Niagara At Large

By Wendell Potter

(This post comes from a courageous individual in the United States who once worked for a private health insurance company and now is one of the more vocal advocates in his country for public health insurance. As we Canadians slid down the slope to private health care, we should take note of what people like Wendell Potter, who have worked both sides of the street,  have to say.)

One of my favorite bumper stickers reads, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”

U.S. public health care advocate Wendell Potter

That’s sort of how I feel about the healthcare debate. If more Americans paid attention to the fate of neighbors and loved ones who have fallen victim to the cruel dysfunction of our healthcare system, they would see through the onslaught of lies and propaganda perpetrated by special interests profiting from the status quo.

Since I started speaking out against the abuses of the insurance industry, I have heard from hundreds of people with maddening and heartbreaking stories about being mistreated and victimized by the greed that characterizes so much of the profit-driven American healthcare system.

http://wendellpotter.com/2011/07/its-time-to-get-outraged/

By Doug Draper

They’ve left some pretty big shoes, but Cindy Forster sounds confident she can fill them.

Cindy Forster

The regional councillor for Welland, Ontario and former mayor of the same city has announced her intentions to run for the nomination of the New Democratic Party in a Welland Riding that has been painted in thick layers of NDP orange for the past 36 years by two of that provincial party’s icons – Mel Swart and Peter Kormos.

“I want to continue holding this riding (which also takes in the southern fringes of St. Catharines, Thorold and Port Colborne) as an NDP seat at Queen’s Park and I feel I am best positioned to do that,” said Forster in an interview with Niagara At Large this July 5.
“I really look forward to the challenge.” Continue reading →

NAL terry nicholls,

 By Terry Nicholls

In light of recent endorsements of the concept of introducing chain gangs to work on cleanup projects across the Niagara Region, I have to say that I believe Mr. Hudak, Mr. Nicholson and other Conservatives of like mind are not being forward-thinking enough.

James Carter, a singing chain gang worker from the 1950s, helped inspire the soundtrack for the Hollywood film 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Maybe we can find some of that kind of talent among or cons in Ontario.

What a boost it could be to the economy of Niagara if we were to take the next logical step and invite some of those Good ol’ Boys from, say, Alabama to come up here and teach our inmates some of those good ol’ negro work songs; imagine the potential for Corrections Tourism.

What worked well for Londoners with regard to Bedlam, and the lunatics incarcerated there, could surely be a model for a cheap and easy way to bring some entertainment to the people of this region who so desperately need to be able to look down on others, so clearly worse off than they are themselves.

Furthermore, since most of us will probably find ourselves in the correctional system at some time as the Conservatives push their Tough on Crime agenda by making just about anything they don’t like illegal (including dissent—which is being handled quite effectively already, but with room for improvement), there is huge potential for inter-facility choir competitions. Continue reading →

A group of St. Catharines artists from a wide range of disciplines will be showcasing new works in their second Urban Sprawl showcase.

A sample of the art from last year's Urban Sprawl show. Courtesy of Tess Millar.

A reception will take place at the Niagara Artists Centre on Saturday, July 9th beginning at 7 p.m., featuring local DJ’s and a performance by guitarist Omar Shabbar.

This will be the second Urban Sprawl art showcase, following the success of the first show at Bang-On Hair Salon this past March.

Check out this unique experience at the Niagara Artists Center on 354 St. Paul Street in downtown St. Catharines,  Ontario.  It all gets underway at 7 p.m.

for more info contact Anah at Anahshabbar@gmail.com

A Foreword by Doug Draper

If you’re wondering if Niagara residents may be over-reacting to the C. difficile outbreak that has so far claimed the lives of at least 15 people in our regional hospitals here, well then maybe ‘Canada’s National Newspaper’ is overreacting too. But I don’t think so.

The Welland, Ontario hospital is one of three hospital sites in the region, including the Niagara Falls and St. Catharines General hospital sites, where deaths from the superbug C. difficile have occurred.

“Niagara Health System, a sprawling network of seven hospitals serving 434,000 people in a dozen communities,” continues The Globe article, “has declared an outbreak of Clostridium difficile, commonly known as C. difficile, commonly known as C. difficile, at three of its sites.”

In this article, St. Catharines resident Joyce Western is quoted talking about her 89-year-old mother who was admitted to the St. Catharines General Hospital this past May suffering from pneumonia. After her admission she began showing symptoms of C. difficile and died shortly thereafter. “In my opinion,” says Western in the article, “if they hadn’t transferred her to the hospital, she would still be alive today.”

A public rally will be held this coming Wednesday, July 6 at the Greater Niagara General Hospital site in Niagara Falls, Ontario at 3 p.m. All who are concerned are welcome to attend.

To read the entire Globe and Mail article, click on http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-news/deadly-superbug-outbreak-hits-problem-plagued-network-of-ontario-hospitals/article2085247/

Niagara At Large welcomes you to share your comments on this issue below.

A Commentary by Doug Draper

If we need one more reason not to blow billions of bucks building a brand new multi-lane highway across the middle of the greater Niagara region on the Ontario side of the border, here it is. And it begins with a couple of question?

The 1920s Peace Bridge, already often over-burdened with traffic at three lanes.

If Ontario did barge ahead with this 1990s  plan for a “mid-peninsula highway” at the behest of some our provincial and municipal leader who just don’t seem to want to give up on mid-20th century habits for moving people and goods around, where would all of this additional car and truck traffic go when it reaches the international border crossing at Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York? Especially when it is now looking like any twinning of the already over-burdened Peace Bridge has been put on ice for now and the foreseeable future? Continue reading →

A Comment by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

 “Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together.” – from the song ‘America’ by Paul Simon

 As we Canadians finish up celebrating Canada Day weekend, and our American friends celebrate the Fourth of July, let me leave us all with a few thoughts.

Flags lining Soldiers' Circle in Buffalo, New York this Fourth of July weekend. Photo by Doug Draper

Not everyone will agree, but let me say it anyway. In a world full of ugly and too often deadly conflicts between nations, we Canadians and Americans are fortunate to share a border and continent together.

In the spirit of that Paul Simon song a few lines of which are quoted above, we’ve had our share of quarrels like most lovers do. Most notable among them is the War of 1812 which  both countries are working together to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of this coming year.

Continue reading →

A citizens’ rally will be held in front of the Greater Niagara General Hospital in Niagara Falls this coming Wednesday, July 6 to protest the way the Niagara Health System has been handling a deadly outbreak of C. difficile at its hospital sites across the region.

The rally is being organized by Wayne Gates, a Niagara Falls city councillor and president of Local 199 of the Canadian Auto Workers, and is expected to include Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati, Niagara Falls Liberal MPP Kim Craitor, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath and Yellow Shirts Brigade leader Sue Salzer are among the speakers.

