After investigating complaints from ferry operators, Frontenac County integrity officer, Laura Dean, concluded that Councillor Bruce Higgs has breached the code of conduct for members of municipal councils.

The code, which is part of the Ontario Municipal Act, restricts how members of municipal councils interact with municipal staff who are carrying out their day to day duties.

Higgs violated the code on at least two occasions, Dean concluded, but she did not recommend that he be penalised. The only prescribed remediation is that he must issue a written statement and read it at a meeting of council. The statement must demonstrate his understanding that he “does not have the authority to independently engage in operational or procurement issues in the county, including with respect to the ferry,” according to Dean’s report.

The entire matter stemmed from an unusual circumstance on July 12, when Higgs learned that because the ferry operator, who was assigned to the shift, had called in to say he could not cover the shift because of vehicle problems, and with no other operator being available, the ferry had shut down.

Councillor Higgs obtained the phone number of the staff member who was absent, and phoned him, “purportedly to offer assistance to enable the operator to attend his shift” Dean wrote.

This was a breach of the code of conduct, specifically section 5.1 (e) which says that members of municipal council will “respect to the administrative and managerial chain of command by (ii) giving direction to staff only as council and through the CAO [Chief Administrative Officer] and (iii) refraining from becoming involved in the management of staff.

This incident was reported to the county soon after it took place and the county manager of legislative services, Janette Amini, contacted Councillor Higgs about the breach and delivered a memorandum to him about it.

“We understand that Councillor Higgs expressed regret and assured county staff that he understood.”

The matter may have ended at that point, avoiding an integrity commissioner investigation, but for some further events.

In mid-September, Councillor Higgs, who is the Frontenac County Council liaison to the county’s emergency and transportation department, attended the Canadian Ferry Association conference in St. John, New Brunswick.

At that conference, Higgs spoke to some people in the ferry industry, and one of them talked to him about drive systems, which determine how fast a ferry can travel. He also talked to someone about how the ferry hits the dock when it arrives and departs, and the person had ideas how to fix the problem but needed a photograph of the drive wheel.

On September 19, the county and the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) received an unsolicited email from a marine company “following up on discussions about potential improvements to the ferry”.

On September 20, Higgs went to the ferry docks and asked a ferry crew member to remove the safety guard covering the ferry’s drive wheel in order to get a picture. The ferry crew member, who has since resigned, alleged that at that time Higgs misrepresented himself as “either a marine engineer, and MTO employee, or both”, according to a formal complaint, which triggered the integrity commissioner investigation.

Investigator Dean concluded that Councillor Higgs contravened three separate sections of the code of conduct, for intervening in operational and procurement matters.

Dean said that it does not appear that Higgs did so “with any malicious intent but his actions, …, created a clear safety risk and had the potential to undermine or even jeapordize staff’s working relationship with the MTO with respect to procurement matters.”

She concludes her report by saying that while Higgs will not be penalised in this case, “any future code violations of this nature by him may warrant the imposition of a penalty.”

Bruce Higgs, a first term municipal politician, is the deputy mayor of Frontenac Islands by virtue of receiving the highest number of votes to council, on the island where the sitting mayor, Dennis Doyle, does not reside. As deputy mayor, Higgs was appointed as one of two Frontenac Islands representatives to Frontenac County Council.

The Howe Island Ferry is operated by Frontenac County under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. There has been some controversy surrounding the operation in the last 15 months or so. Howe Island residents complained last year, when the county ended a prohibition on farm vehicles using the ferry during the morning rush hour. A lawsuit has been filed by disgruntled Howe Islanders against Frontenac County. Then in July, the ferry did not operate during one shift, in the incident that led to Councillor Higgs issues with the code of conduct.

Dianne Dowling has spent the past 9 years as the President of Local 316 of the National Farmers Union, but her involvement in organic growing and local food promotion goes back further than that. She has been farming with her husband at Double J Farms on Howe Island, a 200 acre organic beef and dairy farm, for many years (the farm is named for her husbands parents John and Joyce)

The farm was transitioned to organic in the late 1990’s, and in addition to working with the NFU, Dowling has been involved with the Food Policy Council for Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington, the Kingston Area Seed System Initiative (KASSI), Save our Prison Farms and a number of other groups as well. In fact, leaving the NFU Presidency will free up more time for some of the other projects she is committed to pursuing.

