Niagara At Large

News from the Council of Canadians South Niagara Chapter

(A free event at the St. Catharines, Ontario campus of Brock niversity that includes workshops, parking, lunch and child-care. REGISTER ON-LINE. Read on for details.)

The tower on the Niagara, Ontario campus of Brock University in St. Catharines

Whatever your reasons for wanting to become an activist, tips from the grassroots for turning passion into action will be the focus of a workshop presented by the Council of Canadians South Niagara Chapter. Just Doing It! is the group’s how-to for “Putting the Act in Activism”, this year’s theme for the 8^th Annual Niagara Social Justice Forum on Saturday, Jan. 31, at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Workshop participants will be invited to join with local activists from the South Niagara Chapter to review several of their social justice and environmental campaigns as they have tried to impact and influence local government and other decision-makers. Participants will then have the opportunity to try their own hand at planning and mapping out the action steps to conduct a local social/environmental justice campaign. Continue reading →

Niagara, Ontario’s Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster

News from the Office of Welland, Ontario Riding MPP Cindy Forster

Welland, Ontrario, January 26^th, 2015 – Cindy Forster, NDP Critic for Community and Social Services, called on the Liberal government to come clean about the chaos caused by SAMS, as an internal memo predicts at least 10 more weeks of turmoil for families and caseworkers.

“The SAMS nightmare keeps getting worse for families on social assistance,” said Forster. “This Liberal government was careless to put the most vulnerable Ontarians at the mercy of unreliable software. Months later and with over $250 million dollars spent, the Liberal government still has no clue how to fix it.” Continue reading →

A Brief from NAL publisher Doug Draper

He never won an Olympic Gold Medal – the most he won was a Bronze – yet he may very well have had more of an impact on his sport than anyone over the past 40 years.

Toller Cranston in 1976 and at the top of his sport.

Toller Cranston, who was born in Hamilton, and who died this January, 24^th, 2015 of an apparent heart attack at age 65 – has been credited by many in the sport of figure skating of changing it in to a form of artistry up to this time, even while he did not earn the respect of Olympic judges and others for being ahead of his time.

That became all too obvious during one Winter Olympic Games held in Austria in the 1970s and Cranston did not win Gold for what was clearly a flawless and brilliant free-form single men’s performance. I can still remember hearing the collective ‘you have got to be kidding’ from so many who watched his performance on TV. And it seemed so clear, even to many of the Olympic commentators at the time that he was rushing beyond pure technical skills, to an artful extravagance that the judges of the day could not yet come to terms with. Continue reading →

News from the American-based citizens group Alliance

(A Brief Foreword from Niagara At Large – With the unfortunate demise a few years ago of the binational citizens group Great Lakes United, The Alliance for the Great Lakes, although based in the U.S., is the only real group we have left with a reach across the basin that includes working with Canadian citizen groups when possible. For the sake of these Great Lakes – the largest reservoir of life-sustaining fresh water on this earth – do what you can to support this group.)

A look at the world’s largest basin of fresh water from space

Support for Great Lakes restoration funding and protection against Asian carp are key Great Lakes priorities for the new Congress, with algae-promoting nutrient pollution topping a list of issues to watch with wary eye.
The Alliance reached out to congressional members this week with a lineup of Great Lakes priorities needing their attention in 2015.

Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

If he were a human and eligible to run as a candidate in this last fall’s 2014 Ontario municipal elections, he might very well hold a seat on Thorold, Ontario’s municipal council now.

Tigger wants his birthday to be a chance for people to donate to the Animal Assistance Socity of Niagara and Community Care Thorold

And the people of Thorold – to leave the kitty completely out of it and say so myself – might be better off.

Tigger – a regal, orange tabby who resides at a Petvalu retail outlet at the Pine Plaza on Pine Street in Thorold – is turning seven in human years and the store’s staff is celebrating with a Birthday Party on Saturday, February 7^th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

As I hope regular visitors to Niagara At Large know, does not give plugs to retail businesses in the form of what is sometimes termed as an ‘advertorial’ or sponsored content.’ 

But Tigger’s birthday is different. It is not just about this Pevalu outlet promoting itself with an event that includes raffles, gams nd cupcakes. It is about asking encouraging us to make donations to Niagara’s Animal Assistance Society and to Community Care in Thorold. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

“I am convinced that if we succumb to the temptation to use violence in our struggle for freedom, unborn generations will e the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, nd our chief legacy to them will be a never-ending reign of chaos.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

On this January 19^th, 2015 – set aside in the United States to remember the non-violent struggle for civil rights lead by the late Martin Luther King, I find myself wishing we had more leaders like him today.

Martin Luther King, following his 1963 speech ‘I Have A Dream’, in Washington. D.C.

Instead, more than four and a half decades after his assassination and all of his achievements in the are of human rights, we continue to face a world where difference of colour, creed and religion are met by hate-filled intolerance and violence. 

Can we not yet find the wisdom and compasson as humans to move beyond this? 

After all, as Martin Luther King once tried to warn us; “Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. …

“If there is to be peace on earth,” King said, “we must finally believe in the ultimate morality of the universe, and b elieve that all morality hinges on moral foundations.” 

As a footnote, if you have not seen the Academy Award nominated film Selma., please do. It should be mandatory for viewing and discussion in all of or schools.

(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 Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

We humans may arguably be one of the smartest species on the planet. But when it comes to looking after a planet we ultimately need to take care of in order to survive, we seem to fall short on vision.

Lower and lower gas and diesel prices like we haven’t seen in years.

That shortfall is most apparent when it comes to crises like climate change, where it is necessary to think in terms of decades – never mind minutes, hours or even one or a few years – to address what could amount to a catastrophic future, cost wise and health wise, for our children and grandchildren by the last half of this century.

