading →

By John Bacher

One of the important goals of Ontario’sGreenbelt is to protect the urban river systems which link up with adjacent agriculturally zoned lands outside our towns and cities.

One of too many forest-covered watershed areas in Niagara, Ontario that are destroyed by buzz saws and bulldozer blades to make way for ever more low density sprawl

While part of most urban centres in Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe – notably Hamilton and Toronto – such linkages are tragically lacking in Niagara.

Niagara is blessed with a great network of waterway based urban parks. Welland has the Welland River flowing through it, lined with magnificent parks on both sides, as well as the recreational stretch of the former Welland Canal. St. Catharines has a similar system, based on the Twelve Mile Creek, its tributaries, and north end creeks which include the only remnant of the former fruit lands in that area. Continue reading →

By Pamela Minns

There is one heritage conference each year in Ontario, Canada, and this 2015 it will be held in Niagara-on-the-Lake from April 30^th through May 3rd.

The 19th century Keefer mansion, now a fine inn and restaurant in the Niagara, Ontario community of Thorold, almost faced the wrecking ball a decade ago. Thanks to heritage advocates and private business partners it was saved.

The number of attendees is expected to be well over 300, travelling from around the province and beyond. Conferences in recent years have been held in Kingston, Midland and Cornwall.

The conference will feature a wide range of expert speakers who will focus on historic and heritage issues of local and provincial interest. Delegates can join the River Road Heritage Tour and appreciate what Sir Winston Churchill described as “the prettiest Sunday drive in the world”, as well as Niagara Parks Commission sites not normally accessible to the public. Continue reading →

News from David Sloan on behalf of 10th Field Battery Association in Niagara, Ontario

Soldiers from the 10th Field Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery (in the Niagara, Ontario region) will stand on the same ground that the same military unit refused to retreat from 100 years ago, to the day and time.

One hundred years ago, these young and brave Canadians put on a brave face for the camera before going over the top and facing one of the most butherous killing floors which was World War One

On a sunny April 22, 1915 at approximately 5pm, German forces preceded their attack on the Allies front line near St. Julien Belgium with a deadly and frightening weapon, poisonous chlorine gas. It was the first large scale use of chemical weapons in warfare.

Unfortunately it was not the only time.

The initial attack was against the French Divisions in the northern trenches of the Ypres Salient. The French were forced back creating a breach in the front line. The 1st Canadian Division next to them soon came under attack. The 10th Field Battery, consisted of gunners from St. Catharines and the Niagara area. They were in a most dangerous position as they were the closest artillery to the advancing enemy. At times, within 200 meters. Continue reading →

 – One Of The Greatest Migration Spectacles Of Big Birds On The Continent

News from the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority

Hundreds of bird and nature enthusiasts will gather this Friday, April 3 between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. for Hawkwatch at Beamer Memorial Conservation Area in Grimsby. The popular event features live hawk demonstrations, expert presentations on bird migration, as well as children’s programs and nature club displays.

A Red-Tail Hawk circles in the air shafts above the Niagara Escparpment. File photo courtesy of the NPCA

“The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority is very fortunate to have such a dedicated group as a partner for the past 40 years. The data they collect is an important health gauge for our environment and it is used internationally.” said Kim Frohlich, Ecologist with the NPCA.

Over 4,700 birds, including 49 bald eagles, eight golden eagles, 912 red-tailed hawks, and over 3,000 turkey vultures have been counted this season. More birds of prey are expected now through mid-May, with an average of 15,000 seen annually.

Renowned as the best vantage point in the Niagara Peninsula to observe the annual spring migration, Beamer Memorial Conservation Area offers hiking trails, nature and wildlife habitat, as well as one of the most spectacular views of the Niagara Escarpment and Lake Ontario Landscape.

On most days visitors can see the skyline and mist from Niagara Falls and the skyline of Toronto from the overlooks on the escarpment edge.

For directions to this event and for more information on the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, visit the NPCA’s website at www.npca.ca

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your comments on this post in the space below.)

News from the Ontario Conservative Party, March 30th, 2015)
(A Brief Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – It is entirely predictable that a Mike Harris/Tim Hudak residue of a Conservative Party in Ontario would align with its Harper brethren in Ottawa in believing that climate change has little or nothing to do with exponential increases in carbon (i.e. – gas, coal, etc.) emissions over the past half century in this country and others on this globe.

