Niagara At Large

A Commentary by Doug Draper

I couldn’t help it  one Friday morning earlier this July. Like millions of others, I had the tube turned on to watch the American shuttle Atlantis roar into space from NASA’s Cape Canaveral for the last time.

Last NASA shuttle launch

It was hard not to watch it without thinking that this last launch spells another stark end to a United States that dominated the world economically, technologically and culturally for much of the last century, and it took me back to a time when that space program and what it stood for still stood for a U.S. on the way up, not crashing down.

I remember being in Grade 2 or 3 in Welland in 1961 and 1962 when the first American astronauts, making up the then-fledgling Mercury 7, were launched, one after another, into space. The U.S., totally involved in a ‘Cold War’ with a Russia that was then the Soviet Union, wanted to prove its superiority in virtually everything by sending people into space after being stung by the Soviets sending up a satellite named Sputnik and a cosmonaut named Yari Gagarin, who became the first human to orbit this earth. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

(A note from the publisher – This post, for whatever reason has received many hundreds of  hits on Niagara At Large over the past few days even though it made its appearance here in November of last year.                                                    One can only speculate why. Perhaps it is because the over-riding message about shared sacrifice has found some appeal at a time when American is on the verge of an economic meltdown. Or maybe it is because of recent news that the Kennedy compound may soon go on the chopping block, one more sign that the country’s golden years may be over.
Whatever the reason,  NAL is bumping this post up to the top of the site again.)

“Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country.”

Those words,  spoken by the late President John F. Kennedy following his inauguration on January 20, 1961,  inspired generations of Americans to service and self-sacrifice on behalf of their country, their communities and less fortunate others.

The Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. Photo by Doug Draper

Today, it is hard to imagine almost any political leader on either side of the Canada/U.S. border speaking those sorts of words for fear of being derided by the masses as a “socialist” or something worse.
‘Putting our country before ourselves? We want a tax cut!’ Continue reading →

A Foreword from Doug Draper

Some in Ontario may remember the public outcry, including that from the Council of Canadians and other groups on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border advocating for the protection of our Great Lakes waters, when former Ontario premier Mike Harris was ready to allow a private firm to siphon water out of the upper Great Lakes for commercial sale.

Buffalo, N.Y. area Congressman Brian Higgins speaks out against the commercial siphoning off of water from our Great Lakes.

The outcry was enough to stop that premier, as much as he was in the habit of thumbing his nose at public interest groups, from moving ahead with a commercial sell-off of our fresh waters in our Great Lakes.

But where is the public outcry on the Canadian side of the lakes over plans now afoot in the State of Ohio to allow private businesses to siphon five-million gallons per day of water out of Lake Erie for commercial purposes?

Five million gallons a day may not seem like a lot. But if it sets a precedent for mining liquid gold from lakes in a world where others are in thirst of fresh water, it could have consequences that are environmentally and economically catastrophic. If it – as it would – ultimately lower lake levels, that would mean less water for hydro power generation, lower water levels for ships plying the Welland Canal, lower shoreline levels leading to a loss of wetlands for wildlife and damaged beach areas for recreation, and more algae growth in Lake Erie that threatens fish populations and leaves our shorelines matted with the rotting stench of the stuff. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m no fan of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. But a police union in this province that has shown an arrogance and lack of regard for property taxpayers in that city, in our Niagara region and other regions across this province has had it comin’.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford faces off with cops.

‘Layoffs loom for 500 city cops’, reads the front-page headline in the July edition of The Toronto Star. So here we go and, quite frankly, hallelujah. Someone is finally going to take this over-bloated police union on, and isn’t it interesting that it happens to be a mayor many have dubbed a ‘neo-conservative’ who one might think would be pro-police, going for anything the cops might want, all the way! Continue reading →

A Foreword by Doug Draper

This Wednesday,  July 13, C BC Radio Noon program did an hour on the C. difficile outbreak that has so far taken the lives of 22 people and counting at Niagara Health System-managed hospitals in this region and has claimed the lives of others across the province.

One of the accounts phoned in to the program, by someone named  “Michele” in St. Catharines, Ontario who recently had a sister in her 50s in the hospital who contracted the superbug but fortunately did not die, was particularly disturbing. Michele’s account  spoke to so many other claims, including one in a recent letter posted by a former NHS doctor on this site, of the filthy conditions at the St. Catharines General Hospital.