This is all a way of saying let’s build up the resolve to show some vision and not let the recent falling price of gasoline take our eyes off the prize. And the prize, to anyone who has been following what has been going on in the world and does not see the world through the narrow lens of a Stephen Harper, should be obvious.

It is the final move boldly to a future of energy conservation and alternative, greener sources of energy that will turn the tide on carbon emissions and move us to a healthier, more prosperous life for whatever may be left of our lives and for the lives of generations to come.

That means not letting this temporary slide in gas and diesel prices tempt us back to SUVs and other carbon fuel guzzling habits of life that have already brought humanity to the brink of doing terrible damage to our lives and this one and only planet we live on. Continue reading →

Mark Taliano

The biggest threat to Canada’s national security is internal.

It is the offshoot of an extraordinarily successful — because it remains largely undetected — coup that imposed itself on the country with the federal election of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) in 2006, and solidified its impacts with the election of a Conservative majority in 2011.

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Author, poet, academic, and former Canadian diplomat Professor Peter Dale Scott recently disclosed a wikileaks cable indicating that the International Republican Institute (IRI), an off-shoot of the CIA, and a subsidiary of the  National Endowment for Democracy (NED) helped install Stephen Harper as Canada’s Prime Minister. This was the coup.

Point 12 of the cable explains that; “In addition to the campaign schools, IRI will be bringing in consultants who specialize in party renovation to discuss case studies of political parties in Germany, Spain, and Canada which successfully carried out the process”

The “party renovation” referenced in the cable is the “renovation” of Canada’s indigenous Progressive Conservative Party into a Republican-inspired Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) that is largely subservient to the U.S Empire south of the border. Continue reading →

From Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

A group of Niagara, Ontario area citizens working under the banner ‘The Save The Welland Hospital Campaign’ will be hosting a public meeting Sunday, January 11^th on exactly that subject – save what is left of the Welland Hospital.

Future of Welland hospital and accessible acute care hospital services for south Niagara resiidents hang in balance.

This public meeting, described by the group as an “information meeting to update the public on the work and exciting activities and events developed by our five committees,” will begin at 2 p.m. in the community room of Welland City Hall on East Main Street in that same city, and for anyone in Welland or any other south Niagara municipality, from Wainfleet and Port Colborne, to Fort Erie and southern reaches of Niagara Falls, it would be a good idea to attend this meeting and to get more engaged in the debate over where hospital services in the region’s southern tier should go over the next 50 or more years. Continue reading →

News from the Office of Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster

Welland, Ontario – Cindy Forster, MPP is encouraging local schools and community and volunteer organizations to identify nominees for the Leading Women Leading Girls Building Communities Recognition Program now underway.

Niagara, Ontario’s Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster

This would include West St. Catharines, Thorold, Welland, Wainfleet, Port Colborne and everything in between. Nominations must be in by January 16, 2015.

Do you know of a woman or girl who is making a difference in your community?

Since the program was introduced in 2006, more than 650 women and girls across Ontario have been recognized for their leadership qualities. 

Forster said “I am honoured to have the opportunity to recognize women across the Welland riding who are dedicated to community service and inspiring others.” Continue reading →

By Nick Fillmore

The CBC, and particularly CBC Radio, is easily Canada’s most important cultural and public interest institution.

Click on the image to enlarge andread all text.

I say this not so much as someone who worked at the Corporation during the glory days of the 1970s and ’80s but, like so many other people, a kid who was brought up in a home that was always watching and listening to the CBC.

Residing in a small village in Nova Scotia, we greatly appreciated the voices and images, ranging from Clyde Gilmour’s 40-year run of Gilmour’s Albums  on radio to the hard-nosed journalism of Norman DePoe on TV.
But after decades of serving and educating Canadians, Stephen Harper’s vicious cuts have brought the organization to its knees. Continue reading →

News from the St. Catharines & District Council of Women 

Just a few thoughts from Niagara At Large to begin here.

A monument in the Canada’s capital of Ottawa to abused and murdered women.

How tragic and totally reprehensible it is that we still have to have public meetings focusing on male brutes beating up and, in all too many cases, killing girls and women in this Canada we like to think is civil and civilized when it comes to such crimes. But apparently we do.

Unfortunately, and however much Canada’s supreme leader Stephen Harper tries shovelling Canadians this slp that his Tory government is tough on crime, that doesn’t apply as much to crimes committed against women – most particularly aboriginal women – but all women, including any and all women living in your neighbhourhod, and possibly even women in your own circle of relatives and friends. Continue reading →

A Brief Note from Doug Draper

Here is wishing to all of our readers and everyone else who has visited and supported Niagara At Large as a truly independent online news and commentary site a warm and peaceful time during this Holiday Season, and peace in the New Year.

Winter in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, File photo by Doug Draper

The Holiday Season can be a happy, magical time for many of us. But please remember it can be a lonely and sad time for people too, for any one or more reasons that have to to do with everything from the loss of a loved one to worry over where the next money will come for essentials like food and home heating.

In the spirit of the season, let’s all do our best to reach out to those in need.

I also cannot help but send out a reminder to shop local – that means spending your dollars in locally owned, independent stores whenever you can – and to do what you can to support public transit, and to protect and preserve the natural resources on this only planet in the universe we have to sustain our lives and those of all other creatures, big and small.

NAL will remain in a relatively dormant state during the holiday season and will get back to our mission, in a full, spirited way this coming January.

(NAL invites you to share your vews on this post in the comment area below. Remember that we only post comments by readers who share their real first and last name.)

