Council does not know best
Rules matter. So does process. These are not social niceties. These are the things that separate us from more primitive groupings of mammals. And when these mechanisms don’t satisfy our personal needs or short-term desires we aren’t allowed simply to toss them aside. Yet a majority of council seems prepared to do just that. For […]
A dangerous mind
It is hard to know what will slow down Dalton’s McGuinty’s green energy ambitions. Zealots don’t typically let facts or public opinion get in their way. It likely won’t be the scathing report by the province’s Auditor General released this week. In it the AG finds McGuinty’s green energy strategies to be ill-considered, needlessly expensive […]
A forever thing
Twice I considered turning back. My footwear was marketed as a category of hiking shoe but the maker of these ankle-high lace-ups certainly wasn’t intending the wearer to be sloshing ankle deep through cold streams and soggy marsh in the closing days of November. In Canada no less. Even those better prepared, those with tall […]
A fabled land
There once was a land rich in fruits and vegetables—so bountiful it became known as the Garden of Canada. But over time mechanization changed the way food was picked, packed and processed. Local producers adapted as best they could, but the wave was too strong. Before long small growers gave way to larger, more efficient […]
Smoke, no fire
County council is regularly called upon to soften the harder edges of its bureaucracy or reconsider the brittle and at times contradictory policies it casts upon the land, particularly when it affects individuals adversely in our community. It is certainly an important role—and given the quick-and-dirty debate by which some hefty policies are imagined and […]
Stop
One hundred fifty-eight Canadian soldiers have lost their lives serving in Afghanistan since 2002. Corporal Ainsworth Dyer was the first to make the ultimate sacrifice in this hard and war-ravaged land. Master Corporal Byron Greff is the most recent casualty. Greff died just a few days ago—the victim of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul […]
Where ideas live
My buddy Gord is a film and television designer. His home and family are in Hillier but he works wherever the latest project flings him. For the past three years he has spent six months of the year in Newfoundland. Gord is most certainly creative. He lives in rural Prince Edward County. But is he […]
Superheroes
Friday was a cold, blustery day on Lake Ontario. The kind of day to be expected in late October. All day long the wind blew and a low pressure system roiled heavy waves across the lake. It was tough work for the lakers steaming across the horizon for ports east and west. It was not […]
Unaccountable
Democracy, it seems, has been suspended, at least temporarily, in Prince Edward County. A majority of council, it turns out, has decided it will not be bound by the will of the people as expressed by vote. They will, instead, set their own priorities and be accountable only to themselves. A handful of councillors have […]
New days
While campaigning last year, mayoral candidate Monica Alyea used a pumpkin when talking about the County’s finances. The pumpkin was held aloft in a couple of pieces. The large portion— roughly three-quarters of the total— was meant to illustrate the size of the municipality’s mandated funding: expenses over which the local government pays the bill […]