It is also entirely interesting to me, and should be to all of you, that Conservative politicians who claim to care about what comes out of our pockets are not equally concerned about the impacts that climate change and all of its extreme weather, has on droughts, floods, super cold winters and other weather-related matters that trump prices up on our grocery bills, insurances rates, the damage and maintenance necessary to keep our roads and other infrastructure working, and other core expenses. Where are Hudak, Dykstra, Nicholson and other puppets for Harper when it comes to that side of the balance sheet? Or are they interested in any balance sheets beyond those of their corporate masters in the petro-chemical industry? if we don’t make some effort to reduce carbon emissions? All they seem interested in doing is running Canada as if it were little more than a gas station.)
(Now here is the media release from the Ontario Conservatives.)

QUEEN’S PARK, March30th, 2015 – The Ontario PC Caucus today asked the government to commit to not levying another misguided tax on the people of Ontario, specifically a carbon tax.

This is the second in a series of commitments the PC Caucus is asking of the government in advance of its budget. Speaking on behalf of her party, PC Environment and Climate Change Critic Lisa Thompson discussed the financial burden a carbon tax has placed on residents and businesses in locations where it has been introduced.

“In B.C. the carbon tax is costing farmers an extra $4,300 a year and in Australia it raised energy prices by 9%. A carbon tax is simply a cost Ontario’s residents and businesses cannot afford. Ontarians already pay some of the highest energy costs in North America and a carbon tax wills only further drive jobs out of this province.”

Additionally, Thompson charged that the consultations the government has been holding about Ontario’s Climate Change Strategy are really just a cover for the next tax they will be putting on the people of the province. “In last year’s election the only thing you said to the people of Ontario about a carbon tax is that you wouldn’t implement one,” said Thompson. She asked whether the Premier would stick to her promise and commit to not introducing a new tax.

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

Peter Kormos speaks out at a public rally in St. Catharines’ Montobello Park following the disgraceful arrests at the G20 Summit in Toronto, where few other provicincial or federal reps in this region had the courage to do it. File photo by Doug Draper

Bless you Peter, and may your spirit inspire others to vote, run for public office and stand up on principle for your progressive cause.)
QUEEN’S PARK, March 30th, 2015 – Nickel Belt NDP MPP, France Gélinas, introduced two pieces of legislation today to commemorate the second anniversary of former Welland MPP Peter Kormos’ passing.

Gélinas said the first legislation, the Labour relations Amendment Act (Strike and Lock-Out information), 2015, will honour Mr.Kormos’ commitment to the rights of workers.

“I didn’t want to let the day go by without mentioning his name, and without doing a little something for him,” Gélinas said. “People who knew him would remember that he always had an anti-scab bill on the docket. That was something that he would present at every session of question period in the legislature. This bill is a bit more timid. All it asks for is to identify when temporary replacement workers are used.”

Gélinas said the second legislation, the Trillium Gift of Life Network Amendment Act, 2015, will continue Mr. Kormos’ work to save the lives of Ontarians in need of organs.

“Around ten years ago, Peter introduced this bill to amend the Trillium Gift of Life Act to presume the consent of citizens. The people of Welland can be proud that their MPP was a champion for the over 1,500 people on the waiting list for organ donations.”

March 30, marks the second anniversary of Peter Kormos’ passing. This is the second year MPP Gélinas has introduced legislation to commemorate Mr. Kormos. “Peter Kormos was a formidable parliamentarian and I was fortunate to serve with him and learn from him,” Gélinas said.

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

A Commentary by Chris Wojnarowski
In times of geopolitical stress, a country that loses its ability to produce its own food, make things and control its energy & resources, ceases to be a sustainable nation.

Food is at the top of the list of these national security issues, and it would be in everyone’s interests to take this subject seriously. As a nation dependant on trading internationally for food, we are irreversibly heading into the jaws of a major calamity.

Recent devastating droughts in the United States, Mexican and Chilean farm belts will likely result in the cessation of seasonal food exports to Canada. Political turmoil in places like Argentina, Ukraine, and the Middle East, normally able to feed themselves will strain and possibly overwhelm the international supply chain.

