Passion
He didn’t explain himself. He didn’t need to. Paul Greer was raised to work hard—for his family and for his community. He went to work every day quietly, respectfully, and with good humour. It’s who he was. Paul passed away last week. Too young at 54. Complications from cancer. His passing will be mourned across […]
Press pause
When Council reconvenes next week, among the files they are expected to consider is the creation of a Heritage Conservation District (HCD) in Wellington. Council is urged to defer the decision to the following term for three reasons. 1. It is a big deal; 2. There remain too many questions, and 3. Most folks who […]
Consequences
Harrison’s Corners is a cluster of homes at an intersection of roads that go nowhere in particular—save for maybe St. Andrews West, where Simon Fraser—the explorer of BC fame—settled and was buried after his rambling days were done. My buddies’ homes were scattered along roughly two kilometres of County Road 18, straddling the Corners. My […]
Compare
Prince Edward County is surrounded by water. Fresh, clean, cold and drinkable water. It’s funny, then, that we pay so much for water from our taps. Prince Edward County residents pay among the highest water bills in Ontario. More than Toronto. More than Ottawa and Kingston. More than Muskoka. Collingwood and Cambridge. By a lot. […]
Carrot management
What do you do when the market doesn’t produce what you need? It’s not a trick question. We— speaking mostly of governments here— bump up against the limitations of the marketplace regularly. We invest in drugs, research and climate change mitigation because the market can’t see a viable return. We fund a social safety net […]
Pause
It’s a recurring nightmare. I am heading out of Wellington, up Belleville Road, past the Millennium Trail. Gone are the farm fields, once blanketed with snow in the winter, budding with fresh shoots in spring, lush with growth in the summer and golden after the harvest. Instead, in this dream state, the pastoral landscape has […]
Stuck
Nurses are exhausted, their ranks depleted by the ravages of the pandemic. As many as 12 per cent of hospitals in Ontario are working understaffed. Few are coming to relieve them. It is about to get worse. About a quarter of the remaining nurses say they are retiring or simply leaving the profession in the […]
Creatures
As governance structures go, municipal governance must surely be among the more freakish. Oddly financed, oddly organized, and oddly malleable. So odd that local governments can sometimes seem trapped in a video game, one in which the rules aren’t fully scripted (or thought through) and are thus subject to radical change midway through the challenge. […]
Rogue municipality
How shall our village grow? How shall it look 10 or 20 years from now? Will we recognize it? Forces are busy working to change our community. Decisions are being made on your behalf. By bureaucrats and administrators. By powerful developers. But not you. It is mostly out of sight. You are not part of […]
Can you hear me?
No one’s listening.” “We are not being heard.” “Where is the accountability?” A loud sigh of exasperation was the clearest sound emanating from Hillier Hall on Friday night. County residents are feeling apart from their elected representatives. Estranged and disillusioned. More so than in any of the half-dozen election cycles I have covered. Folks—at least […]