Niagara At Large

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Okay, so you say you don’t care for Niagrara’s regional government or may even want to see it abolished.

Niagara Region's chief administrator, Mike Trojan, is ready to meet with you around your questions and concern about the regional government.

 During this October’s Niagara, Ontario municipal election campaign, we heard everyone from those who want to reform regional government to those who want to get rid of it completely. In my municipality of Thorold, we actually had one mayoral candidate – Jim Handley – who fought his campaign partly around gutting regional government.

 Can that be done? I’d say probably not.

 For any and all you who may think we can turn back the calendar more than 40 years, when this regional government was created by the former Conservative government of Bill Davis, I’d look at the possibility that it costs property taxpayers across Niagara one heck of a lot less to pay for policing, household waste collection, water treatment and a hole bunch of other issues than it would if a local municipality had to pay for those services today. Chances are, a local municipality could not afford to pay for them.

So let’s get back to the regional government and an opportunity you, as taxpaying citizens have, to join the region’s chief administrative officer, Mike Trojan, for what the region is billing as “a community forum to help residents better understand Niagara Region’s programs, services and the budget process.”

 This special forum will take place this Thursday, November 18 at the Regional Headquarters (in Campbell East) in Thorold, Ontario off St. David’s Road and Schmon Parkway. Check a map on Google for further information.

 This is your chance to engage Niagara Region’s chief administrator in a discussion. Take advantage of it.

 (Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary of interest to residents in our greater, binational Niagara region.)

By Doug Draper

If it is the last ribbon cutting ceremony Peter Partington officiates in his political career, it was a good one – one for which he can feel proud and may be thanked for generations to come.

Wainfleet, Ontario Mayor Barbara Henderson joins Niagara Regional Chairman Peter Partington on property the regional government purchased along Lake Erie to provide the public with more access to our shorelines. Photo by Doug Draper

This Friday, November 12 – on an unusually warm and sunny morning for this time of year, and with the waters of Lake Erie glowing robin-egg blue behind him – the outgoing chairman of Niagara, Ontario’s regional government joined Wainfleet Mayor Barbara Henderson and other area delegates in a ceremonial opening of the first stretch of beachfront the regional government has purchased since recently launching its ‘Waterfront Enhancement Strategy’.

That strategy calls for “maximizing” public access to Niagara’s waterfronts, increasing public ownership of waterfront lands, and preserving and protecting the lands for future generations.

“Isn’t this a wonderful place,” said a beaming Partington to this reporter as he looked down from the dunes where the ribbon cutting took place to a beach stretching along the Lake Erie between Morgan’s Point and Long Beach in the Burnaby area of Wainfleet. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

When Kayo Roy informed me a few years back that he and fellow birder extraordinaire John Black were working on a book on birds populating our greater Niagara region, I assumed we were in for something good.

After all, Roy and Black have always been among a handful of birders a person like me, writing about environmental issues for many years, could count on for the most detailed and up-to-date information on birds in a region where our activities – industrial, agricultural, home building and so on – can have a significant impact on their health and diversity.

So why wouldn’t I assume we would get at least a good book out of these individuals.

Then finally this fall, I obtained a copy of Roy and Black’s freshly published book and “good” is not a strong enough word to describe this tour de force of a nature book. Beginning with the fabulous cover painting of a Ross’s gull soaring over the waters of the Niagara River, and leafing through more than 700 pages, almost each and every one of them featuring beautiful, full-color photos and paintings by some of the very best artists and photographers around, words like “stunning” and “gorgeous”

 ‘Niagara Birds’ is also a beautifully written book with Roy and Black inviting a host of well-known field naturalists and others who share their passion for nature to contribute chapters on subjects ranging from the history of ornithology in Niagara going back to the 1600s, the interaction of birds and vineyards, the impact of urban development on bird populations and the effect of West Nile Virus on owls. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

On Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans Day in the United States, and on a week set aside every November for honouring our veterans – those who’ve fought and been fortunate enough to come home, and those who have all too often died for our country – I think it is also important to give some thought to those who sent them into battle.

Japanese soldiers firing down on Canadian troops and allies in the killing fields of Burma during the Second World War.

How honourable were the intentions of those who made the decision to send young people off to fight and possibly die? Were they as honourable as the many brave and anxious kids they sent?

Some most certainly were.

By most historical accounts, leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt who were stricken by decisions they finally felt no choice to make, to send you young people in to harms way. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a soldier and commander of allied troops during the Second World War before serving his country as president in the 1950s, once said the following; “I hate war as only a solider who has lived it can (and) only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility,  its stupidity.”

Hardly any kind of statement like that has come from former U.S. president George W. Bush or his brain, Dick Cheney – two Vietnam War era draft dodgers who needlessly sent young Americans on an unnecessary, preemptive war campaign in Iraq that has so far cost more than 4,000 American and possibly more than 100,000 Iraqi lives. In recent interviews over the publication of his post-presidential memoir ‘Decision Points’, George W. expresses no apologies for invading an Iraq that, in fact, had none of the “weapons of mass destruction” his administration used (along with the lie that Iraq had something to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks) as propaganda for invading that country. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

In the former battle grounds Europe and others regions of the world, there are row after row of white markers above the graves of young Canadians and Americans who never got the chance to come home.

Graves of fallen Second World War soldiers in Normandy, France.

These young people, we are reminded every November 11 on Veterans and Remembrance Day, sacrificed their lives so the rest of us could live our lives in relative freedom – in democracies where we could express our views without death squads, and where we can actively engage in elections and vote.

Today, we have Americans and Canadians in the line of fire Afghanistan where the people living in that hapless country risk being beaten or killed, just for trying get an education or in some other way better their lives. At least 14 Afghan voters were killed in this past summer’s parliamentary elections.

And yet here we are in Canada and the United States, where we set aside occasions like Canada Day and the Fourth of July for parading our pride in country in front of the world, and less than half of us could be bothered to go out and vote this fall in important municipal elections in Ontario and midterm elections in the U.S. What a tribute that is to those who fought and died (and still are in) for our way of life! Continue reading →

A Commentary By Doug Draper

Well what can almost anyone who’s been following the leaps and bounds of police spending in Niagara, Ontario say except – here we go again!

Niagara Regional Police Chief Wendy Southall has done a better job than many of her predecessors in keeping police costs down. But they are still well above rate of inflation.

Unless you are a cop in Niagara, Ontario or one on the police force’s administration who continues enjoying at least a  three-per-cent salary increase every year while so many others in this “great recession” we’ve been living through over the past couple of years has either lost their job or had their job or wages downsized,

Another annual operating budget from the Niagara Regional Police Service’s board, and another request for a newly elected, not-yet-sworn regional council for another budget increase that will escalate the cost of policing above any measure of affordability in this region.

That’s right. Here we go again with another draft budget for the Niagara Regional Police Service that is well above an annual rate of inflation in Ontario, which, at 2.9 per cent, according to recent Bank of Canada figures, also adds up to the highest inflation rate reported this year for any province in the country.

But why let a few little things like a soaring inflation rate, above-average jobless figures and a “great recession” that seems far from over for too many of us sloshing around in the trenches out here get in the way of the public sector’s apparent God-given right to gold-plated entitlements. So it should hardly come as a surprised that the board representing the NRP last Friday tabled a draft operating budget for 2011 containing an almost 5.5 per cent increase. Continue reading →

By Fiona McMurran

At this time of year, we pause to remember and give thanks to our veterans. While we are doing so, let us also honour them with more than patriotic rhetoric. Those who have fought for Canada did not do so in order that this country, and the world, be committed to unending conflict, with no resolution.

Canadian Senator, retired general, humanitarian and author Romeo Dallaire

 Last week, I attended a presentation by Senator Roméo Dallaire, on a tour to promote his latest book. They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children: The Global Quest to Eradicate the Use of Child Soldiers focuses on the cause to which Dallaire has dedicated the last several years of his life. Yet he also spoke passionately and in some depth about Canadian foreign policy, especially in Afghanistan.  Dallaire is highly critical of the way the Afghan mission has been handled to date, and cautioned Canadians to take a realistic look at our country’s international commitments, and to consider the human cost when invention is too little and too late, as in the case of Rwanda. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

    “Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair” –Macbeth

Walmart wins!  They pay box-store style taxes, and provide low priced products to Welland’s budget conscious citizens. They buy in bulk, and nobody can compete with their prices. Great deal for everyone. Or is it?

