Missing
Have you seen County council? They were first reported missing more than a year ago. Since then, a few traces have turned up here and there, but no confirmed sightings. When last seen they were wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Keep calm and ignore the size of council.” September is usually a busy time […]
Some certainty
It was a bad idea from the beginning. It was clear from the outset in 1997 and 1998, that rural Ontario municipalities lacked the means to manage and care for the thousands of miles of roads and bridges thrust upon them. Many were already struggling under the burden of the infrastructure they already had. Some […]
Never grey
Dora Holdaway appreciated the absurd, the odd, the out-of-place. It made her happy. And she shared her joy with all she encountered. She needed to tell you the latest bit of strangeness she had come across that day. I first met her in 2004. Dora and Len were living in a large apartment on Main […]
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. […]
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 […]
Affordable
How do we make a living in Prince Edward County affordable? The fundamentals are working against us. There are a finite number of homes in the County, and the stock is growing slowly. Many homes are being converted to accommodate visitors rather than tenants. And this dwindling rental stock isn’t being replenished. So increasingly, the […]