Niagara At Large

Submitted to NAL by the Office of Cindy Forster, Ontario Member of Parliament for the Welland Riding

WELLAND, February 1 – Welland MPP Cindy Forster met this January 31 with City Councillor Frank Campion to collect a petition signed by over 19,000 community residents objecting to important health care services being relocated to St. Catharines.

Welland city councillor Frank Campion presents ctiziens’ petitions on hospital services to Welland Riding MPP Cindy Forster.

“The people of Welland, and the Niagara-area, are speaking out and deserve to be heard,” said Forster. “Welland and Niagara Falls deserve better than to have their services ripped out from under them.”

 NHS Supervisor Kevin Smith and Health Minister Deb Matthews have told residents that in-patient Pediatric, Obstetrical and Gynecological services will be moved from Welland Hospital and Greater Niagara General Hospital to a new hospital in St. Catharines. For many, this would mean an hour-long drive to access urgent medical care.

 “This short sighted decision seriously endangers the health and safety of my constituents and neighbours,” said Forster. “Forcing them to drive to the far end of St. Catharines for services they currently get close to home is unreasonable. The services should stay where they are.” Continue reading →

This post submitted to NAL by Brock University

The Brock/Niagara African Canadian Renaissance Group and its partners at the St. Catharines, Ontario university will again host a series of community events throughout February to celebrate this year’s African Heritage Month (AHM).

The acclaimed PBS documentary series will be screened at Brock University this February. See accompanying post for more details.

 
The month-long program includes art exhibits and performances, film screenings, guest lectures, a drumming workshop and cooking demonstration, just to name a few.
 
All of these events are free. Everyone is welcome to attend.
 
“We invite the community to join us as we celebrate, debate and share what is a tradition at Brock University,” says Richard Ndayizigamiye, a Brock professor of modern languages, literatures and cultures and co-chair of this year’s organizing committee.
 
“For 2013, the AHM organizing committee worked to develop programming with a focus on Haiti,” says co-chair Tamari Kitossa, associate professor of sociology.
Continue reading →

A Public Advisory from the Niagara Health System, February 1, 2013

 The Niagara Health System today declared a C. difficile outbreak at the St. Catharines General Site’s Oncology Medical/Palliative Unit.

C. Dff – an out break of the dangerous bacteria is back at one of Niagara, Ontario’s larger hospital sites.

Five patients on the unit have confirmed positive for hospital-associated C. difficile in the last two weeks. Under our infection prevention and control protocols, this means the unit is considered to be in outbreak. Four affected patients remain on the unit, and there have been no deaths associated with the outbreak. There are no other C. difficile outbreaks at the NHS.

“We have stringent infection prevention and control protocols at all of our sites, and our doctors, staff and volunteers work extremely hard to follow these best practices,” says Dr. Joanna Hope, Interim Chief of Staff. “We are doing everything we can to get out of this outbreak as quickly as possible.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

One of the Ontario Liberal government’s more maverick members – Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor – is hoping to meet with premier-designate Kathleen Wynne as soon as possible to discuss some of the more burning issues in Niagara.

Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor

Craitor, a former Niagara Falls city councillor who has served for the past nine years as a Liberal government MPP for a riding that includes his city and the towns of Fort Erie and Niagara-on-the-Lake, told Niagara At Large the day following Wynne’s victory at a Liberal leadership convention this January 26 that he has a few issues he wants her to place on her to-do list.

Those issues, said Craitor, include a promise from Wynne to do what she can, within reason. to save the Fort Erie Race Track – a time-honoured horse-racing track in Niagara, Ontario that supports hundreds of jobs and has been a major fixture in the Fort Erie community for more than a century. That track, along with Woodbine in Toronto and others across the province, are now twisting in the wind as outgoing Premier Dalton McGuinty chose to abandon them in slurry of decisions he made around gambling or so-called “gaming” establishments, including the now-defunct Fort Erie Slots casino in Fort Erie, over the  past year. Continue reading →

A Note from Doug Draper on a tour of Niagara, Ontario’s new hospital

Well there I was, standing over the guest book and a spot on the page where I was asked to sign in and share my comments on the place. I thought about it for a moment and what else could I say?

A line-up for tours of the new Niagara Health System hospital complex in west St. Catharines. Photo by Doug Draper

“Very impressive,” were the words I finally wrote down.

I could have added something about this – the first 21^st-century, state-of-the-art hospital in Niagara, Ontario – not to mention first-of-a-kind cancer and cardiac treatment centers – located in the wrong location to best serve everyone in this region, but there wasn’t much room next to my name to get into that. And besides, how many times had I made that point in news columns over the past eight years?

And how many times had it been made by others, including dozens of area doctors who urged the Niagara Health System way back when to locate this grand new hospital complex at a more central site in the region?  Save for a few others, including Pat Scholfield, a Welland area resident living in Port Colborne at the time, and Sue Salzer of Fort Erie, few back then paid very much in the way of attention until it was all but too late. Continue reading →

Submitted by the Office of Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak

(A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – NAL takes total responsibility for the headline you may already have read above the following statement by Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak, which we have posted below in its entirety.

You may very well note that Tim Hudak and, for that matter, most of the mainstream media in Canada refer to the Alberta tar sands more favourably as “oil sands.” NAL has made a firm editorial decision to join many of the more progressive news sources in the United States in referring to this abomination to the planet – one of the filthiest sources for oil on record in this world – as tar sands.

It is a far more accurate description of what is this God-awful, filthy goo, strip mined like you would gut a fish, and with no remorse from the government of Alberta or the current government of Canada, for gutting ever more of what is left of the majestic boreal forest region of Alberta.)

STATEMENT

• Tim Hudak, MPP
• Leader, the PC Party of Ontario
• Meeting with the Hon. Alison Redford, Premier of Alberta
• January 30, 2013 

Historically, Alberta and Ontario have been the economic engines of Confederation. All of Canada stands to benefit through job creation and economic growth in the 21^st century, if our two provinces leverage their respective strengths for national advantage.

Are these tar sands Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak’s idea of a healthy, economic future?

The facts are beyond dispute: According to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, over the next 25 years the Alberta oil sands projects will require an estimated $63 billion in job-creating goods and services from Ontario. Even today, some 500 Ontario-based companies are involved in oil sands work. More than a dozen of these firms employ over 1,000 people. In short, the oil sands are a game-changer for the Canadian economy and for job creation in Ontario. Continue reading →

By Elizabeth Chitty

A Niagara Giant Two Row Wampum March will take place on Saturday, February 2 at 11:00 a.m. in downtown St. Catharines, Ontario.

The Two Row Wampum Belt

Native and non-native people will walk side-by-side, each “row” carrying a huge purple banner and a white banner. The banners represent the purple and white stripes of the Two Row Wampum belt, which was the symbolic record of the first agreement between indigenous people in North America and Europeans.