There may come a point where certain foods will not be available at any price, and supermarket shelves begin to resemble those of Stalinist Russia. It would not be a stretch to see other trading partners reflexively ration their exports.

In such a situation, what would happen if say China decided that it would no longer be in their national interest to export food produce? It is a matter of record that Chinese government has foreseen the coming global food crisis, and has mandated state agencies to purchase large areas of arable land in Africa to secure food supplies to ship back to China. And China has the means to defend such food supplies. No conspiracy. Just good government looking after their citizens.
What if food production becomes “weaponized” by a hostile power? What if the only food available to Canada is with-held or hyper-priced as is the case of Russian exports to Ukraine?

Canada’s existential needs should mobilize a sense of urgency in our Provincial & Federal governments to reassess their punitive policies of marginalizing non-urban agricultural communities in pursuit of their own political agendas. Urban voter blocks that have come to expect that food comes in a package from nicely lit supermarkets. The oh so clever elites have created a culture of contempt for the “low class dirty farmer” that feeds him. Our farm youth are not blind or deaf to this. Farming is no longer an aspirational form of employment. They rightly feel stigmatized and flee family farms in droves. The tragic loss of our farming heritage is a logical result.

Agricultural policy cannot be spun on a dime like war-time manufacturing – it a lagging enterprise requiring serious lead times. They should do so before we are confronted by food shortages, rationing with the resultant civil unrest.

Chris Wojnarowski is a Niagara, Ontario resident who has had well-researched and thought-provoking commentary on a host of issues published and posted in area newspapers and other media venues for a number of years. Niagara At Large is pleased that he has accepted an invitation to post the commentary above, on an issue that is near and dear to NAL’s heart, by the way, on our site.
(Niagara At Large invites you to join in the conversation by sharing your views on the content of this post below. For reasons of transparency and promoting civil dialogue, NAL only posts comments from individuals who share their first and last name with their views.)

News from Ontario’s New Democratic Party

QUEEN’S PARK, March 25^th, 2015— MPP Peter Tabuns, the Ontario NDP Environment and Climate Change critic, will introduced a bill this March 25^th to ban fracking in Ontario. Quebec, New York state, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick already have similar bans.

“There is no need for Ontario to risk environmental damage and lawsuits by leaving the door open for this controversial business. Let’s learn from the hard experiences of others and act now,” said Tabuns, MPP for Toronto-Danforth. Continue reading →

News from John Hassell and Ontario Nature

(A note from Niagara At Large – just to interject for a moment, where is the Harper government on this? We  are talking about saving threatened bee populations necessary to pollinate fruit plants in  the Niagara, Ontario fruitbelt and other plants vital to our food supply. Is this not also a national security matter?)

The government of Ontario put out a proposal this week to protect pollinators by restricting the use of neonicotinoid pesticides.

A pollinating bee at work for our food supply and other plants that make our world healthy and wonderful. Why won’t the Harper government join Ontario and ther provinces in protecting them from possible extinction?

This is a bold and necessary step.

Eighty-seven percent of flowering plants rely on pollinators for reproduction, including most of the world’s leading food crops. Food security and the health of ecosystems depend, fundamentally, on bees, butterflies, birds and other pollinators.

Among the pollinators, bees are generally regarded as the most important. But not just honey bees. There are about 400 wild bee species in Ontario, including about 20 bumblebee species, all doing their part to maintain the delicate web of life. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by NAL publisher Doug Draper

Once again, I am getting sick and tired of all this John Wayne, tough-talkin’ talk from the likes of Canada’s supreme leader and his minions like Rob Nicholson about extending some war in Iraq, etc.

Canada’s Stephen Harper plays army a few years back in Afghanistan. Will he send young people in his own family to go to Iraq and other war zones to play army, or just send other peoples’ children? Bring back the military draft.

It is also quite depressing that, according to some public opinion surveys, a majority of Canadians want to go along with more warring and a C-51, so-called “anti –terrorist bill” that would compromise even more of the civil liberties Canadians fought and died to defend in wars from the last century.