 Local politicians claim that we need to foster small business enterprises. We need to save the downtown core and keep young people in Welland with good jobs.  Unfortunately, “Walmart” is anathema to “small business”.  Walmart, with its low-priced products and poor paying jobs, drives out small businesses…and medium-sized, and large ones too.

I recently visited one of the Niagara region’s last remaining small farmers, and he claims he can’t compete with the bulk buying approach to the economy. He told me stories of monster barges transporting farm goods from China. I heard similar stories when I went to get my tires changed. Big box stores sell both now: food and tires.  Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

It is another sad comment on today’s news media that so many people among us feel they get a far more insightful analysis of what is going on in our crazy world today from a “comedian” than from a “journalist.”

This sign almost says it all by soneone who would rather get their news on 'Comedy Central' these days than what pass them off as news sources. Photo from Jon Stewart's Daily News site.

Niagara At Large is founded on the premise that the mainstream media, so much of it owned today by corporations that are only in it to fill the pockets of their shareholders and have no real interest in delivering news to communities, is letting residents in this region and others across this continent down when it comes to giving them the breadth and depth of information they need to participate meaningfully in democracy.

Not to slam the reporters and editors that try their best to do some decent journalism at these chain-owned operations that hardly ever care to give them the resources they need to make that possible. I’ve been there and I quit, which is why so many journalists like me are trying to do something like put an alternative news site like this together or, more often, have just given up and taken a job in p.r.

But enough of that. Getting back to those “comedians,” I have always believed that the best of this bunch – going back to Mark Twain (considered more of a humorist) Will Rogers, Lenny Bruce and my personal favourite, George Carlin – were more than humorists or comedians. In fact, the comedy label always seemed an insult to these people who could often blast through the b.s. in our politics and culture with more dynamite than even the best columnists at papers like the Washington Post or New York Times. Continue reading →

Riot police sweep activists from the streets of Canada's largest city, with Queen's Park legislature in the background. Is this our future?

A Foreward by Doug Draper After months of petitioning and rallies from citizens across Ontario for an independent inquiry into the actions of security forces at last June’s G20 Summit in Toronto, a majority of MPPs voted against a private member’s bill by the NDP for the provincial government to hold one.

Arguing against the bill put forward by Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and defended in the legislature this November 4 by the party’s justice critic and Welland Riding member Peter Kormos, Toronto area MPP Mike Cole and others in the Liberal government argued that the inquiry should be held at the federal level. It was Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his federal Conservatives who decided to hold the summit in Toronto’s downtown in the first place – a decision Cole and his Liberal colleagues believe set the stage for a possible confrontation between legions of police shipped in from all over the country and citizens gathering at rallies on climate change, trade, poverty and other issues during the late June summer weekend. Continue reading →

BC Premier gets the boot over HST

A Commentary by Doug Draper
What is wrong with people here in Ontario!

Yes, that is right. I am talking about you and me, and our friends and relatives and neighbours across this province who will sit back and take just about anything the provincial or federal government dishes out to us – diminished hospital care and home care for the sick and our seniors, soaring tuition fees for our young people, billions wasted on high-priced consultants and, last but not least, the Harmonized Sales Tax or HST, for short.

I know. Some of you may be saying; ‘Hey Doug! What are you talking about? I am fighting back’. And I know there are some people out there – some of whom are reading and regularly contributing comments and columns of their own to Niagara At Large – who are fighting on a number of fronts for fairer, more affordable services and for better decisions from our governments around the quality of life in our communities. But I trust that those of you who are so engaged know I am talking about so many others who would rather just sit home in front of the boob tube watching mindless crap like ‘Jersey Shore’ or ‘Entertainment Tonight’ or an NHL hockey game hoping a fight will start. They’ll be among the first to whine when the provincial and federal governments come in and slaps another tax on them like the HST. But that’s about it. All they do is sit back and whine.

Not so in British Columbia, however. Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

None of the usual debates between rivals surfaced at Niagara regional council this November 4. More than a week after municipal elections that will see a change in the number of faces in the council chamber, it was an evening for recognizing those who are leaving – some of them after more than three decades of service to the region.

Veteran Port Colborne regonal councillor Bob Saracino offers farewell words. Photo by Doug Draper

There was Bob Saracino, who was defeated in the October 25 municipal elections after serving 38 years on regional council as a representative for the City of Port Colborne, Ontario, including 18 years as that city’s mayor.

“It has been quite a ride,” Saracino told his council colleagues as he prepared to leave the chamber for the last time as a regional representative whose ride began two years after regional government was created in Niagara in 1970.

Saracino, who spent a good deal of his time during the past number of months trying to encourage his fellow councillors to support a provincial investigation into the way the Niagara Health System is managing hospital services in the region (something a majority of regional councillors decided note to support), said he feels “humbled” if he “played any small role” in making life better for people in a Niagara he called “the greatest region in this country.”

There was Bill Smeaton, a dean of regional politics whose history with the council goes back 33 years and who decided not to run for another term although there was no reason to believe he would not be re-elected in his home municipality of Niagara Falls. Smeaton, who also served two terms during that period as Niagara Falls’ mayor, went on to play key roles on regional committees, chaired the region’s planning committee at a time, during the past decade, of fundamental shifts to planning policies promoting more growth aimed at rejuvenating urban centres and less of the kind that sprawled into  Niagara’s country sides. Continue reading →

By Dan Wilson 

It never ceases to amaze me how companies that exploit and slaughter other animals twist and bury the truth in order to sell their “products” or boost their public image.

And they always get away with it. Why is that? Oh right, because we let them. Otherwise, we’d be complaining and writing letters to those who regulate and guarantee truth in advertising. 

If a billboard went up today advertising that cigarettes are good for you, or make you look cool, people would go ballistic. In fact, the ad would never get approved in the first place. 

But when it comes to animal agriculture, we turn a blind eye. We allow false advertising, even encourage it, so we’re not reminded of how our meat and other animal products get to our table. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

“So how’s that hopey, changey thing working for ya?”

Well, apparently not too well for most American, at least those (less than half of the country’s the eligible voters) who cared enough to go out to polls and vote in mid-term elections this November 2.

A majority of those who went to the polls were determined to kill any further march toward “socialism” or “fascism” – code words for any further attempt for progressive, dare anyone say “liberal” change in energy, education, environmental protection and other areas under the administration of President Barack Obama.

Sarah Palin, the former Alaskan governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate, and originator of that ‘hopey-changey ‘ line, was one of the big winners this November 2 as a majority of the seats in the U.S. Congress were taken over by Republicans, including those marching to the drums of a Tea Party hell bent on  ‘taking their country back’ from a president who not only has a strange name and is black, but who may be a Muslim and may not even be a bona fide American citizens, in the tea baggers’ view. Continue reading →

A Foreward by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Speaking at the annual summit of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario this November 2, Ontario’s Tory opposition leader Tim Hudak outlined plans for ‘turning the province around’ should he become the next premier.

Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak

In the next provincial election, said Hudak, Ontario will have a clear choice between Dalton McGuinty, whose policies, he went on to argue, are out of touch with families and businesses across the province.

“I firmly believe that economic growth and job creation relies on restoring consumer confidence and reducing the tax burden families face so they can start spending again,” added Hudak, “A PC Government will deliver a plan to govern that will give families real tax relief, so they have the ability to get household budgets back in order.”

“Ontario’s best days are yet to come,” the Fort Erie native and contender for the province’s top crown said. “We have a dedicated workforce, strong entrepreneurs, and vast and valuable resources. We just need the right kind of decisions and the strong leadership to move our province forward.”
 
As a service to our readers, Niagara At Large is including below the full text of Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak’s address to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s annual Economic Summit.

Since our launch last December, NAL has made it a practice to post ‘for-the-record’ texts of speeches, media releases and parliamentary hansard questions and comments by members of all political parties on matters of possible interest to our readers. NAL strives to do so without prejudice or preference for one political party over another. We leave it to you, our readers, to digest these texts and share your comments with us in the spirit of building this site as a virtual ‘town hall’ on matters of concern to us. Continue reading →

How do you feel about the idea of the provincial government educating residents about the possible risks cell-phone radiation pose to our health? If you live on the U.S. side of the border, what, if any policies do your governments have in place for addressing health concerns over cell phones?

Share your comments below the following November 3 media release from the Ontario NDP, introducing a private member’s bill that would require government to informing the public of the potential health risks posed by cell-phone radiation.

Remember that NAL only posts commentary by people willing to share their full and real names.

