Niagara At Large

By Nick Fillmore

(A brief note from Niagara At Large – NAL is proud to welcome veteran Canadian journalist Nick Filmore as a contributor of news and commentary to our site.)

Highly-regarded former Toronto Mayor David Miller says he is “very excited” about becoming the new President and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund-Canada in September.

A corporate suit sits while our earth’s ice caps melt.

“They’ve made such a difference,” Miller told The Toronto Star, “and to be part of an organization that knows how to make real change is a unique opportunity.”

But there are questions about whether the WWF is effective in its work and, moreover, why the WWF and other members of the global environmental movement have made such little progress combatting the most serious threat to earth – climate change.  

The magnitude of the crisis facing humankind cannot be overstated. More than 400,000 people are dying each year, and, a confidential report from the United Nations said that three years ago corporations caused $2.2-trillion damage to the environment. Continue reading →

A Submission to NAL from Catharine Ens, a veteran advocate for animals in Niagara, Ontario.

 Marine mammals have evolved over millions of years and are an integral part of a complex and diverse marine biology on our earth.

Animal activists demonstrate in front of Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

 To claim they are given ‘the perfect environment’ in an amusement park like Marineland elicits the question – ‘Can the ideal environment of these sophisticated mammals really be imitated within the confines of a concrete tank? How can their natural existence be duplicated when, in the wild, (depending upon species) these animals can travel up to a hundred miles each day, swim speeds at speeds of more than 30 miles per hour,  and dive thousands of feet below the surface of their ocean environment.

There is considerable evidence to show that marine mammals have shorter life expectancies in captivity than they do in the wild. So if facilities like Marineland are claiming ‘conservation’ as a defense for captivity, it is simply an excuse; profit from ‘entertainment’ is more likely the motivator. Continue reading →

A Comment from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper 

A record downpour of rain in the City of Toronto this July 8 – a month’s worth in two hours and all but incapacitating an economic engine of Canada one of the largest metropolitan areas in North America with gushing flood waters for a critical number of hours.

Late this June, there was the devastating flooding in the Calgary, Alberta area that caused billions of dollar’s worth of property damage – not to mention incalculable losses of irreplaceable personal affects. All of this following a spring that saw an unprecedented number of what meteorologists call “severe weather events” – flooding, the fiercest bran of tornadoes, golf-ball size hail storms, extreme heat, including 70 and 80 degree F. temperatures in Alaska, of all places, and on and on – across this continent.

Of course, there was the trillion-dollar travesty of Hurricane Sandy last fall and two years ago this April, Niagara experienced near hurricane-force winds that felled thousands of trees, did hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property damage and killed two people. Continue reading →

Submitted by the West Lincoln Action Group

 (A Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – Those who support ‘green energy in Ontario, and I am among them, may object all we want. But thanks to the way the province’s recently departed premier Dalton McGuinty went about shoving green energy up everyone’s nose, what may have been most noble, progressive efforts to establish wind and solar systems as a significant source of energy in Ontario have likely been compromised for years to come.

Former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty didn’t seem to mind shoving wind farms in to rural communities that didn’t seem to want them without giving them a say in the matter. But he also didn’t mind spending hundreds of millions of dollars of our tax money moving plans for gas-powered energy plants out of two of his party ridings in Oakville and Mississauga due to a ‘not-in-my-backyard backlash that had nothing to do with the economic or environmental impacts or needs of those plants.

While other regions of the world, including economic power houses like Germany, move forward with sustainable wind and solar energy projects, Ontario has lost it thanks to an arrogant premier who alienated so many that might support such a push had he not taken away their right as communities to play a role in deciding where and how these systems should be installed.

With that, NAL is posting the following message from the West Lincoln Action Group, a citizens organization with members in the Niagara and Haldimand, Ontario regions, for your information. You may also wish to join the discussion by leaving a comment below. 

Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment has  approved the HAF Wind Energy Project involving five Industrial Wind Turbines being erected in the Caistor Centre area of West Lincoln Township.  On behalf of and with the support of the West Lincoln Glanbrook Wind Action Group, we are launching an Appeal for an Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) Hearing to overturn this Approval (REA).

The Appeal Process, articulated in the Green Energy Act, allows us to challenge why the MOE approved an Industrial intrusion in an environmentally sensitive and active Agricultural Area which is also densely populated in contrast to most Agricultural areas of the Province.  We have at least 244 homes of families and retirees within 2 km. of the 5 proposed Industrial Wind Turbines.

Scientific studies show that a significant number of these people, and others beyond two kilometres, will experience annoyance or sickness and many will not be able to remain in their homes.  These results will not only impact our health care system, but will have a financial assessment impact to our Township resulting from property devaluation of 25 per cent to 50 per cent, and some properties may not sell at any price.

The unreasonable subsidies to Wind Proponents everywhere overpower any possible benefits to consumers, especially industries.  We are all paying for the subsidies in our Taxes and Electricity Bills, and will continue to pay for the next 20 years, or more.  Without subsidies these wind power generator projects would not exist.

People are beginning to understand that the whole IWT fiasco will cost MORE than all the other government wasted events put together – the Samsung deal, two halted Gas Plants, ORNGE, Hydro One, and E-Health, etc.  There is no financial justification for what the Green Energy Act has undemocratically dumped on rural Ontario.  We do not need the electricity these IWT’s generate at off-peak hours with the need for a back-up system when the wind dies.  We pay again to have others take this surplus energy.  Ontario’s Auditor General’s 2011 Annual Report, page 112, states that, since 2006 (when IWT’s started generating power) Ontario has been a net exporter of electricity.  From 2005 – 2011, Ontario lost $1.8 billion on exported electricity, (roughly estimated at a cost of $4,000 per household, and growing).

We have engaged the services of this province’s champion of the anti-wind fight, Mr. Eric Gillespie. This week, through his efforts, Ostrander Point won their ERT Appeal against the MOE.   He has proven that these contracts can be cancelled.  We strongly believe there are sufficient reasons for the same outcome here in West Lincoln.

For more information visit the West Lincoln Action Group’s website at www.wlwag.com .

Niagara At Large is also posting the following piece here by members of the West Lincoln-Glanbrook Action Group                                                                                              

WEST LINCOLN WIND PROJECT APPEALED – July 6, 2013 

In Response to the recent Ministry of the Environment (MOE) approval of the controversial HAF Wind Energy Project for five Industrial Wind Turbines in the Caistor Centre area of West Lincoln Township two local residents have launched an appeal on behalf of and with the support of the West Lincoln Glanbrook Wind Action Group (WLGWAG).

The appeal will be heard by the Environmental Review Tribunal. 

The appellants Anne L. Fairfield and Edward Engel who stand to be surrounded and impacted by these forty-seven storey high industrial wind machines stated that they have no choice but to exercise their appeal rights as permitted under the Green Energy Act. They wish to challenge why the MOE approved an Industrial intrusion in an environmentally sensitive and active Agricultural Area which is also densely populated in contrast to most Agricultural areas of the Province. We have at least 244 homes of families and retirees within two kilometres of the five proposed Industrial Wind Turbines Scientific studies they say have shown that a significant number of these people, and others beyond two kilometres., will experience annoyance or sickness and many will not be able to remain in their homes. These results will not only impact our health care system, but will have a financial assessment impact to our Township resulting from property devaluation of 25 to 50 per cent, and some properties may not sell at any price. 

Further they state that the unreasonable subsidies to Wind Proponents everywhere overpower any possible benefits to consumers, especially industries. We are all paying for the subsidies in our Taxes and Electricity Bills, and will continue to pay for the next 20 years, or more. Without subsidies these wind power generator projects would not exist.