Everyone concerned about this and other matters around the way the Niagara Health System is managing hospital services in the region is invited to attend. The rally will take place at 3 p.m. at the hospital site located on 5546 Portage Road.

By Doug Draper

The Niagara Parks Commission, the 116-year-old, provincial steward for more than 3,000 acres of land along the Ontario side of the Niagara River, has a new general manager.

Niagara Parks Commission's new general manager Fay Booker

That manager, according to a release the NPC circulated to media this June 30, is Fay Booker, who has serviced as the commission’s chair for more than a year now as it has worked to chart new paths and shed itself of some of the baggage from a decade or so controversy over the way the parks seemed to be going.

Booker was appointed by the province to the chair’s job after Jim Williams quit that post in 2009 following repeated questions over the untendered bidding of the contract over the iconic Maid of the Mist rides below the Falls and other issues. Williams was also in charge while the NPC weathered what was arguably its greatest crisis of public confidence over a plan to run a high-wire gondola ride over the Horseshoe Falls that was later rejected. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

As we join our American neighbours in celebrating another Canada Day and Fourth of July, this dispatch comes to you from ‘Canada’s most patriotic city’.

That’s right! This column comes to you from my home office in the heart of Thorold – a city that has for the past half decade or so crowned itself Canada’s most patriotic city because, on a per capita basis at least, we apparently fly more Canadian flags here during the Canada Day celebrations than any other city in the country.

I put out my Canadian flags too, just as I have long before this patriotic city contest, or whatever it is, got started.  And it does seem to be true, if you take a cruise through Thorold’s downtown and some of the streets leading in to the downtown area, that there is a lot of red and white flapping in the wind out there. According to a report published around this time last year in one of the local papers, a total of 6,179 flags were unfurled within Thorold’s city limits – a pretty impressive number in a municipality with a population of slightly over 18,000. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Look forward to the Peace Bridge linking two great countries illuminated in red and white lights for Canada Day and red, white and blue for the Fourth of July over the next couple of nights between the hours of 9 p.m. and one in the morning.

The Peace Bridge between the United States and Canada gives it up with funky lights at night. Photo courtesy of the Bridge Authority.

The Buffalo, New York and Fort Erie, Ontario Peace Bridge Authority also wants to remind all of us who may be crossing that border bridge to enjoy the binominal Friendship Festival or for any other reason that your crossing may be less time-consuming if you you follow these tips.

§ Visit mobile.peacebridge.com on your web-enabled mobile device or call 1-800-715-6722 to obtain wait times for Buffalo/Niagara Region international crossings, including the Peace Bridge. These updates are revised hourly; Continue reading →

By Linda McKellar

From time to time there have been and shall continue to be outbreaks of virulent disease in both the public setting and in health care facilities.  One such case is colstridium difficile.

Colstridium difficile (known more commonly as C. difficile) is a gram-positive bacteria that causes severe diarrhea and other gastric complications that can result in death. This pathogen can take over when the “normal flora”, the intestinal bacteria found in everyone, is destroyed by antibiotics. Overuse of antibiotics by the public who often demand them even when inappropriate is one cause of the rise of these “super bugs”.

One of the dangers in this scenario is that many institutionalized individuals require antibiotic therapy, which makes them susceptible. These individuals are often hospitalized due to severe acute or chronic health conditions or are elderly thus making them even more likely to become ill from C diff. People go to the hospital with the intent of getting well and going home,  not dying.

Unfortunately,  some NHS patients have recently died who otherwise should not have done so. Continue reading →

By Pat Scholfield

The Niagara Health System has finally admitted we are under an outbreak of C. difficile across all three of the major hospitals in Niagara. We  – the ordinary citizens – have also discovered that what was the hospital site in Port Colborne has three cases and the Fort Erie site has at least one.

Health care advocate Pat Scholfield

A Comment by Doug Draper

For the better part of a month now, I’ve had growing numbers of readers wondering when Niagara At Large is going to weigh in on the C. difficile outbreak that, as of this June 28, has claimed the lives of 15 patients in Niagara hospitals and counting.

Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati wants new leadership at NHS

It is a good question, coming from people who are obviously quite concerned about this mysterious, infectious disease and who and where it might strike next, and I have given that question a good deal of thought.

The short answer is that I didn’t see the point in using this site to keep a scorecard on the growing number of deaths from this disease. As tragic as each and every one of those deaths has been for the victim and their loved ones, the mainstream media in the region are doing the death toll stories, if nothing more. It would be far more interesting to find out, if its possible, what the root cause of this outbreak is and whether there is anything about the hospital environment or the quality of care the patients were getting that contributed to their demise. So far as anything I’ve read or heard to date, there are no easy answers to these important questions.

But one thing I have to mention, as I have so many times before on other matters involving the Niagara Health System and its management of so many of our region’s hospital services, is what a terrible job it does when it comes to communicating with the public.  So much so that this time out the NHS has politicians like Niagara Falls Liberal MPP Kim Craitor and Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati screaming made over the business of waiting until late on a Friday (June 24) afternoon to issue a brief statement that there were two C. difficile-related deaths at the Niagara Falls hospital site, adding to the deaths at that site and two other hospitals in St. Catharines and Welland. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Those dastardly grass clippings were back on the agenda again this June 28 at a Niagara regional public works committee meeting.

Imagine that. Here I am on a nice sunny Tuesday morning, walking into a Niagara regional headquarters housing a government responsible for the proper spending of hundreds of millions of our tax dollars, and instead of hearing more about how we are going to expand the pathetic public transit services we have in this region, I get treated to another half-hour discussion on grass clippings. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Fiona McMurran

Niagara residents have worked long and hard to get the Ontario government to pay attention to our concerns about the Niagara Health System’s so-called ‘Hospital Improvement Plan’.

So when word came down last month from the Minister of Health and Long Term Care, Deb Matthews, that she had finally agreed to an investigation of the HIP, we should have been dancing in the streets. Instead, the announcement was greeted here with varying degrees of scepticism—and with good reason. The arms-length, independent review that Niagara called for is not at all what Matthews has in mind. Her proposal is so ridiculous as to be insulting: let the system investigate itself.

There’s not a whole lot of meat on the bone that the McGuinty government has at last deigned to toss in our direction. What we want is an impartial third-party review, and that, quite clearly, is exactly what we are not going to get from this government. Continue reading →

By Andre Marin, Ontario Ombudsman

(Niagara At Large is posting this piece courtesy of the Ontario Ombudman’s Office and The Ottawa Citizen, which originally published it on its editorial pages on June 20. With so much concern expressed by residents in Niagara over the need for more public scrutiny of our hospital system, NAL is certain this post will be of interest.)