A Media Release from Ontario’s NDP Government On Cell Phone Safety
 
Queen’s Park – France Gélinas, MPP for Nickel Belt and NDP Health Promotion Critic today introduced a Private Member’s Bill to educate Ontarians about the risks of cell phone radiation and to promote the safe use of cell phones.

Ontario NDP health critic France Gelinas

 
“The Ontario government has acknowledged that cell phones pose a potential health risk—particularly for children—but has failed to communicate this to Ontarians,” said Gélinas. “This bill will make sure that Ontarians have the information they need to use cellphones more safely.”
 
The Cell Phone Safety Bill would require retailers to post radiation levels next to cell phones they sell.
 
“I try to make the best choices for my daughter’s health,” said Jamie-Leigh Fairbrother, a Toronto mother of a nine-year-old. “Soon she will want a cell phone and I want to be able to make an informed decision. This Bill will allow me to do that.”  Continue reading →

A Foreward by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

When Niagara At Large posted a story in July of this year on John Pruyn – a 57-year-old amputee, federal civil servant and Christmas Tree farmer from Welland, Ontario – who had his artificial leg pulled off by security forces during the G20 summit in Toronto before he was detained in a cage for a weekend before finally being released without any charges, the response was to the post was overwhelming.

John Pruyn and his wife Susan at a rally in St. Catharines, Ontario this July, protesting security forces' actions at G20 summit in Toronto.

Within 48 hours, Pruyn’s story on Niagara At Large (still available by scrolling down to items posted in July on this site) received more than 30,000 visits from readers across North America. Hundreds shared comments expressing shock and anger at Pruyn’s story of how he was treated at the hands of law enforcement officers as he sat on lawns near an Ontario provincial legislature that is supposed to stand for something resembling democracy.

Among those who commented on Pruyn’s story, there were also those who argued that he may be lying or exaggerating about what happened to him and his family that weekend. Some argued that even if he wasn’t lying, he was to blame for what happened to him because he chose to go to Toronto during the G20 summit to attend what were intended to be peaceful rallies on climate change, world poverty, free trade and other matters of concern. If he didn’t want to get arrested, they advised, then he should have stayed home, closed his curtains, turned his TV on to an entertainment channel and minded his own business. Continue reading →

Niagara At Large offers the following news to readers on both sides of a Canada/U.S. border comprising our greater Niagara region.
 
 U.S. – Canada Relations in the 21st Century are undoubtedly one of the most important issues for Niagara.

U.S. Consul General Kevin Johnson to speak in Niagara on Canada-U.S. relations

As part of the Perspectives on Niagara Speakers Series, the St. Catharines – Thorold Chamber of Commerce will be hosting Kevin Johnson, Consul General at the U.S. Consulate in Toronto on Tuesday, November 16.

The event will be held at Ridley College’s Mandeville Theatre in St. Catharines, Ontario and is sponsored by Brock University.

“We are very fortunate to have Mr. Johnson come to Niagara,” explains Walter Sendzik, CEO of the St. Catharines – Thorold Chamber of Commerce. “His extensive experience in international diplomacy, economics, and public policy, combined with his position as the Consul General in Toronto will no doubt be of interest to Niagara’s business community.”

Niagara’s proximity to the United States and its connections to the Greater Toronto Area, position the region as one of the most important areas for North American trade. The current evolution of Niagara’s economy will be closely connected to the developments in the American economy. With more than 90 per cent of Niagara’s export market connected to the United States, it’s important to further understand the relationships between Canada and the U.S. moving forward. Continue reading →

By Dan Wilson

It seems it’s mostly bad news in the papers and on TV these days. You switch on the news and it’s one sad story after another; murder, political or corporate corruption, environmental devastation, etc. Well, in the immortal words of Monty Python, “and now for something completely different…”

A life quietly saved by Umair Afzal Abdul and Wahid Awan Gondal with the roaring waters of Niagara Falls behind them. Photo by Dan Wilson

This past Wednesday, October 27th a friend and I were walking down by the Horseshoe Falls taking pictures. It was a beautiful night, with lots of people enjoying the warm weather, the majesty of the falls and the colourful illumination. As we walked past a police cruiser, my friend and I were approached by two young men who asked if we would take their pictures in front of the falls. They said it would mean a lot to them, so of course, we did.

After snapping a half-dozen shots, and exchanging contact information so we could add them as friends on Facebook, Abdul and Umair, both from Toronto, explained why it was so important to have their pictures taken. They told us that an elderly woman, who apparently had a little too much to drink, tried to commit suicide by jumping over the falls minutes before my friend and I had arrived. Continue reading →

A Foreward by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Niagara At Large recently posted a story about a bylaw Niagara, Ontario’s outgoing regional council posted late this September that limits members of the public from speaking at full meetings of the council.

Walter Sendzik, St. Catharines-Thorold Chamber of Commerce chief, fighting to keep doors open for public at regional council meetings.

This media outlet and others in Niagara have received numerous letters and calls from residents who believe that the section of this bylaw that requires individuals and organizations to either receive a formal invitation or receive a two-thirds vote from the council before being granted an opportunity to speak defies the principles of democracy and claims of transparency and accountability by our regional government.

In that spirit, Niagara At Large is posting the contents of a recent media release by Walter Sendzik, the chief executive of the St. Catharines-Thorold Chamber of Commerce, one of the largest business groups in Niagara, vowing to press a newly elected regional council in the weeks and months ahead to overturn the restrictions on public delegations as currently written out in this bylaw.

Following is the Chamber’s release and we encourage you to share your own comments on this issue in the boxes available at the end of this post. Please remember to attach your real name to your comment or, under our transparency policy, it won’t see the light of day on this site. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

Nearly 3000 innocent lives were lost on September 11, 2001, and Osama Bin Laden is still alive and well. Instead of completing the task at hand in Afghanistan, Americans diverted their task to Iraq, a country with no Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Many people were lead to believe that Iraq was in some way related to Osama Bin Laden . It wasn’t. It was a de-militarized, largely secular country ruled by a despot. ( Of all the Arab countries, Iraq would have been the least receptive to religious fanatics.) Iraq also has the last easily accessible oil on the planet. Did America’s citizens want to compromise their search for Osama Bin Laden? No. Were they lead to believe that the Iraq situation was linked to Osama Bin Laden? Yes. Misinformation failed democracy. Continue reading →

A Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

There is a song called ‘Taxman’ by the late Beatle George Harrison that talks about even the pennies being picked from peoples’ eyes after they die.

Well, how about the taxman picking pennies for the sale of poppies and wreaths sold for this coming Remembrance Day, for those who have fought and died, or who have come home physically or mentally wounded from battlefields up to and including those in Afghanistan? Continue reading →

A note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

The campaigns have been going on for weeks now and the candidates have had their say.

A familiar sight this fall along some of Niagara's busier roads.

Now it is time for the rest of us who are eligible to vote across the Ontario side of the Niagara region to go to the polling stations and have ours.

This Monday, October 25 is municipal election day in Ontario and it is the one chance we get every four years to hire or rehire those we want sitting on our local and regional councils, and to fire those we feel have not been doing the job on our collective behalf. Continue reading →

 A Commentary by Doug Draper

‘Get rid of the regional government!’

As a reporter who has covered municipal affairs in Niagara, Ontario for more than 30 years, I’ve heard that line from residents across this region time and time again. And little wonder.

Regional council meetings are not for you. File photo by Doug Draper.

When after 40 years of regional government in Niagara, you still have what seems like a critical mass of people out there who don’t know what services the region delivers (I’ve talked to plenty of folks who still don’t know it’s the region that picks up their garbage) or can’t see why they couldn’t be delivered just as well, if not better, and for less of a cost by their local municipalities, you’d think the region’s council might want to do a little more to encourage members of the public to get engaged in its affairs.

Instead, a majority on this current regional council (who are supposed to be representing our interest rather than someone else’s) has been going out of its way to discourage public participation. Continue reading →

By Brent Stewart

“Is water a human right? Or is it a product to be bought and sold like Coca-Cola?”

Canada's Council of Canadians director Maude Barlow speaks at a rally at Queen's Park on saving our water as a public resource.

That was the resounding theme at the “Our Water, Our Lives” rally held at Queen’s Park last Thursday afternoon. Much respect goes out to Maude Barlow, The Council of Canadians, Earthroots, STORM Coalition, The Canadian Waterkeeper Alliance, and everyone who made it out to the rally, on what was a very damp and dreary day in Toronto.