This action represents re-affirming the content of the treaty, which outlined a commitment to friendship, peace between peoples, and living in parallel as long as the grass is green, as long as the rivers flow downhill and as long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Continue reading →

Submitted by Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario

After taking last year off, the Niagara Social Justice Forum will once again return to Brock University for a full day of workshops, performances and exhibits this Friday, February  1.

A section of the poster promoting Brock’s social justice series

The Social Justice and Equity Studies program at Brock will host the sixth installment of the popular one-day community event, which provides an open forum for individuals and groups working for social change in Niagara to connect with one another.
 
The theme for this year’s forum is Our Own Backyard: A Global-Local Mash-up.
 
This event is free, accessible and open to everyone, but participants are asked to register in advance. Continue reading →

Submitted by Lyman Welch, water quality director for the Alliance For The Great Lakes

(Niagara At Large, through its publisher Doug Draper, a veteran, award-winning environment reporter, is committed to highlighting issues related to the health of our Great Lakes – the largest and one of the most precious basins for fresh, life-sustaining water on this planet – on this site.)

The Great Lales from space, An image from the critcally acclaimed Canadian film documentary Waterlife by Kevin McMahon

The Alliance for the Great Lakes, along with the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago and the International Joint Commission, hosted a meeting this January 23 with environmental leaders and the public to discuss how we all can help protect clean water in the Great Lakes on both sides of the international border. Continue reading →

Submitted by the Buffalo History Museum and Forest Lawn Cemetary

Buffalo, New York’s iconic Museum of History off Delaware Park.

BUFFALO, NY, February 28, 2013: The Buffalo History Museum (BHM) – in collaboration with Forest Lawn – announces a very special, all-inclusive tour aboard the state-of-the-art, climate-controlled, wheelchair-accessible Forest Lawn trolley that will highlight the historic and notable women of Buffalo.  The tour, which celebrates both Black History Month and Women’s History Month, will be offered on two dates: Saturday, February 16 and Saturday, March 16, 2013. Continue reading →

By Delila Jahn-Thue

(Niagara At Large is pleased, once again, to welcome Delila Jahn-Thue  from Canada’s great mid-west as a voice from another region of this continent to what we often like to think of here as an online town hall. In this column, Delila shares some her views on the perilous state of our planet and we welcome you to share yours too.)

I wake from a few hours’ sleep to accept my place in life.

Gone is my youth, during which I staggered wildly after whatever it was I was supposed to be in life, disappointed, judging myself at every turn. Gone is woeful self measuring against media models of success and failure in material terms. Now I wake nightly to burn in hell.

An Aunt recently advised: “First you throw the husband out of bed, then every blanket, cool off and go back to sleep.”

But here on the farm, following these directions wouldn’t lower Farmer’s temperature, or mine.

Besides, this means more uninterrupted reading time.

During the past few sizzling nights I’ve burned through Alanna Mitchell’s Sea Sick – The Global Ocean in Crisis. It’s a heavy club sandwich of global scientific research from her travels around the planet cataloguing Ocean vital signs. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak

 QUEEN’S PARK, January 28, 2013 – The Ontario PCs are ready to get down to work and take immediate steps to fix the most serious jobs and government debt crisis of our lifetime – and hope the incoming Premier is ready to do same, Leader Tim Hudak said today.

Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak

“Facing the risk of another credit downgrade and more than half a million unemployed, Ontario needs urgent action,” Hudak said.  “The challenges we confront today are the same as they were yesterday, and are the same as they will be tomorrow – and every day until we start to put Ontario on the right track.

“At a time when Ontarians are looking to their government for new ideas, I am concerned that the first 48 hours under the incoming Premier sound a lot like the last decade under Dalton McGuinty. Ontario is on the wrong path and we need to take action – starting today.”  Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office of Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

 (A Brief Foreword by Niagara At Large – On this one the Ontario NDP leader is doing the new Liberal leader and nest premier, Kathleen Wynne, a favour here . The NDP leader is offering the incoming Liberal premier the possibility of taking a controversy that allegedly involved the miss-spending of hundreds of millions of dollars of tax money for partisan political gain, and having it investigated in a non-partisan, public inquiry forum.

It may be a test of how willing Wynne is to set a new course to see how much she goes for Horwath’s suggestion.)

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath

 QUEEN’S PARK, January 28, 2013 – New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath says the new Premier must shed light on gas plant cancellations in order to move forward with the business of the House. Horwath says a public inquiry to investigate the gas plant cancellations would allow the Legislature to focus on other issues and provide the public with answers they deserve.

“This Legislature must be accountable to the people who elected us by providing clarity on key questions. We can start by dealing with the elephant that’s taken a front row seat in the Legislature,” said Horwath. “Premier designate Wynne has the choice to call for a public inquiry now, take it out of the House for a non-partisan review, and allow MPPs to focus on other key matters.”

A public inquiry would take the politics out of the issue by allowing an independent eye to take a look at what really went on and provide Ontarians real answers.

“The Premier designate would show her willingness to turn the page by appointing a fully public inquiry within 30 days, with open, public hearings.”

(Niagara At Large invites all of you who dare to share your first and last name on this site to share your views below.)

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Through the first 25 days of this New Year, I woke up each morning with one over-riding wish in mind for addressing what I felt had become the sad state of governance in Ontario.

Ontario’s next premier Kathleen Wynne.

My wish was for the opposition parties in Ontario – the Conservatives and NDP – to use the first days, if not hours, of the next session of the provincial legislature to pull the plug on whatever remains of outgoing premier Dalton McGuinty’s minority Liberal government. My wish was for them to do it as soon as possible so that we, the people, can decide in an election who we want to move the province forward.

Now, with an Ontario Liberal Party convention this January 26 in which Kathleen Wynne has emerged as the province’s next premier, I am thinking let’s not be so fast to pull the plug. Let’s give Wynne, who as much as she had to mouth a few obligatory niceties about the outgoing premier’s “legacy” and “building on the foundation” he is leaving behind, let’s give her a chance to fulfill the promise she has made to reach out to the opposition parties and to communities across Ontario to get us back on a healthy sustainable track again. Continue reading →

A News Brief by Doug Draper

The glass ceiling has been was shattered twice this January 26 in Ontario and Canadian politics.

Ontario’s first female premier, Kathleen Wynne and now one of six female premiers across Canada.

Kathleen Wynne, a Toronto area MPP and provincial cabinet minister, won an Ontario Liberal leadership race that went to three ballots this January 26, beating the party’s front-running establishment candidate Sandra Pupatello and becoming the first female and openly gay premier in the province’s history.

 Wynne, whose victory was assured when Gerard Kennedy, a third-place candidate and one of the party’s more progressive voices, threw his support behind her for reasons that had to do with similarities in their slightly left-of-centre vision for the party. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Just as the Niagara Health System is gearing up to celebrate the grand opening this March of its new hospital complex in St. Catharines, Ontario’s west end, there is some sobering news about the cost of some of the infrastructure needed to accommodate all the additional traffic the hospital will generate to this dumbest of places where the new hospital could have gone.