So alright then,, Harper and company want to “extend and expand” Canadian involvement in the so-called ‘war on terror’ in the Middle East, let’s get some of their fucking skin in the game. Let’s see their children suit up and go over to serve in harm’s way. Let’s see this government have the guts to tell their baseline, blue-blooded supporters to contribute to a war tax to pay for this venture.

I have called for bringing back the military draft in another recent post on this site, and I call for it again. And I just bet that if we had a military draft that meant anyone, including a member of the PM or an MP or a Senator’s family got drafted – not to mention the children of their corporate masters, we might see Harper, Nicholson and these other chicken hawks be not so quick to exercise the military option. Continue reading →

You are invited to Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society (PALS)  39th Annual Meeting.

Ontario farm rep and keynote speaker at PALS annual meeting Elboert vanDonkersgoed

WHEN ; Tuesday March 24^th 7 :00 p. St. Catharines Centennial Library 54 Church St. 

SPEAKER : Elbert vanDonkersgoed

Editor Locavore News and former ED The Christian Farmers’ Federation of Ontario

FARM VIEWS OF ONTARIO’S GREENBELT

 Light refreshments at 7:00 p.m. Business 7:30 p.m. Speaker 8 p.m.

Find out more about the Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society, one of the oldest surviving citizens group in Niagara, Ontario, by clicking on http://members.becon.org/~pals/AboutPals.html .

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

By John Bacher 

Those who are concerned with wildlife in Niagara should pay keen attention to the upcoming provincial review of the Greenbelt.

The Blue Salamander, one of many native Niagara reptiles vital to a health web of life for everyone up to we humans, is a continuous victim of low-density urban sprawl paving over its habitat

Urban sprawl is the biggest threat to wildlife in Niagara. It prevents the return of extirpated species and threatens species that continue to survive, most notably amphibians that perish from higher road density and increased toxins.

Urban environment drives out bluebirds, oven birds and scarlet tanagers, replacing them with a monoculture of starlings and house sparrows. The last time the Red Headed Woodpecker was seen in neighbouring Burlington, Ontario was when a subdivision, now called Woodpecker Woods was raised over its former habitat. Continue reading →

News from the Office of the public interest group Buffalo Niagara River Keeper

(A brief foreword comment from Niagara At Large publisher and environment writer Doug Draper – Congratulations to all of the great leaders and volunteers for Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper for this well-deserved international tribute. 

Unfortunately, we lost the Canada/U.S. citizens group Great Lakes United a few years ago due to a combination of less collective citizen interest in fighting hard for environmental protection and the group’s limp efforts to pander to that lessening interest by trying to go (small conservative/republican) mainstream – when it might have been better to go out fighting for more progressive goals..

But at least a greater Niagara chapter of this group, founded more than three decades ago on the Hudson River with late folksinger Pete Seeger, and still key member Robert Kennedy Jr. among its driving members, is still here to voice concern and act for a healthier Niagara River watershed. This global recognition, once again, is most deserving.)

Voloneers for Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper regularly clean garbage from shores of Buffalo River/Niagara River watersheds. Photo courtesy of Riverkeeper

SPRINGHILL, AUSTRALIA, March 2015 – The International River Foundation has announced that Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper is one of four finalists for the first North American Riverprize, a prestigious global recognition for organizations demonstrating excellence and diversity in river restoration.

“As Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper celebrates 25 years of progress for our water, we are honored that our innovative work has been recognized by the International River Foundation,” said Jill Jedlicka, executive director. “Our collaborative efforts to improve water quality and public access in the Great Lakes have been successful because of the decades of tremendous citizen engagement.  We thank all of our supporters, partners and the Western New York community for this shared honor, and as there is much more work to be done, we reaffirm our commitment to continued progress for our region’s water resources.” Continue reading →

News from the Welland Riding constituency offices of Malcolm Allen and Cindy Forster

Welland, Ontario, March 20^th, 2015-NDP MP Malcolm Allen and MPP Cindy Forster joined Save the Welland Hospital Campaign’s Sue Hotte, Welland Mayor, Frank Campion and Ontario Health Coalition’s Natalie Mehra this March 20^th to highlight the detrimental impacts the proposed closure of Welland Hospital will have on local communities. 