Health care is the provincial government’s single largest budget item and its gravest responsibility. Hospitals and long-term care homes account for the lion’s share of health resources, and with good reason — they are where lives are literally at stake.

Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin

Such important institutions deserve full public scrutiny. What is baffling is that Ontario gives that scrutiny such short shrift.

The Citizen discussed this in an editorial last month (“Making hospitals more accountable,” May 11) after the paper reported that the Ontario government is apparently considering a “star rating” system for hospitals. The editorial applauded this idea, saying it “should follow the work already done by the Ontario government to make hospitals more accountable and transparent.”

I’m not going to disagree. I applaud any movement toward transparency — in fact, in the Annual Report I’m releasing Tuesday morning at Queen’s Park, I will outline why I believe the province has to move forcefully in that direction. But as far as hospitals are concerned, I think there is a more obvious and more effective mechanism to improve their accountability. Continue reading →

By Bruce Allen

(Bruce Allen, a Niagara resident and the vice president of Local 199 of the Canadian Auto Workers, has been one of the most active voices in this region over the past year for provincial and federal inquiries into police actions at the G20 Summit a year ago this June that arguable witnessed one of the most graceful assaults on civil liberties in Canada’s history.)

A year has passed since martial law was imposed in Toronto during the G8/G20 Summit. Far more people were arrested during it than were arrested in October 1970 when Trudeau enacted the War Measures Act.

Cops laying the boots and clubs and year ago this June at the G20 summit in Toronto, Ontario.

The mass arrests were in addition to countless on the spot interrogations and illegal searches. Most of those arrested found themselves held in make-shift cages without access to lawyers, medical care or adequate water and food. Intimidation and blatant harassment, including sexual harassment, of those who were held was widespread.

Since then only a small minority of those who were detained by the police have even been brought to trial let alone convicted. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

I used to try to give these people some benefit of the doubt by saying; ‘Well, maybe they’re just a little naïve or incompetent.’

Paul Leon, at left and back in the chair's seat again at the NHS, back in the old days in 2004 with board of trustees liaison Jeff Morgan, now-gone NHS CEO Debbie Sevenpiffer, also-gone chief of staff William Shragge and board of trustees liaison Anne Ashdown.

In more recent times I’ve come to a conclusion I should have seven or eight years ago. They are frigging stupid! When it comes to being open, honest and responsive to the public they serve, not to mention their own frontline staff, they are dumber than a box of shingle nails.

I’m talking about the Niagara Health System – the amalgamated board created by the former Ontario Conservative government of Mike Harris a decade ago to manage most of the critical hospital services we have in Niagara, Ontario. That is no minor responsibility for a body of senior administrators and a board of trustees that I am daring to call stupid.

Yet how else can you describe a group that, even while it continues to undergo intense public scrutiny and suffer from a crisis of community confidence that can hardly be matched by any other public body in the region, still goes on shuffling around the same old faces on its board rather than find new blood? Continue reading →

(Dan Patterson, president of Niagara College over the past 16 years in which the college has experienced tremendous growth and has seen its enrollment double, is taking a nine-month sabfattcal from the job. Niagara At Large is posting the following media release from the college on this for our readers’ information.)

June 22, 2011

Starting September 1, 2011, Niagara College President Dr. Dan Patterson
will begin a nine-month sabbatical for professional development.

Niagara College president Dan Patterson

“This professional development time will allow me to gain new
insights and a fresh perspective as I reflect on Niagara College and the
challenges and opportunities that lie before us in positioning NC for
future growth and advancement,” Dr. Dan Patterson. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

How much more malarkey do we have to take from this guy?

On first day of summer, McGuinty snows Niagara

Only until October 6 of this year when I hope a provincial election scheduled for that date will see him and a Liberal government that seems to have lost any connection with ordinary, struggling Ontarians is blasted out of office.

I’m talking about the government of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who spoke before a business group in Niagara, Ontario community of St. Catharines this June 21 and who might just as well have delivered a speech that came from an alien from the planet Neptune or Mars.

Maybe the speech went over like gangbusters with the well-healed chamber crowd but it is hard to imagine it would go over like anything more than emulsions from a skunk in one of the most economically ravaged regions of this province. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

A so-called “independent review” of the Niagara Health System’s hospital restructuring plans is looking like it could be a “farce” before it even gets underway, says the head of a Niagara-based citizen group called the Yellow Shirt Brigade.

Niagara hospital advocate Sue Salzer

“Before the committee members (for the review) are even announced, the LHIN now seems determined to alienate the public even further,” Salzer told Niagara At Large. “How can they possibly justify limiting the scope of an already weighted process to three pre-determined areas.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The three-year-old daughter of Ontario Conservative opposition leader and Niagara area MPP Tim Hudak has been hospitalized at Toronto’s Sick Children’s Hospital for an undisclosed illness.

Tim Hudak with his wife Debbie and daughter Miller at a pumpkin farm in Niagara last October. Photo by Doug Draper.

In a statement Hudak released this June 20, he asked for privacy and added “on behalf of my wife Debbie, I want to express our appreciation to the concern expressed for our daughter Miller. … My family and I are grateful for all the thoughts, prayers and well wishes we have been receiving.”

According to an article in The Ottawa citizens, Miller Hudak was borne in 2007 with health problems that have never been disclosed. “I’d rather not talk about that if that’s OK. There’s some personal stuff I don’t want to talk about publicly,” said Hudak in an interview last year. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Those of us who’ve been following politics for years have seen it happen over and over again with more left-leaning political parties.

Will federal NDP leader Jack Layton shift his party away from its core principles?

They no sooner get a big boost of support from the voters – sometimes enough to make them the governing party – and they watering down or brushing aside some of the more progressive promises and policies that made them so appealing to those voters in the first place.

It is hard not to wonder, with all of the news coming out of the federal New Democratic Party convention in Vancouver over the weekend of June 18 and 19, whether the NDP is not about to inflict the same kind of air-brushing of the policies and principles it has stood for following an election this spring that found it winning an unprecedented 103 seats – enough to earn it official opposition status for the first time in its 50-year history. Continue reading →

A Brief by Doug Draper

If you are a fan of Bruce Springsteen  and have ever had the thrill of seeing him and his E Street Band on stage, you had to be blown away by ‘the Big Man’.

Clarence Clemons blows that big horn for Springsteen during the Born to Run days.

The Big Man was Clarence Clemons, Springsteen’s sax player and his close friend for nearly 40 years, who died at age 69 this June 18 following a stroke.

