In the dark
We do a poor job of gathering and using market data in Prince Edward County. This has to do, in part, with the relative size of the market and the newness of our concerted pursuit of the tourism and visitor economy. Notwithstanding the causes, a lack of data leads us to make mistakes and miss […]
Talking trucks
Council meets as a committee just once in July and once in August. It meets twice a month through the rest of the year. Committee of the whole is where our municipal representatives gather to dig into the issues, challenges and opportunities pressing against this community. It is where they can spend a little longer […]
Heritage matters
We value our built architectural heritage in Prince Edward County—the buildings, barns, streets and lanes that define the look and feel of our community. We know this to be true because when a church is destroyed, a main street convenience store is threatened or a 200-year-old barn is felled a furious outpouring of grief, anger […]
New normal
The four infants didn’t die from the bomb blast that ripped apart the medical facility into which they had entered this world. The blast destroyed the oxygen supply keeping them alive in their incubators. All four died, gasping for breath. Murdered by their own government. It is an increasingly common story in Syria. Over the […]
The end of reason
From Amherst Island, you can see the Lennox gas-fired generating station sitting idle most days. The plant sits just across the narrow channel. It burns both oil and gas to produce steam that, in turn, drives generators to create electricity. The plant has the capacity to generate 2,100 MW of electricity—enough to power more than […]
Party game
When he ran away from home, Brady Blake rarely had a plan beyond getting away from his parents’ narrow townhouse in Verdun. In the early ’70s, this was a tough working-class neighbourhood on Montreal’s riverfront. His dad was a firefighter who battled alcoholism in a time and place in which folks looked the other way. […]
Unmanageable
Where does the money go? Global News has presented a series of stories over the past few weeks painting a troubling picture of rural Ontario residents struggling to pay soaring electricity bills. In a particularly telling interview, Ontario’s new Energy Minister, Glenn Thibault, was forced to admit he didn’t know how many residents have had […]
Context
It is easy to despair at the wave of violence erupting around the world, most immediately in Europe and the United States in recent days. One horror blurs into another. Politics, too, seems to be swirling toward chaos. Belligerence is on the rise in Istanbul, Damascus, Moscow and this week in Cleveland. It is natural […]
Muted
Is it fair? Does it make sense that every water customer in Prince Edward County pays the same rate? And is a common rate structure for a radically diverse and disjointed waterworks supply driving costs upward? Is it reasonable that our water utility is managed and governed by folks with little at stake in its […]
Still digging
It was an anxious weekend for wind and solar energy developers in Ontario. On Friday Premier Kathleen Wynne signalled she would address electricity rates in the province by way of a new throne speech in the Legislative Assembly on Monday. After losing a safe seat in a by-election in Toronto, she had to do something. […]