“The Welland Hospital is an integral part of south Niagara’s healthcare network,” noted Forster. “People of Niagara need healthcare services that are easily accessible, and the closure of the Welland Hospital will have devastating impacts on our community.”

Stemming from a 2012 report delivered by NHS supervisor Kevin Smith titled Restructuring of the Niagara Health System, the closure of the hospital would mean the loss of  South Niagara’s only emergency medical department and two extended hour urgent care centers—along with numerous other health care services. Continue reading →

Tuesday April 7th atMahtay’s Café and Lounge,  241 St Paul St, St Catharines, Ontario.

 News from Jane Hanlon and Greening Niagara

The doors for this good meeting open at 6:30 pm, Meeting starts at 7 pm at Mahtay’s Café – a wonderful venue that is cultivating a record for featuring talks, film screenings and more on progressive ideas around climate change and other issues facing younger and future generations today.

Niagara, Ontario healthy planning/environment advocate and keynote speaker Don Alexander

This talk, headed up by Greening Niagara, a public-interest group once called Climate Action Niagara, features Don Alexander, one of Niagara’s great elders in the field of planning and environmental protection, doing his best to convince us – young and old and everyone in between – why “we’re all in this together.”

 Don Alexander has 50 years of Environmental Action and concern.From Great Lakes Water Quality Issues in the mid 1960s to current interest in the Provincial Plan Reviews for the Niagara Escarpment and Greenbelt. Continue reading →

• You Are Invited To A Free Screening Of This Film On Our Great Lakes At The Mahtay Café In St. Cahtarines

News from the South Niagara chapter of the Council of Canadians

Award-winning documentary film director, Kevin McMahon, is as passionate about the Great Lakes as he is worried about their fate. His compelling film, Waterlife, will be screened on Sunday, March 22nd, to commemorate World Water Day, at the Mahtay Café and Lounge, 241 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. The documentary will be followed by a panel discussion on threats to the health of the Great Lakes.

A former journalist at the St. Catharines Standard, McMahon shifted to documentary film-making in the mid-1980s. It was in Niagara that his engagement with the Great Lakes began, when he covered the then-emerging disaster at Love Canal in Niagara Falls. Continue reading →

News from Ontario’s Liberal GovernmentMarch 18th, 2015 – Ontario Supporting Innovation in Niagara Manufacturing SectorConstruction has officially begun on Niagara College’s new Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre. Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa  With support from a $4.2 million provincial investment, the new, permanent, high-tech manufacturing centre will provide students with more than 15,000 square feet of lab space for hands-on applied learning, innovation space for companies to work onsite and office space for Niagara students and industry staff. The centre will also help Ontario’s small and medium-sized manufacturers save on production costs and reduce production time by providing them access to leading-edge equipment and state-of-the-art research facilities as well as the expertise and business services of faculty and students.  Supporting business innovation and postsecondary education is a key part of the government’s economic plan for Ontario. The four-point plan is building Ontario up by investing in people’s talents and skills, building new public infrastructure like roads and transit, creating a dynamic and supportive environment where business thrives and building a secure savings plan so everyone can afford to retire.

QUICK FACTS Advanced manufacturing innovation programs began in May 2013, led by Niagara College Research and Innovation. More than 850 small and medium-sized enterprises operate in the Niagara region.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre Coming to Niagara Support for the Niagara College Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre Ontario’s colleges and universities

QUOTES”The manufacturing sector is critical to our prosperity and that’s why we are investing in the sector’s future by helping to build the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre. We are also investing in these Niagara College students, who will go on to be highly skilled workers and contribute to Ontario’s success. Smart investments like these are part of our economic plan to make Ontario a better place to live, work and invest.”  — Charles Sousa, Minister of Finance”We are pleased to be breaking ground today on our new Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre. This new facility will be a permanent home to expand Niagara College’s faculty and students’ capacity to assist small and medium-sized manufacturers with a centre that is already providing real-world research and innovation solutions to the manufacturing sector through research and innovation. We are pleased that the government recognizes the contribution Niagara College’s faculty and students are playing in advanced manufacturing.”  — Dr. Dan Patterson, President, Niagara College

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News from Canada’s Assembly of First Nations

(A Brief Note from NAL – Praise for Canada’s First Nations for standing up for environmental protection and the possibility Harper’s anti-terrorist/secret police bill could be used to legally harass Canadians who join them in standing up for our environment.)