Thankfully they believe people are beginning to understand that the whole IWT fiasco will cost MORE than all the other government wasted events put together – the Samsung deal, two halted Gas Plants, ORNGE, Hydro One, and E-Health, etc. Ed stated that there is no financial justification for what the Green Energy Act has undemocratically

dumped on rural Ontario. “It’s ludicrous to be paying other jurisdictions to take the surplus electricity that IWT’s generate during off-peak hours plus the additional cost of the back-up generators for when the wind doesn’t blow.”

 Ontario’s Auditor General’s 2011 Annual Report, page 112, states that, since 2006 (when IWT’s started generating power) Ontario has been a net exporter of electricity. From 2005 – 2011, Ontario lost $1.8 billion on exported electricity, (roughly estimated at a cost of $4,000 per household).

Anne stated that for the appeal they had engaged the services of this province’s champion anti-wind lawyer, Eric Gillespie. She noted this past week Gillespie won a major battle at the Environmental Review Tribunal in a similar appeal of the Ostrander Point wind project where for the first time anti-wind opponents won their appeal and stopped an MOE approved wind project. Ed stated that Gillespie has proven that these contracts can be cancelled and Ed and Anne strongly believe there is sufficient evidence for the same outcome here in West Lincoln.

(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.)

From Chris West and the Save Via Rail Group

(Niagara At Large posted news a year or so ago of the decision by Canada’s Harper government to cut funding to passenger rail services across the country, including to and from regions like Niagara, Ontario.

 Good to know that there are still citizens out there fighting for a return of these services, even in the face of a federal government that cares more about selling oil made from tar crud than it does about supporting more environmentally friendly means of transportation.

Here is a piece you might want to check out and join in following the call to push a federal government, unfriendly to public transit, into the 21^st century.)

Appeal to Gary Schellenberger, MP, Harper Conservative for the riding of Perth Wellington

 When asked to get involved in the VIA issue, many felt the sole issue was ridership. Ridership is an important issue by itself and is enough reason for us to be involved.

In the ensuing months, we have discovered the VIA issue is a VERY HOT issue with the public. This has been demonstrated by phenominal media support, event support, and the emotional comments made in the media and on the current online petition. Continue reading →

Submitted by The Shaw Festival

 Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario – The sights and sounds of love come alive in The Shaw’s production of the Tony-award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza.

Photo courtesy of the Shaw Festival and the images creator, Emily Cooper.

Director Jay Turvey reunites with the creative team from last season’s Trouble in Tahiti and brings the beauty and romantic enchantment of Florence to the Court House Theatre stage. Beginning previews tonight, this lush musical was written by Craig Lucas, with music and lyrics by Adam Guettel and based on the novella by Elizabeth Spencer.

Margaret (Patty Jamieson) and her daughter Clara (Jacqueline Thair) leave their secrets behind in North Carolina touring the Italian city of Florence in the early 1950s. As Margaret revels in the beauty and ambience of the city, Clara has a chance encounter with a handsome young local named Fabrizio (Jeff Irving). The two quickly fall in love; a whirlwind courtship ensues with marriage on the horizon. While a young woman discovers the first pangs of love, a mother is forced to reconsider, not only her daughter’s future, but her own deep seated hopes and regrets as well.

The score was called “the most intensely romantic … since West Side Story” (New York Times) and the story “doesn’t want theatre-goers to feel good; it wants them to feel deeply.  And it does.” (New Yorker) 

Winner of six Tony Awards, composer-lyricist Adam Guettel also wrote the musical Floyd Collins, which the Shaw Festival produced to huge acclaim in 2004. Guettel is also the grandson of esteemed theatrical composer Richard Rodgers. Continue reading →

A Media Release from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance

Do you want to heat your home with gas pumped out of shale rock in Pennsylvania with a noxious mix of water, sand and chemicals, or would you rather save money by making your home more energy efficient?

Do we in Ontario wanted the gas from fracking operations so many residents in Pennsylvania, as is depicted here, are fighting to stop in their communities? Would we want these fracking operations to set up here?

The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has to decide this question soon in response to an application from Enbridge Inc. to expand its natural gas pipeline system in the Greater Toronto Area. Enbridge is proposing to spend $623 million on a system to bring more shale gas north. As a gas user, you will pay for the costs of this pipeline on your monthly natural gas bill.

But there is an alternative to Enbridge’s plan. By increasing spending on energy efficiency and gas alternatives like geothermal heating and cooling or solar water heating, we can simultaneously save money and reduce the need to drill thousands of wells to produce gas in a process that is a serious threat to groundwater supplies and healthy communities. Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

There was a time, not that many years ago, when a number of Niagara, Ontario’s most popular beaches were posted closed to swimming all summer long.

Bay Beach, in the old Crystal Beach area of Fort Erie, Ontario, along the shores of Lake Erie

 Not that field staff for Niagara Region’s health department was actually out at these beaches, physically barring people from going in the water. The postings were a warning that the waters were swamped with such high levels of infectious bacteria that people shouldn’t swim in them. 

Now, according to a new report called Niagara’s Beaches: Hidden Gems and prepared for the Region by Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory, there is reason for “cautious optimism” that the quality of waters at 26 of the more popular public beaches in Niagara have improved to a point where people can feel safe bathing in them. Continue reading →

(A Foreword from Niagara At Large – Unfortunately, one of the most serious problems facing some of our children in this country today, along with poverty and hunger, is physical and sexual abuse. Fortunately in this region, we have an organization in Niagara, Ontario called the Child Advocacy Centre Niagara, celebrating its fifth anniversary this 2013, here to help address it. NAL is therefore pleased to post this CACN story.)

Submitted To NAL by Antonietta Petrella

The Child Advocacy Centre for Niagara, Ontario, located in the Niagara community of St. Catharines.

For children and youth who are victims of child abuse, there is a safe place in the Niagara Region where they can speak to trained professionals.  

Child Advocacy Centre Niagara (CACN) is a safe place to tell your secrets for children and youth who have been physically abused, sexually abused, become the targets of internet luring or were the unwilling witness of violence. Approaching its five year anniversary this fall, CACN has served more than 1,400 children and youth, and their families, from across the Niagara Region, helping them to cope with the life altering impact of child abuse. Continue reading →

A Note from Jane Elder, a founding member of Great Lakes United

(A brief foreword from NAL – Since news circulated late this June of the demise of Great Lakes United, a decades-old coalition of Canadian and U.S. citizens dedicated to protecting the health of these precious waterbodies, John Jackson, one of the organization’s longtime senior members, has received numerous  expressions of sadness and concern from individuals all around the lakes.

A great blue heron, one of the many magnificent species of wildlife living in our Great Lakes region, surveys the lake waters. Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Niagara At Large received permission to post one of these notes from Jane Elder, which Jackson feels captures the spirit of much of the reaction he has received in recent days. Elder’s note speaks to the great void the closing of GLU will leave when it comes to a truly binational citizens voice for lakes. It also to a hope that  present and future generations of citizens will find some way to fill that void for the sake of keeping pressure on governments in both countries to address the many environmental challenges the continue Great Lakes face.

Now here is Jane Elder’s note.) Continue reading →

By Doug Draper, publisher, Niagara At Large

When I returned to my home and native land of Canada following a trip to the land of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts this spring, there seemed little to feel proud and patriotic about back here.

Tall ships from U.S. and Canada gather in Port Dalhousie Harbour in St. Catharines, Ontario for Canada Day weekend. Photo by Doug Draper

There was the ongoing federal Senate scandal featuring Duffy, Wallin and company, the continued outrage over hundreds of millions of our tax dollars former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberals flushed down the crapper to cancel two controversial plans to build gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga, the ongoing vaudeville act of Rob and Doug Ford in Toronto, just to mention some of the highlights or low points, if you will. And I am losing track f how many mayors have been forced to leave office in disgrace in Quebec. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

Canada’s Conservative/Reform Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper has once again shown us what Canadian rights he thinks should be respected by police and which ones shouldn’t.

