New: Facebook has blocked all Canadian news. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop.

New: Facebook has blocked all Canadian news. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop.

Ramsey Hart, of Perth, is running to be the candidate for the New Democratic Party in the June 7th provincial election. On February 15, the NDP officially accepted his application as a candidate for nomination. The riding association has yet to set a date for a nomination meeting, which will likely take place in March. Because of new fixed election date legislation, the provincial election date is known to be June 7 and the election campaign period will take up the month of May.

Hart is is the Executive Director at The Table Community Food Centre in Perth and an active volunteer in a number of community initiatives, including the Tay Valley Ski Club, Lanark County Neighbours for Truth and Reconciliation, the Perth Men’s Shed and the Mayor’s Task Force on Local Climate Change.

He came to Perth four years ago to take the leadership role at the Table from Ottawa, where he worked for Mining Watch Canada. The Table operates a food bank, serves community meals, and operates food and social programs as well.

Not surprisingly, concern about the social safety net in Ontario is one of the main reason that Hart is putting his name forward to try and represent the NDP in the coming election.

“From my work at the Table, I have developed a sense of the importance of policy decisions as they relate to the services available to, and opportunities for advancement, for many people in our communities. Because of the gaps in our social safety net, a lot of people struggle to get by. While the increase to the minimum wage is a help, a person can’t live in dignity under Ontario Works or the Ontario Disability Support Program without depending on Food Banks and other services. Housing is also a major issue that Ontario needs to address,” he said, in a telephone interview on Tuesday (February 20)

Hart recognizes that NDP candidates are viewed as underdogs in a riding with a long history ofsening Conservatives to Queen’s Park, but said he is not deterred.

“We’ve had 14 years of Liberal government in Toronto and decades of Conservative representation in this riding. Now is a good time to look at viable alternatives to the status quo. If people want a change, I want to be that change. The NDP has a solid track record representing rural areas of northern Ontario and I can do the same in eastern Ontario if given the chance” he said, in a press release.

The need to combat poverty is a theme he intends to return to on the campaign trail.

“We are losing the potential of too many people and spending too much money to treat the symptoms of poverty. We can do a much better job taking care of each other. For example, the NDP’s program for a provincial pharma-care program will make an important difference in many people’s lives.

Diversification in the agricultural sector, small business growth, and keeping rural schools open are also issues he intends to address.

“While he has not spent a lot of time in Frontenac County since moviong to the region, Hart has taken advantage of the wilderness opportunities the county offers, including winter camping and skiing at Frontenac Park, and an annual canoe trip in North Frontenac Parklands.

“I am looking forward to learning more about Frontenac County as the election nears,” he said, “from what I have seen there is a lot of untapped potential to attract more visitors.”

He will be taking a leave of absence from his job at the Table in May, but intends to begin talking to people about the election throughout the late winter and spring.

Ramsey Hart can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or 613-298-4745

 

Published in General Interest

Four years ago Joanne Pickett of Arden Pottery decided to start up an Empty Bowls project in her own community.

Empty Bowls is a fund raising project that has been embraced by potters throughout North America as a way of raising money and awareness about poverty. It was founded not by potters, but by two high school art teachers in Michigan, John Hartom and Lisa Blackburn. Students in Hartom’s class made bowls and then Hartom and Blackburn, who are a married couple, organised a lunch for students and teachers in the school. They filled the bowls with soup, and served them to everyone, then asked them all to think about those in their community whose soup bowls were empty. They then asked for donations and said, “keep the bowls”.

The concept of empty bowls was born. In 2002, Empty Bowls came to Eastern Ontario when Perth area potter, the late Jackie Seaton, started up the Perth Empty Bowls project. The project is now in its 16th year and has raised over $200,000 for local youth and food programs. The dozen potters who are involved have made over 9,000 bowls.

The experience of Empty Bowls for Joanne Pickett in Arden has been similar, although on a smaller scale. In the first year Joanne made most of the bowls herself and involved few people, raising $800 for the North Frontenac Food Bank, based in Sharbot Lake.

In the second year more people were involved and $1,400 was raised and last year $2,200 was raised.