The new hospital complex the Niagara Health System is opening on the outskirts of St. Catharines, Ontario. Photo by Doug Draper

Niagara’s regional government has learned earlier this January that  the estimated cost of constructing a new interchange off Highway 406 to accommodate traffic to the hospital and other dumb growth, as opposed to “smart” growth,  St. Catharines and the region has said yes to over the past in west St. Catharines, has ballooned to about $30 million.

 Isn’t that nice. And who is going to pay for that?

Indeed, who is going to pay for all of the new infrastructure, including the millions already spent on widening Fourth Avenue and other roads running off Highway 406? Well the ordinary citizens of Niagara and Ontario will be paying out of their pockets, of course, for highway and other infrastructure that might not have been needed. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

Corporate suppression of the known negative “externalities” of industry, to the detriment of the public, is nothing new.

 In the 1950’s, for example, tobacco industry scientists knew that smoking led to premature deaths and escalating health costs.  They decided not to publicize the information, but instead to fraudulently ramp up a campaign to manufacture unreasonable doubt so that they could sell their products to an unsuspecting public.

How did they do it?  Continue reading →

A Submission to Niagara At Large from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance

(A Brief Foreword from Niagara At Large – Say what you want about the cost of starting up alternative sources of energy like solar and wind in this province and other regions across North America. The public cost of nuclear power has been huge and Ontario energy consumers are still paying for multi-billion-dollar cost over-runs at nuclear power plants like Darlington. We trust that those who are so opposed to wind turbines for reasons that include the cost to consumers will speak out just as strongly against moving forward with any more nuclear power projects in the province.)

It’s bad enough that the Liberal Government is determined to spend billions of dollars rebuilding a nuclear plant we don’t really need, but now it is layering on expensive consultants as a “cost control” measure.

Ontario’s Pickering Nuclear Energy plant is considered, by the Ontario Energy Board, to be one of the most expensive and least reliable plants of its kind in the world to operate.

The government will spend upwards of $650,000 to pay an ex-Ontario Hydro employee to tell it if the project is running behind schedule and over budget, as has every nuclear project in Ontario’s history.  Ontario Power Generation (OPG) itself will spend an undisclosed amount on a similar consultant to keep track of the project for a company with thousands of employees who are apparently too busy to do this.

Frankly, we don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  A corporation whose CEO is paid more than $1 million a year will hire a consultant to tell the government’s consultant if its project is on track. Continue reading →

A Niagara At Large News Brief

Bruce Timms, a long-time Niagara regional council for St. Catharines has been elected by the board of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority to serve as the NPCA’s chair.

Veteran St. Catharines regional councillor Bruce Timms is new chair of Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority

Timms takes over the chair’s job from Bart Maves, a Niagara Falls regional councillor and former Ontario Conservative MPP who has just been chosen by the party to try to win back that seat in the Niagara Falls riding from Kim Craitor, a former Niagara Falls city councillor who has held it for the Liberals for the past nine-and-a-half years. 

At its 54^th annual meeting this January, the NPCA’s board also elected Wainfleet, Ontario Mayor April Jeffs to serve as its vice-chair. Continue reading →

This News Brief submitted by the Niagara Health System 

Members of the public are invited for an advance tour of the new state-of-the-art hospital on Saturday, January 26, 2013. This is the last chance to attend an open house tour before we open to provide patient care on March 24, 2013.

The new hospital complex for Niagara in west St. Catharines. Photo by Doug Draper

This last chance is Saturday, January 26, 2013 – 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Last tour starts at 3:30 p.m. Please arrive before 3 p.m. for a comprehensive tour.

New St. Catharines Site
1200 Fourth Avenue . Free parking on site – enter from main entrance on First Street Louth. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper 

“None of this is free and if we say; ‘Let’s not charge (developers for the cost of development)’, then the taxpayers pay.” – St. Catharines representative on Niagara regional council, Brian Heit.

“It needs to be communicated very clearly that all property taxpayers are going to be contributing to this grant (to industry).” – Niagara regional councillor and Lincoln, Ontario Mayor Bill Hodgson.

Niagara, Ontario’s regional headquarters

What both of these elected representatives were speaking to at the January 17 Niagara regional council meeting were development charges for corporations that might move a and who pays them. And I can almost sense the moaning from readers out there now. Development charges? That sounds boring and why should I care to read on. Well you may want to for reasons that hit you and me – and all of us – squarely in the pocket book.

What Heit and Hodgson, among only a few others on the regional council were responding to at that January 17 meeting was a motion supported by a majority of the councillors to exempt industry from paying any development charges whatsoever in Niagara over the next two years, all in the hope of stimulating more industrial grown in the region. Continue reading →

News Analysis by Doug Draper

“We have to fight this plan,” a charged-up Wayne Gates told more than 80, mostly central and south Niagara residents attending a rally this past January 19, aimed at sending a message to the Niagara Health System and Ontario government, that they don’t want maternity and pediatric services moved out of hospitals in Niagara Falls and Welland.

Niagara Falls, Ontario councillor Wayne Gates speaks at hospital rally with Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati (centre) and Welland Mayor Barry Sharpe at his side. Photo by Doug Draper

These were bold words and, without doubt here, heartfelt ones coming from the Niagara Falls city councillor and one cannot help but wonder if they will lead to any better results than General Custer urging the 200-some-odd soldiers in his regiment to stand their ground and fight with thousands of Sioux warriors swooping down on them.

Indeed, the Niagara Health System, with the full support of the provincial government and its feisty health minister Deb Matthews, shows every sign of following through on its intentions – first outlined in July of 2008 in a controversial ‘hospital improvement plan’ tabled by the NHS’s former CEO Debbie Sevenpifer and her now-long-defunct board – to consolidate most acute care services in the region, including maternity, pediatric and obstetric services – in the new mega hospital Sevenpifer and company insisted on building in the north end of Niagara, in west St. Catharines. Continue reading →

 By Sue Salzer

The recent history of Douglas Memorial Hospital in Fort Erie, Ontario should, by now, be a well-known story to all residents of Niagara – important to some and sorry about your luck from others.

Pariicpants clap for speakers at rally to keep hospital services in south Niagara. Photo by Doug Draper

De3pite written assurance to the mayors of Fort Erie and neighbouring Port Colborne some five years ago from the Niagara Health System – the body established by the province a decade ago to amalgamate most of the hospital service in our region – that their community hospitals would remain intact with the approval of a new hospital for residents of St Catharines, the NHS’s so-called “hospital improvement plan” followed shortly thereafter. With a reading of that plan it quickly became apparent that a death knell was about to befall local community hospitals. It was a well perpetrated hoax. Continue reading →

A Brief Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

When I was hired to my first job in journalism at the St. Catharines Standard in 1979, my first assignment was covering the Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Former Niagara-on-the-Lake Lord Mayor and federal MP Jake Froese

I had been away from the Niagara region, doing graduate studies at the Universities of Windsor and Western Ontario for a while, and I had some catching up to do on the local scene. But one of the first things I learned was that Jacob Froese – known to so many as Jake – was one of Niagara-on-the-Lake’s most beloved and respected public figures.