By Doug Draper

 She was, first and foremost, a warm, passionate human being – a person whose down-to-earth humility belied the many tributes and awards she received around the world for her groundbreaking work in the field environmental health and science.

Internationally renown environmental scientest Theo Colborn

The last thing I think I remember Theo Colborn wanting to be compared to was Rachel Carson, author of one of the groundbreaking environmental books of the last century, Silent Spring.

Yet Theo Colborn, an American scientist who left this earth and all of the life on it she cared so much for in her late 80s this December, 2014, fell into the same rarified circle as Rachel Carson (as was acknowledged by other esteemed groups in her own country who awarded her Rachel Carson medals).

Theo Colborn was that brave scientists whose research lifted Carson’s warnings about synthetic chemicals assaulting our health and environment to a more urgent level. Colborn’s warnings of the research she outlined in her own groundbreaking book ‘Our Stolen Future’ some two decades ago, were that some of the smallest concentrations of pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals (including those we use to spray our lawns, gardens and bugs) flushed into our rivers and lakes will come back to break down our immune systems and to screw up the endocrine systems of fetuses in their womb before they see the light of day. Continue reading →

By Nick Fillmore,  Canadian freelance writers

With yet another United Nations-hosted climate change conference making very little real progress, a near miracle will be required if countries are to reach a meaningful and binding global agreement on carbon emissions in Paris next December.

The ‘Lima Call for Climate Action’ document, agreed to on Sunday by 194 countries, is not a new “deal” for the climate. It is a 12-month work plan leading to COP21 a year from now.

The major change – a victory for rich countries – expects countries with rising economies, such as China, India and South Africa, to take action on climate change in much the same way rich countries will contribute.
In another setback, developing countries gave up on a 20-year feud that caused considerable animosity between South and North. Rich countries will no longer be expected to carry the burden of cutting carbon emissions in the South with contributions of $10-billion a year to underdeveloped countries. Continue reading →

News from Niagara, Ontario’s Brock University

(A Brief Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – For those of us who already have enough cheap plastic crap from Mall Wart or whatever other big box shopping venue there is, and yet would still like to participate in the Holiday Season by giving something special to others in need, I could not resist posting the info below from Brock University.)

December 19^th, 2014 -Plan Canada’s talking goat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w49QMhKf69s) encourages you to help improve the lives of children in developing countries.

The gift of a goat can help keep a family in need alive.

So when a talking goat tells you to give a charitable gift, do you do it?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/in-the-charity-world-cash-is-the-new-goat/article22130056/

Todd Green, a professor at Brock University’s Goodman School of Business studies ethical gift-giving and what motivates you to give socially meaningful gifts.

His research shows that making the decision to give an ethical gift — whether it be purchasing a goat, supporting an environmentally friendly company or selecting a fair-trade gift — depends on the giver and the recipient and often leads to inconsistent behaviour by consumers.

So for all the last minute shoppers wondering whether to buy a goat, Green will be available for interviews until December 23 to talk about socially responsible gift-giving and the motivations behind giving a meaningful gift this holiday season.

 Visit Plan Canada at https://plancanada.ca/GiftsofHope/products/1-All-gifts/47-Goat/ … for more information on offering a goat as a gift this Holiday Season or any other time of the year.

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

A Brief from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Environmentalists on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border have not won many battles in recent years, but this December 17^th, 2014 they won a big one.

On that date, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, his health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker and an expert panel assembled by the state two years ago said no to any plans involving hydraulic fracturing – or what is more commonly called “fracking” for gas in deep layers of shale rock – across their state.

The decision to ban fracking in New York State also has important implications for residents in Ontario given that petro-chemical corporations were interested in using a wastewater plant in Niagara Falls, New York to dump treated chemical effluent from the fracking process to the Niagara River and Lake Ontario (sources of drinking water for millions of Ontario and New York residents), and that Ontario is still in the process of deciding whether fracking should be allowed in rural regions here.

A story on the front page of the December 18^th edition of The Buffalo News quoted Zucker, the state’s health commissioner, summing up the decision this way; “The potential risks are too great,” he said. “They are not even fully known.” Continue reading →

A Brief Update from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Plans to incinerate some of the world’s most infamous toxic waste in Ontario have been snuffed out by the company on the verge of carrying out the operation.

A historic photo of barrels of toxic chemicals to be buried at the Love Canal site before a school and heibhourhoood homes were built around and on top.

The waste in question – collected over decades of cleanup and containment efforts at the Love Canal dumpsite in Niagara Falls, New York – was already being trucked through border crossings in Niagara to an incinerator in the Sarnia, Ontario area when the U.S.-based company that owns and operates it decided to turn the trucks around.

According to a December 16^th CBC report, the company, Clean Harbors of Massachusetts, buried plans to incinerate numerous tonnes of waste laced with dioxin, PCBs, chlorobenzenes and other manmade poisons from the Love Canal site, following protests from people in the Sarnia, Ontario area. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

It is a bit surprising to learn that the name ‘Love Canal’ can still pack a public punch.

A sign posted at the Love Canal site in Niagara Falls, New York more than three decades ago by some of its now long-gone residents.

 As one of the first and very fiew reporters for a Canadian newspaper that was covering the Love Canal when people from that Niagara Falls, New York neighbourhood were still struggling, some 34 years ago, to get away from the chemical buried under and around their homes, the name was synonymous with man-made poisons capable of causing suffering and death.

So much so at the time that then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter wrote two unprecedented national emergency orders to compensate residents for the value of their ravaged homes and no other community at the time in the United States or Canada was willing to accept this waste for treatment and reburial in a co-called “secure landfill site” or for destruction in a high temperature incinerator. In fact, any argument environmentalists made back then for excavating the Love Canal poisons from their grave near the Niagara River and shipping them off to another community for incineration was nixed by U.S. environmental officials. 