Canada’s top sheriff Stephen Harper throws his RCMP posse under the wagon wheels in cheap bid to please gun owners

In a statement Canada’s answer to the American Tea Party released this past Friday, June 28, Harper criticized officers for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for removing easy to locate guns from homes abandoned by people during the recent tragic flooding in the Calgary, Alberta area, and he exhorted the officers to return these guns to their owners “as soon as possible.” 

“We (meaning Harper and his larger contingent of trained party seals, I guess) believe the RCMP  should focus on more important tasks such as protecting lives and private property,” the statement from the prime minister’s office said. 

Contrast this with Harper’s reaction to actions taken by members of police forces across Canada, including the RCMP, three years ago this June when the G-20 Summit was held in Toronto, and more than 1,000 Canadian citizens, including some of the greater Niagara area, were arrested and detained for a day or more without any charges ever being laid, and in what Ontario’s Ombudsman Andre Marin later described as time where Canada’s respect for civil liberties gave way to martial law. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

“We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society. Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm. And ultimately, we will be judged as a people, and as a society, and as a country on where we go from here.”

–         U.S. President Barack Obama, from a speech he delivered on climate change on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. this June 25, 2013.

We don’t have any more time for the flat earth thinkers, indeed! Nor for some of the same scientists who claimed that smoking had nothing to do with lung cancer now saying that some of our earthly activities have nothing to do with climate change.

U.S. President Barack Obama finally aims fire at climate change

Nor, quite thankfully, does U.S. President Barack Obama or anyone else who has been paying attention to more recent, excessively frequent severe weather pattners and who now accepts the possibility that there is such a thing as climate change and that our relentless burning of fossil fuels may have something to do with it.

One government that refuses to accept it, of course, is the Reform/Conservative/Tar Sands Party of Stephen Harper of Canada and his fellow knuckle draggers who have continued to view any evidence, presented by Nobel and other award winning scientists around the world, that we have a growing problem here of global proportions. To Harper and company, any possibility that human activities or that their precious interests in the tar sands and the corporate pirates profitting from them have anything to do with climate change is a commie joke. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The Great Lakes and the tens-of-millions of people living around them in Ontario, New York and several other U.S. states have lost an old friend.

Our Lower Great Lakes from space. Click on this and you will find our Greater Niagara Region. Who will be a watchdog for these vital waterbodies now?

Great Lakes United – a binational coalition of public and private groups with headquarters in Buffalo, New York and Montreal Quebec – is no more. Niagara At Large has received word that its board has decided to pack the three decade old group in, apparently because it could no longer count on financial and whatever other support it needed to survive.

That is sad news for those of us with an interested in protecting the health of these vital freshwater bodies, just as it may be good news for some governments and vital polluters, because in its heyday, some two decades ago, Great Lakes United played a significant role in raising public awareness about threats to the lakes and in keeping governments on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border on their toes. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano 

There is an increasingly polarized but submerged dynamic in Canada which revolves around   pipelines, resource extraction, First Nations, and climate change.  Sometimes the tensions rise to the surface and more awareness is created.

This is what is happening right now in Ontario, Canada, in areas traversed by the “Line 9” pipeline.

Enbridge Inc. currently uses a 38 year old pipeline (Line 9) to transport petroleum from Montreal to Sarnia. Thirty-eight year old pipelines are not thick: this one is ¼ inch thick, and it measures 30 inches in diameter.  Replacement pipes are ½ inch thick. Continue reading →

NAL Pride Kathleen Wynne,

As Toronto Celebrates Pride Week, Ontario’s First Openly Gay Premier Celebrates Province As A ‘Place Of ‘Fairness And Opportunity’

(A Brief Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper – If someone were to say two decades ago that today Ontario  would not only have a female premier, but the first openly gay premier in Canada, I may have said; ‘Maybe British Columbia or Quebece, but small c-conservative Ontario? I don’t think so. Well, here we are and NAL is posting the following message, circulated this last week of June 2013, for our readers thoughts and comments)

An Open Letter from Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne

When I ran for the leadership of this party, some people asked if Ontario was ready for an openly gay Premier. I said that the people of Ontario judge each other on their merits and their ideas, not according to race or religion or sexual identity.

And now, as communities across the province celebrate Pride, I know I was right.

For the past few months, I’ve travelled this great province and met all kinds of people. They want great jobs and vibrant communities. They care about their kids’ education and the needs of their aging parents. They’re interested in new ideas and strong leadership.

We are lucky to live in a province where diversity, acceptance and equality are defining principles. Where everyone is respected and has a chance to do their best.

So as we celebrate Pride, we celebrate Ontario as place of fairness and opportunity. And we dedicate ourselves to protecting those fundamental values for the sake of future generations.

Please share this message so the people of Ontario know that they are my source of pride.

Kathleen

Another NAL footnote – You can click on the following link for information on events for Pride Week in Toronto, including that city’s, super popular (for gays and straights alike)  33^rd annual Pride Parade on Sunday, June 20 – http://www.toronto.com/search/?q=pride13 .

(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 Brief Note by NAL publisher Doug Draper

“I got to say; Goodbye; goodbye.”-  From John Lennon’s song, Mother.

 Due to a death in the family, Niagara At Large will not be adding any new posts to this independent site for news and commentary for a few days.

A beach on Cape Cod, one of the first places my mother wanted us to vacation as a family, all those years ago. I’d like to think she is back there in spirit, walking along one of those beaches now. Photo by Doug Draper

Yes, I know. It was only a week ago that I promised to charge up Niagara At Large with post after post of engaging information for our growing NAL visitors to discuss and debate following a month that I was more or less off. But there are many things in life and death that we have no control over, and my family happened upon one of them this Friday, June 21 – the first day of summer, as it turned out, that is usually an occasion for celebration for this lover of sunnier days when the livin’ is a little more easy.

I thank all of you, once again, for your patience since I know that news sites on the web can often die if you don’t, as they say, ‘keep feeding the beast’ on a more or less daily basis.

In the meantime, give any living parents and grandparents a hug if you want to, while you still can.

(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

With the G-8 Summit hosted this third week of June, 2013 in Ireland, it is hard not to recall the G-20 summit Canada’s Harper government, with the blessing of Ontario’s McGuinty Liberals, hosted in Toronto, Ontario a mere three years ago this June.

John Pruyn, being dragged way by riot police after having his artifical leg removed. The Welland Ontario federal government worker and part-time farmer was locked in a makeshift jail, then released without any charges or explanation for his detention, a day later. He had been sitting on the grass near Queen’s Park in Toronto, listening to citizen activists offer talks on jobs, environmental protection and other issues before being dragged away.

I imagine that few people would remember what transnational business transpired inside the heavily fortified walls and fences of that summit, which officially took place on June 26 and 27, and yet had a heavy presence in the city of Toronto, Ontario for the better part of a week. But few will forget the epic clashes that between police and demonstrators and others, including citizens that had absolutely nothing to do with those demonstrations – clashes that included hundreds of arbitrary arrests in what Ontario’s independent, provincially appointed Ombudsman Andre Marin later described as a “sad legacy” of “ugly scenes” where Canada’s respect for civil liberties gave way to “martial law.”

It remains, in my view, one of the most disgraceful assaults on free expression and democracy in Canada in the six decades since my birth and life in this country, and it was particularly disappointing that so many Canadian citizens, not to mention politicians, reacted by saying that’ you don’t have to worry’ about a massive police assault ‘if you have done nothing wrong,’ and that the people who went to what were mostly peaceful rallies and were hauled off to makeshift jails ‘must have deserved it. …. They should have stayed home.’ Continue reading →

A Foreword by Doug Draper

This past winter, during Black History Month in February, and during March, which has come to be recognized as Women’s History Month, residents across Niagara recognized one of its great heroines.

This stamp, part of a series for honouring famous Canadian women, was issued by Canada Post in 1992. It reads; ‘Laura Secord, Lengendary Patriot’ and depicts her on her June 1813 walk into history.