I have had the fortune of seeing Springsteen and his band in concert three times, and one of the things that struck me was that Springsteen never put himself out in front of his band. His band mates like Clarence were always standing right there with him, on the frontline. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Canada and the United States have the wealth and resources to protect and preserve the waters of our Great Lakes for present and future generations, says Lana Pollack, chair of the U.S. section of the International Joint Commission.

U.S. IJC chair Lana Pollack.

“I get personally tired of hearing that we are too poor (and) we don’t want to leave a deficit to our children,” added Pollack during the final hour this June 17 of a three-day ‘Power of Shared Waters’ conference mayors and other municipal leaders from both countries – all members of a coalition called the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative – held in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

There are other kinds of deficits that don’t simply involve money, said Pollack, who was appointed to the IJC, the official Canada-U.S. watchdog on Great Lakes waters, by President Barack Obama a year ago this June.  “I don’t want to leave a deficit in infrastructure. I don’t want to leave a deficit in clean water. I don’t want to leave a deficit in water quality. I don’t want to leave a deficit on water quantity.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

With the beginning of the bicentennial commemorations of the War of 1812 between Canada and the United States now only six or seven months away, the Niagara Parks Commission helped set the stage this June 17 with a “grand reopening” of the Laura Secord Homestead in Queenston, Ontario.

Niagara Parks chair Fay Booker speeks at Laura Secord's front door for ceremony. Photo by Doug Draper

Fay Booker, the chair of this parks commission created by the province 116 years ago, has as party of its mandate to protect and preserve the great natural and heritage resources along the river, also has stewardship over the home of one of the most iconic women during that cross-border conflict, had the following to say at the reopening.

“This investment in our past,” she said of the close to $9 million the provincial and federal government have recently granted for the enhancement of the Laura Secord site and other War of 1812 projects, including the old fort at Fort Erie and the restoration of the McFarland House in Niagara-on-the-Lake, “has allowed us to properly showcase this venue and tell our unique stories so that future generations will know of the important contributions of individuals such as Laura Secord made to the development of this country.” Continue reading →

By Dave Draper

(The following is a dispatch  from Dave Draper, who lives in Vancouver’s downtown area and is the brother of Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper. His observations speak to a view that the modern-day culture of hockey violence set the scene for the violence that erupted in the streets of Vancouver over the night of June 15 and 16.)

The overturned and burning police car was five blocks from our place. We could look out our window and see the black smoke.rising above the office towers and high-rises.

This Vancouver rioter, wearing a Canucks shirt and waving a hockey stick. And he's not a hockey fan? Give us a break.

Interestingly, we could see the news helicopter circling overhead, HEAR it’s rotors churning, and, in real-time, see the images from it’s camera on out TV. Play-by-play…. just like a hockey game! For weeks, that crowd had been geared up for an emotional evening and they were going to have one, one way or the other.

After all, hockey, like football and soccer but even more so by virtue of the totally permissive attitude toward intra-game fist fighting, is a sport which appeals to the emotions more than the intellect. There aren’t many riots after an international chess match! Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

It was once one of the grand old high schools in Niagara,  Ontario.

File photo of an already boarded up Welland High School, taken by Doug Draper

Welland High School, closed in 1989 after more than 100 years of serving as a beacon for secondary education in this region, was already suffering a sad death when I was given one more chance to walk the same corridors I walked more than 40 years ago as a Grade 9 student there.

The interior of this place, where my mother and so many generations of young people in central Niagara went to school, had already been cannibalized for any lights, clocks and other fixtures.  Trash was strewn across the floor and there were empty beer cans piled in corners where vandals had broke in at night for a party. There were even Nazi swastikas spray painted on walls where plaques remembering students who sacrificed their lives in World Wars One and Two once hung. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is posting this June 16 joint news release from Niagara’s two NDP representatives for our readers information.)

Welland – Welland MP Malcolm Allen and MPP Peter Kormos call on the Federal Labour Minister to order Canada Post to end the lockout and get back to meaningful negotiations with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

“The lockout by Canada Post is irresponsible and is an attack on workers and their rights,” said Allen.

There have been honks of support from passing motorists at the Welland Canada Post Building on Division Street as workers are now into day two of a forced lockout. Continue reading →

A  Commentary by Doug Draper

Like many others, I turned on the tube this June 16 to images of cars in flames, store windows being smashed and police dressed in riot gear, wielding clubs and firing tear gas into unruly mobs.

Mayhem in the streets of Vancouver

I immediately assumed that these were more scenes coming from troubled regions in North Africa or the Middle East, or from Greece where countless thousands are rioting in the streets over the meltdown of the economy in that country. But these scenes were coming from the streets of Vancouver, B.C., and the riot followed in the wake of the hometown team’s loss of a hockey game!

Is this what causes tens-of-thousands of people to riot in the streets in Canada? Not our involvement in a senseless war, or the high jobless rate or the widening wage gap and systematic gutting of the middle class in this country. A hockey game,  for God’s sake. Continue reading →

From Chris George

June 16, 2011 – Niagara West – Glanbrook Member of Parliament Dean Allison gave notice for a motion in the House of Commons today. Motion-230 reads: That in the opinion of the House, anaphylaxis is a serious concern for an increasing number of Canadians and the government should take the appropriate measures necessary to ensure these Canadians are able to maintain a high quality of life.

Niagara West-Glanbrook MP Dean Allison

This anaphylaxis awareness motion is one that Mr. Allison championed in the last Parliament, working with his colleagues and the Health Minister, and leading a House of Commons debate where Motion-546 received all-Party support.

The federal election was called before a vote could be held, and therefore the reintroduction of the MP’s motion is welcomed by hundreds of family members of the Canadian Anaphylaxis Initiative (CAI), a volunteer network of concerned families who have been working with MPs through the past year to raise awareness of severe allergies in Ottawa. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

“It could take just 30 working days to tear down the remains of decades of Port Dalhousie history.”

Port Dalhousie, Ontario. Thanks to the McGuinty government, almost gone.

That was the first line in a front page story published this past June 10 by The St. Catharines Standard, a chain-owned (Sun Media/Quebecor, need we say more) newspaper that has been a cheer leader for developers wanting to rip down old buildings in Port Dalhousie, Ontario, to erect a multi-tower condo here from the get go. Continue reading →

A Comment by Becky Day

I don’t know about you but the price of gas is killing me.

Becky Day

I drive (from the Niagara, Ontario community of Thorold) to Vineland once or twice a day for work and I’m paying an average of about $90 a week to fill up. I cringe when I look at the final total. Unfortunately, my pay hasn’t increased to keep up with the rising prices so I’m actually losing money going to work now.