‘No other community on this continent,’ and paraphrase fairly here, ‘is going to accept shipments of Love Canal wastes,’ one senior administrator for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation told me at the time. 

Now here we are, all these years later, with reports this December 11^th, 2014 in the Sarnia Oberver and CBC Radio on wastes from the Love Canal area – wastes that include the likes of mirex, PCBs, chorobenzenes and the most toxic strain of a Vietnam War-era poison used in Agent Orange – being trucked off to the Sarnia, Ontario area for apparent safe diestruction in an incinerator operated by a company called Clean Harbours hazardos wastes there. Continue reading →

Latin Americans Pay The Price For aCorporate Climate Destruction

By Nick Fillmore

December 11^th, 2014 – Information contained in a new report that details how multi-national corporations are destroying the environment and causing serious climate damage in Latin America brings attention to an important area not being discussed at the UN COP 20 climate negotiations being held in Peru.

A damagine mix of droughts and coastal flooding is ever more in the forecast for Latin American countries as climate change becomes the rule of our times

The report describes in detail how the destruction caused by three European multi-national corporations is typical of the damage caused by multi-nationals throughout the continent.

While the climate discussions in Lima are focussing on what nation states need to do to reach a binding climate agreement a year from now, what is missing is a discussion about how corporations are not held accountable for the climate damage they cause in developing countries – damage that those countries are held accountable for. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Niagara, Ontario, December 11^th, 2014 – Niagara’s regional council has a new chair.

Niagara, Ontario’s regional government headquarters

 Al Caslin, a one-term regional councillor for St. Catharines and long-time business leader in the community, swept a four-way race for the Region’s top political job in the first and only round of ballots cast by 30 regional councillors from across Niagara. 

Caslin replaces Gary Burroughs, a former lord mayor of Niagara-on-the-Lake who has served as chair for the past four years and who will continue to hold a seat for his town on regional council for the coming four years. Caslin beat Burroughs by a vote of 18 votes to seven.

The other two candidates for regional chair – Lincoln regional councillor Bill Hodgson and Thorold regional chair Henry D’Angela – drew three votes and two votes respectively. Continue reading →

A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper 

Due to family issues we are continuing to deal with following the death of my father earlier this November, Niagara At Large will remain slow until early December.

The wake from a ferry boat on Cape Cod Bay, File photo by Doug Draper

We have few other options but to beg your patience as we choose the proper time in the near future to ramp up Niagara At Large as a vital, alternative news and commentary voice in a Greater Niagara Region that embraces all of Niagara, Ontario and our cross-border neighbhours in Buffalo/Erie and Niagara Counties, New York. 

Forced with a decision to ramp down at this time, I am well aware that this could mean death for the future of this site since, the way it goes in this highly competitive online reality, you have to keep feeding the beast (or piling the posts on) or web surfers will simply go somewhere else. And everything you have worked for in the past to build up a readership or visitors to your site is done. 

Yes, I am well aware of that and if this is the end of NAL, then so be it. At least I can say I gave it a try. 

And I am sure of this. If this Niagara area online news site goes down, another will most certainly come along to fill the void left by mainstream media, owned and operated by corporate outsiders, who have been doing such a crappy job of covering local news on the Niagara, Ontario side of the border. (I leave the Buffalo News, Art Voice and other Buffalo area publications out of this criticism because they, in my estimation anyway, are still at least trying to offer their communities meaningful news and commentary.)

So there we are. I can only ask you now to stand by while Niagara At Large gets through this valley and prepares to climb the next mountain.

Thank You, Doug Draper 

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

A Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper –

Few contemporary Canadian writers and filmmakers I know – and I am pleased to say I know this one  – have spent more time documenting issues impacting on the people and environment of Canada’s far north than Kevin McMahon.

Filming the Arctic Project for TVO

Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, has bee up there in recent years for photo opportunities and looking for oil-drilling opportunities as the Arctic’s ice shield melts, but Kevin began going there in the 1980s,chronicling the plight of the peoples of that region around environmental impacts they were already suffering in documentary films and in a book called ‘Arctic Twilight’.

Now Kevin, who was a reporter at the old Burgoyne family-owned St. Catharines Standard when we worked there together back some three decades ago, has employed all of the passion and intelligence I know he does to help put together this coming Polar Sea Project series to be aired on TVO. Please watch it, and now here is a note from Kevin, along with key links for this production and related others.

Hello Friends and Associates

I am writing because you advised us with, worked on or may be interested in our Polar Sea project, which was three years in the making and now is about to launch. I want to let you know what we have created and where it can be seen. Continue reading →

A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

“ENOUGH ALREADY’ reads the headline on the front page of the Friday, November 21^st edition of The Buffalo News.

The skyline of Buffalo, New York, looming above Lake Erie – the source of what can sometimes be pretty wild lake-effect storms

The headlined hovered over a half-page photo of a neighbourhood of people trying to cut paths for themselves and their cars through piles of snow mounded almost twice as high as their shoulder lines.

Buffalo has almost too unfortunately been known to the rest of the continent as a city of brutal winters, rusting industrial sites from the last century and an NFL football team that continually frustrates its most devoted fans.

That caricature of this all-American “city of good neighbours” is abundantly unfair for anyone who has taken the time to explore it for the classic architecture of its buildings, its scenic parks and boulevards, the richness of its museums and art venues, its verdant rows of trees and one of North America’s biggest and best garden walks featured each last weekend of July. 