A tender fruit farmer by trade, he served as Niagara-on-the-Lake’s lord mayor from 1973 to 1978, and by the time I arrived in the town with pen and notebook, he was the federal Member of Parliament for a Progressive Conservative government led by Joe Clark, representing a riding that included his town and Niagara Falls. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Starting now, there will be a little less Mr. Nice Guy coming from the person sitting in the chairman’s seat at Niagara, Ontario’s regional council meetings.

Niagara, Ontario’s regional council chiairman Gary Burroughs.

Gary Burroughs – who had a reputation for being a nice guy as a councillor and a lord mayor of Niagara-on-the-Lake long, before he was voted by regional councilor’s to the Region’s top political job more than two years ago – made it clear this January 18, during the first meeting this year of regional council, that he will not hesitate to bang his gavel, if that’s what it takes, to a restore some semblance of decorum at council meetings that have had a habit of going off the rails over the past couple of years. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

Faced with what it describes as many of the same challenges other Ontario hospital systems are during a time of “economic downturn” in the province and no increase in funding for hospitals, the Niagara Health System is looking to find $13 million in savings this year.

Niagara Health System’s interim president and CEO Sue Matthews

  In an outline of facts and figures posted below and prepared for a Thursday, January 17 media briefing, Sue Matthews, the interim president and CEO for an NHS responsible for managing the operation of most of the hospital services in Niagara, Ontario, stressed that the savings will be found without making compromises to patient care. “We exist to provide the best possible patient care (and) we will continue to work creatively to minimize the impact of efficiency measures on those we are for and our staff,” reads the outline presented by Matthews. Continue reading →

A Niagara At Large News Brief

 As if Fort Erie, Ontario has not taken enough hits in the last year with the provincial government’s closing of the Slots and Ontario Visitors Centre, and the 115-year-old Fort Erie Race Track closed unless private investors come forward or the province agrees to a rescue, now a printing plant has suddenly closed down, costing about 100 jobs.

The printing plant, owned by Vertis Communications, an American company, and operated in the Fort Erie community of Stevensville, was  shut down this past Wednesday, January 16, leaving everyone working there without any further pay or benefits, according to a January 17 media release from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union  (CEP) representing the plant’s employees. Continue reading →

A Submission from Chorus Niagara

St. Catharines, Ontario – Niagara’s premier 100-voice choral ensemble, conducted by Artistic Director Robert Cooper, holds its 7^th Annual Singathon Fundraiser at “The Most Famous Food Court in the World” the Seaway Mall in Welland Ontario, Saturday, February 9^th from 10am-3pm.

File photo courtesy of Chorus Niagara

The Seaway Mall was the location for the Chorus’ 2010 YouTube viral flash mob, produced by Alphabet Photography, viewed over 41 million times.

The Singathon is a free concert, performed continuously for the public from 10am-3pm.  The Chorus performs a variety of works from their popular and classical repertoire, including the famed Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

“Don’t let racists break you down. Don’t let bigots break you down. Be proud of who you are.”

Idle No More march in Niagara Falls, Ontario begins with these young girls at the lead. Photo by Doug Draper

It is sad to hear anyone have to say that to a group of people in Canada – especially one that has lived in this country and on this continent for many more hundreds of years, if not thousands of years, before my European descendants arrived here. Why should people with so many more roots on this continent have to be reminded – as if they needed to be reminded once again – to show dignity if they are, in one form or another, spat on or hurled racial epithets. But unfortunately, that’s what they and all of us still have to deal with from some in this country.

Nevertheless, with those words, and with a cautionary note from an organizer to keep things peaceful, more than 250 Native people began a miles-long march this Wednesday, January 16 to the great falling waters of Niagara Falls, Ontario as part of a nation-wide day of protests by the Native-inspired Idle No More movement.

Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

While the Niagara Health System hosts public tours this January at the mega hospital it will soon open in Niagara, Ontario’s north end, citizens in central and south Niagara are organizing a rally to demand that services in their hospitals not be moved away.

Welland Hospital, along with the Niagara Falls hospital site, are due to soon lose maternity and other services. File photo by Doug Draper

The rally, planned for Saturday, January 19 at 1 p.m. near the hospital in Welland, is a response to continued plans by the NHS – the body responsible for managing most of the hospital services in Niagara – to move obstetric, pediatric, mental health and other services from the Welland and Niagara Falls hospitals to that new hospital, scheduled to open in west St. Catharines within the next few months. Continue reading →

A Submission to Niagara At Large from the public interest group Ontario Nature

 (A short introductory note by Niagara At Large – Why is an Ontario government – that of lame duck premier Dalton Mutiny and what is left of his cabinet – setting a January 21, 2013 deadline on comments for protection endangered species in this province when it has had the nerve, since this past October, to suspend parliamentary democracy in this province until it anoints a new Liberal leader?

 Talk about a government that deserves to reach the status of an endangered species in Ontario’s next provincial election – likely to be called as soon as this spring, and not soon enough! And don’t forget, this is the same government that thinks it knows what it is doing around managing and/or culling deer herds in Niagara, Ontario’s Short Hills Park.)

January 14, 2013 – We are very concerned about the most recent recommendation from the government to weaken protection of Ontario’s at-risk wildlife.

Ontario has left one of its most majestic wild animals – the cougar – endangered because we can’t seem to make enough room for it to live.

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 recommended that industrial activities be exempt from key parts of the Act.

Please join Ontario Nature in opposing the new exemptions.  The government’s proposal has been posted for public comment on the Environmental Registry – EBR Registry # 011-7696. The deadline for public comments is January 21.

The proposed exemptions will allow industry to dodge crucial Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection. Continue reading →

By Delila Jahn-Thue

 (Niagara At Large is pleased to welcome a voice from another region of this continent to our table. It is a large continent, but at the end of the day, we are all in this together.)

Christmas was a relaxing break from what has been a winter of great change in this farmhouse.

 When I’d finally finished dehydrating, pressure canning and sausage making, it was almost Christmas so I started washing, repairing and painting walls.  Instead of being floored by the enormity of the task ahead, I kept filling a pail with water, grabbed an old cut up towel and started scrubbing.

Quite amazed by the cobwebs and fly crap that had accumulated while I’d focused elsewhere, I refocused and change happened fast. Continue reading →

By Gail Benjafield

This year marks the 100^th year since the death of Harriet Tubman, the celebrated ‘Moses’ of her people, as she led enslaved blacks across the United States, by stealth, to the ‘North Star’, Canada.