I know a lot of people who are driving over the river (to Buffalo or Niagara Falls, New York) to get gas right now. Personally this isn’t a good option for me because I don’t have time, and if I were to go, I likely wouldn’t save any money anyway because I’d probably end up shopping at the Outlet Mall or Target. You laugh, but I know myself pretty well. In addition, the last thing I feel like doing at the end of the day is driving more! Continue reading →

NAL shark fin soup,

A Commentary by Doug Draper

This should be an easy one to slap a ban on.

You wanna kill sharks?. Then let's get down to it and kill every last living shark! What is wrong with us as a human species?

You take a soup that can only be produced from cutting the fins off of one of more endangered species on this planet and throwing it back into the ocean to die a bloody, drowning death. Then you do the right thing that can be done! You ban a soup, called “shark-fin soup,” from being served here in Niagara or anywhere else in Ontario or Canada, or New York State, for that matter. Continue reading →

Ontario New Democrats Would Scrap Ambulance Fees

(Niagara At Large is posting this June media release for our readers information. There will be more pledges from all three provincial parties as the Oct. 6 election approaches and we will endeavor to keep our readers informed of all of them.)

Toronto – A New Democrat government will start tackling the creeping cost of healthcare, starting by eliminating fees for ambulance service, said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath

“The pain and stress of an emergency is hard enough, no one should have to deal with the financial burden on top of that. It’s time to eliminate ambulance fees,” said Horwath.

Most people are charged $45 when transported by ambulance for a medical emergency. The fee is distributed to the hospital and the province.

“Calling an ambulance is a decision people should take seriously,” said Horwath. “People should think twice before they call, but they shouldn’t think twice about the cost.” Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

These are the people we are supposed to look up to. They are people who swear an oath to uphold the laws of the land. They are role models for our community.

How disturbing it is then to hear and read CBC reports this June 13 that several police officers in the Niagara Regional Police Service have been caught cheating on an exam they must take to earn a promotion.

According to the CBC report, about 75 officers wrote the exam this spring as part of a process they had to go through to apply for 17 sergeant and staff sergeant positions. At least some of them had apparently received advance information about the questions they would be asked on the test.

“It’s very disappointing,” NRP Chief Wendy Southall was quoted telling CBC. “The most important thing I believe in their day-to-day duties, aside from the operational techniques that they know, is honesty and integrity,” added the police chief. “And do some breach it? Unfortunately they do … it’s a very small number.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Before an enthusiastic audience of supporter this June 10, Wayne Redekop was acclaimed as the New Democrat candidate in the provincial riding of Niagara Falls.

Niagara Falls NDP candidate Wayne Redekop delivers nomination speech while party's Ontario leader, Andrea Horwath, looks on.

The nomination of Redekop, during a meeting in Niagara Falls attended by Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, promises to make the race for a seat in this October 6 provincial election a hot one in this riding, encompassing Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and the candidate’s hometown of Fort Erie.

Redekop, a lawyer and former Fort Erie mayor who has continued to speak out for fair access to hospital care, land preservation and other issues since he decided for years ago not to make another run for mayor after servicing two terms, will be facing off against Liberal incumbent incumbent and Niagara Falls resident Kim Craitor and first-time Conservative provincial candidate and Niagara-on-the-Lake businessman and farmer George Lepp. Continue reading →

NAL poverty,
(Niagara At Large is posting this notice for a free forum in the region for your information.)

The Social Assistance Reform Network of Niagara is hosting, a not-for-profit body representing a number of organizations, along with churches and individuals across the region, is hosting a free community presentation and discussion this Wednesday, June 22, called “Working for a Poverty Free Ontario”.

Guest speakers are Marvyn Novick and Peter Clutterbuck with the Social Planning Network of Ontario.  The presentation will take place from 10 a.m. to 12 noon in Coronation Room of the  McBain Centre on 7150 Montrose Road in Niagara Falls, Ontario.  Registration is not required.

For more information on the Social Planning Network of Ontario visit www.spno.ca.

A Commentary by Doug Draper

‘Those big-spending Liberals won’t cut your taxes. We will.’

Even if you were doing a poor job of following this spring’s federal election in Canada, you must have heard that message. It was repeated over and over again by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives, and it apparently convinced enough of us to deliver the Conservatives a commanding majority in both the parliament and senate.

Harper chooses user fee hikes and service cuts over income tax hikes

There is no doubt in this commentators mind that there will be billions of dollars in new tax cuts for corporations in this country that are already bathing in bonuses for their top executives and dividends for their shareholders. Those cuts for the rich and super rich have been promised and as sure as the rich get richer and the rest of us get shafted, they will be delivered.

But what about the tax cuts Harper promised earlier this spring for ‘hard-working Canadian families’? Or are those cuts for families going to have to wait, as the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and several other media organizations  have recently reported, until the Harper government balances the budget for years three or four years down the road?

Of course, three or four years down the road brings us close to another federal election – a good time to offer tax cuts to a peasantry that may not have noticed how much it is about to have its pocket picked with more user fees, even while it puts up with more cuts to health care, education, environment and other public services. Continue reading →

By Dawn Pierrynowski

You’ve heard of chimney sweeps but do you know about the Chimney Swift?

A Chimney Swift, nesting down a chimney shaft. A species struggling to survive.

These unique birds – known more technically as Chaetura Pelagica – are an urban-dwelling aerial insectivore that eats about 1,000 flying insects each day while flying continuously high over towns, fields, forests and wetlands. They are known as the “flying cigars” because of their cigar-shaped body (12-14 cm long), narrow pointed wings, short spiny tail, and quick jerky movements while in flight. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

For more than half a century, it has been one of the more welcome signs that the lazy, hazy days of summer are almost here.

Buffalo's Delaware Avenue adrift with people during the Allentown Art Festival. File photo by Doug Draper.

The Allentown Art Festival in Buffalo,  N.Y. – one of the oldest,  biggest and most popular, not to mention most  populated festivals of its kind in this region of the world – is celebrating its 54th anniversary this Saturday,  June 11 and Sunday,  June 12 on several blocks of Delaware Avenue where countless tens-of-thousands are visiting hundreds of exhibitors every hour the festival is open. Continue reading →

A Foreword from Niagara At Large

The Niagara Regional Police Service’s higher-than-inflation budget increases in recent years may not be a a big hit with municipal ratepayers, many of whom have not seen a similar two-to-three percent increase in their pensions or hourly wages for quite a few years.

Niagara Regional Police Chief Wendy Southall

But it is unclear if the federal Conservative government of Stephen Harper, which is all about pouring billions of dollars more of our money out on its get-tough-on-crime program, cares all that much about this. Most recently, this June 8, it has awarded NRPC Chief Wendy Southall with a “merit award.”

One wonders if those of us who are lower down on the foodchain, yet are still struggling to pay our taxes at the federal, provincial and federal level, should not get a merit award also, simply for trying to do that!.