Her name was Harriet Tubman, a former slave who was born in the United States but made her home base in the Niagara, Ontario community of St. Catharines for some of the turbulent years leading up to the American Civil as she played a leading role as an abolitionist and in guiding slaves northward to freedom through the ‘underground railway’.

This June, it is time to celebrate another woman who played a dynamic role in this region’s history, and her name is Laura Secord.

Not that Laura, who was also born in the United States, in a beautiful community called Great Barrington in the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts before moving in the late 1700s to what was then Upper Canada and her eventual home in Queenston, has ever been that far away from the thoughts of anyone who was born and raised in Niagara. Her courageous walk, beginning in the late hours of June 22, 1813 and covering some 20 miles or 32 kilometres from Queenston to the Decew area of Thorold to warn British troops and their Mohawk allies of a coming attack from American forces. Continue reading →

A Brief from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

 If you are one of the countless number of residents or visitors to Niagara, Ontario who has enjoyed some of this region’s conservation areas and the bounty of natural riches they offer, one of the people we can thank is Doug Elliott.

Niagara conservationist pioneer Doug Elliot. Photo courtesy of Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority

Not that Doug Elliot, from all of the humility that came through in the short time I had a chance to get to know him , was ever in it for the thanks of others. For this Welland, Ontario resident, it most always seemed to be about preserving natural spaces for which he felt such reverence for present and future generations.

Doug Elliot, a founding member of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, established in 1959 as one of numerous stewards hip agencies of its kind across the province, passed away this June 10 at age 88 – a year after receiving a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for his decades of selfless efforts to protect and preserve something of our natural heritage here. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano 

Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best ones.  Unfortunately, though, Canada’s extreme concentration of corporate power often precludes the solutions from ever seeing the light of day.

The first step towards resolution of this problem is nomenclature. We need to free corporate-fashioned words from their false meanings.

Here are some examples.  Trade deals, including the so-called “free trade” deals which have crippled North American manufacturing , are more accurately described as “corporate empowerment” deals. Invariably, these deals empower transnational companies to relocate where wages are low (or in the case of prison labour, non-existent), where collective bargaining doesn’t exist, and where unions are impotent or non-existent. Continue reading →

Submitted by Willy Noiles

The Niagara Injured Workers Centre will host a public hearing June 18 as part of a series of province-wide hearings based on the 100^th anniversary of the tabling of Sir William Meredith’s report on workmen’s compensation.

Organizers of Meredith 100 will be holding hearings over the next few months to find out how the workers’ compensation system is working, with Niagara as the first stop.

In October 1913, Meredith published his final report in which he outlined the fundamental principles he believed should form a fair and just workmen’s compensation system. Meredith outlined six principles, which have become known as Meredith’s Principles—no fault, non-adversarial, compensation for as long as the disability lasts, employer pays, collective liability and an independent public agency.

McMaster University’s Labour Studies Professor Robert Storey will be traveling across Ontario to learn how changes made to the workers’ compensation system over the last 20 years have altered Meredith’s principles. Continue reading →

NIAGARA REGION – June 18– Niagara, Ontario’s regional government is making $50,000 available to help students from low-income families access post-secondary education.

Niagara Regional Chair Gary Burroughs

Applications for the 2013/2014 academic year are now being accepted.

 Full bursaries of up to $500 will be available to eligible students entering a college or university program leading to a certificate, diploma or degree. Applicants must be 18 – 34 years old by Aug. 30, 2013.

 Partial bursaries of up to $250 will be available to students beginning a short-term academic upgrading, apprenticeship, trade or skills-based training program. Continue reading →

As she promised, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne wants to criss cross the province this spring and summer, meeting with residents and hearing their concerns.

Here are her Niagara stops as submitted to Niagara At Large by the premier’s office, posted for your information. Continue reading →

A Brief Foreword by Doug Draper

Ontario’s Liberal government may believe that a public apology and that directing those once exposed to extraordinarily high levels of an Agent Orange-related chemical to file any claims they may have for health impacts to the province’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) may be enough.

NDP Ontario House Leader Gilles Bisson insists promised must accept more liability for former hydro workers exposed to Agent Orange.

However, and in the wake of the release this June 13^th of a government-sponsored report concluding that hundreds of former Ontario Hydro workers, including workers in the greater Niagara region, were exposed to levels of this chemical hundreds of times above concentrations that would be considered safe, critics say the province is attempting to lessen liability here rather than open a door for compensation to those exposed and their families.

Ontario Hydro workers and who knows how many others in the vicinity of sprawying operationers were exposed to this chemical – known technically as 2,4,5-T which produces a byproduct toxin called dioxin – from the 1940 through to the late 1970s, when it was used as a vegetation defoliant around hydro lines before it was banned from further use in 1980. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Countless hundreds, if not thousands of former Ontario Hydro workers, including possibly many who live and worked here in the greater Niagara region, were exposed to unsafe levels of one of the world’s most toxic chemicals  a potentially lethal dioxin-related agent known as 2,4,5-T  until use of the chemical was ultimately banned in the province in 1980.

This chemical – deployed for wiping out plant life in a powerful Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange – was sprayed here in Niagara and elsewhere across Ontario to kill back vegetation on Ontario Hydro properties. It was sometimes sprayed, according to a report released this June 13 by an expert paneal reporting to the province’s Ministry of Natural Resources, in concentrations hundreds of times above what scientists would now consider safe levels.

That means that there were likely former Ontario Hydro workers and possibly others here in the greater Niagara region exposed to unsafe levels of this chemical. And if that is the case, Niagara At Large would like to hear from you or members of your family for the purposes of letting you share your story on this site. If you are one who was exposed to this poison, email Niagara At Large at drapers@vaxxine.com .

In a conference call Niagara At Large participated in with Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak this June 13, we asked about this. Hudak responded that he had not yet had time to read the full report, although he knew it was coming down. However, he added, that if the evidence shows former Ontario Hydro workers and possibly others were exposed to unsafe levels of Agent Orange related chemicals, then the province should give some consideration to compensating them and ensuring they receive full benefits for any health effects. Continue reading →

A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

The memory of my last evening walk on a Cape Cod beach this spring is washing away like footprints in the sand, and I’m back in my native region of the world only to discover – to my dismay, but not too much surprise – that little of what I left here this May has changed.

Last peaceful walk on a beach before the scandals and madness of a world inland from here washes back in. Photo by Doug Draper

Mike Duffy, along with Pamela Wallin and other shameless swine, are still feeding from a trough in a senate that should be abolished, and the Harper government goes on and on supporting all of this. All while high-priced accountants charge Canadian taxpayers more to audit the e papers of these senators than they allegedly pocketed through some crafty reporting of their expenses.

At the provincial level, the gas-plant scandal goes on even as former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty breaks yet another promise to go on serving as an MPP for his Ottawa area riding until the next election. McGuinty announced this June 12 that he is now, which is not so surprising considering the rising number of questions over news that his staff did its best to delete email related to a scandal that has so far cost Ontario taxpayers more than $580 million.

On the Niagara regional front, look forward to the possibility that a critical mass of regional councillors will deem the pilot regional transit system, launched two years ago this coming . That will leave Niagara as the only region of its size or larger in southern Ontario, with no regional transit system – a fact that will further discourage young people from living and working here, businesses from moving here and inter-regional services like GoTrain or Metrolinx from providing further services here.

So given those and so many other issues we face, it is time for Niagara At Large to get back to work as the only truly independent, alternative online voice in the greater Niagara region outside of one or two sites on the American side of the Niagara River.

I have received numerous emails from people over the past four weeks wondering when NAL would get back to work and I have been surprised by the many hundreds of people who have continued to visit the site and comment on aging posts over that same period of time. It encourages me to believe that there is a place for a news and commentary site like this – a site that offers something far more than the usual fair of crime, traffic accident and building fire stories highlighted by mainstream media chains in Niagara.