This year local potters from Water's Edge Pottery, Aileen Merriam, Jonas Bonetta and Arden Pottery have donated over 100 bowls. For $20. diners choose from a menu of gourmet soups and chilies served in a one-of-a-kind handcrafted pottery bowl that they get to keep.

This year's offerings include smoked tomato and basil soup with shaved Parmesan cheese, chicken/veg and brown rice , creamy curried squash, and baked potato soup with cheddar and bacon - just to name a few. For the adventuresome among us there will be a wild chili - all ingredients (except for the salt) harvested in Kennebec township. Soups and chilies are served with a crispy ciabatta roll and butter.

Freshly brewed coffee and tea, and mulled cider will be available with a selection of delicious homemade cookies and cupcakes.

Also this year there will be a silent auction as part of the Empty Bowls campaign, with artwork donated by local artists.

The event begins at 10 am and goes until 4 pm on the 17th, when Arden will be chock full of Frontenac Heritage Festival events.

See the blue pamphlet in this week’s paper for a complete schedule.

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 15 November 2017 10:08

Annual Guatemala Stove Project Fundraising Dance

Come on out and dance for a great cause! On Friday, November 17, the Guatemala Stove Project is hosting a fundraising dance featuring the talented local band, Under the Covers. This band will have you up on your feet and dancing all night.

This annual fundraiser will feature a silent auction of unique items crafted by local artisans or donated by local businesses.

The Guatemala Stove Project, a volunteer-based organization is continuing its efforts to raise funds for the construction of masonry cook stoves for impoverished, rural Mayan families. Over 6,400 stoves have been built so far, creating a lasting legacy for rural families in the western highlands of Guatemala. Consider that a single stove extends the lives of each family member in a household by 10 – 15 years and reduces the amount of firewood needed by half which helps to preserve the country’s precious forests.

The Guatemala Stove Project also supports sustainable-development projects in over a dozen communities and issues micro-loans to indigenous women to start small businesses that will help lift them out of poverty. The Guatemala Stove Project recognizes the importance of education in creating opportunity and hope for the future. It provides scholarships to a number of students who would otherwise not have this opportunity.

You’ve heard about the GSP and maybe you have even made a donation in the past. Now is the time to show your support for the indigenous people in Guatemala. Bring your dancing shoes to the Perth Civitan Club for this fantastic licensed fundraising event! Mark the date on your calendar and get your tickets! Tickets are $20 at Tickets Please in Perth, on-line at ticketsplease.ca, by phone at 613-485-6434 or at the door. Civitan Hall doors open at 7 p.m. Under the Covers starts playing at 8 p.m.

For more information, please call 613-267-5202 or Check us out at guatemalastoveproject.org

 

 

 

Published in Lanark County

Septic systems are as much of a defining characteristic of rural areas as pickup trucks, fishing rods, beaver dams, and rubber boots in the springtime.

Urban residents can remain blissfully unaware of what happens once everything is flushed down the toilet or the sink, but not so in the countryside. One way or another, our human waste must be dealt with on our own land, and that costs money and requires due diligence.

A proposal to establish a mandatory septic inspection regime has now been deferred in Central Frontenac, and a proposal to explore the issue has been pulled from debate in South Frontenac just this week.

The idea is supported and has been pushed mostly by lake associations on behalf of their members. They see mandatory assessments of septic systems as one of the key factors in keeping lakes healthy.

The opposition to these mandatory inspections comes from concerns about the potential cost of replacing septic systems, which is the worst case scenario. Property owners of limited means, most of whom live on back lots or older former farm properties, could be hit with punitive costs, $10,000 or more, if their systems fail an inspection, money they don’t necessarily have.

A mandatory inspection system has to treat everyone in the same way. You can’t exactly ask a homeowner what their annual income is before inspecting their system and whoever is doing the assessment needs to treat every system the same way.
Nobody wants to have a faulty septic system, but what the resistance to mandatory inspections has revealed is that, particularly in Central Frontenac, a lot of people are afraid their system is lacking and since they are already struggling to pay ever increasing taxes and electricity and fuel costs, they can’t afford an unexpected large bill.