This is nothing against Wendy Southall as a person, who seems to be one of the best police chief’s Niagara, Ontario has had since regional government was established more than 40 years ago. Yet why do are governments continue to pin badges of honour on those making six-digit salaries while so many of the rest of us are being screwed?

Below  is the prepared statement from the federal government on Chief Southall’s award.

Ottawa – St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra and Niagara West-Glanbrook MP Dean Allison were on hand at Rideau Hall today to see Niagara Regional Police Chief Wendy Southall become an Office of the Order of Merit of Police Officers.  Chief Southall was one of 7 officers and 36 members presented with the award by Governor General David Johnston.   Continue reading →

(Just as a foreword to this fine piece by Don Alexander, a Niagara resident, urban planner and good friend of the late Jane Jacobs, billions of books have been published in the last 50 years but only a very few of them made a difference in the way we think and live as a people. Among them are Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’, Marshall Mcluhan’s ‘Understanding Media’, Harper Lee’s ‘Too Kill a Mockingbird’,  and Jane Jacob’s ‘The Death And Life Of Great American Cities’, a book that strived to get us all thinking about how we might live a richer life in a healthy urban environment, evem while many of us were moving way out  beyond the edges of the city known to some, who couldn’t’ give a damn about real city life, as the suburbs.
Don Alexander, an urban planner, former Niagara regional councillor and an old friend of Jane Jacobs who produced a fine documentary film on her, talks about Jacobs on the 50th anniversary of her seminal book and Niagara At Large is proud to post it here.)

By Don Alexander

Fifty years ago, we began to learn about city planning and living in a different way.

Jane Jacobs with Don Alexander. Photo courtesy of Don Alexander.

The publication in 1961 of “Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs turned a corner in the way we think about cities. The book still resonates with those who think and plan about the future directions of cities.

I first read the book, with wonder, about 1963.  I began to imagine a different future for cities.  Since that time, I have measured many of the city sights I see against the potentials that were held in Jane Jacob’s book and in later publications about the economies of cities and regions. Continue reading →

By Pat Scholfield 

Finally a decision has been made to review the Niagara Health System’s so-called Hospital Improvement Plan!   How do we – those of us who are advocates in various coalitions – feel about it?  Good!   Do we feel ecstatic?   No.

Pat Scholfield

And why don’t we feel ecstatic? Because it is highly unlikely the review will be either independent, objective or complete.

Remember we asked for an independent review. Health Minister Deb Matthews has assured us it will be an independent evaluation headed by the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), the Niagara Health System (NHS) and members of Regional Council, who will set up the terms of reference. That means two of the agencies that developed and approved the Hospital Improvement Plan (HIP) will be the bodies chosen to set up the criteria for the evaluation. Isn’t this a flagrant conflict of interest? Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is posting this June 3 statement from Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak, MPP Niagara West-Glanbrook, following the announcement from Peter Kormos, MPP Welland, that he will not run for re-election in the fall.)

“Few MPPs will leave a more indelible mark on Queen’s Park than Peter Kormos.”

Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak

“He will be remembered as an iconic figure whose personal popularity back home in Welland was so great that even when the NDP was reduced from 74 to 17 seats in 1995, he handily won his hometown riding.”

“Anyone who has worked at the Ontario legislature during the past 25 years has a story to tell about Peter Kormos. Quick witted, always willing to speak strategy on legislative process, he was a walking encyclopedia of standing orders, procedure or just ways to rattle the government’s cage.” Continue reading →

(This June 3 media release comes from the office of St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley and Liberal government cabinet minister, and is being posted for our readers information. It speaks to a continued commitment on the part of the government to use some gas tax money to support public transit.)

St. Catharines, Ontario— Provincial support through the gas tax is getting more people in St. Catharines out of their cars and onto public transit. The Gas Tax program is helping public transit in St. Catharines become more convenient, accessible and comfortable for commuters by funding improvements.

St. Catharines MPP and Ontario cabinet minister Jim Bradley

“Gas tax funding helps municipalities deliver public transit here in St. Catharines and across the province,” said St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley. “Our record investments in public transit strengthen Ontario’s economy by helping people get to work, school, and to visit friends, while reducing gridlock and emissions.”

One bus takes up to 40 vehicles off the road, and keeps 25 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere each year Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Peter Kormos, the fearless, outspoken member of the Ontario NDP who has served the Welland Riding since the late 1980, announced this June 3 that he will not be running in this October’s provincial election.

Peter Kormos

And admire Kormos or not, the decision by this always colourful personality to retire from provincial politics definitely marks the end of an era. The political landscape in Niagara and Ontario may never be quite the same.

“After 23 years in the Ontario legislature, I’ve decided to pursue new interests,” said Kormos in a statement. “I remain indebted to Mel Swart, my predecessor. He set an extremely high standard (and) I thank NDP leader Andrea Horwath and former leader Howard Hampton for their leadership and guidance. I’m proud of the work they and New Democrats have done over the years.  By putting people and communities first, we’ve made a real difference for Ontario families.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The Niagara Health System should not be allowed to sit on a “steering committee” setting the terms for an investigation into the way it is managing the region’s hospital services, says Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati.

Niagara Falls, Ontario Mayor Jim Diodati

“That would be a clear conflict of interest,” Diodati told Niagara At Large during a phone interview this June 2 from a conference for Canadian municipalities he was attending on the east coast. “This has to pass the smell test and the way it sits now, it doesn’t,” added the mayor of information Niagara’s regional chairman Gary Burroughs received in a May 31 letter from the province’s health minister Deb Matthews. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Let me begin with a few rhetorical questions.
.
How safe do you feel in this country? Do you go to bed preoccupied with a fear that someone might burst into your house in the middle of the night and brutalize you or your family or that you could get shot or stabbed walking down the street the following day?

'Mr. Tough Guy'. Federal Justice Minister and Niagara Falls MP Rob Nicholson.

Those same figures (no wonder the Stephen Harper government wants to dewclaw Statistics Canada) show that this country has one of the lowest crime rates in the world and the rate of violent crime has actually declined in Canada over the past decade – even while the federal Liberals were in power and Harper’s Conservatives accused them, every chance they could get of being “soft on crime.” Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following media release on tours you enjoy through Forest Lawn, one of the most historic cemeteries in our greater region and one that is rich with classic monuments to people who were among the great makers and shakers, both nationally and internationally, over the past few hundred years.)

Buffalo, NY – Do you know what air conditioning, the electric chair, the grain elevator and the BarcaLounger all have in common? The individuals who invented them are all interred at Forest Lawn, along with many other well-known men and women, including President Millard Fillmore, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and musician Rick James.