Yet here we are, with Buffalo making international news for a monster storm that has dumped more snow on the city and its surrounding communities in a few days during this third week of November 2014 than normally falls in Western New York all winter – and winter doesn’t officially begin this year for another four weeks! Continue reading →

News from the Shaw Festival in Niagara, Ontario

Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, November 2014 – The annual Shaw Festival Film Series, one of the most highly anticipated winter social events in Niagara-on-the-Lake, begins screening the best of Canadian and international feature films and documentaries on Saturday, December 6 at 3 p.m. in the Festival Theatre. The 10^th year of the Shaw Festival Film Series kicks off with director Matthew Warchus’s hilarious and inspirational comedy-drama Pride. The Film Series continues until February 21, 2015.

The critically acclaimed movie Pride kicks off Shaw Festival’s winter film series

On Friday, January 2, 2015 at 6 p.m., the Festival Film Series five-film documentary series begins with the fast-paced and absorbing Tim’s Vermeer. Written by comedy magic duo Penn and Teller and directed by Teller, the film follows inventor Tim Jenison as he tries to discover how Dutch master Johannes Vermeer (Girl with a Pearl Earring) painted so photo-realistically – 150 years before the invention of photography.

Back by popular demand, Gathering Niagara’s Lunchmarket at the Shaw Festival returns for its third year! A great way to complement the Film Series experience — grab a bite to eat from food trucks and local vendors before the Saturday afternoon screenings (doors open at 1:30 p.m.) or experience a pre-or post-show meal at the many Signature Kitchen restaurants in the historic town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Continue reading →

By Dr. Anne Bell, Director of Conservation and Education, Ontario Nature

(Niagara At Large is posting this article at Ontario Nature’s invitation.) 

The Earth has lost more than half of its wildlife in the past 40 years, according to the World Wildlife Fund’s 2014 Living Planet Report. Released in September, the grim reality it describes is a daily event that shows no signs of abating.

Blanding’s turtle. Photo from_Joe Crowley and Ontario Nature

Life’s rich tapestry is unravelling at a speed and on a scale never seen before. While wildlife losses are most severe in developing countries, it is the richer nations that are driving the destruction globally – we are “outsourcing” wildlife decline through our excessive consumption of resources extracted elsewhere. And we are causing similar devastation at home.

What does this catastrophic loss of life look like in Ontario? There are more than 200 species known to be “at risk” in the province, and that number increases every year. A candidate that will soon be considered for at risk listing is the American bumblebee, once the most common bumble bee in eastern North America but now in steep decline. Continue reading →

News from Niagara, Ontario’s Regional Government

Niagara Region, Nov. 20, 2014 – Free quit smoking patches are available to Niagara residents for a limited time. The Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients (STOP) Program offers eligible participants in Niagara five weeks of cost-free nicotine replacement therapy and smoking cessation information to help them in their quit attempt.

What: Free patches for adults in Niagara to quit smoking

Where: Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients workshop will be held in Welland, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines Continue reading →

By Pamela Minns for Niagara At Large

It has always been my belief that heritage preservation has to start at the top ….. That is, with support from all levels of government. That is where it started in Ontario, with the passing of the Ontario Heritage Act in 1974.

The long-lasting and maybe gone expermental farm outside of Ottawa, Canada.

And  where are we today, after 40 years ?

I just received from Heritage Canada National Trust, a respected and important organization, a communication in connection with the matter of one of our National Historic Sites in Canada – it is the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, established in 1886. Continue reading →

News from Sue Hotte, member of the citizen-based Niagara Health Coalition

Get on the bus -Save Welland Hospital Campaign kick off  with mass rally, November. 21st at Queen’s Park

The Save Welland Hospital Campaign is off and running. Its first major action is sending a busload to Queen’s Park, Friday, November 21 to tell the province that Welland residents will not stand for the closure of their hospital.

The Welland Hospital site in Niagara, Ontario is about the only facility approximating a fully functioning hospital for south Niagara residents in the Welland, Port Colborne, Wainfleet and Fort Erie areas. file photo by Doug Draper

“Ontario’s government is forging ahead with the most aggressive plan ever to systematically strip local community hospitals of services and cut or privatize them,” Natalie Mehr, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition told more than 100 people who packed City Hall last week to find out how they can organize to save their hospital.

By joining thousands of citizens gathering at the Ontario Legislature, this kick-off event of the campaign will energize local residents for the work ahead to save the Welland hospital from the province’s planned closure. Continue reading →

From NAL publisher Doug Draper

If you were wondering why traffic has been slow on this news and commentary site in recent weeks, here is the reason.

Doug Draper Sr., a beautiful person with a generous heart. You will always be in ours Dad.

Due to the death of my dear father and namesake – Doug Draper Sr. – this past Saturday, November 8th following a few weeks in hospital, I have had difficulty focusing on one of the things I love doing the most – covering and commenting on news.

Sorry to say that traffic on this site will remain slow while I join my family in coming to terms with my father’s passing and look after his affairs.

To all of Niagara At Large’s faithful readers and supporters out there, and to all of you who have notified me that you have recently discovered this news site, like what you see and say you plan to become a regular visitor, I beg your patience at this time.

We shall resurge here with the usual alternative views you don’t often find any more in the mainstream media.

Thank you, Doug Draper

(NAL always invites our readers to share their views below, just so long as you also share your real first name with them. There are no comments signed ‘flame thrower’, ‘time bomb’ or anything of that nature here. Never!)

Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

Each Remembrance Day, it is important to remember those who fought and died in past conflicts for the freedoms and systems of democracy we are fortunate enough to engage in – if we have the will to do so – in Canada and the United States.

At the same time, I have always believed that every November 11^th – if not every day – is one where we collectively ask the question “Why.”