The great slave emancipator and leader of the underground railroad from the 1800s, Harriet Tubman

Much has been written about Harriet Tubman in journals, articles and books. She lived for less than five years in St. Catharines, Ontario with her father and her brother, at various times, and our City of St. Catharines has honoured her with three different heritage designations – an Ontario Heritage plaque, a Municipal plaque and most recently, a Federal plaque, all at the British Methodist Episcopal (B.M.E.) church located at 92 Geneva Street, St. Catharines, and the only site site in the city to receive three heritage designations.

Allow me to say that much that has been written about Harriet Tubman is not based in sound research. Continue reading →

Niagara Region, January 14 – ‘Aging Well in Niagara’ is a community conversation about the needs of seniors. The project will help guide the evaluation and design future programs, services, and resources for seniors in Niagara.

Attend our Community Forums

Our Community Services department is holding a series of community forums to present the findings of its public consultations about the needs of seniors.

Residents are welcome to attend any of the forums to be held:

A News Advisory and Commentary from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

I don’t mind saying it. Few journalists in this region argued harder than I did, going back some eight or nine years ago now, against what I considered to be the bone-headed decision by the Niagara Health System – then led by CEO Debbie Sevenpifer – to build the only new mega-hospital this region of Niagara, Ontario was likely to receive approval for from the province for decades to come in west St. Catharines.

The new mega hospital complex for Niagara, located in possibly the dumbest location for it that could have been chosen for it, in the furthest reaches of west St. Catharines. Photo by Doug Draper

It was clear at the time, based on documentation I received from former NHS board members – that the Niagara Health System, an amalgamated hospital system for the region established by the former Conservative government of Mike Harris and Tim Hudak, would consolidate most of the acute care services in the region in this one new hospital.

That is why close to 100 brave doctors working at the NHS at the time took out full-page ads in local newspapers, recommending that the new hospital be located at a more central location in the region – possibly off Hwys. 406 and 20 around Thorold South and Pelham or off Hwy. 406 and East Main Street near the Welland Canal tunnel. They believed all of Niagara’s residents would have fairer access to its services that way. Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

Niagara, Ontario’s closest American neighbor – New York State – may soon be home ground for the most restrictive laws on the trafficking and ownership of guns in the United States.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo

In his annual State of the State address this January 9, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his plan to enact the toughest laws in his country on removing military style, assault weapons and high-capacity clips for guns and rifles from circulation.

“End the madness now,” said Cuomo in the wake of continued mass killings by lone shooters with military-style weapons – two of the latest cases occurring in Newtown, Connecticut where 26 people, including 20 young children, were blown away within a matter of minutes, and a community near Rochester, New York where two firefighters were gunned down while responding to a fire a lone gun  nut started to lure first responders in for the kill. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

Media ownership in Canada is for the most part concentrated in the hands of huge corporations that benefit from tax cuts, tax avoidance, and corporate friendly policies, and this is reflected in the messages that they convey.

  If a person’s limited exposure to the media is restricted to corporate-controlled messaging, they will invariably inculcate some of these messages.

 The predominant main stream message today, for example, is that First Nations squander tax payer dollars and so, by extension, any legislation that unilaterally impacts them must be justified, even when these unilateral decisions are proven to be unconstitutional. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Office Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller

(A brief foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – The following release on a new report by Ontario’s independent environmental watchdog Gord Miller stresses that while energy conservation saves the province and consumers more money, not to mention being far better for the environment,  in the long run, the provincial government has not done enough to encourage all of us – governments, private businesses and residents across the province, alike – to practice more environment conservation.

But when you think of it, energy conservation doesn’t make many players in the energy industry any money and might even cost them. All it does is save us money and leave a lighter footprint on the planet.

Please read the release below and click on the link to read Gord Miller’s full report.)

January 8, 2012 – Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner, Gord Miller, says uncertainty about the future of electricity conservation programs is discouraging further energy savings in Ontario.

Ontario Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller pitches for energy conservation.

 Miller today released Volume Two of his 2011 Annual Energy Conservation Progress Report. This report annually reviews reductions in energy usage, increases in energy efficiency, and the progress and barriers to energy conservation. Volume One of the report was released in June, 2012.

• Watch videos of the Commissioner outlining key points of the report:
  • Main
  • Why Energy Conservation?
  • Schools
• Read the Commissioner’s Opening Remarks to the Legislature
• Download the report on your computer (.pdf)

The report shows that Ontario’s electricity conservation programs are cost effective and cheaper than generating power to supply demand. Continue reading →

A Submission from the public interest group Climate Action Niagara

We are deeply saddened at the passing of Joyce Hanlon on Dec 26, after a lengthy struggle with cancer.  She was a founding member of Climate Action Niagara who has been active throughout our six-year history.

Joyce Hanlon

 Joyce was one of the founders and held a Board position with Climate Action Niagara from 2008-2012.  She was also an active member of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, the St Catharines and District Council of Women, the Preservation of Agricultural Lands, was a long-time supporter of the Council of Canadians and the David Suzuki Foundation and was active in many organizations throughout her 60 years in Niagara. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano 

The following brief  commentary was submitted to Niagara At Large at noon hour on January 9, 2013

Derek Soberal of Occupy Canada being interviewed more than a year ago at an Occupy encampment in Toronto

Derek Soberal, founder of the Occupy Canada Facebook page, has been hacked. His Facebook password does not work; his hotmail account does not work; and his Occupy YouTube channel, with 4.8 million hits, and featuring activist/protest videos, has been taken down.

Derek explains that this happened just before he was about to publicly announce a schedule of protest rallies for January 11, 2013. Continue reading →

By Dan Wilson

 (Dan Wilson participated in protests this January 5 on the first day of a controversial deer hunt the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources approved for aboriginal people in Niagara’s Short Hills Provincial Park. Here is his report.)

 Some of my earliest encounters with “wildlife” took place in Short Hills Provincial Park. My grandparents used to be the caretakers at Camp Wetaskiwin, also known as the Boy Scout Camp, on Pelham Road outside St. Catharines.

A Native group gathers for day oneof controversial deer hunt in Short Hills Provincial Park. Photo by Dan Wilson.

 As kids, my sister, my cousins and me would explore the trails, and my dad would take us winter camping (we built our own lean-to) or into the bush to identify the various edible (and poisonous) plants. We also spent a lot of time discovering and befriending many of the creatures that lived within the park.

I still spend a lot of time in Short Hills. Whether I’m hiking or doing my waterfall photography, I’m amazed and delighted when I spot a group of deer resting underneath the hydro towers, a lone coyote walking along the Bruce Trail or a new kind of beetle. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Niagara At Large Publisher Doug Draper

I find it interesting that at the same time some Canadians are sending comments to this news site and others accusing Native Chief Theresa Spence of using what they consider to be a bogus hunger strike to “blackmail” Prime Minister Stephen Harper into meeting with her and other First Nation representatives, little of the same kind of noise is being made over the many millions of dollars of our tax money Harper is dishing out to multi-billion-dollar auto corporations to keep them from pulling the plug on more plants here.