Census information bears this out. The average income of permanent residents, particularly in Central and North Frontenac is way below the provincial average. With the exception of the growth area of South Frontenac, the so-called bedroom communities within a short distance of the City, there is a high percentage of the population in Frontenac County who struggle to keep their bills paid and maintain their only real asset, their homes, in a reasonable state of repair.

The irony is, and this is what advocates of the mandatory system point out, that by taking inexpensive measures before a system fails, homeowners can save their systems before they need to be replaced.

In Central Frontenac, the matter was sent back to committee, partly so the community can come up with a plan to deal with the fallout for people who receive orders to replace their system but don’t have access to the necessary funds.

We have seen more letters about this in recent weeks than we normally see about a local political issue, for a number of reasons. Those who support the inspection have, for the most part, been working on this issue for years. They see the current voluntary inspection system that targets different lakes each year, as a doomed system. Property owners who are unwilling or unable to keep their systems up or replace them are the ones who refuse the inspections.

There are those who oppose mandatory inspections on political grounds, seeing it as a government imposition on private land, and there are others who oppose it because they think it will push vulnerable people out of their homes.

This leaves politicians in between of two opposing forces. Do they do the right thing to protect the land and the water, or do they do right by ratepayers who are already struggling to pay their tax bills in the first place. To find a middle path can be complicated. How much money does the township, which is already struggling financially, need to put aside to protect the vulnerable from these potential costs in order to satisfy the legitimate concerns of lake associations and others that septic systems aren’t leaching phosphates into the lakes and watersheds. How will the system be managed? What role will the septic pumpers play in policing the system?

The devil really is in the details if local townships want to deal with this issue, and they might be wise to wait until the province weighs in on the matter, which might happen later this year.

The reality that this whole debate has brought to the surface is one that is usually kept under wraps, the often extreme income gap between the haves and have-nots in Frontenac County.

We do a better job, maybe because our communities are small and we all rub shoulders at local stores or waste sites or public gatherings, of inter-mingling between the poor and the wealthy, than they do in cities where people remain cloistered in their own neighbourhoods.

From time to time, however,  the tensions do come to the surface and in order to deal with them we all need to listen carefully, respectfully, to each other.

Published in Editorials

As a mother, a registered nurse, and more recently the wife of a United Church minister, Debra McAuslan has witnessed the effects of poverty on people. She also remembers a time when she had financial struggles of her own.

She was living in London, Ontario, working part-time as an RN because she had a young family, when her first marriage broke apart. “I returned to my parents’ home in the country, and even with the help of my parents and my siblings, and a nurse’s wages, it was a real struggle for me to get back on my feet. For those without all the advantages I had, the struggle is massive,” she said, in a telephone interview from her home near Railton (South of Sydenham) early this week.

McAuslan has been involved in the campaign to replace the existing social support programs such as Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Programs with a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG).

“The idea is to take away the stigma and the penalties associated with maintaining eligibility for benefits, and save the cost of administering federal, provincial and municipal programs. Instead the concept is that anyone who earns less than the poverty line would receive an automatic payment to bring them just above the poverty line,” she said.

The idea of a basic income guarantee, sometimes under other names, has been around for decades, but has never been enacted in Canada, although there was a pilot project in Dauphin, Manitoba, in the 1970s.

The project was brought in by the Trudeau Liberals in 1974, and was abandoned in 1978 when a recession hit. Under the project, which was called “Mincome”, families registered their income and received extra money each month to reach the poverty line.

Studies of various kinds were done as part of the pilot but when the program was cut, the data that had been collected was set aside. Two thousand boxes of documents were released to Evelyn Forget, a researcher from the University of Manitoba, in 2009 after she undertook a five-year struggle to obtain them.

According to Ron Hickel, the man who administered the Mincome program, those who opposed the program did not want studies to show it was a success; and those who supported it did not want studies to show it had been too expensive.

Forget has found that the program was more expensive than predicted, but her studies on health benefits, measured by declines in hospital visits and other uses of the health care system, indicate that savings to that system were also greater than anticipated.

James Mulvale, a social work professor from Saskatchewan, has written extensively on guaranteed income programs. He said that there are a number of programs in the same vein in Canada, but they are targeted at specific groups such as seniors and children.

He favours using the tax system as a mechanism for delivering the benefit. Those who earn under the minimum would see a tax payment each year, and as income goes up, so would taxes, as is the case now.