Why can’t we humans, who pride ourselves in the thought that we are the most intelligent species on the planet – find other, more peaceful ways of resolving our differences other than slaughtering ourselves on battlefields? Continue reading →

News from the St. Catharines and District Council of Women

On Thursday, November 13^th, 2014 this region’s Council of Women will be holding an 8 p.m. public meeting at the St. Catharines Centennial Library on 54 Church Street on continued concerns over the possibility of liquid nuclear waste being trucked across border bridges in Niagara.

Will the Peace Bridge or other Canada/U.S border crossings in the Niagara/Buffalo area be used for trucking liquid nuclear waste?

The meeting, free of charge and open to all members of the public will feature a panel of speakers and address the following: 

• Why is high level , very dangerous liquid nuclear waste being transported from Chalk River , Ontario, to South Carolina?
• What are the dangers and are we prepared?
• How are our US neighbors trying stop this and why?

 On The Panel –

 Barbara Pulst, former Niagara resident now living near the Pickering nuclear station 

Lynda Schneekloth, Chair, Sierra Club Niagara (USA)

Natasha Soto, Community Organizer Clean Air Coalition , Buffalo

Gracia Janes,  VP Environment Provincial Council of Women of Ontario

Sponsored by the 20 Affiliated Member Groups & Individual Members of the St. Catharines and District Council of Women.

(NOW IT IS YOUR TURN. Niagara At Large encourages you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)

By Mark Taliano

The tragic shooting of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo on October 22, 2014 at the War Memorial in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada followed by a shoot-out at the House of Commons, and the death of the shooter, Michael Zebaf-Bibeau, serves as a catalyst to advance several hidden government agendas.

The Canadian government wants to spread unreasonable fear of radical, violent Muslim terrorists so that it can better control all Canadians, especially those who choose to exercise their constitutionally enshrined rights. The government is also advancing a population control mechanism so that it can deny and negate domestic constitutional rights, in particular Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 which recognizes and affirms aboriginal and treaty rights. Continue reading →

News from the Niagara, Ontario-based citizens group, Greening Niagara, formerly Climate Change Niagara 

Niagara’s population is becoming active where it relates to the urgency for climate initiatives.  Please review the three events posted below and determine how you’d like to participate.  And please share these invitations widely.

This past winter (2013/14) saw a record number of severe storms and polar vortex temperature drops that, among other things, froze virtually every drop of water roaring over Niagara Falls.

Note that all events are free, and all require an rsvp to help determine refreshments. 

Thursday Nov 6^th   Climate, Engineering and Infrastructure, presenter is Greening Niagara’s Board Member Phil Curtis, arrive early, doors open at 5:30pm.  Hosted by the Professional Engineers of Ontario Continue reading →

News from the Hamilton-based citizen watchdog group Citizens At City Hall

(A Brief Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper – A reminder that this pipeline works is way through lower Great Lakes connecting channels and watersheds. Should a pipeline break or related accident occur, it could threaten the water supplies of millions of Americans and Canadians, including residents in this greater Niagara region, and damage or destroy vital fisheries and other wildlife habitat in the lower Great Lakes.)

November 3^rd, 2014 – City of Hamilton staff are promising to intervene in the dispute between Enbridge and the National Energy Board over how to protect Hamilton waterways vulnerable to the controversial 39-year-old Line 9 pipeline that the company wants to expand and use to transport unrefined bitumen (from the tar sands in Alberta).

Whether municipal and provincial governments can regulate the explosion of pipeline expansions is already being argued in British Columbia courts and this constitutional issue is likely to spread across eastern Canadian jurisdictions in the path of the latest mega-pipe proposal – the 4600 km “Energy East” facility from Alberta to New Brunswick to export bitumen via the St Lawrence River or through the Bay of Fundy. Continue reading →

A Brief by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper 

There are certain images we all have burned in to our brain around events that have stirred or shocked us at some point, earlier in our lives.

Frank Mankiewicz wipes away tears as he announces the death of Robert Kennedy in June, 1968

For me, one of those images was of a person named Frank Mankiewicz, a press secretary for U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy, who was running for president, getting up on a car in front of a hospital in Los Angeles in June of 1968 and announcing to the world that Kennedy had died from wounds he was suffering from an assassin’s bullets.

The image of Frank Mankiewicz, wiping tears from his eyes as he made that statement, marked the death of what many of us hoped would lead to a more progressive era in U.S. politics at that time – an era with a leader with the passion, intelligence and determination to end the War in Vietnam and advocate for environmental protection and for victims of poverty and racism 

Frank Mankiewicz, who died late this October at age 90, was far more than that image. He was an accomplished journalist who went on, in the 1970s and 80s, to build his country’ National Public Radio in to a world-class public broadcasting system as its president. His father wrote Citizen Kane and hung around with the likes of Orson Welles. F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Marx Brothers. 

But for better or worse, for a few generations of us who came of age in the last half f the 20^th Century, he may forever be remembered as the person who had to tell the world the sad and shocking news of Robert Kennedy’s death. 

(NOW IT IS YOUR TURN. Niagara At Large encourages you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)

News from the volunteer organizers of Garden Walk Buffalo

(Niagara At Large is always pleased to support this world-class even in our Greater Niagara Region, including Niagara, Ontario and the Western New York area.)

Garden Walk Buffalo has become a major event for the City of Buffalo, New York and showcases its friendly people, inspiring architecture, magnificent waterfront and especially its record number of spectacular gardens.