So thanks for your patience over the past four weeks as we recharge ourselves here and we promise we will be back with some journalism free of the corporate chains that enslave so many others that pass themselves off as sources of news today.

We will have more to say about Niagara At Large’s pledge to remain an independent, non-partisan voice for ordinary people and social justice for all when we return this coming June 18.

We look forward to meeting you back here on this site then.

(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 Brief by Doug Draper 

Regardless of how you feel about Ontario’s relatively new premier Kathleen Wynne and her efforts to recast a Liberal government sullied by Dalton McGuinty, let’s at least give her credit for wanting to be more available to we, the province’s people.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne

For about the third or fourth time, Wynne will do a full hour of open line questions with whoever calls on CBC Radio’s Ontario Today, on the radio at 99.1 FM this Thursday, June 13 at noon. She is the first premier I know of who has run this kind of gauntlet in many, many years, and as I already said, she deserves at least a bit of credit for that.

The last time I heard an exchange between Wynne and callers on this program, the back and forth, however adversarial, was far more civil than what you get during question period in the Ontario legilislature. 

If you have a question or a beef with the premier and her government you might want to consider calling in this program. The toll-free number anywhere in Ontario is 1-888-817-8995. You can also send a question or comment to CBC’s Ontario Today via email at ontariotoday@cbc.ca .

(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 Submission to Niagara At Large from one fine communications manager, John Hassell, for the not-for-profit environmental organization Ontario Nature

(A short note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper on this one from John and Ontario Nature – Between this news and all of the garbage around Canada’s senators Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin, and the clown show the Ford brothers are operating in Canada’s largest city of Toronto, I am almost sorry to be home from a vacation in a relatively sane region on the continent in the New England region of Cape Cod Massachusetts.

This image of Woodland Caribou, an endangered species in Ontario and across Canada, is from a David Suzuki Foundation site. We trust that Dr. Suzuki will not mind us coping the image to get this upsetting information out about an Ontario government that is willing to weaken already weak endangered species regulations to gut even more wild space in the province.

 This latest news about the gutting of even more of the protections we have left for endangered species in this province of Ontario, Canada, where regulations for protecting species on the worldwide endangered list are already among the weakest in the developed world, is particularly discouraging. I had hoped that the new Liberal premier of this province, Kathleen Wynne, would be a little more of an environmentalist than her God-awful predecessor Dalton McGuinty. But maybe not.

I know there are arguments from developers and exploiters of natural resources for gutting environmental protection laws, but how far do we go in that direction. Don’t we give a shit about saving anything for our children or our grandchildren? Or does everything have to be about raping whoever or whatever for a buck?)

Toronto, May 31, 2013 – The provincial Cabinet announced today May 31^st) its approval of sweeping exemptions for industry under the Endangered Species Act, 2007 (ESA).  Environmental organizations are incensed at the government’s abdication of its responsibility to protect and recover Ontario’s endangered plants and animals. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Ontario Health Coalition

(A short preface from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – This is a worthy cause but I think many in Niagara, Ontario know where we are at now. The NHS opened its super hospital at a north Niagara site in west St. Catharines, and many services at other hospitals in central and south Niagara have been shut down and consolidated into this site.

Chidlren at a rally this past winter in Welland, Ontario for saving services at Welland and other suth Niagara hospitals. The services were sucked into the north Niagara, west St. Catharines, Niagara Health System new health centre anyway. Maybe children like this should have been rallying for south Niagara hospital services a decade ago? File photo by Doug Draper

I often wonder where the Ontario Health Coalition was when Niagara area doctors and nurses, and other citizens in this community  wanted this new west St. Catharines hospital to be located at a more central site in the region. Perhaps it was still hoping that we could go on sustaining hospital services at small sites throughout the province at a cost that is virtually unsustainable. There seemed to be a denial on the coalition’s part that some consolidation of services is the only way to make hospitals work in an age of rising medical staff and technology costs, and that the only alternative might be to at least make sure any new hospital is located in a central, accessible site for people in regions like Niagara.

Having said that, there may be some merit in attending the Ontario Health Coalition’s rally on the grounds of Queen’s Park this June. I don’t know. – Doug Draper, NAL.)           

 Toronto, Ontario –What: Day of Action at Queen’s Park Main Legislative Building. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

Monopoly capitalism is a particularly virulent strain of economics which is ascendant in today’s poltical environment of corporate empowerment deals that are robbing us of our economic and political self-determination as a nation.

An icon of this economy is the Monsanto company, which might better be named “Mon Satan”.

Monsanto’s roots are pesticides, with one of its most infamous products being Agent Orange — proclaimed to be “safe” for humans, which ultimately killed or disabled about 900,000 people in Vietnam. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance

Toronto, May 28 – The Pickering A Nuclear Station in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario  is the highest cost nuclear plant in North America while the Pickering B Station is the 5^th highest cost.

Ontario’s aging Pickering nuclear power plant, located along the north shores of Lake Ontario in the Greater Toronto Area, is sucking more than its share out of our wallets..

The good news is that the operating licences for the aging Pickering reactors expire in 2014 and 2015. Phasing out these high-cost reactors would reduce our electricity bills by $850 million per year or 5%.

But despite these potential savings, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) is seeking permission from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Premier Kathleen Wynne to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to extend the operating lives of these aging high-cost reactors for another four to six years. Continue reading →

OTTAWA – This May 27 in the House of Commons, New Democrat MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ontario) asked the Minister of Labour to take action to help laid-off employees of Vertis Communications receive the protection they deserve.

Niagara, Ontario area federal representative Malcolm Allen continues fight for justice for former Vertis plant workers

“100 workers at Vertis Communications found themselves out of work this January when the company simply closed its doors and declared bankruptcy…in the United States.” said Allen. “It should have declared bankruptcy in this country but it did not. If it had done so, the Wage Earner Protection Program (WEPP) would have covered these workers to the tune of $3,640.00 for each and every individual worker.”

Since the beginning of the year, former workers of Vertis Communications have been left out in the cold – denied pensions and severance pay owed to them because of Vertis’s bankruptcy. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

I am just getting back from a visit to friends in the Cape Cod/Boston area and one of the major stories dominating the cable news on MSNBC and other cable news channels down there in the U.S.A. is the clown show run by Rob and Doug Ford in Canada’s preeminate city of Toronto.

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper enjoys time with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. What a pair.

Once again, these two idiots are making national and now international news as one or the other of the Ford brothers are accused of being possible crack addicts, former hash traffickers, and so on and so forth

Up to now, one might put up with the stupidity of Rob Ford – the mayor as opposed to Doug Ford who sits on the city’s council – for moving to close city libraries and for not knowing who Margaret Atwood, a Pulitzer Prise winning author from Toronto,   is if he passed her on the street. One might even be able to put up with allegations that he has been thrown out of public events in his city for behaving badly or in ways that suggested to some that he was stoned or drunk. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large remains officially at rest for some recharging and retooling until about the beginning of this June. However, we want to take a moment to post this one.

If you are in to high-flying aerobatics as I’ve been (going back to the days when Canada’s Golden Hawks – does anyone remember them? – reigned as the greatest jet-flying team in the world – the Canadian Forces’ world-renown Snowbirds will be doing a gig over the great Falls of Niagara this Wednesday, May 29 at 6 p.m.

More importantly, this Snowbirds show is taking place as one more way of celebrating the 125^th anniversary of Queen Victoria Park, a key piece of the Niagara River corridor Ontario’s Niagara Parks Commission was created to protect and preserve for generations to come.

Queen Victoria Park – overlooking the American Falls from the parks corridor in Niagara, Ontario. Celebrate its 125th anniversary. It is a promise to protect at least some of what green space is left along the Niagara River corridor for future generations.