Canada’s Assembly of First Nations chief Perry Bellegarde speaking out with passion against a Harper bill that could gut our rights to speak out for our environment.

Ottawa, Ontario, March 2015 – Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Perry Bellegarde told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (this past March 12^th, 2015) to withdraw Bill C-51, the proposed federal anti-terrorism legislation. 

“I am calling on the government to withdraw this Bill and consult properly with First Nations about the impact of any such legislation on First Nations rights,” said National Chief Bellegarde.  “We believe in safety and security but the federal government’s rush to ram this legislation through is undemocratic and it violates our individual and collective rights.  First Nations will vigorously oppose any legislation that does not respect and protect our rights.” 

The National Chief told the Committee that Bill C-51 sets up “conditions for conflict” by creating circumstances where First Nations people will be labelled as threats when asserting their rights as First Nations citizens. Continue reading →

News from the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War

(A note from NAL – In the wake of ‘Day of Action’ rallies attended this March 14th, 2015 by many thousands of Canadians from coast to coast in opposition to the Harper government’s proposed anti-terrorist or secret police act, there is this upcoming town hall in nearby Hamilton, Ontario.)

Attend the town hall meeting in the Council Chambers of Hamilton City Hall on Wednesday, March 18, at 7:30 pm. Hear Sukanya Pillay, Exec. Dir. of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, plus local NDP MP’s and representatives from community organizations and groups including the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War. Facebook page with all the details:https://www.facebook.com/events/430169607157981/

The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War began life as the November 16th Coalition, which formed in Hamilton, Ontario to organize opposition to the then impending attack on Iraq. Our goal was to unite all the elements in society who were against America’s design to punish and conquer Iraq in order to further their imperial expansion into the oil rich Middle-East.

To learn more about the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War and its ongoing activities click on – http://www.hamiltoncoalitiontostopthewar.ca/index.html .

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By John Bacher 

One of the most important roles Ontario’s Greenbelt plays is that it protects most of what is left of Niagara’s precious fruit belt, from urban sprawl.

Sign put up by west St. Catharines peach farmer going out of business. File photo by Doug Draper

 Niagara is one of the only places in Canada where it is still economically viable to grow, on a large scale and for the fresh market, a wide variety of tree fruit crops. These fruits include plums, pears, apricots peaches and sweet and sour cherries.

Another extraordinary aspect of Niagara’s fruit belt is that it is also grape belt. Although new areas in Ontario are opening up for grapes for wine cultivation, virtually all of the grapes grown for juice and jellies in Canada are located in Niagara where many grape growers have long time contracts with Welch’s, one of the largest agricultural co-operatives in the world. 

The Niagara fruit belt makes up a rare part of Ontario where it is possible to grow economically healthy foods that every nutritionist believes we need to eat more of. While for now cheap transportation makes it possible for such healthy food to be imported without driving up the price, this will not endure. Growing concern over the ecological health of the planet make carbon taxes inevitability. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

“Canada In Iraq For Long Term, Minister Says,” reads a headline at the top of the front page of the Friday, March 6, 2015 edition of Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe And Mail.

The minister referred to in the headline is Rob Nicholson, the federal Conservative MP for the Niagara Falls, Ontario riding, who has held a number of key cabinet positions for the Stephen Harper government including Justice Minister, Defense Minister and now Minister of Foreign Affairs.

One might very well ask, and some already have, what there is in Nicholson’s resume that has qualified him to serve as head of defense and foreign affairs in Canada when so many of his counterparts who have held those positions in the U.S. have had real experience serving in the military and in some academic or on-the-ground, overseas capacity in foreign affairs. But that’s another whole commentary

For now, let’s get back to the apparent willingness of Harper, Nicholson and company to prolong Canada’s military involvement in war zones in Iraq. 

“Our mandate is until April 7,” Nicholson was quoted saying in the body of that March 6^th Globe story in a passing nod to the date Harper told Canadians last year that we’d join a U.S.-led bombing campaign to “degrade” ISIS forces that have spread like a cancer in that region of the world. “But we’ve indicated that Canada is not a country that stands on the sidelines and we’re looking at ways that we have contributed and what is available for the future,” he continued while wandering, knowingly or not, into what sounds to a number of his government’s critics like “mission creep” territory.

