Niagara At Large

“At a time where we’re losing our grants, we’re losing OSAP, it should be more important than ever to fund student jobs, and jobs that allow us to excel in our career after graduating. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be a priority for provincial government.”

A News Release from Ontario’s Official Opposition and New Democratic Party

Posted September 12^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

Queen’s Park, Ontario — NDP MPPs Jessica Bell and Chris Glover are calling on the Ford government to reverse its attack on student unions and services, which has put campus and community radio stations across the province under threat.

“Doug Ford’s cuts mean that half of Ontario’s community radio stations are at risk of having to close down over the next two years,” said Bell, MPP for University-Rosedale. “Ford forcing universities and colleges to implement his personal student fee policy means many campus radio stations face considerable financial instability, and are laying off students. That’s simply unacceptable.” Continue reading →

They Have Big Sales On This September. If You Love Books, Do Yourself A Favour and Check These Stores Out

A Brief One from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Posted September 12th, 2019  on Niagara At Large

Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books in St. Catharines, Niagara on 71 Queen Street near Montebello Park

(Let me start by saying that this is not a paid ad. It  is an updated version of a piece I posted about this two great bookstores when they both hold month-long sales like this a year or so ago – Doug Draper, NAL)

I am posting this one because I’ve always been a strong supporter of what are left of our great old brick and mortar book and record stores in Niagara, Ontario and across the border in the Buffalo and Niagara Falls, New York areas, and I urge you to support them as a friend of book and record stores by becoming a customer.

And it is a great time to become a customer because right now, two of the very best of the used bookstores in our Niagara region are having sales of  50 per cent off most of their inventory, every day they are open, right up to the end of this month of September.

The Write Bookshop, in the downtown of St. Catharines on 285 St. Paul Street

Those two stores – both of them independently owned and run by very nice and knowledgeable people – are Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books on 71 Queen Street, off Lake Street near Montebello Park in St. Catharines, and The Write Bookshop, right in the downtown of St. Catharines on 285 St. Paul Street.

The following is a short message from the people at Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books on their sale –

“There is still time to stop by for our spring book sale; 50% off all used books, and 20% off books marked firm.

There are exceptions, for example books mark new or on consignment can’t be discounted and credit slips won’t apply. So come by and help us make some space, let’s get those books out of boxes! (Sale runs until end of this September). 

And don’t forget the similar sale at The Write Bookshop on nearby St. Paul Street in the city.

Please check these two great stores out, and vote as often as you can with your wallet to keep real book and record stores alive!

For more information on Hannelore Headley Old & Fine Books in St. Catharines, Niagara, click on – https://www.facebook.com/Hannelore-Headley-Old-Fine-Books-Inc-533950869988039/ .

For more information on The Write Bookshop in downtown St. Catharines, Niagara, click on – https://www.facebook.com/TheWriteBookshop/ .

For a related post from the Niagara At Large archives – a goodbye tribute to Hannelore Headley, founder of  Old And Fine Books who died five years ago this June, click on – https://niagaraatlarge.com/2013/06/28/a-sad-goodbye-to-one-of-niagaras-greatest-lovers-of-books/ .

Feel free to name some of your favourite book stores in Niagara, Ontario and the Buffalo, New York area below.

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For more news and commentary from Niagara At Large – an independent, alternative voice for our greater bi-national Niagara region – become a regular visitor and subscriber to NAL at www.niagaraatlarge.com .

 “A politician thinks of the next election. A leader thinks of the next generation.” – Bernie Sanders

“Our communities – and the province as a whole – risk falling behind if we do not leverage the rich and diverse competitive advantages of our local economies.” – Rocco Rossi, President and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce

A New Report from the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce  and Ontario Chamber of Commerce

Posted September 12^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

Niagara,Ontario – This September 12th, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) and the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce (GNCC) released a new report, The Great Mosaic: Reviving Ontario’s Regional Economies.

The report outlines how government of all levels can work with industry to unleash the potential of Ontario’s regional economies and reinforce the competitiveness of the province as a whole.

“We are only as strong as our weakest link and our ability to prosper depends on the strength of our different regions. Economic and population growth rates in the Greater Golden Horseshoe and Ottawa have far surpassed those in other areas of the province,” said Rocco Rossi, President and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. Continue reading →

Vote As If Our Whole Future Is At Stake – Because It Is!

“This election, who we vote for matters more than ever before. It matters not only for our country, but also for our children’s future and the health of our planet.” – Sierra Club Canada

A New Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper

Posted September 11th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

As of this September 11^th, 2019, a federal election in Canada is officially on and for Canadians from coast to coast, this may very well be the most important election in our lives.

This federal election is of critical importance because as many of the best scientists and climate experts around the world have been warning us over and over again, we are facing a full-blown climate catastrophe and breakdown of the systems that support life on this planet if we don’t take strong action now to stave it off.