A gold fish pond in one of the great backyard edens featured at Garden Walk Buffalo. File photo by Doug Draper

Buffalo has received national publicity for hosting the largest free garden walk in the country with visitors coming from all over the country, Canada and even Europe. One objective is to give back to the community by supplying funds to blocks clubs and neighborhood group that want to improve their streets and become part of this wonderful weekend event. Continue reading →

The Niagara Health System’s New Mega-Hospital in the West St. Catharines area of the Niagara region. File photo by Doug Draper

News from the Niagara Health System, an amalgamated body of Niagara, Ontario’s hospital services

October 29^th, 2014 – Niagara Health System is pleased to announce the organization is moving forward with the formation of a Community Advisory Committee to the Board, with an application process beginning today. This move is in support of an important recommendation from Dr. Kevin Smith’s final report as Supervisor, and builds on the organization’s renewed commitment to meaningful community engagement. Simultaneously, NHS is also announcing the beginning of recruitment of a skilled candidate from the community to fill a vacancy on the Board of Directors, which is comprised of volunteer leaders from across the Region.

NHS Board Chair Dr. Barry Wright emphasizes the Board’s interest in hearing from the public. ‘The Board is clear that the future of healthcare requires more input from families and the public-at-large, not less. We agree with Dr. Smith that the organization needs to seek these important opportunities for two-way discussion, and we are excited to see the establishment of the Community Advisory Committee to contribute their feedback on our plans.’ Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Well, it was an interesting municipal election night in Niagara – and for some a scary one a few nights prior to Halloween.

Niagara, Ontario’s regional headquarters

It was also one that saw a greater turnover of faces at the regional council level than we have possibly seen since regional government was established in Niagara more than four decades ago.

Just to give a few examples, Bob Gale, a Niagara Falls businessman, owner of those Gale Gas Bars you may have fueled up at and the guy that blew the whistle, a few years back, at some nefarious practices going on at the Niagara Parks Commission, will be going to regional council as a representative for Niagara Falls.

Mayor Vance Badawey of Port Colborne, who decided to run for a regional council seat this time with a possible eye to the regional chair seat, will not be back. He lost to Port Colborne regional councillor incumbent David Barrick, who is also hand-picked about a year ago by board members of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority for a management position in that public agency. Continue reading →

News from Ontario’s Niagara Parks Commission

Niagara Falls, Ontario – In commemoration of the passing of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and Corporal Nathan Cirillo, the Niagara Falls Illumination Board will light Niagara Falls in red on the evening of October 28, 2014, the date of Corporal Nathan Cirillo’s funeral.

The red lighting will take place on the half hour at 7:30; 8:30; 9:30; 10:30 and 11:30 for 15 minute time periods.  The colour red is one of Canada’s national colours and will signify the sacrifice these men have made for Canada.

“We thought it not only fitting to honour Warrant Officer Vincent and Corporal Cirillo in this way, but lighting the falls red will serve to symbolize Canadian unity and the deep patriotism that we are a part of when we stand together,” stated Jim Diodati, Chair of the Illumination Board and Mayor of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Continue reading →

A Note from the citizen-based Port Dalhousie Conservancy

(Niagara At Large is running this note because Carlos Garcia and Bruce Williamson are decent individuals who do not deserve to be slandered and harrassed by some of the neo-con bullies attempting to run progressive thinkers out of political office in this Niagara region.)

Dear friends and supporters of the Port Dalhousie Conservancy,

Carlos Garcia, as most of you know, is running for (St. Catharines) City Council, Port Dalhousie Ward.  Voting day is (this Monday, October 27^th)!
In the last election, Carlos ran for the Region.  He worked very hard but forces opposed to Carlos and what he stands for played a series of “dirty tricks,” the most blatant being the removal of his campaign signs from properties close to all of the city’s polling stations – an illegal activity – but not something that mattered, particularly to some of those in opposition to Carlos. Continue reading →

Debbie Zimmerman, the Niagara regional councillor for Grimsby and former Niagara regional chair, speaks at the launch of a pilot inter-municipal transit system in September, 2011. File photo by Doug Draper

 By Debbie Zimmerman

(The following column by outgoing Regional Councillor and former Niagara regional chair Debbie Zimmerman is being posted on Niagara At Large by permission of its author.)

I always find the intensity with which people will fight to win your vote during an election campaign interesting.

Because when elected, candidates often turn that support into a personal, one-dimensional focus, forgetting the reasons they were elected – to work to ensure your property tax dollars are spent on services for you. Services you use every day like water, sewers, roads, senior and social services, police, ambulance and public health.

Every four years, and next this Monday, October 27th, we get a chance to elect our municipal and regional government. To choose a representative who understands, I am not just a taxpayer, but a resident. Who understands they weren’t elected by you to bring their political party affiliations, their ideologues or one-dimensional agendas to the council chambers.

Local and regional government is about service delivery and not about party platforms. Continue reading →

From the federal parliamentary hansard, Thursday, October 23^rd, 2014

(A Brief Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – It took what many of Canada’s federal MPs described as a near-death experience, with bullets ricocheting off the walls inside the Parliament building’s lobby – to get the members of all parties to stand together, in a few moments of solidarity, for the best that Canada can be as a democracy.

Canada’s Green Party Leader Elizabeth May

All party leaders, from Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP Opposition leader Thomas Mulcare and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau stood in the legislature morning after the shooting . All had good things to say but there was something particularly important about the words from the leader of the fourth party in the legislature, the Green Party, which hardly gets any mainstream media attention at all, about trying to keep a cool head and not lose our sense of civility and tolerance over all this. So here, for the record, are the words of Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.)