One of the aspects of the current support system that most bothers Debra McAuslan, is the fact that in her view there is a disincentive for recipients to work.

“I know a woman who had taken a seasonal summer job and paid up all her bills. In August her cheque was docked. When I heard this I had a fit. It just broke my heart,” she said.

The City of Kingston passed a motion on December 15, 2015 expressing its support for the Basic Income Guarantee. A request to support the concept was sent to other municipalities, including those in Frontenac County.

McAuslan addressed the issue at South Frontenac Council on Tuesday night, January 26.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
Thursday, 20 November 2014 09:36

Poverty is no one's friend

An article we ran last week about families facing financial issues as winter approaches has engendered vigorous and varied responses from readers. Because the article focussed in part on two cases of people who are struggling, the responses have included offers of help as well as questions about the details of the particular cases.

The response to the article also raises questions about what supports are available in our region and how they can be accessed, and about how sufficient the social safety net in rural Frontenac and Lennox and Addington is. These will be explored in the paper over the next few months, particularly in the context of a new program coming on stream in the new year to address the needs of individuals and families in Frontenac County who are at risk of homelessness.

All of these responses are legitimate, given the open- ended nature of the article and the issues it raised. The backdrop to the article was the coming of winter and the uncertainty that comes with that.

It is one thing being poor in the summer and quite another in the winter. Heat and hydro are truly essential services for us. Without them we would literally freeze in the dark.

Those of us who have enough money and/or physical strength to buy oil or gas or get wood together for our needs are the lucky ones.

However very few of us are more than one or two pieces of misfortune or bad judgement away from facing a starker reality. We might be able to pay for a new furnace, or finance one, we might be able to deal with the loss of one income in a family for a time, we might have supportive family and friends, but two or three setbacks piled on top of each other would devastate even those of us who think we have a secure and stable income and family life.

As we get older - and the demographics in this region are well documented - the risks to our health increases and our ability to rebound from financial misfortune decreases.

We have social programs and a health system to support us. Sometimes they are subject to abuse and at other times they are not sufficient for the needs that are out there, but they do put us way ahead of people in most countries around the world.

However, our local communities are growing slowly or not at all, and community institutions such as churches, seniors' clubs, even service clubs are all less viable than they once were, and our families are also not as strong as they were in the past.

Our local municipalities have little or no capacity to help us; we are dependent on programs administered in Toronto, Kingston or Napanee for social support.

I have been interviewing seniors in recent weeks in preparation for a series of articles commemorating the 150th anniversary of Frontenac County next year, and one of the things that has clearly come out is that life was not easy in this part of the world 50 or 100 years ago. People did freeze and they did go hungry; the effects of poverty are not new around here.

If we can help each other through it, as we tend to do, so much the better for all of us.

Published in Editorials

When the City of Kingston decided to embark on an ambitious one-year plan to eliminate chronic homelessness, Frontenac County Council wanted in on the plan.

Since the city delivers social services for itself and the county, and administers not-for profit housing supports in the county as well as the city, Frontenac County Council insisted on being included in the homelessness studies that the city took on last year.

John McDougall, a member of Frontenac County Council and its appointee on the Housing and Homelessness Committee that the City of Kingston has established, has been quick to point out that homelessness is also a rural issue, even if it takes a different form.

“You don't find people living under bridges in Frontenac County, and there are no homelessness shelters. But there are people who have been couch surfing for months and years, people living in barns, in unheated or inadequately heated buildings. This is the population that needs to be addressed in any homelessness strategy that covers both the City of Kingston and the County of Frontenac,” he said at a meeting of Frontenac County Council last summer.

When the 10-year homelessness plan was released by the City of Kingston Housing department on October 30, 2013, it included a provision for a rural strategy.

Under the heading "Developing a Rural Strategy", the plan describes some of the difficulties faced in rural areas.

“While it is true that the vast majority of persons experiencing homelessness find themselves in urban or even suburban areas, evidence suggests that 7% to 9% of all homeless people live in rural areas. There is currently a paucity of research about rural homelessness. However, the available evidence suggests that rural homelessness has several distinct features that differentiate it from the more prevalent urban homelessness,” the report said.