On the other hand, however, there was much disrespect from security personnel at the Legislature building, who would not let us use their public washrooms — which of course are paid for by our tax dollars — simply because we were demonstrators expressing our right to freedom of speech and assembly.

This was my first time attending a rally, my first real taste of what democracy looks like in the 21st century here in Canada; and the taste, as you might imagine, was a little bittersweet. In reality we laughed off the fact that we were treated as second class citizens after being asked, “Are you with the demonstrators?” by one of the security personnel, and then promptly being told we were not welcome to use the public washrooms. But we didn’t let that spoil the mood, because even though it was a gray and drizzle-filled day in Toronto, it was ripe with bright and inspiring possibilities. Passionate, caring, and concerned citizen activists had come from various regions of the province to speak about their struggles to protect their local watersheds and aquifers from seemingly endless corporate interest in arguably our most precious and unequivocally our most essential natural resource. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is pleased to post the following remarks by Joan Wiley, delivered at an Oct. 14 vigil, held in downtown St. Catharines, Ontario for young people across this continent – many of them gay or perceived to be gay – who have committed suicide due to bullying.)

By Joan Wiley

I’m a parent.

Like most, if not all, of you in this crowd tonight, I was heartbroken recently as a steady stream of media reports gave details of youth who were driven to suicide as a result of bullying. All because these students were gay or perceived to be gay.

I cannot imagine the bleak despair and utter hopelessness a young person must experience to step off a bridge, pull a trigger or slip a noose around his or her neck. And I can’t imagine the horror of being the parents who receive the devastating news that their child is dead. Continue reading →

By Dave Toderick

It’s 1962. You’re sitting in your favourite chair, browsing through the current issue of Life Magazine. You stop at a page showing a photograph of a glacier. It’s an ad for Humble Oil and Refining Company. You read: EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY TO MELT
SEVEN  MILLION TONS OF GLACIER!

You have no way of knowing, of course, that Humble Oil will later merge with Standard Oil to become Exxon, or that Exxon’s contribution to climate change will come to threaten the world as you know it. You simply have no way of knowing how ironic those words will turn out to be.

                                                                      – – – – –
It’s 2010. I’m sitting in my favourite chair, browsing the Internet. I stop at an article on StraightGoods.ca written by Stephen Leahy for InterPress Service. I read the title: Arctic Ice in Death Spiral – Researchers Fear Permafrost has Passed the Point of No Return. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

When did money become the new god? In the name of frugality, hospitals are closing down or closing beds, and manufacturing is leaving in droves.
 
At the local level, the new Welland council should support southern tier hospital re-openings, and more rather than fewer beds. Mental health patients, already disadvantaged, shouldn’t be shipped off to north St.Catharines. Likewise for the elderly and poor. Our health system should be an equality based system rather than a three or four tier expediency-based system.
 
Similarly, local jobs and manufacturing should be a priority, even if other countries can do it cheaper. Shipping jobs to nations with lax or non-existent health and safety requirements, and weak or non-existent labour laws, may improve some stock-market portfolios, but it still smacks of a step backwards.
 
The irony, of course, is that our misplaced faith is impoverishing Wellanders, and de-valuing the health and welfare of our most needy.
　
Mark Taliano is a retired educator and resident of Welland, Ontario.

(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater Niagara region.)

By Doug Draper

A blues festival in Thorold?

Guitar master Scott Holt one of many to perform at annual Canal Bank Shuffle Blues Festival

I wasn’t the only one living in Thorold – a Niagara, Ontario town  possibly best known for the flight locks that make it possible for big bulky ships plying the Welland Canal to climb up and down the Niagara Escarpment – who wondered if the idea of a few music enthusiasts to turn the downtown into a popular venue each October for a large cast of internationally acclaimed blues musicians wasn’t a bit too far out to fly.

Yet almost decade later, Thorold is getting ready, once again, for thousands of music fans from Toronto, Buffalo and other cities and towns on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border to fill its streets, bars and community halls this Thursday, Oct. 21, Friday, Oct. 22 and Saturday, Oct. 23 for the 9th annual Canal Bank Shuffle Blues Festival. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The body responsible for protecting and preserving more than 150 acres of parklands along the Ontario side of the Niagara River is inviting members of the public to join it for an overview of its operations as it begins “strategic planning” for the river corridor’s future.

The Horseshoe Falls from Niagara Parks lands downstream. Photo by Doug Draper

The Niagara Parks Commission, established 125 years ago to look after lands surrounding the Canadian Horseshoe Falls and 36 miles of Niagara River shore, will be holding three open houses for the public later this October to address the issues and challenges this legendary water corridor faces as the commission undertakes its future planning.

The commission has been widely praised over most of its history for its stewardship of the Niagara River corridor and lands around the world-famous Falls.  However, it has also faced its share of controversies, including a plan it was forced to abandon more than five years ago to construct an aerial car ride near the brink of the Horseshoe Falls. That plan was scrapped in the wake of widespread public opposition.

The NPC has also found itself embroiled in a continued debate over a host of private companies bidding to operate the ‘Maid of the Mist’ tour boats in the churning waters immediately below the falls.

Those interested in finding out more about the Niagara Parks Commission, its planning and how it is governed can visit  http://www.niagaraparks.com/about/niagara-parks-commission.html .

A list of the dates, times and locations for the Open Houses is included in the NPC media brief below.

Niagara Parks Community Open House Meetings

WHAT: The Niagara Parks Commission (NPC) is inviting the public to attend Open House Meetings to share a general overview of its operations and its impact as an organization on the local communities and tourism industry. These meetings will address upcoming issues and challenges prior to the Commission undertaking strategic planning later this fall.

WHEN: All meetings will take place from 6:30 – 9 p.m.

WHERE: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 Legends on the Niagara Golf Complex 9561 Niagara Parkway Niagara Falls, Ontario Thursday, October 21, 2010 Queenston Chapel 14419 Niagara Parkway Queenston, Ontario Wednesday, October 27, 2010 Bridgewater Golf Course 700 Gilmore Road Fort Erie, Ontario.

(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents in our greater binational Niagara region.)

By Mollie Stovell

(A short note from Niagara At Large – This is the second in a series of first-hand accounts involving emergency services at hospitals in Niagara, Ontario, and Niagara At Large has received more than a few from residents across this region, without solicitation.

And as NAL reported in the first article for this series, we asked the Niagara Health System, the board responsible for managing most of the hospital services in this region for a response to these accounts and was told by a senior communications director that “the hospital cannot comment on or release information around specific patient cases. Our duty is to maintain patient confidentiality and respect the privacy of patients. The communications director went on to say that it is the NHS’s “desire and goal is for every patient and their family to have a positive experience.”

Those with concerns, the hospital’s communications director continued, can share them with the NHS’s Patient Relations Specialist Natalie Foster. Natalie is located at Ontario Street Site and can be reached at 905-378-4647, extension 44423 or by e-mail Natalie.Foster@niagarahealth.on.ca.)

It has been months since I have had to live through the excruciating experience of dealing with death, but I have not yet been able to make peace with the misery of my memories.

Mollie's grandparents Paul and Vickie.

My grandfather was taken in by ambulance in December of 2008.  He passed away eight days later.  My sister’s mother-in law was taken in July of 2009.  She passed away the next day.  My grandmother was brought by ambulance on the day of Mrs. Wilson’s funeral after a fall resulting in a shattered shoulder blade. 

We were told that she would likely not make it through the surgery.  She survived, and was able to return to her home.  Unfortunately, while in hospital, we were informed of a spot they had discovered on her lung during a chest x-ray.  My grandmother was taken to the GNGH (the Greater Niagara General Hospital in Niagara Falls, Ontario) on the eve of Christmas Day 2009.  She passed away on January 4th, 2010.  My sister’s father-in-law, after many trips for heart related issues, including a heart attack that lead to a triple bypass surgery in Hamilton, was most recently taken in for a mini-stroke.  He was released after one night in the ER with a prescription for a new medication.

There is no doubt that my family has been in turmoil the past two years.  Emotions have been running high, been running overtime.  Through all of this we have a chance to see the best, and the worst of the GNGH.  Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large posts the following for the interest of residents on both sides of our binational border.)

FORT ERIE—The War Resisters Support Campaign <http://resisters.ca/>  in Canada and the Buffalo chapter of Veterans For Peace are co-sponsoring a historic gathering with US Iraq War resisters who have sought refuge in Canada.

The event, titled “Refusing Orders, Crossing Borders” <http://refusingorders.blogspot.com/> , will take place on Saturday, October 16 from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, 32 Idylewylde Street, Fort Erie, ON.