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for giving me this opportunity to speak on this very serious and grave day. We had a horrible day yesterday. I especially want to thank the Prime Minister for his words today, as the Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Liberal Party. Continue reading →

Queen’s Park, October 22, 2014 – Premier Kathleen Wynne issued this statement today following the tragic events that took place in Ottawa:

Ottawa’s National War Memorial where tragedy began to unfold this October 22nd.

“The appalling acts of violence that occurred today at our National War Memorial and on Parliament Hill have shocked our province and our nation.

Details are still forthcoming, but we know this tragedy has resulted in the death of a member of the Canadian Forces and that others are injured. I extend my heartfelt condolences to the friends, family and colleagues of the man who lost his life serving his country today. Together with all Canadians, my thoughts and prayers are with them.

Our thoughts and sympathies also go out to the injured and all those who are suffering in the aftermath of this traumatic event. Continue reading →

Niagara Region, October 23, 2014 – On behalf of all Niagarans, I extend sincere condolences to the family and friends of the Canadian Armed Forces member who was killed in yesterday’s (October 22^nd) attack in Ottawa.

The Peace Tower overlooking Canada’s capital city of Ottawa

I stand with all Canadians in condemning this deplorable act. I and all members of Regional Council applaud the work of the brave men and women of our armed forces, police departments and first responders, who acted swiftly and with resolve to ensure the safety of parliament, public servants and the residents of Ottawa.

Our thoughts and prayers will continue to be with all those affected by these grave events.

(NAL invites you to share your views in the comment boxes below. Remember that we need your full name on this site to post your comment. No pseudonyms allowed.)

A Brief by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

He was an inspiration to countless thousands of us who grew up wanting to get a job in a newsroom in the 1970s.

Ben Bradlee was the prototype of one of the last managing editors of journastic integrity and courage in a now-gone golden age of North American newspapers.

The journalist in me cannot move on without saying at least a few words about Ben Bradlee, who died this October 21^st at age 93 and who was managing editor of the Washington Post when that newspaper broke a long series of stories adding up to what became known as the Watergate scandal that, in 1974, led to Richard Nixon becoming the first president in U.S. history to resign in disgrace.

If you ever saw the 1976 movie ‘All the President’s Men’, which was a fine film in its own right but which also served as a primer for many a fledgling news reporter at the time, there was legendary actor Jason Robards playing Ben Bradlee, along with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford playing reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward respectively, as they re-enacted the true drama of investigative stories that led to the ultimate downfall of a person holding the most powerful office in the world. Continue reading →

By John Bacher 

At an October 6^th meeting of the Grimsby Town Council, councillor David Kadwell got some sense of the difficulties in challenging archaic studies.

Author of this post, conservationist John Bacher, joins others recently on a tour of the Irish Grove Forest in Grimsby. Photo courtesy of Richard Young.

Kadwell attempted to bring a notice of motion to discuss a Class Environmental Assessement on the proposed extension of Livingston Avenue through the 26 acre Irish Grove Forest. If the proposal is approved, one of the last rare Lake Ontario Plain Forests, recognized as Significant in the Niagara Regional Policy Plan, will be cut in two.

The Grimsby councillor’s attempt to rescue the Irish Grove Forest was not popular with his fellow councillors and his notice of motion went nowhere. In this situation, the conservationist councillor found himself in similar circumstances to then newly elected St. Catharines councillor, Mark Elliott, when he discovered the 1965 St. Catharines Transportation Study. Continue reading →

News from the public interest group Canadians for Tax Fairness and its executive director Dennis Howlett

As the country rolls towards a 2015 federal election, we’ve been doing our best to make sure that politicians and voters ask the right questions about achieving tax fairness.

Canada’s Harper Government’s Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay defeinds corporate tax cuts that outstrip those in the U.S.

We’re hitting a nerve.  Recently Kerry-Lynne Findlay Canada’s National Revenue Minister called us “ politically biased” , “ ill-informed” and a “special interest group”.  This was in a letter she wrote to the Charlottetown Guardian in response to a letter from Senator Percy Downe which in turn sparked several more heated exchanges. The Charlottetown Guardian even published a blog I wrote about this war of words.

For the record, we want to work with any politician who believes in a fair and accountable tax system.  That should be all of them, right? We have asked for a meeting with Ms. Findlay, but so far without sucess. Continue reading →

A Brief by Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

There is now only one week to go before eligible voters across the Niagara, Ontario region go to the polls this coming Monday, October 27^th to choose who will lead us at the municipal level for the next four years.

And, I would urgently submit, the stakes could not be hire. Public transit, smarter, more affordable urban growth versus the 20^th century contagion of low-density sprawl, drawing more jobs and young people to want to live and work here, conserving what is left of our watersheds and natural environments, the cost of policing and health and seniors care – the list goes on and on. Continue reading →

By Pamela Minns

This has been an ongoing saga and is a sorry story to come out of a City which is beginning to be noticed by other municipalities in the Region of Niagara, as one which is moving ahead — especially when it comes to our heritage.

A key monument to Thorold’a history, the Keefer Mansion (open today as a restaurant and in) was a home of one of the community’s founding families, involved in the construction of the first Welland Canal and a major grist mill here. Phoro by Doug Draper

“Heritage” is nearly always grouped with “Culture” when it should stand alone, since it is the foundation of our communities; it is what gives us an individuality and uniqueness that creates pride…it draws visitors and tourists, and furthermore, makes them want to return !

The sad part of this whole story is the lack of importance placed on our history, our culture, and our heritage, by the City of Thorold. Allowing Chestnut Hall – a city-owned, designated heritage building – attached to our library, which housed our Museum, to reach the stage where its contents were threatened with water damage, animal invasion and whatever else can occur in a building that has not been maintained and which badly needs attention – BUT with no monies allotted in the City budget year after year ! Continue reading →