As she looks back, and forward, at this time of transition, Dowling sees that progress has been made in Kingston and Frontenac County in terms of awareness of the value of local, organic food over the past 20 years, but at the same time she recognises that for many, preparing food, any food, is a lost art.

“Food is very complicated,” she said. “The major food system is still dominated by large chains and grocery stores. Food is treated a commodity for profit, not a necessity that people should have a right to. There are transportation issues, nutrition issues, it goes on and on,” she said, in a telephone interview last week.

At the same time, through the efforts of organisations like the NFU and others, food awareness and the local farm and food industry have developed and grown.

“It is a worldwide phenomenon, the growth of local awareness and support. We’ve been doing things here at the same time as people have elsewhere.”

The NFU organised the Feast of Fields events, Food Down the Road - a local farm directory, a four year new farm project, and more, over the last dozen years or so. There has been a resurgence of interest in farming locally and the NFU has been a major part of that change.

“A couple of years ago Frontenac County had a student doing research into employment. The largest increase in employment in the county was in farming, so we know something has been happening.”

One of the ongoing projects in Kingston and Frontenac has been the CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmers Training) project, which is a North America wide concept devoted to increasing the skill level among farmers.

“It started here as a program based on farmers and interns at a bunch of farms. Once a month there would be a field day and work bee at someone’s farm. It was about community building and peer support. Eventually a lot of the vegetable farmers were transitioning more to employees than interns, but it has continued even as people have had fewer interns.”

The new President of the NFU Local 316 is Ian Stutt, a co-owner of Patchwork Gardens in Battersea, who has worked with the NFU for years, and was a staff member for the CRAFT project. Dianne Dowling is remaining as a Director, so there will be continuity in the local.

As Dowling pointed out, the NFU is anything but a lone wolf promoting sustainable agriculture and local food these days.

Natalie Nossal has had to be a quick study over the last few years. With one year to go in the term, she was appointed to Frontenac Islands Council to replace a council member who resigned their position.

She decided to run during the 2014 election and not only was she elected, she also received the most votes on Howe Island. Because Mayor Dennis Doyle, like all mayors in the 16-year history of the township, resides on Wolfe Island, the representative from Howe Island who receives the most votes is appointed deputy mayor and is the second representative from Howe Island on Frontenac County Council. She replaced outspoken former deputy mayor, David Jones, who was re-elected to Frontenac Council with 257 votes - good enough for second place but lower than the 354 Nossal received.

Jones subsequently resigned from Frontenac Islands Council and was replaced by Bruce Higgs, who won a rare township by-election.

Nossal is faced with representing a constituency that finds it difficult to relate to the Township of Frontenac Islands, never mind Frontenac County.

“Wolfe Island has about twice the population of Howe Island, and it has a commercial core, so it is the focus of the township, and Howe Islanders tend to travel either to Kingston or Gananoque on one of the ferries for work or shopping, so what happens on Wolfe Island is not that relevant around here. And Frontenac County is an even greater stretch,” she said.

One thing that Howe Islanders do appreciate is the ferry service on the Howe Islander, which is a 24-hour, on-demand service operated by Frontenac County with funding from the Ministry of Transportation. Residents pay $400 per year for a pass. Non-residents pay $6 to get to the island and can leave for free.

“I moved to the island with my husband 14 years ago from Hamilton, so I am still a newbie here, and I was nervous about living in a rural area and on an island, but the ferry service has been great and I love living here” she said.

She does not love travelling to Frontenac Islands meetings on Wolfe Island however, since she has to take the 6 - minute ferry to Kingston, drive to the Wolfe Island ferry at the right time to catch it, and then spend 20 minutes crossing Lake Ontario to Marysville. Meetings are split between the two islands, however, so Wolfe Island politicians face the same burden.

Howe Island and Wolfe Island have maintained their own public works and fire department budgets since amalgamation but combine to pay for administration.

Howe Island is small, about 14 kilometres long by 2 kilometres wide (31 km. sq. according to Wikipedia) with a population of around 600. It has no retail sector, and is mainly residential and agricultural.

“Over the last 25 years or so, more and more of our residents work off the island,” said Nossal.

She sees her job as councilor, both at the township and the county level, as being all about communication.

“People on Howe Island want to know where their tax money is being spent. Basic public works; roads, trash and recycling, the fire department, access to administration, are all important. People want to know that the money that has been extracted from them is spent efficiently and with reason,” she said.

“The island has a wonderful ball park that people would like to see expanded with the addition of a tennis court or some basketball hoops and if we can build a hall, that would be a great benefit. The community is strong but we need a place to gather. We would use a gathering place very effectively.”