Among those barriers are access to services due to distance; low public awareness because homelessness is seen as an urban issue; lack of funding; and low density, which makes providing services in a fixed location a poor service delivery option.

“A concerted effort to end homelessness in Frontenac County requires a dedicated effort to address all four of these barriers, all the while adhering to the other principles outlined in this plan, such as increasing housing options and improving housing stability,” said the report.

Last month, the implementation plan for the homelessness initiative was announced and it includes a rural strategy, as promised.

A Request For Information (RFI) document that was released includes separate components for youth, adult, and rural programs to help homeless individuals and families find permanent shelter.

The rural component will include funding for some financial supports as well as a coordinator to work with existing social service workers and others who can help identify those in need and the kinds of programs that will help them obtain secure housing.

The plan is to identify a service provider for the rural homelessness initiative by August and to have a program in place by the beginning of 2015. The rural provider will adhere to the same reporting requirements as those in the city but will deliver a service designed specifically for the Frontenac County population.

Published in FRONTENAC COUNTY
Wednesday, 19 March 2014 20:00

ODSP Recipients Losing Out On Dental Care

For people on government assistance programs, in particular those receiving Ontario Disability Support Payments (ODSP), finding a dentist is becoming a problem.

We received a letter at the News a couple of weeks ago from a woman who recently moved to the Tichborne area. As an ODSP recipient, her regular dental care is paid for by the Government of Ontario.

She phoned the Sharbot Lake Dental Clinic to make an appointment, and when asked if she had a dental plan she replied that she was an ODSP recipient. She was then told that the clinic would not accept her as a regular patient. She phoned two other clinics in Kingston and received the same response. As a result, she is going to have to drive to her former home community of Brockville to get service from the dentist who has been treating her for 18 years.

When we called the Sharbot Lake Dental Clinic, Sandy Robertson at the front desk confirmed that the clinic, which is owned by Dr. Richard Dale, is no longer accepting ODSP recipients as new patients.

“If anyone has a tooth ache or is in pain, we will see them,” she said, “but it is true we are no longer accepting new ODSP patients as regular patients.”

The reason, she explained and which Dr. Dale later expounded further, is that the government pay for providing services to ODSP recipients has been slipping further and further behind the normal fees that the clinic charges.

“It was never a money-maker for us to treat patients under these government plans, but the fees have dropped well below what I need in order to cover my basic costs, never mind what I would need to turn any kind of profit,” Dr. Dale said.

He added that he is cutting back on his practice in general as he gets older, and has been considering not taking on any new patients to keep from being over-extended. The patients on assistance are the first category that he is turning away.

The fee schedule for services to ODSP patients bears out Dr. Dale's assertion. For example, for a simple tooth extraction, the government pays out $37.27, which is well under the Ontario Dental Association (ODA) recommended fee of $128.

“I don’t charge as much as the dental association's suggested fee guide, but you can see that at less than $38, I lose money providing that service,” he said.

While the tooth extraction case is an extreme example, a chart prepared by the ODA in January of this year shows that provincial government programs now pay 46% of the ODA's suggested fees. That number has been dropping steadily since the late 1980s, at which time the government paid 90% of the suggested fee. That dropped to 75% by 1998, and it has continued to drop ever since.

It has now gotten to the point where a number of clinics are simply turning patients on government assistance away.

“People can blame the dentists if they want,” said Dr. Dale, “but it is really the continual slide in fees that is driving this, not an unwillingness to treat all patients.”

Dr. Richard Caldwell, the president of the Ontario Dental Association, said that the association’s major concern is with the “oral health of Ontario residents of all income levels and circumstances. We are working with the government to try and alleviate a number of inadequacies in the system.”

He pointed out that it was the dentists themselves who set up a program to provide dental care to people on assistance. It was eventually take over by the government of Ontario, “and has deteriorated ever since.”

Caldwell said that the ODA has been attempting to set up a formal meeting with the Minister of Community and Social Services as soon as possible to address this and other situations but has not received a response from the ministry.

He said that while ODA is committed to the oral health of Ontarians, the association’s members are independent operators and decide how to run their own businesses on their own.

Published in FRONTENAC COUNTY
With the participation of the Government of Canada