Grave of Buffalo, New York area native and R&B musician Rick James. Photo by Doug Draper

When you take one of Forest Lawn’s famous Sunday In The Cemetery walking or trolley tours, you’ll hear the fascinating stories of the people, art, history and nature that make up this 269-acre jewel, located at 1411 Delaware Avenue in the heart of downtown Buffalo. And you’ll meet a few of our famous permanent residents along the way! Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post this news release from Ontario’s Niagara Parks Commission for our readers on the grand opening opening this Saturday, June 4 of the new Niagara Glen Nature Centre. The Niagara Glen located off the Niagara Parkway north of Queenston Heights and the Niagara Escarpment is a natural wonder that offers visitors an experience of the lower Niagara River along the gorge the that is possibly as close at is comes to view that greeted the first European explorers. If you’ve never hiked the Niagara Glen, put on your best walking shoes and great ready for a breath-taking treat.)

Niagara Falls, ON – The Niagara Parks Commission (NPC) is pleased to announce exciting changes at the Niagara Glen with the grand opening of the new Nature Centre (previously known as The Feather in the Glen) on Saturday, June 4. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place at 9:30 a.m.  followed by free guided tours of the Niagara Glen at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Overlooking the lower rapids of the great river from the Niagara Glen. Photo courtesy of Niagara Parks Commission.

Daily hiking tours and bicycle rentals will now be available throughout the season at the centre, and visitors are invited to explore new educational displays including “Animals of the Glen”, nature and geology “touch tables” and interpretive panels on the flora and geology of the Niagara Glen.

Hand carved wood products by Master Carver Frank Kim, framed artwork by local artist Paul Augustino and paintings by members of the Parkway Artists Guild are also on sale at the centre. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

After more than a year of stubborn refusals, it appears that Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews has said okay to some kind of an “investigation” or “evaluation” of the way the Niagara Health System has been managing hospital services in the region.

Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews finally bends to calls for Niagara hospital review

The minister, who has repeatedly brushed away calls from Niagara citizen groups and municipal leaders for an investigation, sent a letter to the regional government’s chair, Gary Burroughs, this May 31 saying she will now allow some kind of “third-party review” into how the NHS, an administrative board created under the province’s former Conservative government, is rolling out plans for hospital services here.

“After thoughtful deliberation and consideration, I have come to the conclusion that an independent, third-party evaluation of the implemented phases of the (NHS’s) Hospital Improvement Plan (HIP) would be valuable,” stated Matthews in the letter. “I agree that such an evaluation would be best served by requesting the (Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Local Health Integration Network or LHIN, for short,) establish a tripartite steering committee to develop the terms of reference for the evaluation. Representation on this committee must include LYIN board members, HNS board members, and members of regional council as determined by the regional chair. The LHIN board is responsible under their mandate to establish such a committee and determine its membership and timelines.”

Port Colborne, Ontario Mayor Vance Badawey, who has witness hospital services in his community diminished under the NHS and its hospital plan, told Niagara At Large this June 1 that “the satisfying thing about this is that (Matthews) has said ‘yes’ to a third-party review. However, it is extremely critical that it is done right.” Continue reading →

By Shaheen Kanthawala, Courtesy of The Great Lakes Echo

(This article was posted this May 31 in The Great Lakes Echo, an online news site produced by the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan, and focuses on the latest efforts by Niagara Falls, Ontario MPP Kim Craitor to get a bill passed in the Ontario legislature, granting the general public access to our lakeshores.

With a provincial election coming on in October, this may be the last best chance to get legislation of this nature passed so that everyone can enjoy these Great Lakes that rightfully are the home to all of us and not just the playground of a privileged few. Contact your provincial MPP now and urge them to support Craitor’s proposed ‘Right of Passage Act’ – Bill 32, be passed – NOW!)

A bill proposed in Ontario, Canada may let the general public walk along the Great Lakes shoreline instead of just the people who own lakefront property.
Right now they can’t.

Niagara Falls, Ontario MPP Kim Craitor and an area resident at a makeshift barrier erected along the shores of Lake Erie and intended to keep the general public off the shoreline.

Shoreline property owners in Ontario have privileges right down to the lakes.

“Cottage owners take advantage of that,” said Marcia Valiante, a law professor at University of Windsor, “They put up barriers in the water.”

The existing laws are unclear, she said. This bill tries to clarify the situation.

The proposed Great Lakes Right of Passage Act would allow the public to walk between the shoreline and the high water mark of a Great Lake. It was proposed by Kim Craitor, a member of the provincial parliament. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.”
William Butler Keats

The thought of going to an anti-green lobby group espousing the end or curtailment of wind turbines was akin to going to a Tea Party meeting, but I went anyways.

A bumper sticker from the anti-wind turbine citizens coalition, Wind Concerns Ontario.

It was a moderate drive from Grimsby, Ontario – more than this meeting in neighbourhing municipality of West Lincoln deserved – but then Grimsby is solidly Conservative, so it wasn’t that difficult.  I don’t mean disrespect to Conservatives, after all, it’s the Conservatives in Germany who are arguably more “green” than the Greens of Canada (Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions are 20 percent below 1990 levels, and well past the KYOTO target.), but the Conservatives in Grimsby are about as green as trans-national corporations —  more purplish I’d say, with some green washed in. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Good Lord Almighty, and I ain’t even all that religious.  Do we really need to be spending more time and money at Niagara, Ontario’s regional level of government talking about what the average homeowner should do with their grass clipping?!

Grass clippings, for God’s sake! Grass clippings!

From a Niagara regional government pamphlet, encouraging us to recycle grass clippings on our own lawns.

If that’s what residents on the Niagara, Ontario side of our greater region want their government to spend more time and money on – what to do with the grass clippings after we’ve cut our lawn – then why not get the regional government to spend even more time and money studying which rake is the best one to use to gather up grass clippings, or whether a rake is more environmentally friendly to use than one of those electric lawn vacuums?

If the question of what to do with our grass clippings is such a big concern in Niagara, then maybe we are doing pretty well here. Let’s face it, how many other people on this planet have the luxury of worrying about what to do with their grass clippings? Continue reading →

A Foreword by Doug Draper

Well, the weather is finally getting a little more seasonal and our farmers across the greater Niagara region are able to go out in their fields and, hopefully, salvage what is left of an overly cold and soggy growing season.