Supporters from both Canada and the US will have the opportunity to meet former US military personnel who have chosen to come to Canada rather than participate in the Iraq War. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

An Ontario Provincial Police letter circulating through some hands says tentative dates have been set for an inquest by the province’s chief coroner, Dr. Andrew McCallum, into the circumstances surrounding the death last December of Fort Erie teen Reilly Anzovino.

Reilly Anzovino

Reilly died following a December 26, 2009 traffic accident on a stretch of Hwy. 3 in her hometown of Fort Erie. The 18 year old, first-year college student was ambulanced to an emergency department at a hospital site in Welland where she was pronounced dead. Continue reading →

By Christine Dominico

(Prior to this posting of Christine Dominico’s disturbing account about the quality of care she says her mother received at a Niagara, Ontario hospital site,   a copy of this story was sent to the Niagara Health System, the board responsible for operating most of the region’s hospital services, for a response. We include it here, at the head of Christine Dominico’s report.

“As you are aware,” stated a senior communications officer for the NHS to NAL, “ the hospital cannot comment on or release information around specific patient cases. Our duty is to maintain patient confidentiality and respect the privacy of patients. Niagara Health’s desire and goal is for every patient and their family to have a positive experience. At times where we fall short of this goal, we want to hear from patients and their loved ones so that we can follow-up and address those areas where our team can do better. Compassion, Professionalism and Respect are our hospital’s core values and our expectation is that every member of our team lives up these values in their interactions with all. We ask patients and families to let us know when we can do better. Feedback in the form of compliments and/or concerns will assist us to reinforce our efforts to provide quality care. It ensures that areas of improvement are identified and quality assurance initiatives are acted upon. We ask our patients and their families to share their compliments and/or concerns with our Patient Relations Specialist Natalie Foster. Natalie is located at Ontario Street Site and can be reached at 905-378-4647, extension 44423 or by e-mail at Natalie.Foster@niagarahealth.on.ca.”)

Lucky for former Prime Minister Jean Chretien that he does not live in the Niagara Region.

Christine and her mother Lucy

If he had gone to the St. Catharines General Hospital in an ambulance, the emergency department may not have recognized the need for urgency, even if he had had an open head wound.

They may have just stitched him up and sent him home. If he didn’t lose consciousness when he bumped his head, they would not err on the side of caution and admit him for observation. After all, he is old. …76 years old, isn’t he?

Elderly people may be hard to get out of hospital once they are admitted. And the LHIN (the Local Health Integration Network appointed by the province to steer health care services) is pressuring doctors to keep the costs down. Oh, and do a CT-scan on an old person who is showing no signs of a concussion? That’s out of the question.

Why am I so sure about all this? Because my mother, Lucy McCarthy, died on May 25, 2010 from a massive subdural hemorrhage that could have been avoided if she had been given an immediate CT-scan. But the St. Catharines General’s Emergency Department did not rate her accident as serious enough. Even though she was on blood thinners (Coumadin), and had had a fall of more than three feet that left an open head wound, which required two layers of sutures to be closed, they sent her back to her retirement home.

If she had been 45 years old she would no doubt have received that CT-scan that saved Chretien’s life. My mom was an active 90 year old who was not ready to die. Continue reading →

A Foreward by Doug Draper

When Niagara At Large posted stories this past summer on charges that riot police had over-reacted in their dealings with demonstrators during the G20 summit in Toronto, some readers responded by saying that the demonstrators deserved to be arrested simply for being there.

In other words, if you want to stay out of trouble in today’s Canada,  don’t get involved.  Forget about attending a rally on climate change, world hunger or fairer global trade agreements – especially if  world leaders are in town.  Just lock yourself up at home and watch ‘Dancing with the Stars’. Continue reading →

“To be neutral in a situation of injustice is to have chosen sides already. It is to support the status quo.” – Desmond Tutu.

A Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper

Niagara At Large cannot let October go by without acknowledging the retirement from public life earlier this month of one of the most courageous peace activists of our age – the Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

I had the pleasure of hearing Tutu speak in the Buffalo area shortly after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1980s and while he was still speaking out to the world against an apartheid system that was oppressing the black majority in his country and keeping Nelson Mandela imprisoned on charges of terrorism that were so unfortunately supported by then U.S. president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Continue reading →

By Pamela Minns

When I look back, there are several memorable movies that I have watched over the year.  “Seabiscuit” was one,  “Fly Away Home”  was another – both of them based on true stories.

But one of my all-time favourites was released in 1995. It starred the award-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss and was entitled “Mr. Holland’s Opus”.

The story in the movie spanned several decades, gave us a review of some of our world history, and a fascinating account of a music composer who reluctantly accepted a teaching position to support his family, and in that position he found his true passion in life as a music teacher. Continue reading →

By Mark Taliano

“Il Faut Cultiver Notre Jardin” – Voltaire 　

Human induced global warming is here.

Good science proves it, most of us believe it, and Welland is at the forefront in addressing it in many ways. Continue reading →

“The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

From a poem called ‘Funeral Blues’ by W.H. Auden, read by one of Reilly’s friends at this Oct. 9th bench dedication.

By Doug Draper

A poem read tearfully by a friend,  prayers and remembrances, and the tossing of rose pedals into the sun-kissed waters of the nearby river while someone strummed a guitar and sang ‘Amazing Grace’.

Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor joins Reilly's mother Denise, Reilly's brother Kain and father Tim for unveilling of memorial bench along Niagara Parkway in Fort Erie, Ontario. Photo by Doug Draper

More than 150 friends and supporters gathered with members of the family at the head of the Niagara River in Fort Erie, Ontario on this warm and sunny October 9th to celebrate the unveiling of a memorial bench in Reilly Anzovino’s name.

Reilly was the 18-year-old college student whose death following a traffic accident in her hometown of Fort Erie l last December 26th amplified concerns about the closing earlier that year of the emergency rooms at what are left of the hospitals in Fort Erie and Port Colborne.
Reilly’s death – sometime during or after the extra time it took to ambulance her to an emergency room in Welland – has also galvanized south Niagara residents in their ongoing fight for a return to fairer, more accessible acute-care services in the region’s south end. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

With one year to go before Ontario face a provincial election, the province’s Conservative leader is following up Thanksgiving with series of television ads and a call to Ontarians for their advice on how his party should “move forward” if it forms the next government.

Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, his wife Deb and their three-year-old daughter Miller at pumpkin farm in rural Thorold this Oct. 8. Photo by Doug Draper

Over the next 12 months leading up to an Oct. 6, 2011, those ads will focus on at least three major themes– “giving hard-working families a break,” a return to government that is “not spending beyond (its) means,” and creating more jobs, said Hudak during an interview with Niagara At Large while his family was visiting Howell’s Pumpkin Farm in the Short Hills of Thorold this Oct. 8.

Hudak’s invitation to the media to join him at the pumpkin farm for a briefing on the shape his party’s campaign will take in the months ahead came a week after a Toronto Star-Angus Reid poll showed him receiving the support of 41 per cent of the province’s decided voters. Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, who is hoping to lead his party to a third term in government, trailed with 29 per cent, followed by NDP Leader Andrea Horwath with 22 per cent and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner with eight per cent. Continue reading →

Niagara At Large is pleased to post this piece by the chairman of Niagara, Ontario’s regional government as he finishes his final weeks in office this fall after announcing his decision to retire from politics earlier this year.

In the piece, Partington chronicles challenges and achievements, and   he calls for reform of the way we are governed municipally, including a  fewer number of local municipalities than the 12 we now have in Niagara – a suggeston at least some across the region may view  as controversial or unacceptable.

At the end of the article, we encourage you, our readers, to share your views in the comment boxes below.

By Peter Partington, Chairman, Niagara Region

My impending departure from Regional politics, after serving two terms as Chair, coincides with the 40th anniversary of Niagara Region, an entity still in its infancy as governments go, but nonetheless as important as ever in terms of the essential services it provides to residents and to Niagara’s many and diverse communities.

Niagara Regional Chairman Peter Partington. File photo by Doug Draper

Providing services that range from a safe water supply to policing, from waste collection to transportation, from helping seniors stay in their homes as long as possible to attracting job-creating investment, Niagara Region is playing a vital role in building a prosperous, vibrant region in which all can participate and succeed.

Priorities Consistent with Chamber of Commerce Report

Regional Council has achieved much during its four-year term, guided by a business plan focused on key priorities that include economic prosperity, community and social well-being and inter-municipal transportation.