Cars rolling off a GM plant floor. Autmakers in Canada get plenty of help in grants and tax cuts, but what guarrantee is there they will not pull the plug on plants here the first time they find a place with cheaper wages and more tax cuts elsewhere?

Indeed, while much is also being made out of what Chief Spence and her council have done with a reported $90 million or more in government aid they have received since 2006 to improve living conditions in the northern Ontario native community of Attawapiskat – with some going so far as to accuse the chief of gross mismanagement of public funds and even embezzlement – what is going to become of the $250 million Canada’s prime minister and his Conservative government announced this January that they will be giving to General Motors, Ford Chrysler and other auto-related corporations for so-called “research and development and innovation projects?” Continue reading →

A Niagara At Large News Brief

For the last few years, there has been debate – albeit hardly enough – in Canada’s mainstream media over the Harper government’s recently approved get-tough-on-crime legislation and how it could lead to overcrowded jails that do more to breed criminals than rehabilitate them.

One of the organization that has repeatedly addressed its concerns to the Harper government about this is the nation-wide, not-for-profit John Howards Society of Canada – a time-honoured group that has dedicated itself to seeing that Canada’s correctional and justice policies embrace the principles that are “effective, just and humane.”

 The St. Catharines & District Council of Women, a not-for-profit public interest group that features meetings on a host of topics of interest and concern to the larger community, will be hosting a meeting this coming Thursday, January 10 at 8 p.m. on this topic and you are all invited to come. Continue reading →

Submitted by Niagara, Ontario’s Public Health Department

NIAGARA REGION, Jan. 7, 2013 – The flu has arrived in Niagara with a total of 84 lab confirmed cases of Influenza A. Of those cases, 61 have been since Dec. 23, 2012. In addition, there are currently 20 institutional outbreaks, 12 of which are lab confirmed influenza outbreaks.

An image of Influenza A, an awful and potentially life-threatening flu for some, up way too close and personal. Niagara Region’s Public Health department is offering tips here to keep it away.

The flu spreads easily from infected persons through coughing and sneezing, or by touching contaminated surfaces such as toys, doorknobs, eating utensils, and unwashed hands. 

Niagara Region Public Health reminds residents to take the following precautions to reduce the spread of flu: Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

I made a New Years resolution that I would better control my temper this year in the face of government malfeasance. So much for that  resolutions. I hope you can keep yours.

Canadian Native Chief Theresa Spence.

I blew that resolution around noon this December 4 when Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper – holding a media conference at a Ford Motors plant in Oakville, Ontario to announce $250 million in tax bribes to keep American auto makers operating in Canada – was asked about Attawakiskat Native Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike, by then up to its 25^th day.

 With those dead, shark-like eyes and that droning tone of voice that sounds like a message you would get if you called Rogers Communications or some other  of Harper’s corporate friends to complain about the service you are receiving from them. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

In relatively short order, Canada has been condemned by three international humanitarian agencies. 

 The United Nations criticized us for our failures to provide food security  to Canadians.

 UNICEF condemned us for stopping a bill that would have provided developing world countries with cheaper drugs, thus sealing the fates of a multitude of victims who might otherwise have been cured.

 Amnesty International criticized us, this time with reference to Bill C-45, stating that “changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Act, and the proposed Safe Drinking Water For First Nations Act   have profound implications for the rights of Indigenous peoples as set out in treaties, affirmed in the constitution, and protected by international human rights.”

 Additionally, the international community has condemned us as being the first and only nation to drop out of the international KYOTO agreement. Continue reading →

By Don Smith

(A short note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – As a long-time environment writer, I often noted to audiences I have been invited to speak to that any concerns they may have over the possible health effects of wind farms, or parts per billion or trillion of chlorobenzenes and other industrial chemicals in the air we breathe or water we drink, people should be followed by this question – ‘If our governments are not prepapred to ban a known killer like cigarettes due to the profits they bring to the economy and to government tax coffers, why should anyone expect our governments to act on other potentially lethal assaults on persons and the environment?

 In other words, the continued legal manufacture and sale of cigarettes are proof positive that our governments are still willing to lace dollars ahead of public health. As long as our goverments are prepared to allow for the suffering and deaths of countless ten-of-thousands of people over a confirmed carcinogen like tobacco for profit, why should we expect our governments act on any other proven or potential danger from a product with wealth-producing potential in our economy?

Remember that we now live in a world where the accumulation of wealth, by whatever means, ranks above almost anything else. Forget about the collateral damage. Now let’s move to Don Smith’s commentary.)

 This is a current headline taken from a national newspaper – “Is it not time to ban this addictive and lethal drug? “

Every time I see a headline such as this one I think back to a discussion I had with my son’s late father-in-law, a tobacco farmer in the Tillsonburg area in the late 1990s. At that time, he told me that if and when cigarettes are declared illegal and banned that his tobacco growing friends, neighbors, and relatives all agreed they would willingly sell out their farms to the federal government and change to planting corn, gin sing, or peanuts. Continue reading →

A Submission by Niagara Action For Animals

 (Niagara At Large is posting the following submission for your information and opportunity to comment.

 The planned deer hunt in Niagara’s Short Hills Provincial Park was approved by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and is restricted to Native peoples only using hunting bows. The park will be closed to the rest of the public while the hunt is in progress on the dates of January 5,6, 12 and 13.)

 January 2013, St. Catharines, Ontario – Niagara Action for Animals (NAfA) is strongly opposed to  the deer hunt scheduled to take place in the Short Hills Provincial Park on January 5-6th and 12-13th. NAfA does not condone the hunting of animals for any reason; killing animals for sport, tradition, or food is unnecessary, inhumane and unjustified.

Courtesy of Dan Wiison, this photo was taken of a deer in another Ontario park near Georgian Bay.

 While we take little quarry with people who have absolutely no choice but to hunt to survive, in contemporary society, “meat”, “fur”, and “leather” are not necessary for survival. We strongly believe that morality, not tradition, should be the standard for our actions as moral human beings.

Given the sensitivity and complexity of the issue at hand, we would like to be clear is stating that our objection with the deer hunt is not about human versus animal rights, legal versus illegal activities, or respecting versus rejecting treaties. For us, as animal activists, the issue is about the rights of the animals who reside in the Short Hills to live peacefully and free from exploitative human interference. Continue reading →

 A Submission from the Office of Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten

 (Niagara At Large is posting the submission below from the Ontario Liberal Government As Written, and will strive to post the reaction of provincial opposition parties and teacher union representatives as they become available.

 Already Sam Hammond, president of the Ontario Elementary School Teachers Federation, is calling the move “a surprise and an extreme disappointment,” and unprecedented in the almost 100 years the federation has been in existence and been negotiating with the province on behalf of its members.

 NAL will also be weighing in to this serious matter with our own take on it in the days ahead. Now her is the release from the Education Minister’s office.)