Sgt. Andrew Dorion, the first Canadian soldier to die in the Iraq war zone, and probably not the last.

“As I say,” Nicholson blah-blahed on, almost certainly from the routine talking points, fed to him and other intellectually challenged member of cabinet like Pablum from the prime minister’s office, “I indicated that we’re in this for the longer term t make sure that we do what we can to help.”

Help what?” someone might well ask, not that Nicholson, being the dutiful water boy he has always been for Harper, he would dare ask himself. Let’s remember that this is a Niagara politician who may have been in the best position to prevent the closing down of Canada’s Consulate office in Buffalo, New York, right on the doorsteps of one of Canada’s most important gateways to the U.S. economy, but was quoted in the mainstream media going along with it, like the cowardly lion he is. 

Now here he is again, doing the Dick Cheney, pumped up testosterone, tough guy thing going back to his days as Harper’s justice minister when he whole-heartedly supported throwing more criminals (just so long as they weren’t white collar criminals working on and around Bay Street or the Alberta tar sands) in jail and throwing away the key. Continue reading →

By John Bacher 

Many people care for our wounded earth here in the Niagara Region, but frequently despair about what can be done to preserve and protect it.

A blue heron soars over Beaverdams Creek, a water system some Niagara municipal politicians feel should be included in Greenbelt. Photo courtesy of Jim Vanderhoek

Farmlands are gobbled up, forests are slashed and streams are entombed in cement. Fish, frogs and turtles lose their homes with the waters. Native bird species vanish while alien pests such as starlings swarm in and deer are confined to parks where they become the focus of conflicts with park neigbhours, animal activists and native peoples.

Normally it is not easy to get be a serious earth protector. Consider the challenges, as I have, of getting elected to serve on a municipal council. This is truly a formidable task, going door to door and facing hostile audiences, and facing hostile political machines. 

Service on municipal councils, despite what you may read in the media, is so important because of the power of zoning. Sometimes, especially during times of rapid growth, municipal politicians feel unhappy at getting elected to provincial politics. That is because they then miss the attention from those concerned if a parcel of land will be zoned agriculture, environmental protection or some urban purpose.

Don’t want to be a municipal councillor? Then where do you appeal  zoning decisions? The answer is go to the Ontario Municipal Board.

If there is anything more torture prone than running for municipal council, it has to be fighting an Ontario Municipal Board hearing. What is even worse than in the olden days, when the Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society won OMB battles, is that at these hearings it doesn’t matter how many degrees or what work experience you have anymore. If you want to testify before the OMB and are a member of an environmental protection group, you might as well stay away. 

Dr. Robert Hoover, a Brock University teacher and fully qualified urban planner from 1976 to 1983, did heroic service, representing PALS during those years at a number of OMB hearings.

In more recent times, having that kind of expertise and a prestigious degree is not enough for the OMB. Just ask the recently retired Brock University Geographer Professor, Dr. Hugh Gaylor. Although the OMB ruled that he was qualified to give expert testimony on the basis of his qualifications, he was ruled out by virtue of his alleged membership in PALS. To be an advocate is a cardinal sin. 

Now for a window of a little over a month, there is an opportunity to protect the earth that involves relatively little pain. That opportunity is the Province of Ontario’s upcoming Greenbelt consultations. What is more the time and place for one of these sessions in Niagara are quite accessible, so write it down and encourage your friends to come. 

The Greenbelt consultation for Niagara will be held on Wednesday, April 15, 2015, at the Holiday Inn and Suites Parkway Convention Center at 327 Ontario Street in St. Catharines. It will run from 6 to 7pm, followed by a meeting where deputations can be made from 7 to 9 p.m.

If you want to think globally while acting locally to heal the planet, be there.

John Bacher is working on the Greenbelt Review for the Sierra Club of Canada and the Niagara-based citizens group, the Preservation of Agriculture Lands Society. This is the first in a series on articles on the review. Later articles on the review will deal with wildlife, forests, fruitland , water pollution, the Niagara Escarpment and forests.

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