We at Niagara At Large can only wonder why, if what Michele testified about feces on her sisters chair, on the floor and so on. To the extent this is true, and again we’ve had notes from others about the uncleanliness of this hospital site, why aren’t nurses and doctors breaking away from the NHS and speaking out? You’d think that at least a few of them would say; ‘To hell with any flak I have to take from the NHS board. Something has to be done about this, and now!’

Here is the transcribed view from Michele on CBC’s Radio Noon. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

I’ve been getting a bit tired of all the criticism thrown at Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor recently, as if to say he is a pandering or being some kind of phony populist or opportunist for speaking out against the way the Niagara Health System is managing a majority of this region’s hospital services.

Niagara Falls Liberal MPP Kim Craitor at a recent public rally for better hospital care, Photo by Doug Draper

So I wrote some of the following, and for those of you who may have missed the essence of it in  my weekly column earlier this July in Niagara This Week, I am repeating some of it here since we shall all find it disturbing that an MPP win the region who has the guts to stand up for the constituents in his riding, when     `ZA over what his governing party’s position may be is more or less dumped upon by what has become such a low-end community paper like The St. Catharines Standard.

What follows is is a version of my column which appeared a week ago in Niagara This Week, which still at least has the guts to take the NHS on and ask it a few tough questions.

Well you had to know that something involving the mess the Niagara Health System has made of hospital services in this region was one day going to make the national press.  You can’t just keep having the same old boys and girls club running our hospitals like a bunch of kids playing in a sandbox without the proverbial poop hitting the fan. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

“I’d rather not belong to any group that would have me as a member.” That is a paraphrase of one my favourite Groucho Marx lines, and as far as politics is concerned, I’d revise it to say that I’d never want to belong to a political party that would have me as a member.

When it comes to politics, Groucho Marx was right.

After 32 years in journalism, and many years writing stories and opinion pieces for The St. Catharines Standard, Niagara This Week and this online news and commentary site, I continuously find myself swinging between being bemused and upset every time someone tries to peg me as an NDP, Liberal or Conservative, depending on what position I took in an opinion piece or commentary that particular week or day.

In a way, perhaps I should feel flattered that some people accuse me of being a Liberal one day if I write positive things about green energy or the greenbelt zone for protecting what is left of our prime tender-fruit-growing lands, or an NDP the next if I critique the administrators at the Niagara Health System, or a Conservative on another day if I support the amalgamation of local municipalities in our Niagara region. But then why can’t at least a few of us news be accepted as someone who is just expressing his or her take on issues without partisans from one party or another trying to tag them as a card-carrying member of one party or another? Continue reading →

By William Hogg MD

Just about everyone by now realizes that there is something seriously wrong with Medicare in Canada.

Dr. William Hogg, speaking last year in Niagara at a hearing on health care. Photo by Doug Draper

Ontario is a case in point. The eHealth scandal, in which a billion dollars was spent on incompetent and corrupt consultants, all for naught, is one example. Another glaring example is the Clostridium difficile outbreak, particularly as managed by an already failing Niagara Health System (NHS).

Furthermore, NHS also ignored advance warnings of ‘time-critical’ emergencies – deaths of patients transported long distances in ambulances as a result of the closure of outlying emergency departments. The faulty notion that centralized services could compensate (and that paramedics might replace doctors), preceded that disastrous decision to close ERs. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper, publisher of Niagara At Large

Since Niagara At Large was launched a year ago this past January as an independent news and commentary site for the greater Niagara region, I have strived to encourage a diversity of comments on this site from across the personal and political spectrum.

Among the goals I still wish to achieve were these. There are mainstream media venues out there in Niagara that seem more interested in promoting the status quo than giving balanced attention to alternative points of view, and this site is dedicated to filling that void. And there are too many blog sites that pander to one point of view or another, and never want to give a moment to other views unless it is about lacerating those who express them with comments they hide behind with a blog name like “torpedoed” or “buddy”. Continue reading →

By Thomas Walkom National Affairs Columnist, Toronto Star

(You have got to read this column. Finally an editorial writer from the national media gets what is going down in Niagara around our hospital mess, even if the McGuinty government doesn’t.)

For Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, there is never good news. The C. difficile outbreak in Welland, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls is the latest example.
The deadly bacteria have already killed 17 patients in area hospitals. That in itself is grim. But the politics of the Niagara region’s health system are equally toxic.

For three years, local residents and their elected councillors have been engaged in a kind of guerrilla war with the Niagara Health System (which runs the region’s seven hospitals) and its overseer, the area’s local health integration network.

To read the rest of Thomas Walcom’s column , go to your search engine and click in Thomas Walcom, Niagara Health System and McGuinty. Unfortunately, NAL is haveing some technical difficiults at the moment with the following link to the article –  http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1022007–walkom

By Doug Draper

It was a year ago this July that I drove down a dead-end, rural road on the south side of Thorold, Ontario for an interview with John Pruyn.

John Pruyn. Photo by Doug Draper

I had no idea what to expect before I got there. All I knew, according to information I’d received from a few friends of John Pruyn, was that on June 26, 2010 riot police at the G20 summit in Toronto descended on him on the lawns around Queen’s Park – an area that was supposed to be a “safe zone” for thousands who gathered to talk about joblessness and poverty, environmental protection and a host of other issues. They tore his artificial leg off, bound his hands behind his back and dragged him to some warehouse that served as a makeshift jail where he was locked in for the next 24 or more hours before finally being let go without charges and without explanation.

Even with all of the mayhem many of us witnessed on the tube during the two days of that summit, Pruyn’s story seemed incomprehensible to this Canadian who grew up with a belief that in a democracy as mature as ours is supposed to be, we could collectively gather to express our concerns and that for those of us who gathered peacefully, the police would only be their to keep that peace, not assault it with plastic bullets, teargas, pepper spray and truncheons. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is positing this piece with the permission of Truthdig, a great and edgy online news and commentary site based in California that you should check out. This piece, originally posted June 27, 2011, just about says it all  about the sad state of newspapers today in both the United States and Canada.)

By Chris Hedges

I visited the Hartford Courant as a high school student. It was the first time I was in a newsroom. The Connecticut paper’s newsroom, the size of a city block, was packed with rows of metal desks, most piled high with newspapers and notebooks.

Reporters banged furiously on heavy typewriters set amid tangled phone cords, overflowing ashtrays, dirty coffee mugs and stacks of paper, many of which were in sloping piles on the floor.

The din and clamor, the incessantly ringing phones, the haze of cigarette and cigar smoke that lay over the feverish hive, the hoarse shouts, the bustle and movement of reporters, most in disheveled coats and ties, made it seem an exotic, living organism. I was infatuated. I dreamed of entering this fraternity, which I eventually did, for more than two decades writing for The Dallas Morning News, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor and, finally, The New York Times, where I spent most of my career as a foreign correspondent.

Newsrooms today are anemic and forlorn wastelands. I was recently in the newsroom at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and patches of the floor, also the size of a city block, were open space or given over to rows of empty desks.

To read the whole article go to your search engine and plug in the words truthdig, Chris Hedges and Gone with the Papers. Unfortunately NAL is  having some technical accessing the following link from this site.  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/gone_with_the_papers_20110627/

By Doug Draper

In the wake of a superbug outbreak that has so far killed 21 people at hospitals managed by the Niagara Health System, another administrative head has rolled.

In 'better days', Christine Clark at left with Niagara Health System board head Betty-Lou Souter and former CEO Debbie Sevenpifer in background as board congratulates itself for another 'excellent ' year at a 2010 annual meeting. Photo by Doug Draper

Christine Clark, who has been the communications director at that organization since its creation by the province a decade ago, has suddenly been let go. The NHS is not disclosing any details around the reason for her departure however, which is in keeping with the tradition of Clark and others at this malfunctioning hospital board to share as little information as possible with a public that is paying the bills.

That leaves the rest of us to speculate why Clark has been ejected from a job that commanded a yearly salary of more than $132,000 and more than $5,500 in annual benefits. Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

The rally began with a moment of silence for the 16 people who have so far died in an outbreak of a highly infectious C. difficile superbug in three of the Niagara, Ontario hospitals managed by the Niagara Health System.