Over the past 125 years and since the creation of Queen’s Victoria Park k – considered by many to be the heart of the  Parks Commission’s lands along the Ontario side of the Niagara River, countless awful decisions have been made around the development of lands in this  province and country. They stand in stark contrast to a decision made by past generations to preserve green space along the shores of this awesome river. Indeed, it is one of the most courageous decisions made for the public good in a world where  shoreline properties are more typically sold off to those private investors with the deepest pockets. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

There is that old line – “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

Canada’s Senate at work – nothing more than pigs ripping Canadian taxpayers off. Contact your MP and demand to get rid of it.

Allow me to alter that line to say – “If it looks like a pig, rolls in the mud like a pig and snorts like a pig, then it is probably a pig.” And that just about sums up the unelected, unaccountable barn of Liberal and Conservative appointed party hacks that make up Canada’s senate.

And the worst of the lot at the moment – the poster pig, if I might say so – is Mike Duffy, a former Canadian broadcast journalist who was a Tory hack then and a Tory hack now, who delivered up a pile of pig manure over where he lives in Canada and his Senate expense, and has now had the $90,000 in expenses he finally said he would pay back to us covered by none other than Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel Wright. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The Ontario Liberal government’s decision two years ago to cancel plans for gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga is enough of a “scandal” to justify the same kind of judicial inquiry that has been investigating and charging politicians in Quebec over corrupt dealings involving public contracts, said Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak during a telephone conference for the media that Niagara At Large participated in this May 16.

Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak

“I think we need a judicial inquiry into this gas plant scandal,” said Hudak, who leads Ontario’s official opposition party, during the teleconference.

“Perjury and destroying public documents is a criminal offense,” Hudak said before adding that “maybe the threat of having jail cell doors shut behind them” will cause the reigning Liberals in Ontario to be more forthcoming about who exactly was responsible and how much of the province’s tax money – possibly above and beyond the $585 million already disclosed – on closing these plant projects down. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of U.S. Congressman Brian Higgins

(A Brief Note from Niagara At Large – This is arguably good news from U.S. Congressman Brian Higgins, who represents the Buffalo/Western New York area.

Another toll or any other burden imposed on cross-border travellers in the Niagara,Ontario/Western New York regions would have further hurt the economies of communities on both sides of the border.)

Rep. Higgins Wins Approval of Amendment to Block Northern Border Toll Study

Congressman Leads Effort in House of Representatives to Stop Land Border Crossing Fee

U.S. Congressman Brian Higgins from the Buffalo/Western New York region.

May 15, 2013 – Congressman Brian Higgins (NY-26) won approval for an amendment blocking the U. S. Department of Homeland Security’s plan to study a new land crossing fee at our borders.  Higgins introduced the amendment during today’s House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security hearing to markup H.R. 1417, the Border Security results Act of 2013

“This is a huge victory for Western New York and other communities across the Northern Border that rely on the seamless flow of people and goods between the U.S. and Canada to support our economies,” said Higgins.  “The fee would have put an unfair burden on residents who frequently travel across the border and the cost of the proposed study would have taken resources, already stretched thin, away from significantly more critical security needs.”  Continue reading →

A Submission from the not-for-profit group Wipe Out Poverty in Niagara

On Wednesday, May 22, 2013, the Niagara Poverty Reduction Network (NPRN) will be hosting the Wipe Out Poverty in Niagara Call to Action Launch at the Welland Community Wellness Complex from 8:30am – 10am. You are invited to be a part of the community action working together to wipe out poverty across Niagara.

Join us and take a closer look at the growing poverty issues in the Niagara Region and discuss the options we have as a community to cultivate change and wipe it out. There are four things we know about poverty in Niagara that guide the way we address it and the steps we take to reduce it: Poverty is a complex problem with interlocking causes and effects and solutions must also be interlocking, comprehensive, and preventative. We absolutely must address income to address poverty. Poverty is an individual experience and the whole community’s problem. Poverty comes with a price tag. These four facts help to frame the call to action that will be shared May 22. Continue reading →

A Submission from Niagara, Ontario’s Regional Government

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large – If you are among those in this region who believes we, the people, should have access to our Great Lakes shorelines, and that they should not just be the monopoly of shoreline developers, you may wish to attned this meeting or at least offer feedback to Niagara’s regional government on this issue.)

Residents are invited to attend Region’s Lakefront Enhancement workshop

Bay Beach in the Crystal Beach area of Fort Erie, Ontario where a high-rise condo is going up that some fear will compromise public access to the beach.

NIAGARA REGION, May 15, 2013 – Media and the public are invited to attend the Lakefront Enhancement Strategy public workshop. The workshop will provide information on how the strategy is being developed and provide opportunities for the public to provide input.

Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office Of Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak

(A short foreword from Niagara At Large – You follow what is such a senseless murder of an Ancaster, Ontario man and you are left with the hollow question – Why?!!! What did they kill this husband and father for? The truck he was selling? Whatever money he had in his wallet?

One individual has already been apprehended and charged with murder. Let’s hope whoever else was involved in this is apprehended as soon as possible so that they do not have time to move on and commit this nightmare on another innocent family.

NAL is running this particular piece because many people in the Niagara area, including Tim Hudak’s riding, became involved in the efforts to search for him and hopefully find him alive until his burned body was discovered this May 13^th.)

Murdered Ancaster, Ontario resident Tim Bosma in file photo with daughter.

On the murder of Tim Bosma, Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak, May 15, 2013 

I want to express my sorrow, and revulsion, at the murder of Tim Bosma of Ancaster.

Tim’s close-knit family had many friends in my nearby riding of Niagara-West Glanbrook. Uncounted numbers of my constituents volunteered to help in the search, which now has come to a terrible conclusion. Continue reading →

A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

It has been a long, cold winter coming into a spring that has yet to warm up, and my fingers are getting a little sore from all of this tapping.

One nice Atlantic beach along the town of Chatham, on Cape Cod. File photo by Doug Draper

So dear Niagara At Large readers, it is time to take a few nice, long walks on the beach to both rest the mind and those sore fingers, and to put all of the craziness that makes up too much of the news we are bombarded with into perspective.

All of this is a way of saying that this site will slow down over the last couple of weeks of May before firing up again this coming June with what I want to be a more daring and edgier version of NAL. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

I was going to begin this one by asking how former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty can live with himself. Then I quickly reminded myself that a jackal like this (with my apologies to jackals of the canine variety) can live with himself quite easily.

The arrogant creep that was – former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty

Think I am being a little hard on the former premier here. Well, think about it again.

I mean here are many of the rest of us in this province, who this creep once claimed to care about , busting our butts. trying to keep enough of a job to put food on our tables. Meanwhile, McGuinty – still premier at the time – is deciding to undo plans to build gas-fired power plants in Mississauga and Oakville two years ago because the plans were up against enough ‘not-in-my-backyard’ protest from residents in those communities to possibly cost his Liberal government a couple of key seats in the legislature. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Welland, Ontario Riding MP Malcolm Allen

Malcolm Allen supports Welland Canal (Seaway) Memorial

 Ottawa – M.P. Malcolm Allen (Welland) has written the government asking that they fulfill a long time commitment to build a memorial that would commemorate those lost while constructing the Welland Canal.

The Welland Canal, right into the 21st century, remains a major channel for shipping goods all over the world.

During the building of the Welland Canal from 1914-1932, 124 men tragically lost their lives while working in difficult and dangerous conditions. When the canal opened in 1932, the Federal Minister of Canals and Railways of the time committed to building a memorial to remember the sacrifice of those men. Unfortunately to this day, that memorial still does not exist. Continue reading →

News from Ontario’s Niagara Parks Commission 

Niagara Falls, Ontario, May 2013 – The Niagara Parks Commission (NPC), in partnership with the Friends of the Niagara Glen and the Niagara Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC), are pleased to announce the return of the ‘Spring in the Niagara Glen’ guided hiking tours and star-gazing event on Saturday, May 18.