These priorities are consistent with many of the recommendations contained in the recently released report by the St. Catharines – Thorold Chamber of Commerce, Supporting Prosperity Through Effective Government. Working with Niagara’s business community to create an attractive climate for business continues to be an economic imperative and a regional government priority. Continue reading →

An Introduction by NAL publisher Doug Draper

So a beloved cat or dog dies.For those of you who have been through that sorrowful experience, you may also know how alone you can feel when, still mourning the death of your friend, you go back out in the ‘real world’ and other people, who have never had the pleasure of sharing life with an animal, cannot relate to how you feel.

A number of years ago, one of my cats died suddenly before I left for work and I made the mistake of going to work anyway after an hour or two of trying to collect my feelings. I went out for lunch that day with people I thought were my friends – people I normally shared a few jokes with, along with some lively discussion around that morning’s headlines – and they treated me like I was a drag on the ticket. One of them, who had lost a sibling a year or two earlier, asked me rather abrasively how I could care more about the death of an animal more than the death of a person. I found the question astonishing and tried to answer that I care about the death of both.

This October 6, I received the following story from an old friend and journalism colleague Lawrence Pinsky, who lost a feline companion that day. It is a story that speaks to my long-held view that a close relationship with other animals can bring out the best in us and strengthen our reverence for all life on this earth.

By Lawrence PinskyIn the earliest of spring, 1999, Angel came into our lives (mine and my beloved kitty, Isadore’s) at our cozy little apartment on Melita Crescent In Toronto. Isadore’s (Izzie’s) mother had died about a year before and I somehow linked this with Izzie’s apparent lethargy. So I eventually had this “bright” idea to find him a companion, not too young, a kitty who would not over exert Izzie who was already 15.

A cat named Angel. Photo by Lawrence Pinsky

I put out some feelers to a few animal clinics and within a day I had a call from one clinic saying they had a five-year-old female who had been living at the clinic for a while.  Apparently one of the vets there had picked her up off the street some time ago and she shortly thereafter gave birth to four or five kittens, all of whom were now adopted.  I told the caller a bit about myself and said I would be there right away to pick her up. The person seemed surprised that I would take her sight unseen. She told me that “Angel” was a lovely cat, but “not a show cat, nothing special to look at.”  I said that I didn’t care what she looked like, not at all.

When I arrived at the clinic I found that Angel was in a large kennel with a boarding cat and was told that they’d often put her in with a boarding cat because she somehow made them feel more at home. This was sounding great to me! Angel was a brown tabby with a white belly and a white streak along her upper back and sea-green eyes. She was beautiful!! Continue reading →

From The Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority

This October, the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority (Peace Bridge Authority) greets the official start of the National Hockey League season by reminding game-day travelers of a few important international border crossing tips, including the expansion of NEXUS program service lane hours by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

Tips on avoiding long line-ups at the Peace Bridge on days when the Buffalo Sabres and Bills are in town.

The current hours of operation for NEXUS are: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m., and Saturday through Sunday, 8:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Following all Buffalo Sabres home games (beginning October 9, 2010), NEXUS will now remain open until approximately 12:00 a.m. each evening.

“We wish the Sabres good luck in the 2010-2011 season and look forward to another division championship campaign and beyond,” said PBA Chairman Ken Schoetz. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

The City of Port Colborne, Ontario is being eyed as the possible site of a first-of-a-kind plant in the Great Lakes region for manufacturing wind power equipment.

Tom Rankin, president of Niagara-based Rankin Construction, has long dreamed of manufacturing wind energy machinery in the region. File photo by Doug Draper.

The city’s mayor, Vance Badawey, introduced a team of local and regional economic development representatives along with Tom Rankin, president of Niagara-based Rankin Construction, to outline the opportunity at an October 6 meeting of Niagara Region’s Integrated Community and Planning Committee.

“This is a win-win situation for Port Colborne and for Niagara, and we have to put our best foot forward to get these companies to locate here,” said Rankin of companies in Germany that are pioneers in manufacturing wind generating equipment there and are now actively looking for a place to build them in the Great Lakes region.

Rankin, who has harboured a dream of building this green energy technology in our region for years, went on to say that European wind energy manufacturers are now actively looking for a place in Ontario to site a manufacturing plant. Rankin mentioned London and a few other locations they may be looking at, but why not Port Colborne and Niagara.

Port Colborne should have a natural advantage as a Welland Canal community with harbour facilities for loading and unloading the giant parts that make up the towering wind generators growing numbers of power utilities and others across North America are ordering today as alternatives to coal, oil and other sources of non-renewable energy.

Badawey, in a statement he made during one of his own city council meetings this September, stated that “the demand for the supply of wind energy products in North America is growing and Port Colborne is well positioned to meet the demands coming for this growth.” He went on to add that the city’s “strategic location on the Great Lakes, combined with a robust and well-established manufacturing base make this city a one-stop-location for manufacturers of wind turbines and related components.” Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

More than a hundred days may have passed since the chaos on the streets of Toronto during last June’s G20 summit But calls for a public inquiry into the security measures employed continue to mount and Ontario’s never-pull-any-punches ombudsman, Andre Marin, will soon be wading in with a report of his own.

Riot police marching the streets of Toronto near Queen's Park during this past June's G20 summit.

This October 5, civil libertarians lawyers and others ramped up their call for a full and open public inquiry into what unfolded in downtown Toronto when the summit was in session, and the province’s NDP leader Andrea Horwath vowed to soon introduced a bill at Queen’s Park for launching such an inquiry.

Late this September, the province’s community safety and correctional services minister, and St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley announced he was appointing Roy McMurtry – a former justice minister from the Conservative government (close to three decades gone now) of Bill Davis, who ran a left-leaning government compared to what we have provincially and federally now – to review an old law that apparently gave police excessive powers to arrest people for within five metres of a makeshift security fence around the summit site. “This law has been on the books since 1939, when we were probably worried about Nazi saboteurs. It deserves a review,” Bradley was quoted saying for a recent story in The National Post. Given numerous eyewitness reports and video shot in the vicinity of that fence during the summit, one might greet Bradley’s quotation above as an understatement. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Hey all of you ‘soccer moms’ out there. Move over. Here come the ‘Wal-Mart moms’!

Yes, that’s right. Pollsters in the United States have now taken to calling younger mothers of voting age in the United States – particular those who shop at least once a month at Wal-Mart – Wal-Mart moms. And given that those of us living on the Canadian side of the border have a provincial, if not a federal election looming within the next 12 months, it probably won’t be long before that label migrates over here.

Until it does, we can only go by the surveys conducted to date on the American side of the border, and they so far show that Wal-Mart moms tend to be “independents” when it comes to their voting preferences. A majority of them voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential elections and although they say they still like Obama personally, they are disappointed and may not vote for him or his fellow Democrats in the same numbers in the future.

And why? Because the Wal-Mart moms say they don’t see enough improvement in joblessness and the overall American economy, that’s why.

Well here is something all you Wal-Mart moms on both sides of the U.S./Canada border might want to at least think about when you are fretting over the state of jobs and economy in our communities. Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

We have been treated to so many false starts on this one over the past decades or so, we almost post this news with our tongues firmly planted in our cheeks.

A virtual depiction of what the new cross-border span would look like near the existing Peace Bridge. Image courtesy of Peace Bridge Authority

But let’s hope that a report, published in The Buffalo News this September 30, that construction could begin on a new bridge next to the Peace Bridge in the summer of 2012 turns out to be true because for the sake of the economies on both sides of our border, we need that new crossing badly.

According to the story in the News, the Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority has made a final decision on one of a number of designs for the new bridge unveiled over the past year and wants to get the building underway because up to $100 million in Canadian federal funding is at stake – funding that could disappear if there isn’t a shovel in the ground by 2012 and the project isn’t completed by 2014. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

If you have spent any length of time driving around the Ontario side of our greater Niagara region over the past year, you have no doubt seen or at least passed signs advertising ‘economic Action Plan’ projects paid for, in part, through the Canadian federal government’s dispersion of our tax dollars.

This federal 'Action Plan' sign lines a main road to the parking lot of Brock University where our taxes are contributing to the building of new facilities there.

Those signs posted across the Canadian landscape – a few of them highlighted here – make up a good chunk of a record $130 million Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives spent on advertising themselves in the 2009/2010 fiscal year ending this past March, according to a wave of recent stories in The Globe and Mail and other mainstream media. And God, or maybe only Harper, knows how much more of our money will be spent on federal government ads in this 2010/2011 fiscal year with an election looming sometime in the not-to-distant future.