McGuinty Government Putting Students First – Fair and Balanced Collective Agreements Introduced, Putting Students First Act (Bill 115) Will Be Repealed

Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten

 January 3, 2013 – Ontario is moving forward with the implementation of collective agreements for all teachers and support staff that meet the province’s fiscal targets while protecting the classroom experience and the gains made in education. All new contracts are retroactive to Sept. 1, 2012 and will expire on Aug. 31, 2014.

Today, Laurel Broten, Minister of Education, approved all 65 locally negotiated and ratified  agreements submitted by school boards prior to the Dec. 31, 2012 deadline set out in the Putting Students First Act.  CUPE has been given until Jan. 14 to ratify 110 local agreements. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

 “They’ll go into this pool,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenny was quoted saying in The Globe and Mail this January 2 of unemployed people in other parts of the world, “and then employers (in Canada) or my department and/or provinces will be able to fish out of that pool.”

Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. ‘Citizenship Not for Sale?’ Not unless Kenney and his Harper Conservatives can find someone from another country that will work cheaper for their corporate bosses than one of our young Canadians.

 “It’s like a dating site,” Kenny continued, as if to make it sound like all our loving nation of Canada wants to do is get up close and cozy with unemployed people in other countries on the planet – just to see if we can fix them up with a nice job here.

 Well, isn’t that nice and how generous of us –  and at the risk of sounding like I’ve got something against immigration, which I bloody well don’t coming from a family of immigrants –  what about our own young people here who are looking for a job and a promising future? Don’t they deserve to have their place in this pool and be apart of this dating game too? Continue reading →

 A Commentary by Doug Draper

It could very well be the most important election in Ontario in decades.

 That election is expected to be called as early as this coming spring when Tim Hudak’s Conservatives and Andrea Horwath’s NDP finally pull the plug on a floundering minority Liberal government, at which point the stakes could not be higher for young people struggling to get through school and find a job, aging people in need of health care and other social services, and everyone in between.

Tim Hudak, left, and Andrea Horwath – the only two clear choices in an upcoming Ontario election where the stakes will be high for all who live in the province.

So here is a New Year’s resolution I urge everyone of voting age in Ontario to embrace – get engaged, if you are not already, in what is going on in politics in this province, and get engaged now! There is, I will stress again nothing less than our future as individuals, families and communities in this province at stake.

To paraphrase one of my favourite bumper sticker lines; ‘If you are not outraged (at what has been going on in this province for the past 16 years or so of Mike Harris/Dalton McGuinty government), you are not paying attention’. So start paying attention, goddammit. If for no other reason, do it for yourself. Continue reading →

By David Boese

Because of the STUPID NHL lockout, I think it’s time to re-think how we manage and view the game of hockey.

If I had the power, I would drop out of the NHL and create an All Canadian Hockey League, with 10 or 12 teams. It could be patterned after the very successful Canadian Football League and players would be playing more for their fans, than for the money. I would create an atmosphere, where there would never be another lockout! It is after all Canada’s game and it belongs just as much to the fans, as it does to the owners of these teams. Continue reading →

By Wes Prankard

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper –

 Wes Prankard, a 14-year-old, now possibly 15 or going on 15 from Niagara Falls, Ontario, is someone I feel privileged to have met on a ‘Meeting on the Bus’ – an event held by other local citizens to promote use of regional transit in Niagara.

 Wes was there to discuss the amazing work he and others were doing to make like better for Native peoples in the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat, by raising money for playgrounds for the children there and promoting support across Canada for other needs in that community.

 This extraordinary young Niagara resident became and friend of the Native peoples of Attawapistat and of its beloved Chief, Theresa Spence, who is now on a hunger strike she is prepared to carry through until death unless Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, agrees to meet with her and other Native representatives across the country to discuss treaties Canada once signed with First Nations peoples that should have afforded them a better life than many of them are living today.

Niagara At Large is pleased to run this piece by Wes Prankard. Please read it with an open heart and do what you can to convince Canada’s federal government to show even a fraction of the interest it has in tar sands and spending billions of our dollars on fighter jets on improving the lives of Canada’s First People.)

Now here is Wes Prankard’s message

Wes Prankard, a Niagara Falls, Ontario resident and young advocate for Native Peoples, gives a necklace to his friend, Chief Theresa Spence, on day eleven of her hunger strike in Ottawa.

‘I am very worried about Chief Theresa Spence of Attawapiskat. Right now (as of this writing on Saturday, December 29, 2012) she is on day 19 of
her hunger strike and, because I know her and have spent time with
her, I know that she is prepared to die for her people. She has always been.

When I first met Chief Spence, she was living in the homeless shelter with
her daughters because she had given up her house to a single mom whose
house burnt down. That is the kind of selfless leader Chief Spence is – and
that’s why I worry about her. Continue reading →

By Dan Wilson

Being a Canadian and living in Canada, I’m not very familiar with American gun laws. And either by ignorance influence or just plain stereotyping, I’ve always thought of members of the National Rifle Association as gun nuts, rednecks and weekend warriors.

Guns, guns, guns. Do they look like hunting rifiles to you or military-style mass killing machines?

 Basically, I’ve thought of NRA members as people who love to kill others (including animals) but can’t because of the law (except animals). This is probably wrong on my part.

I’m also a peace advocate, and live my life by a simple rule: Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t harm others. I devote my life to ahimsa, which means kindness and non-violence to all living things (including animals), unless my life, or the lives of those around me are in mortal danger. Continue reading →

 By Don Smith

(A brief foreword from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – As a reporter who spent many years writing about environmental issues for a daily newspaper in the Niagara region, I have often wondered to what extent stories produced by reporters like me about the dumping of hazardous substances in our rivers and lakes contributed to the growth and prosperity of the bottled water industry.

The madness of buying water in plastic bottles has got to end. Rediscover your kitchen tap.

 I had people as far back as 20 to 30 years ago calling me up, having read my stories and others like them, and telling me that they had switched to bottled water because they no longer trust the water coming from their tap. These calls always disturbed me for the following reasons:

• I got the impression from many of the callers that they now felt ‘safe enough’ in their personal lives. They had found security for themselves in a bottle and therefore no longer had to worry or bother governments over the pollution being dumped in our rivers and lakes.
• There was little or no recognition among these callers that even if bottled water were the answer, not everyone in the community can afford to buy enough of it to satisfy their domestic needs.
• There was also little or no recognition of the possibility that the water in that plastic bottle is not necessarily any cleaner, according to comparison tests published by the Toronto Public Health Department and other agencies, and reported by this writer and others, than the water pouring from a home tap after it has been filtered through a municipal treatment plant.
• Finally, there seemed to be little or no concern over the fact that all of those plastic bottles had to be recycled or, worse yet, ended up buried in a landfill site. Continue reading →

From Rory O’Conner

(When Dave Brubeck, one of the great jazz artists of the last 60 years, passed away early this December, Niagara At Large paid a little tribute to him with a post titled Goodbye To A Jazz Giant Who Was A Great Friend Of This Greater Niagara Region .