An aireal view of the Niagara Glen area along the lower Niaara River.

Hiking Tours

At both 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., guests are invited to take part in free guided hikes into the magnificent Niagara Glen to explore and experience the blooms of elusive rare and unique spring ephemerals (flowers), along with the return of local birds and other wildlife. Spring ephemerals, such as Red and White Trilliums, Wild Columbine and Dutchman’s Breeches, are only in bloom for a short period of time each spring. From week to week, the variety of blooming wildflowers is constantly changing so you never know what you may discover. Continue reading →

A Brief by Doug Draper

I rarely ever said ‘yes’ to his decidedly right-wing positions on issues, but I never ever – not once – questioned his dedication to what little is left of this profession of journalism we both practiced, in our own ways.

Canadian journalist Peter Worthington

Peter Worthington, who died this May 12 at age 87, was an award-winning reporter with the Toronto Telegram – a late, great Canadian daily newspaper that died so sadly in 1971 – and he was one of a handful of Telegram journalists who went on to found The Toronto Sun as a Toronto version of a New York City tabloid that worked as an independent alternative to the surviving, more mainstream dailies, The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star, long before the ungodly likes of Sun Media and Quebecor came along. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The last time I saw Alun Hughes was a year ago this spring at the opening ceremonies for the War of 1812 Bicentennial in Queenston Heights Park.

Alun Hughes, a passionate chronicler of our greater Niagara region’s history

He had already been diagnosed with a rapidly debilitating neurological disorder, yet it was no surprise that he was there, soaking in all of the bows to our collective history the event had to offer with that twinkle in his eyes and a smile.

Alun Hughes, a native of Wales and retired Brock University geography professor who was recognized as an honourary civic historian by the municipal council in his adopted town of Thorold, Ontario as recently as this February, died this Friday, May 10 with his wife Joyce Little and other members of his family at his side. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

Queen’s Park, May 10, 2013 – Andrea Horwath, Leader of Ontario’s New Democrats, says people want to see some accountability in Ontario’s Budget and their healthcare. That’s why she is calling for Ontario’s Ombudsman to have oversight into the health care sector.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath

“Ontarians told us they want clear, concrete change in health care. They’re tired of the Liberal government saying ‘just trust us’,” said Horwath. “Asking Ontario’s Ombudsman’s Ombudsman to have oversight into the health care sector is a fair and reasonable way to start building trust.”

“Families have seen their faith in the health care system shaken by chemotherapy underdosing, scandals at Ornge air ambulance and the government’s failure to guarantee home care wait times. We need to do better,” said Horwath. Continue reading →

What’s Saddest Off All Is That There Are Too Few Like Him – Another  Farewell To Niagara, Ontario’s Peter Kormos

A Brief Comment by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

A month and a half later, it is still hard to believe that Peter Kormos left us on a late March morning at age 60.

Peter Kormos in action at Ontario Queen’s Park legislature

He was such a dynamic presence in the life of the Niagara, Ontario and the province going back as far as his days as a student activist in the 1960s, that one almost expects him to be back up on his feet tomorrow, speaking out for everyone from young people struggling to pay the costs of going to college to university, to people being thrown out of work or seniors trying to live out their lives with some dignity on a fixed income. Continue reading →

A Submission from Niagara Action for Animals

(Niagara At Large is always pleased to promote the efforts of NAFA to find one of their furry friends a secure home, and it looks like Calvin, who is described as a friendly but shy cat, needs someone who is willing to adopt him as a member of their family as soon as possible. If you know of someone who is looking for a nice cat, please pass the following on.)

Calvin, who is about 2 years old, is neutered and has had his first shots.  Calvin showed up at a managed colony of cats and the colony caretaker is currently looking for a foster or permanent home for Calvin.

If no home is found by the end of this week, he will have to be returned to the colony. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

I picked up a bumper sticker in an independent bookstore called Talking Leaves in Buffalo, New York a few years back that reads ( and there is no typo here); ‘Mall Wart – Your Source For Cheap, Plastic Crap.’

This is my idea for a slogan for cheap t-shirts that might bring a message home. Wonder if anyone would buy it? Doug Draper

It’s a line I am sure most of us can relate to since most all of us have done our share of buying cheap crap in discount marts, whether it be that $5 t-shirt or $10 pair of jeans.

This brings me to the more than 700 workers in Bangladesh who, for wages at or below 20 cents an hour, were producing garments for dozens of North American-based retail chains until  late this April when the multi-storey sweatshop they were toiling in collapsed and crushed them to death.

It is sad that it has taken a catastrophe on this scale to finally get more people across Canada and the United States thinking and talking about the deplorable conditions many around the world work in so that we may enjoy the lowest prices possible at some facsimile of ‘Mal Wart’. Continue reading →

A Submission To NAL from Ontario Nature

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large – One would hope that the new Liberal premier, Kathleen Wynne, would care more about this than her predecessor Dalton McGuinty on this issue, so vital to Ontario’s ecological health. And where is the NDP and the Conservatives, who could collectively hold the minority Liberal government’s feet to the fire until it backed off further weakening this province’s legislation for protecting endangerered species. They seem to be almost nowhere, so far. Time for all good citizens to pay them a call.)

Ontario’s Spotted turtle is one of many species across the province that are at risk of disappearing if more isn’t done to protect them.

The Ministry of Natural Resources has put forward recommendations that would weaken protection for Ontario’s at-risk wildlife. Sweeping new exemptions to our Endangered Species Act (ESA) are on the table that would allow industry to dodge crucial protection measures.

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

Say no to further endangering already endangered species! Take action now! Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Don’t know about you, but I have just about had it with Ontario and other governments – local, state and elsewhere across this continent – wringing their hands over gambling casinos and who is going to profit from the spoils.

Just keep dropping those coins in those slots suckers. We could use the money to fill potholes.

Gambling casinos are just another scam governments are using to pick the pockets of anyone sucker enough to haunt them, and who cares about those idiots anyway? If they are stupid enough to throw their money down slot machines or crap tables, why in hell should the rest of us care about them?

I mean, let’s put things in perspective here. In a province on a continent where there a far short of enough decent jobs for young people graduating from college and university with record-high debts, and where people are struggling to get access to decent social and health care services, we’re supposed to worry about where gambling casinos are located and what government is going to get the biggest cut from the suckers that frequent them? Continue reading →

A Submission from Niagara’s Regional Government 

NIAGARA REGION, May 6, 2013 –  May 5 through May 11 is Drinking Water Week, an opportunity for both water professionals and the communities they serve to join together in recognition of the vital role water plays in our daily lives.

For the second year in a row, Niagara Region’s water and wastewater services has partnered with the City of Niagara Falls and the Ontario Water Works Association to run a Drinking Water Week campaign across the region. The campaign focuses on celebrating our tap water and the importance of protecting this valuable resource at its source. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Canada/U.S. environmental coalition, Great Lakes United

Great Lakes United and the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH) released this May 6 the Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots Map, providing a detailed regional, binational view of nuclear facilities in the Great Lakes Region.

New Nuclear Site map for Great Lakes. Click on this map to blow it up to full screen to better view hotspots.

As the map shows, with the exception of Lake Superior, each of the Great Lakes has numerous nuclear sites related to nuclear power generation, most of which are located within one kilometre of the Lakes. This raises concerns about the cumulative impacts of radioactive releases over the years from so many sites. It also shows the numerous places where a serious nuclear accident could occur in the region. Continue reading →

Submitted by Joanne McDonald

It is time to Catch The Momentum and it will be an unforgettable experience.

The Momentum Choir in concert. File photo by Joanne McDonald.

Momentum Choir, a group of 50 singers with developmental disabilities is ready once again to wow audiences during two year-end concerts, Sunday, May 12 at 3 p.m. and Wednesday, May 15 at 7 p.m. at Bethany Community Church, 1388 Third Street Louth, St. Catharines.

