A thousand cuts
It’s happening again. Belleville General Hospital (BGH) is being squeezed. Too many patients, too few beds and no money to add more. So, just like every other time that BGH has run into trouble, it is the Picton hospital that has to pay. Resources are being taken away from Prince Edward County Memorial to shore […]
Cut smartly
The Queen gets it. Or at least her representative in Canada, the Governor General, gets it. Food is important. Where its grown, how it is prepared and what the consumption of food does to our planet. This is why the Governor General chose to honour Hillier’s own Jamie Kennedy twice last year—in June bestowing upon […]
The year that was
It started with a decision. Actually it was the very last day of 2009 that Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) vice-chair Jyoti Zuidema dismissed an appeal made by Lyle McBurney and Jim McPherson seeking to erase the County’s historic ward boundaries for electoral purposes and redistribute the population in a way that would better balance each […]
Ice and water
The DukeDome was supposed to close on Sunday. That was the plan. The ice plant was to shut down. The lights turned off and the doors locked. After serving this community in one form or another for nearly 80 years, and a touching sendoff on Friday, the DukeDome’s days were done. But late last week, […]
The house that Jim built
He was optimistic from the outset. Even as the ink on the report spelling the end of the DukeDome was drying, Jim Dunlop was already working to get the Wellington and District Community Centre rebuilt. Not every one was as confident. There were many good and some less good reasons to question the development of […]
Fix the bylaw
Mark Henry and Lynne Ellis want to abide by the law— but the law, in this case, is impossibly vague. It is now up to the new council—which gets to work next week—to fix it. Henry and Ellis operate Fields on West Lake between Bloomfield and Wellington. With much hard labour and many thousands of […]
The big lie
If you oppose industrial wind energy you are, according to the McGuinty Liberals, in favour of coal-fired electricity— an energy source that kills and damages children’s lungs. Unless you support Dalton McGuinty’s plan to blot the horizon with wind turbines you are worse than a NIMBY— you are complicit in killing children. The shrillness and […]
Defining purpose
What if you were asked to join an organization to give advice and no one asked your opinion? That seems to be the dilemma faced by the municipality’s Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC). The EAC was formed shortly after Mayor Leo Finnegan first took office in 2004. It has struggled ever since to find its purpose. […]
On the beach
I don’t know what I would do without Ralph Margetson—especially at this time of year. He has been such a rich store of knowledge and insight for me these past half dozen years. He is knowledgeable about a great many things, but particularly he helps me to understand what it was like to be a […]
Induced confusion
Is it working? Are you confused about wind energy yet? Confusion was the remedy offered by Sussex Strategy Group last fall in a pitch to the Ontario Government. Seeing that the McGuinty Liberals were facing tough headwinds from voters on its energy policies—the Toronto based public relations firm offered to help. Confuse the public was […]