What should concern all of is that this Conservative government also markets itself as the one and only party of fiscal responsibility in Canada. Yet they’ve now spent an amount on promotion that well surpasses the previous $111-million record set by the former federal Liberal government in 2002-2003. Harper and his Conservatives pounded the Liberals, as they should have, over that one. Continue reading →

(Niagara At Large is posting this September 30 report by a coalition of environmental and conservation groups across the U.S. and Canadian regions of our Great Lakes in keeping with this NAL’s position that an invasion of Asian Carp in our Great Lakes would be potentially devastating to the ecology andto the economies of the entire Great Lakes region. This is one invasion of an alien species to these fresh water bodies that must go down as a  “red alert” by citizens on both sides of the border andby our governments.)             
 
Nearly a dozen Great Lakes environmental groups today dropped off more than 10,000 postcards urging President Obama to demand that federal regulators act now on a permanent solution to halt the Asian carp’s encroachment on the Great Lakes.

Asian Carp, breaking water in the Mississippi River watershed, not too far away from Lake Michigan, where the fish's migration there could mean ecological crisis for all the Great Lakes. Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey.

 Representatives of the groups traveled to Washington, D.C. to hand deliver the postcards, signed by residents from around the Great Lakes region as evidence of a potential Asian carp invasion mounted this summer.

“Today we delivered over 10,000 post cards collected in just six short weeks and thousands of signatures on petitions, asking President Obama to use his authority to immediately and swiftly work toward separating the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River system — the main route the carp are taking to reach our Great Lakes” said Cheryl Mendoza, associate director for Freshwater Future.
 
“Our message from people around the region couldn’t be more clear: ‘We cannot wait any longer. We want a permanent solution that will protect our Great Lakes way of life,'” she said. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

It may not offer the screaming thrills of a modern-day amusement park ride, but no matter.

Leonardo Torres Quevedo, grandson of his name sake who designed Niagara Park's historic Whirlpool Aero Car, joins Vic Perry, president of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, in commemmorating the time-honoured ride. in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Photo by Doug Draper

Niagara Park’s Whirlpool Aero Car – now just six years shy of its centennial – has a timeless charm that continues attracting more than 100,000 riders a year for a unique, bird’s-eye view of one of the most spectacular rivers the world.

This September 30, one of those riders was the grandson bearing the same name as the legendary Spanish engineer, Leonardo Torres Quevedo, who designed the Aero Car that has remained one of the more popular tourist attractions along the Niagara River since it was built in 1916.

Torres Quevedo’s grandson was joined on the ride from one wall of the Niagara River gorge to another, two hundred feet above the whirlpool rapids, by Vic Perry, president of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering.

Earlier in the day, the two men signed an agreement between the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE and its Spanish counterpart, promoting a closer working relationship for the benefit of members of both associations and the engineering profession in general. At the same, the Whirlpool Aero Car (formerly known as the Spanish Aero Car) was named by the CSCE as an “International Historic Civil Engineering Work.” Continue reading →

A Commentary by Mollie Stovell

Late this September,  Superior Court Justice Susan Himel overturned the current laws in Ontario used to criminalize the acts surrounding prostitution. It will no longer be illegal for prostitutes to communicate with potential clients,  to operate out of a bawdy house, or to employ bodyguards and other individuals to aide in their safety.

As residents of Niagara, we are no strangers to the prevalence of sex work.  The massage parlours are plenty, and we all suspect they are a front for paid sexual services. The only difference now is the legitimacy of these businesses, and their ability to operate with honesty, thus making the employees less stigmatized, and empowered to make more decisions that will benefit themselves directly. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Pat Scholfield  

The Niagara Region turned down a motion for an investigation into the Niagara Health System (NHS) by a vote of 16 to 11.

Hospital care advocate Pat Scholfield

Below is a brief list of reasons why an investigation of the NHS is needed.

· The Ontario Health Coalition held health hearings across Ontario in March and discovered Niagara had the worse access to hospital care, and recommended there be an investigation of the NHS under the Public Hospitals Act.
· Seven municipalities in Niagara voted to have an investigation of the NHS: St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Thorold, Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Wainfleet and Welland Continue reading →

By Julia Blushak

A minister, a major, an executive director, an activity coordinator and an outreach worker walk into a restaurant for breakfast. When the waiter asks for their order, they exclaim unanimously – ‘A healthier neighbourhood, sunny side up, please!’ Joking aside, the set up is based on real events.

Sometime late last winter, several community leaders began meeting for casual brainstorming over breakfast in an eastside St. Catharines restaurant. More than anything, they began meeting for mutual support. Their professional lives felt daunting at times as they confronted the day to day demands in a neighbourhood deemed one of high needs, based on findings in reports like the 2007 ‘A Legacy of Poverty?

Addressing Cycles of Poverty & the Impact on Child Health in Niagara Region.’ Together, these individuals knew more about the lives behind the faces in their controversial neighbourhood than most of us care to. And so, with their ‘sunny side up’, hands-on philosophy, they set about to plan a celebration of bounty. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

I got to confess, I am getting tired of writing – over and over and over again – about the hospital mess in Niagara.

Just as they did at the Sept. 23 meeting of regional council, concerned residents from central and south Niagara fill the gallery on Sept. 8 for an earlier debate on hospital services.

So tired that I could no longer force myself to stay up as long as a gallery of concerned residents from Port Colborne and Fort Erie and Welland, Ontario attended a meeting of Niagara’s regional council this past September 23, most of who were wearing those ‘Yellow Shirts’ for groups fighting for fairer access to hospital services in south Niagara.

Many of those residents arrived at the meeting around 7 p.m. and toughed it out through a closed session of the council that dragged on for three hours and through discussions on a number of other issues before learning, at close to 2 a.m. the following morning, the outcome of a request for the regional government to support a call for a provincial investigation of the Niagara Health System and how that decade-old board is managing hospital operations across the region.

That call for an investigation came from a Toronto-based lobby group called the Ontario Health Coalition and from seven of Niagara’s 12 local municipalities, including Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Wainfleet, Welland, Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Thorold, and from numerous citizens, many of them living in the region’s southern tier where the NHS closed emergency rooms at the Port Colborne and Fort Erie hospitals last year.

A majority of regional councillors said no to that request, just as a number of them did earlier this September at a committee-of-the-whole meeting, and opted instead for “work(ing) with the NHS to establish a more effective, regularized relationship to improve the quality of health care for the residents of Niagara.”  The working relationship will include semi-annual updates on how well things are going to improve the quality of care.

It was disappointing to the residents who shuffled out of the regional council chamber around two in the morning and drove back to communities in and around Port Colborne and Fort Erie where they have been witnessing, year after year now, the diminishing of hospital services, including the closing of beds and those emergency rooms, close to home. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Did you happen to take an evening walk this last week of September and see that big harvest moon up there in the sky?

Tereza Hozjan and her husband Joe manage 'Town & Country Farms' along Canboro Road in Pelham, Ontario - one of many venues in our greater Niagara region for locally grown food. Photo by Doug Draper

Wow, it was a wondrous sight, wasn’t it?  It was one that should remind us how fortunate we all are to live on the only planet we know of in the universe that supports life, and how fragile the life-support systems of our planet may be.

In that spirit and in what is left of the light of that harvest moon, let’s also remind ourselves that we are now living through what is possibly the most bountiful time of the harvest season in our greater Niagara region.

Let us ask ourselves how fragile our lives might be if we continue to lose what is left our local farmers and their growing lands – if we made ourselves dependent for something as vital to our survival as food to producers in other countries that may not always be so pleased to feed us. Let us ask ourselves where we would be if we lost the capacity to feed ourselves and found ourselves vulnerable to other nations that, for whatever reason, might grow hostile to us? Continue reading →

By Dave Toderick

If the worst happens, James Hansen will still be able to look his grandchildren in the eye and say; “I’m sorry.  I tried my best.”

Climate expert Dr. James Hansen

In 1988, Dr. Hansen, an atmospheric physicist and now head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, testified to an American Senate committee that our climate was being affected by greenhouse gases produced by humans.

In the years that followed, because he prefers science to communicating, he decided to leave the communication to those who enjoy it and are better at it.  But now, twenty-two years later, with his grandchildren in mind, he is back in the communication game, trying to close the gap between what scientists have learned in those years, and what the public understands.  Last week he was speaking in Toronto, and I was there. Continue reading →

By Doug Draper

Following a marathon, three-hour meeting behind closed doors, Niagara Ontario’s regional council opened the chamber doors late this September 23 to announce that it has reached an agreement to purchase land in Niagara Falls for a new police headquarters for regional police.