NAL received a number of nice comments to that tribute, including this latest one from Rory O’Conner from the Buffalo, New York area which we feel is worth highlighting as a post on its own, given the close contact Rory had with Dave Brubeck as he lent his talents to a good cause in the region in the last years of his life.

Here is Rory O’Conner’s tribute to the great artistry and generosity of Dave Brubeck)

Jazz icon Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck was … ‘a very wonderful and solid citizen of the world. I live in Buffalo and was fortunate to sit on the Board of Directors of a wonderful not-for-profit entity called Computers For Children.As part of our mission to minimize the digital divide, we raised funds in a variety of ways, one of which was our Annual Gala Event, usually right before Christmas. Continue reading →

A Holiday Season Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper

 “It’s coming on Christmas, They’re cutting down trees. They’re putting up reindeer, And singing songs of joy and peace. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.”

There are all those upbeat Christmas carols like ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. Then there are the opening lines above from this 1970s Joni Mitchell song called ‘The River’. 

‘The River’ speaks to a Christmas season that may not be as happy or joyous as all of the hype would have us believe it should or even must be for all of us.  Continue reading →

By Robert Reich, December 23, 2012, Robert Reich’s Blog

(One of my favourite American  public policy people is this guy, Robert Reich, who was a secretary of labour for former U.S. president Bill Clinton, and who remains a strong advocate for fair play for the 99 per cent of us who are getting more and more screwed each day by the upper one per cent. Here is a piece from him Niagara At Large wishes to share with you this Holiday Season. It was written with the United States in mind but we think it is just as relevant, in many, to the state of things in Canada these days.)

‘It’s easy to feel discouraged about the bullying by right-wing Republicans and their patrons over everything from gun control to taxes and social safety nets to trade unions and jobs.

Robert Reich

Every year about now I watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” again to remind myself what Frank Capra understood about America — its essential decency and common sense.

In many ways the nation is better than it was in 1946 when the movie first appeared. Women have gained economic power and reproductive rights; we enacted Civil Rights and Voting Rights and, through Medicare and Medicaid, dramatically reduced poverty among the elderly; we began to tackle environmental devastation; we stopped treating gays as criminals and have even started to recognize equal marriage rights. We elected and then re-elected the first black president of the United States. We have enacted the bare beginnings of universal healthcare. Continue reading →

A Brief News Comment by Doug Draper

Four years ago, when General Motors  operations across North America were on the verge of total financial collapse, Ontario, along with Canada’s federal government, invested more than $10 billion of our tax dollars to help bail the automaker out. 

Ontario’s unionized auto workers did their part to save GM jobs in Ontario by agreeing to an unprecedented number of  wage and benefit concessions – all on faith that the corporation would do everything possible to keep its production lines in the province running.

Now General Motors is paying workers and governments in Canada back by announcing its plans to cease production of its Chevrolet Camaro in Oshawa, Ontario – a decision that could reportedly wipe out more than 3,500 good-paying jobs in that already struggling auto-manufacturing town – and could affect jobs at GM operations in Niagara, Ontario where engines are built for the car. Continue reading →

A Brief News Commentary by Doug Draper

You may have read stories in some of Niagara, Ontario’s mainstream media this late December that there are more than a thousand carcasses of whales and other mammals buried on the back grounds of the sprawling Marineland amusement park in Niagara Falls, and that the province’s Ministry of Environment is finally investigating in the event the remains may be contaminating surrounding groundwater.

A killer whale – orca – in one of Marineland’s ponds – pre-burial site.

Let me respond by saying this. There is nothing knew about this news that Marineland has been backfilling the remains of whales, dolphins, bears, deer and other mammals that have expired at the park toward the back area there, near the coaster ride or whatever it is. That has been going on for most of the more than four decades Marineland has been in business. Continue reading →

A Submission from the Niagara Health System

(This post, submitted by the Niagara Health System, the organization responsible for the operation of a majority of the hospital services in Niagara, Ontario, reports that the NYHS has received an “excellence-in-quality” seal of approval for its performance. We share this post with you – free of commentary from Niagara At Large – for your information.)

December 21, 2012 – The Niagara Health System is accredited for another three years following an extensive process that evaluated the organization’s performance against national standards of excellence in quality and safety.

Niagara Health System interum CEO Sue Matthews

“We are extremely pleased to receive full accreditation from Accreditation Canada,” says Interim President and CEO Dr. Sue Matthews. “The value of accreditation is both in validating our strengths and learning how we can improve quality in specific areas.”

In their report, the Accreditation Canada team of surveyors noted that they were impressed by our commitment to patient/client centred care, improved community partnerships, resiliency as an organization, and dedication to developing a culture of patient safety. Some of our challenges and opportunities lie in the flow of patients in hospital and the standardization of some processes across our sites. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper 

There are only a few shopping days left until Christmas and Niagara At Large reminds you to celebrate the Holiday Season by giving one of the greatest gifts you can to the economic well-being of the greater Niagara communities we live in – buy what you can and all you can, through this Holiday Season and in to the New Year, from our local, independent retailers. 

We all know that it is so tempting to go in after the ‘door buster’ sales that big box corporate chain stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and K-Mart advertise in the flyers stuffed in corporate-owned newspapers we get shoved in our doors every week. And some say; ‘Well, that’s a good buy and I ‘m not doing so well in the income department right now. I can’t afford not to take advantage of it,”  Continue reading →

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

It was two months ago, October 15, that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced his intention to pack it in as the province’s top boss and, at the same time, shut the doors on our legislative assembly until his ruling Liberals pick a new leader.

Queen’s Park – Now one of the most useless public buildings in Ontario. Maybe we should sell it.

The decision by McGuinty – who still serves as Ontario’s lame duck premier – to prorogue parliamentary democracy in this province has gone on for two months now and, quite depressingly, there seems to be very little outrage one hears on main streets or the back streets of our communities in Ontario over it. Continue reading →

By Karl Dockstader –

A collective in Hamilton to support the Idle no more movement! Meet at City Hall to voice our discontent with Steven Harper’s agenda and Bill C-45. First Nations people are here to protect Mother Earth. We need to stand in solidarity to exercise that right.

This message has been circulating for only a few short days.

 Niagara’s First Nations are buzzing that this is our chance to stand up to the Canadian government’s arbitrary rule changes in an effort to erode our rights and merchandise Mother Earth’s gifts on Turtle Island.

The Government of Canada has a long and contentious relationship with First Nations people. From breaking the Queen’s treaties, kidnapping our children and adopting them out in the 60’s scoop, the raping and murder of young innocent Native children at the hands of the administrators of residential schools, to systemic racism and tendencies akin to over a hundred years of attempts at cultural genocide, there is a laundry list of atrocious and egregious government sanctioned attacks against the once proud and free Native persons of Canada.

It took until 1996 to close the last residential school and it will take a lot longer to rebuild the relationship between the government of Canada and the First Nations, Metis and Inuit people of Canada. Continue reading →