As to her role at Frontenac County Council, Nossal sees it as a balancing act. She is there to support the needs of the county as one of its representatives but she is the only one at that table who can bring the needs and interests of Howe Island to the fore.

Her style is the polar opposite of her predecessor David Jones, who regularly railed against the way the county operated, particularly on financial matters.

Nossal takes a much more low-key approach. However, as she demonstrated at the most recent meeting, some of that Howe Island defiance is starting to come out.

As the plan to transfer money from an unused reserve fund to buy land for the K&P Trail was being explained, Nossal asked, “Why is money that was collected for social housing going to the K&P trail?”

Even as CAO Kelly Pender and other members of council explained that it was just an administrative act to avoid having to raise taxes to finance the trail, she refused to be swayed.

“Yes,” she said when Pender repeated that no social housing programs would be affected by the transfer, “but that money was not collected for the trail; it was collected for low-income residents and their housing needs.”

Afterwards she said that the issue indicates the pre-eminence of the K&P Trail for the county. “I think the trail is a wonderful thing, and I recognise the odd geography of the county is what it is, but for my constituents, spending another $300,000 on a trail that they are never going to use is a pretty hard sell. And if I don't raise questions on their behalf, who will?”

To that end, she has asked Anne-Marie Young from the county for a financial time line showing all the money that has been spent on the K&P Trail over the years that it has been under construction and where that money came from. “I know there have been grants along the way, but I would like to see the whole picture.”

That's exactly the kind of request you can expect from a Howe Island politician.

Early Sunday morning Ayla Fenton meets the van from Roots Down Organic Farm at the busy Memorial Centre Farmers Market in Kingston, where she will set up and vend produce into the afternoon. She is an energetic presence; you rarely see her standing idly, waiting.

Fenton is what one might call a new-generation farmer: little in the way of knowledge and social support has been handed down to her from a previous generation and so she, like many, is forging new trails.

Fenton is into her third year of interning. She began at Roots Down, was farm manager there in her second season, and still does Sunday sales for them. She currently spends the work week at Root Radical on Howe Island and is also active with NFU Youth as national vice president. In this role, she brings her ongoing education on the social and environmental effects of our food system, as well as the needs of younger farmers, to both the public and policymakers.

NFU Youth is currently working on an initiative called the National New Farmer Coalition, inspired by the National Young Farmers Coalition in the U.S. The latter organization, which began a mere five years ago, has networked thousands of farmers and gained some unexpected political wins, including essentially writing a section of most recent farm bill, adopted by congress, which saw millions of subsidies shifted from big agriculture interests to young start-ups.

Meanwhile, NFU Youth has conducted a survey of over 1,500 young farmers from across the country, the results of which will be compiled and analyzed, giving a picture of this generation's opportunities and challenges. What is already known and being communicated to politicians is that 70% of new farmers are not from farming backgrounds. Fenton notes that this means policy directions need to shift toward training and land access, and she senses that politicians are willing to listen.

What is harder to shift is export-driven policies, such as those promoted through deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “Most policy is not about farming, but trade,” says Fenton. She has noticed that government is less willing to listen to diverse voices when it comes to international trade agreements, which is concerning, given the changing demographics and focuses of agriculture in Canada. “The NFU has shown that farmers are not advantaged by export-driven policy, contrary to what was expected,” says Fenton.

While this shift towards the smaller, locally-focused economic model that younger farmers favour is slow to take hold in countries like Canada, where industrial-scale, export-focused economics have long been tied to stability and growth, it has fast taken on momentum in other parts of the world.

Fenton had the opportunity to attend conferences held by Via Campesina, an organization that advocates for small-scale, sustainable agriculture in its many forms, first in Florida in 2014, where she learned about the conditions of migrant farm workers in the U.S. from the workers themselves, and again this past winter in Mali, where the focus was on defining agroecology.

Meeting people from Mali and across Africa, she became more aware of how the urgency of poverty and land degradation has prompted more hastened agricultural change there. “They have seen their land go from being half a desert to a full desert,” says Fenton, noting that in selling crops for export at low prices, farmers then have to buy food, generally not winning out in the equation.

Closer to home, Fenton helped organize a mixer held in Parham last fall for Young Agriarians, an organization focused on creating networking opportunities for young farmers. She will also be organizing a number of workshops in the region this fall for the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario, as well as continuing to learn the trade through on-farm work.