Niagara Falls, Ontario Mayor Jim Diodati blasts NHS at rally. Photo by Doug Draper

One of the more than 150 people attending the rally, across from the NHS’s Greater Niagara General Hospital in Niagara Falls, Ontario this July 6, was Joyce Western. Her 89-year-old mother Marjorie Howse succumbed to those deadly C. diff spores after being admitted to the NHS’s St. Catharines General Hospital site this spring with a bout of pneumonia.

Western, in a story that appeared on the front page of The Globe and Mail this July 4, said she never would have agreed to the admission of her mother in the St. Catharines hospital if the NHS had informed the public earlier that the superbug was already there and spreading to patients.  “In my opinion,” she said, “if they (the seniors facility she was in) hadn’t transferred her to the (St. Catharines) hospital, she would still be alive.” Continue reading →

(The following letter was written by Dr.Paul Dobrovolskis, a former Niagara Health System doctor, to Wayne Gates, a Niagara Falls, Ontario city councillor and president of Local 199 of the Canadian Auto Workers. It is not out of line with emails and phone conversations Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper has received from doctors still working for the NHS and fear reprisals if they were to express their views publicly.)

Dear Mr. Gates,

I believe we have met in the past, particularly the night Ms. Sevenpiper (now former CEO for the Niagara Health System) spoke at (Niagara Falls) council. Kudos to you on your efforts to bring openess and transparency to the NHS.

Niagara Falls, Ontario councillor and Canada Auto Workers local president Wayne Gates speaks at hospital care rally. Photo by Doug Draper

As a former ER/Anesthesia and ICU doctor in the system  I left when it became obvious that the system was doomed to collapse, and in the process harm the very people it was intended to serve.

I had seen cutbacks where not only cleaning staff but nurses , cooks and
every support member except administrators were cut. When the cuts all
started I recall walking in the hospital with one of the nurses and we
conversed about how the cleaning of the hospital was becoming superficial and we foresaw trouble five years ago. My wife, (a nurse) remarked one day on visiting a friend in the hospital that the rooms were filthy.

We watched cleaning staff do a superficial wipe down and run to the next room as they were behind in their work and had more rooms than ever assigned to them.

In the ER, before it was built and during SARS, I argued that all ER rooms
should be modeled as ICU rooms so we could treat anything in a room without
constantly moving patients from room to room in the ER. A patient might be
seen in one room, moved to another room for a procedure and then be moved
two or three more times before finally getting admitted to a single room.

During SARS this was identifed as a major issue and despite the warnings
from the ER group at the time, the plan moved forward to create an ER that
was below standard the day it opened. Administration over ruled the concept as
being impractical and the risk was acceptable.

It seems the administration has lost touch with all aspects of managing a
hospital. Since our leaving, the NHS has lost the ER based stroke team, the
CBRN unit (actually it’s fully trained crew) has become dependant on
healthforce and MedEmerg to staff the ER, lost hospitalists and has entered
the ranks of one of the lowest perfoming ER’s in Ontario and Canada.

To add insult to injury, the stipend cost nearly $2 million per year paid for by
taxpayer dollars to get less than what we once had a no charge.
Council has a right to be upset, but more so has a right to be angry. On
wednesday the NHS will likely not be present at the rally, will issue a
statement vetted by Risk Management and then remain quiet and absent till
this blows over.

I urge you to keep the pressure on and to convince council
that they all need to be present at the (July 6)  rally.

I wish I could be there, but I am in Thunder Bay working and can’t come down. Besides, as one of the fiercest agitators for accountability, I am not
allowed on hospital property.
Good luck on Wednesday!

Dr.Paul Dobrovolskis MD
Former NHS Physician

(Niagara At Large is posting the full text of an address Sue Salzer,
This rally is the culmination of a long three year fight for justice.
The advent of the Hospital Improvement Plan was the start of a nightmare spiral down to the pits of Health Care we are seeing today.)

The NHS spin would have you believe that the HIP would provide improved health services to all of Niagara and I am here to say it was always  about  the almighty dollar. Attend an NHS Board meeting or a LHIN meeting.

Citizen health care advocate Sue Salzer speaks at rally.

They are more interested in meeting a bottom line and covering their bottom ends then they are in ensuring top flight health care that we are demanding here today.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense including Joe the Plumber could see the closure of so many existing services would be a recipe for disaster. Continue reading →

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 →