Days are now numbered for Niagara Regional Police headquarters in downtown St. Catharines.

The announcement draws to an end many months of speculation over where a new headquarters for the Niagara Regional Police Service may go and drive a spike into the campaign by St. Catharines Mayor Brian McMullan and other municipal politicians in his city to keep the headquarters in St. Catharines’ downtown.

Regional council revealed in open session this Sept. 23 that an agreement has been reached with a group of investment firms to purchase land near the intersection of Hwy. 420 and Portage Road in Niagara Falls, and a short walk away from the existing headquarters in Niagara Falls for the Ontario Provincial Police. Continue reading →

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Here is a pretty sad and sorry sign of our times – “In-Camera Meeting In Progress. Do Not Enter.”

Doors shut. An all-too-familiar site at Niagara regional council.

That was the sign several ordinary residents and others across Niagara, Ontario’s region – people who took the trouble and time to attend a regularly scheduled meeting of our elected regional councillors this September 23 – had slammed in their face for the better part of three hours as the council, once again, spent a ridiculous amount of time debating matters that are ultimately going to hit us in the pocket book, behind closed doors.

Now I just want to make clear, before I go on with this, that I have a good deal of respect for many of those representing us on regional council. This isn’t a slam against each and every one of those elected people behind those closed doors. In spite of what many think of politicians these days, I continue to believe we have people on that council who try their best to serve in the best interest of their communities.

But that is enough of this reporter playing ‘Mr. Nice Guy’. Continue reading →

Our precious and ever-so-fragile Great Lakes from space. Photo courtesy of Kevin McMahon, producer of the 2009 documentary film 'Waterlife'.

A Commentary by Doug Draper

What kind of shape do you think we are going to find our Great Lakes after a couple of decades of Ontario falling behind New York and other states across the binational border in protecting them?

Well, here is one possibility. We could be back to where we were in the 1970s when Lake Erie was on the verge of choking to death from phosphorus and other sewage, and the waters of all five Great Lakes were flush with pollutants from countless effluent pipes and leaking waste dumps.

According to a new report, called ‘Redefining Conservation’ and released this September 22 by Ontario’s independent environment commissioner Gord Miller, the quality of our Great Lakes waters is declining toward 1970 lows because the province and municipalities are falling behind their American neighbours in curbing sewage and other pollutants to the lakes. Continue reading →

Niagara At Large is posting the following for readers in our greater Niagara region who may have concerns about plans to ship radioactive waste through the Great Lakes and Welland Canal.

The call from Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath to the province’s premier, Dalton McGuinty to halt these shipments is just the latest of many calls of concern around this from bodies on the Canadian and American sides of our Great Lakes region.

Following the posting of Horwath’s open message to Ontario’s premier, Niagara At Large is posting a recent piece by Great Lakes United, a U.S./Canada coalition of lakes conservationists with a head office in Buffalo, N.Y., raising concerns about these planned shipments of radioactive waste.

Don’t float nuke boat: Horwath to McGuinty

QUEEN’S PARK – NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is calling on the McGuinty government to halt planned shipments of radioactive waste through the Great Lakes.

A ship carries commercial cargo through the Welland Canal where there are plans to ship radioactive waste through the canal and lower Great Lakes. File photo by Doug Draper

Bruce Power is proposing to ship 16 radioactive nuclear steam generators from Owen Sound to Sweden for dismantling and recycling.

“Seventy Great Lakes mayors, dozens of environmental groups, and First Nations communities oppose this plan, which was not part of Bruce Power’s initial proposal and exceeds by 50 times international limits for radioactivity on a single ship,” said Horwath, citing the growing grassroots opposition.

“Why isn’t the McGuinty government taking action to prevent this unprecedented and unnecessary threat?” she asked Premier Dalton McGuinty during this morning’s Question Period. Continue reading →

An Introductory  Note from Niagara At Large

 The day following last Christmas, Reilly Anzovino, daughter of Denise Kennedy and Tim Anzovino, and sister of Kain Anzovino, was involved in a tragic car accident on Highway 3 between her Ontario hometown of Fort Erie and neighbouring Port Colborne. She was ambulanced to an emergency room at a hospital in Welland and died.

Many, including Reilly’s family, believe she may have survived if the Niagara Health System, the board responsible for operating many of the hospitals across the Niagara region for the province, had not closed the emergency rooms at the Fort Erie and Port Colborne hospitals with the approval of the provincially appointed Local Health Integration Network earlier last year.

 A provincial coroner’s inquest into the circumstances surrounding Reilly’s death is pending and, in the meantime, members of Reilly’s family, including her teenage brother Kain, are trying their best to live on with her loss. Niagara At Large is pleased to post this piece by Reilly’s mother Denise has shared with us about the strength and courage Kain has summoned to move forward in honour of his sister.

By Denise Kennedy

It has been almost 37 years since the Ridgeway Crystal Beach High School has had a football team.  The Fort Erie High School Senior team folded and the players from FESS have to join forces with the “Blue Devils” this year.

Kain Anzovino proudly wears #25 in honour of his sister Reilly. Photo courtesy of Anzovino family.

Kain has played football since grade 9 for Fort Erie, as well as the Niagara Spears for the 2009 season.

“I wanted to dedicate my season to my sister Reilly,” Kain told his father and I. “When we lose someone that is close to us, it is difficult to go on sometimes. But Reilly wouldn’t want me to give up. She would be on the sidelines cheering us on with her friends and painted faces.” 

Kain and Reilly are only 17 months apart in age and grew up together very close. 

Kain has chosen #25 for his uniform this football season because Reilly was killed in a tragic automobile accident this past Christmas.  He wanted #26 because her birthday is January 26^th and the accident occurred on Boxing Day. But that number wasn’t one of the options. “#25 is still a good number and Christmas was Reilly’s favorite time of year because we always get together with many cousins and family members to celebrate,” said Kain. “Christmas will not be the same without Reilly now, she was a lot of fun.” Continue reading →

By Pamela Minns
 
The formation of a new organization called Niagara Heritage Alliance was announced recently. 

Architect Jill Taylor was keynote speaker at Niagara Heritage Alliance's inaugural conference.

It is a regional alliance of volunteer individuals and organizations from communities across the twelve municipalities in the Regional Municipality of Niagara, who are dedicated to heritage preservation and enhancement, and speak and act with a strong, unified voice when our heritage is threatened.
 
This past Saturday the beautiful setting of Navy Hall in Niagara on the Lake was alive with attendees to a conference organized by Niagara Heritage Alliance, the theme of which was “Our Heritage in Crisis:  Do you Care?”  The joyful sound of a piper echoed throughout the surrounding land and building welcoming the speakers and attendees. Continue reading →

By Dave Toderick

Actually, she’s my former student and I’m her former teacher, but that would have made for an awkward title.  And I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that a teacher learning from his students is a “Man Bites Dog” kind of event.  My students were constantly teaching me.

Moriah Kolenda (right) and her sister Rayne, prior to her chemo treatment for cancer.

Moriah Kolenda was in my class when she was in Grade 3, and again in Grade 5.  I coached her in Cross Country Running, Relays, and Track and Field.  Her favourite part of the day, she would tell me on the way out the door for home, was usually Gym or Art.  On our last day together, my final day as a classroom teacher, she gave me a DVD she made, a slideshow of photos of the last few days of the school year set to music; Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”.

If you had asked me about her back then, I would have said that she was a great kid, but it’s only now, five years later, that I’m coming to appreciate just how extraordinary she is.  I’ll get to that in a moment.

Among the many, many things I wanted my students to learn, both from the curriculum and about life, was about Terry Fox.  I wanted them to learn about Terry’s courage so that when they needed it, they’d find that they had courage too.  I wanted them to learn about the way Terry broke down seemingly impossible tasks into smaller steps, so that when they faced huge challenges, they’d be able to keep moving forward and not be overwhelmed.  I wanted them to learn about Terry’s work ethic, so that they’d work hard too, and see how success comes from effort.  I wanted them to learn about determination and persistence, and caring about and doing things to help others.

We read stories and articles about Terry.  We watched him in videos.  We sang a song about him.  My students taught what they learned about Terry to other students in the school.  The whole school community felt tremendous pride in the success of our annual Terry Fox Runs. Continue reading →