Over the past year Momentum has packed numerous concert halls, auditioned for Canada’s Got Talent and recently, sang in Ottawa. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

America’s sweetheart Sarah Palin was back on centre stage again this May 3, soaking up one standing ovation after another from thousands of members of the National Rifle Association meeting this weekend in Houston, Texas.

Kristian Sparks, 5, of Kentucky accidentallly shot his two-year-old sister Caroline with a rilfe a parent bought him for his birthday.

I watched a clip of Palin on the cable news, all fired up as she used the event to blast U.S. President Barack Obama for “exploiting tragedy” by flying family members of the victims of the mass shooting last December at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 young children and six of their educators were slaughtered, to Washington, D.C. this April and “making them a backdrop” in his push for some gun safety laws.

At the risk of being accused by the likes of Palin of exploiting tragedy further, Obama might also now point to an incident this April 30^th involving a five-year-old boy in rural Kentucky who accidently shot and killed his two-year-old sister with a .22 –caliber rifle his mother bought him for his birthday. Continue reading →

Lost Opportunities – Why Won’t Canada Nationalize Its Natural Resources?

By Mark Taliano

The fact that Canada is on the cusp of ratifying a corporate empowerment treaty with China — the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPPA), adds urgency to a discussion that will likely never take place on Parliament Hill.

The photo rain in the American media with a caption – ‘Resource-rich Canada looks to China for growth’. The questions we should be asking is growth for whom? And how many more Canadian jobs and resources will Harper give away next?

The nexus of concentrated media ownership, plus our neo-conservative government, means that the accepted political/economic agenda in Canada is necessarily insular, and often self-defeating.  To make matters worse, the government’s increasing control over the CBC means that the public and political narrative is becoming even more restricted.  Anything that threatens the dysfunctional marriage between subsidized “monopoly” capitalism, and government, is increasingly off the table.

Consequently, the government is wilfully blind to two “elephants in the room.”  The first is man-made global warming, and the second is resource mismanagement.  Both issues are intricately linked, and if the resource management/economic model were improved, we would have a better chance of addressing the overarching issue of catastrophic man-made global warming. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

One can certainly understand why the federal Conservative government of Stephen Harper would want to yoke the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – better known as the CBC – through more funding cuts and whatever other means.

After all, the CBC has continued to produce stories as recently as this past April, focused on the large numbers of super wealthy in this country evading taxes through offshore accounts and the Harper government’s foreign employment program and how it is running Canadians out of jobs.

You can only image how a control freak like Harper, who reportedly takes every step possible to control the words coming out of the mouths of his Conservative MPs, would respond to a publicly funded broadcasting organization generating this kind of information. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Call it what you want. I call it a survival budget.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath still taking new Liberal government budget under advisement. Says she wants to hear from you.

On the front page of the May 3 edition of The Toronto Star, the headline on Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne’s first budget since she was sworn in to the province’s top job a mere three months ago reads; “Liberal plan is too loaded for NDP to resist.”

And that appears to be the case. While Tim Hudak and his official Conservative opposition party – declaring that the ‘McGuinty/Wynne Liberals’ have already lost the trust of the Ontario people on a number of fronts, including the controversial spending of almost $600 million to move plans for gas-fired power plants out of Liberal ridings in Oakville and Mississauga – were ready to call an election before the budget was even tabled this May 2, Andrea Horwath say that she and her NDP want to review the details of the budget and get feedback from the public before they decide whether they join the Conservatives in voting Wynne’s government down. Continue reading →

A Submission from Dr. Michael Rachlis and fellow medical doctors from the Canadian-based group Doctors For Fair Taxation

As Ontario receives the provincial budget released on Thursday May 2, the discussions are decidedly unbalanced.

Dr. Michael Rachlis, a longtime advocate from the Canadian medical community for improving and preserving our country’s system of public, universal health care.

Tim Hudak’s PCs say we can balance the budget through deep spending costs and “eliminating the gravy.” The NDP would like more spending but has recommended little in the way of new revenue generation. The Liberal government insists it is making progress on cutting the deficit. However, no party has realistically looked at the role of new revenue instruments in achieving budget balance.

In last year’s Ontario budget, after a campaign started by our little group, NDP Leader Andrea Horvath demanded a raise of 2 per cent in provincial tax on income above $500,000. Then-premier Dalton McGuinty initially balked at the idea but finally put it into his budget and acquired the needed NDP support.

The government has estimated that the new tax bracket will raise $350 million to $400 million this year and more in the future. This income alone will help Ontario achieve fiscal balance earlier than otherwise. Even though common wisdom indicated that the new tax would be a hard sell, it was one of the most popular policies introduced by the Liberal government.

A Forum Research poll found that Ontarians supported the new tax by four to one. Even those who voted PC in the last provincial election supported the measure by two to one. NDP voters favoured the new tax by 10 to one.

As the government and opposition make their final plans for the 2013 budget, we think there are further opportunities to balance the debate and the budget. Last year, we had called for higher taxes on the top 10 per cent of tax filers, those with taxable incomes of roughly $85,000 or more. In contrast, the $500,000 threshold includes less than one-third of 1 per cent of tax filers. This threshold includes none of us and very few of the province’s physicians. Continue reading →

Molly The Great Dane Has Found A New Home

A Niagara At Large News Brief

Late this April we posted a short story on Molly, a lovable, one-year-old Great Dane, who unfortunately wasn’t fitting in with other, already established animals in her home.

Hey Molly. All the best to you in your new home.

That left Molly in search of a new one and we are happy to say that thanks to the good work of Niagara Action for Animals and its dedicated citizen volunteers, Molly has been welcomed into a new home here in Niagara.

Thanks to all of you out there who were looking out for new digs for this fine doggie and thanks, once again, to work of Niagara Action for Animals or NAFA for short – a long-time animal advocacy group in the greater Niagara region that has also taken its share of nasty comments over the years for its opposition to the exploitation of animals at circuses and zoos. Continue reading →

Some News and  Commentary by Doug Draper

Marineland – the 52-year-old amusement park that is a major tourist attraction in Niagara Falls, Ontario – filed a defamation suit against The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper, late this April for $7 million.

Animal activists demonstrating in front of Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario. File photo, Doug Draper

The lawsuit against the newspaper is one of at least five that Marineland has filed in a St. Catharines, Ontario court since last year, after The Star began publishing what would be a series of stories, detailing a number of allegations made by former Marineland staff, about alleged cases of neglect or abuse of animals at the park.

The stories in The Star triggered a widespread reaction from people inside and outside of Ontario and saw what were regular weekend pickets in front of the Niagara Falls amusement park, which have been a mainstay for some 20 or more years, swelled from a few dozen to several hundred by the end of last summer, and culminated in some of the protesters breaching Marineland’s front gates and disrupting one of the marine mammal shows. Continue reading →

Submitted by Gail Benjafield 

Every year, WomEnchant, a local chorus of women, Niagara based in one sense in that many members come from the Niagara Region communities of St. Catharines, Fenwick, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Grimsby, Tintern, and a little further field — Hamilton, Dundas, Ancaster and Oakville, to sing for social justice causes and for church fundraisers.

Click on this poster to blow full screen for further details.

Our noted conductor, Laura Thomas, is a multitalented musician, deputy conductor of the Niagara Symphony Orchestra, leader of several choirs, leader of the Dundas Valley Orchestra, Broadband, WomEnchant and much more.

We have raised thousands of dollars for good causes — to name but a few: The Stephen Lewis Foundation for Aids in Africa, for various churches always in need of dollars to top off their good works, Earth Day songfests, Women’s Day events, the annual Take Back the Night in St. Catharines (work for abused women) and quite recently, the celebration at the B.M.E. Church in St. Catharines, Ontario for the 100^th anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s death. Continue reading →