St. Catharines, Ontario Farmers Market. Photo courtesy of City of St. Catharines

A few weeks back, The Buffalo News published a story on its front page, talking about how much more financially punishing this wet spring is for them, on top of rising fuel prices, foreign competition and everything lese they are trying to wrestle with. There was the suggestion that some of them may not survive these burdens and I would imagine the same burdens our facing our family farms on the Niagara, Ontario side of the border. Continue reading →

By Chris George

May 31, 2011 – This week when Members of Parliament return to the House of Commons, Niagara West – Glanbrook MP Dean Allison will be picking up where he left off before the election, assisting Canadian families in raising greater awareness of the health and quality of life challenges posed by living with severe, life-threatening allergies (anaphylaxis).

With his private member’s Motion 546 of the previous Parliament, MP Allison led a drive to make MPs and the Ottawa bureaucracy more aware of the serious issues facing Canadians with anaphylaxis. The MP achieved all-Party support for his motion, which was the subject of an hour debate in the House of Commons in March of this year. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Welcome to Niagara At Large’s second entry of ‘Creep of the Week’ – a column that focuses on someone who does something  creepy and contemptible enough to wear a creep-of-the-week crown.

Stephen Harper, our creep of the week

Last week, it was a generously paid college president from the Barrie, Ontario area who tried to write off the cost of a political fundraising dinner on an expense account that we taxpayers cover, as do college students through their tuitions, until the province’s NDP party filed a freedom of information request that would expose this conduct. At that point, the Georgian College president did what he should have done in the first place, and paid the $5,000 back out of his own pocket.

This last week of May, our Creep of the Week crown goes to Canada’s recently re-elected prime minister, Stephen Harper, for hardly waiting three weeks after the election to appoint three defeated candidates from his Conservative Party to that bone yard for political hacks that is the country’s Senate. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

With little more than 19 weeks left until the next provincial election, hardly a weekday goes by when I don’t get at least one media release from the Conservatives or NDP, or from any one of a number of citizen groups slamming Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government.

Ontario Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne

Suffice to say, this columnist has done his share of criticizing too – especially when it comes to the way McGuinty and company have sat back and allowed the Niagara Health System to set plans for most of the hospital services in this region. I’ve no doubt that this issue alone could cost the Liberals thousands of votes in this region and could cost Kim Craitor, a decent, hardworking Liberal MPP, his seat in a Niagara Falls riding that includes Fort Erie where, more than a year ago, the emergency room at the hospital in that community was closed. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Memorial Day Weekend is here for our American neighbours across the border and this Sunday, May 29 everyone – Americans and Canadians alike – who has an interest in U.S. Civil War history is invited to a special commemorative event on one of the most historic lawns of Buffalo.

File photo of Civil War march through Forest Lawn in Buffalo. Photo by Michael Mandolfo and courtesy of Forest Lawn, Buffalo, N.Y.

That event will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and take place in Forest Lawn Cemetery bordered by Buffalo’s Main Street and Delaware Avenue.

If you  are a Civil War buff, you may already know that tens-of-thousands of young Canadians from what was then still British North America enlisted in the Union and Confederate armies to fight in what remains the bloodiest conflict on this continent. This was a war, from 1861 to 1865, that affected the lives, often tragically, of many families in both our countries. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

“Cling, Clang. Cling Clang. …
That’s the sound of the men
working on the chain gang.”
–    from the old Sam Cooke song, Chain Gang

Get used to the idea folks. If Niagara native and Conservative leader Tim Hudak becomes the next premier of Ontario, driving along a road or highway and watching prisoners dressed up in stripped pajamas and ankle chains as they clearing garbage or picking up garbage along the side of the road may become routine.

A chain gang in George, vintage 1941. Tim Hudak promises to bring them to Ontario if he become premier in 2011

You may even see them cutting grass in our public parks, the way the Conservative leader describes it.

It’s probably no big deal if you’ve spent a lot of time driving the roads way down in the deep south in Georgia or Alabama or Mississippi. You’ll be gong along and there they are, wearing stripped suits and ankle bracelets, clearing up the scrub and the daddy from Slaphole, Mississippi drives by with his son in the car and says; “Lookie der boy. Dat’s what you get if you lifts a can of tuna from the Piggly Wiggly.”

Now Tim Hudak is pledging to import that culture to Ontario, and isn’t it a good thing! Isn’t it?  After all, and as he imagines, every day spent in a prison in this province is like a day’s vacation at the Quality Inn, with yoga, writing classes, high-definition TV and all other sorts of fun. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is posting the following May 26 media release for our readers information.)

OTTAWA – Leader of the Official Opposition, Jack Layton announced this morning that NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland) will serve as the Agriculture and Agri-Food Critic in his shadow cabinet.

After serving as the Deputy Critic for Agriculture and Food Security in the last Parliament, Allen was honoured to receive the agriculture critic appointment.

“Obviously this is a huge honour and great responsibility to be named in this historic shadow cabinet. We will be sitting directly across from the Ministers responsible and hold them to account for Canadians every day,” said Allen.

Allen has developed relationships with multiple farm and agricultural associations and groups over the years and is looking forward to strengthening those in the coming Parliamentary session.

“My office has worked hard on the agriculture file for over 2 years,” said Allen. “We’ve met with many representatives from agriculture and farm groups, including developing a Private Members Bill with the support of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.”

(Niagara At Large is running the following May 24 media release from the office of Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak for our readers’ information. These posts should in no way be interpreted to mean that NAL supports the views of the party or candidate that produced them. This is about putting the information out there and letting you use the comment boxes below as a town hall to share your views. So here we go with this latest one from a party that, when it was in power a decade ago, hardly kept up to spending the amount of money are hospitals needed at the time. Indeed, it was Mike Harris’s Conservative government that created the Niagara Health System that is such a source of controversy in this region today.)

Health Spending Under Hudak to Increase by $6.1 Billion

NEWS:

Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak today announced that his party’s top funding priority will be health care.  By the end of its first term, a Hudak government will increase annual investments in health care by nearly $6.1 billion while moving funds out of waste and administration and into care for people.

Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak

As someone with a young daughter and parents who are getting older, Tim Hudak gets how important our health services truly are.  His party’s plan will bring change that puts patients at the very centre of health care. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

One of the very first record albums I ever bought in my life, when I was around 12 or 13 years old, was something called “In The Wind’ by the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary.

Happy Birthday Bob. May there be many more.

Track after track, that early 1960s album still stands up as a great folk album from that wild and wonderful Greenwich Village era, but the two tracks that stood out the most for me were ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ and ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, both penned by a then very young immigrant to that Village scene who’d changed his name from Bob Zimmerman to Bob Dylan.

Those two songs, which I quickly learned how to play on a cheap acoustic guitar I owned at the time, were my introduction to Bob Dylan, and the rest is history. Whether it was Bob doing his own music or someone covering it – The Byrds with ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and ‘My Back Pages’ or Jimi Hendrix doing an epic take on ‘All Along The Watchtower’ – I was sold, as were so many others. Continue reading →