We now have possibly a dozen or so years left before we reach a perilous tipping point – a point of no return – some of the most recent scientific models tell us, and the rate of melting ice, rising waters, severe winds, droughts and wildfires is escalating beyond almost any and all predictions made 10 or 20 years ago.

One of today’s great champions for our planet and we adults need to listen to her – 16-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden. “You say you love your children above all else,” she said, “and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.”

As that remarkable young climate activist from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, put it during a presentation she made to some of the world’s financial leaders at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this past January; “I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”

Greta’s call to them must be the call we Canadians make to ourselves and everyone around us in the 40 or so days we have leading up to an October 21^st vote. If we do not make that call our own, if we don’t go to war now on this over-arching threat to our planet, then nothing else – what we do on health care, on education, on job creation and on a host of other issues – will matter because there will be no ground left to build a life on. Continue reading →

“We saw the best and the worst in humanity in that moment, and we will never forget those who lost their lives.”                                      – from a Statement by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo

A Brief News Commentary by  Doug Draper

Posted September 11^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

Anyone who was over the age of 10 on September 11^th, 2001 probably remembers where they were and who they were with when countless millions around the world turned on screens to the sight of fire and smoke billowing out of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on the lower shores of Manhattan in the City of New York.

Some 3,000 people died when those two towers cratered, and when commercial jetliners filled with passengers were used as missiles to take out them and a section of the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C. Depending on what media sources you go to, 26 or more of the victims of the terror attacks that day were Canadians. Continue reading →

A New CBC Report Says Doug Ford Is Continuing To Talk Up Urban Development In Greenbelt

Jim Bradley, during one of the many times he, as an MPP for St. Catharines, spoke to a gathering of Niagara residents working to protect and preserve green space in the region.

“When our (Ontario Liberal) government was elected to office in 2003, urban communities were sprawling at a dangerous rate and tens of thousands of acres of precious land were being gobbled up for development. To counter this worrisome trend, our government created the largest permanent Greenbelt anywhere in the world, which protects almost two million acres of pristine land and fresh water.”                                                  – then-St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley, in a statement in the Ontario legislature, delivered May 1st, 2018

A News Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper

Posted September 190^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large

“One of the main reasons I decided to run for public office at the provincial level was to protect our valuable farmland, green fields, wetlands, ravines, rivers streams and environmentally sensitive areas from unwise and reckless development.”

Those words were spoken in the Ontario legislature on May 1^st, 2018 by Jim Bradley, who was the Liberal MPP for St. Catharines at the time, and who earlier in his long tenure in provincial politics, served twice as Ontario’s environment minister.

Now Chair of Niagara Region’s council, Jim Bradley’s words recall the concern he already had for the survival of what is left of our natural heritage in the Golden Horseshoe while he was a a St. Catharines city councillor in the late 1970s, preparing to run as a candidate provincially.

Bradley’s words were also spoken after a video tape was leaked to the news media a year ago this spring, showing then Tory leadership candidate Doug Ford speaking to a group of developers in what he thought was a private setting about allowing “chunks” of the province’s protected Greenbelt to be paved over for housing if he were to become premier.

“People of all political persuasion have … expressed support for the Greenbelt,” added Bradley during his statement in the provincial legislature in May of last year. “They would be appalled and extremely concerned when viewing a video of (then) PC Party leader Doug Ford promising developers to open up a “big chunk” of Ontario ‘s greenbelt for development, and admitting that he had already talked to some of the biggest developers in the country (about doing just that.)”

Before I go on to comment on Ford’s continued, obsessive interest in turning over “chunks” of our world renown Greenbelt running through Niagara and around Hamilton and the Greater Toronto Area, here is that infamous video that you can watch by clicking on the screen below –

After this video went public, political critics like Jim Bradley slammed Ford. And the video also  triggered an outcry from environmentalists and members o the general public alike.

So much so that Ford quickly retreated from the words he was caught uttering in the video. Continue reading →

This year – 2019 – on Track to be Worst for Toxic Blooms Causing People to be Sick and Pets to Die

Toxic Algae is killing fish and threatening other life in Great Lakes

A News Release from the Office of U.S. Congressman Brian Higgins in Buffalo, New York

Posted September 10^th, 2019 on Niagara At Large 

Buffalo, New York – Congressman Brian Higgins  is asking the United States Army Corps to expand a pilot project, which is seeing success in combatting Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB), to the Great Lakes.

In his letter Higgins says, “I write today to respectfully request that, simultaneous with the pilot effort on Lake Okeechobee, similar pilot efforts be undertaken in Lake Erie, which has suffered, in recent years, from serious harmful algal blooms.

A shot from space shows mats of green algae spreading through Lake Ontario. File photo

  “These phenomena (the letter continues) are not merely an impediment to recreational activities on the lakes, but the toxins associated with algal blooms threaten the water supplies of major cities.  This crisis is significant and growing and requires a rapid and coordinated response.” Continue reading →