On October 31, 11 students from North Addington Education Centre canvassed the community in their costumes; not for candy or treats, but for non-perishable food items.

At least two students were stationed in each community: Flinton, Northbrook, and Cloyne. The response was overwhelming. Most people had a stack of food, and were not reluctant to contribute to the community. Throughout the collection process, students were asked to perform tricks, and they sang, danced, and recited poetry. There was a pick up location in each community, as the food was collected on Halloween night. The event and pick up were supervised by a staff member.

“It’s such a great idea. It’s incredible to see the kids out there supporting their community and having fun, and it makes it a lot easier for people to donate when the food is picked up at your front door. I hope this program continues”, says Cheryl Hartwick, a community member who graciously told many people about the campaign.

In total, students collected 431 items, which will help the food bank through the winter season. Kendra Wilson was excited to share that she’d definitely be doing this again next year. Students visited the food bank to see the stocked shelves and the effects of their actions. Taylor Salmond said, “I got a warm feeling when I saw all of that food. I can’t believe we helped do that”. Salmond also suggested that students dress up as soup cans next year, so the community knows right away who they are, and collaboration with staff has already taken place to make these costumes for next year.

John Mooney, the vice-principal of NAEC, was excited to show his support for the event: “North Addington is a part of the community and we are so appreciative of this partnership because it allows us to support the food bank. I am extremely proud of our students and grateful for the support our students have received”.

On November 16, the Northern Highlights Craft Show will be taking place at NAEC. Staff and students are participating in the ‘Empty Bowls’ project. Between 3-6pm, soup will be sold and the proceeds will be donated to the local food bank. Students in the art class have created bowls that the soup will be served in. For a minimum donation of $5, you can enjoy dinner, take home the bowl, and support the food bank!

While this event helped stock the shelves, the winter and holiday seasons are a busy time for the food bank. An attempt was made to go to as many houses as possible, but if your donation was missed, please call North Addington at 613-336-8991 and ask for Ms. Bovard; we will pick up your donation. For those requiring assistance, please contact Land O’ Lakes Community Services at 613-336-8934. Those wishing to donate food, please call Karen Anderson at 613-336-8934 (leave a message if there is no answer).

Editorial by Jeff Green

A couple of weeks ago I had occasion to visit both Montreal and Toronto within a 24 hour period, and spent time driving through traffic jams in both cities. Aside from the fact that at ay given moment I could gaze at more different people and vehicles than I see in a year driving around Frontenac, Lanark and Lennox and Addington Counties as I do my job, I noticed something else.

The roads, particularly the city streets, were horrendous; full of ruts and potholes. In Montreal, where the bridges are literally falling down, my car hit bottom twice on city streets. In Toronto, there are streetcar ruts on main streets, and the sides of the roads were crumbling. The cities were fun to visit but my car couldn't wait to get back to my own little gravel road in Central Frontenac, which thanks to a dry summer, is a pretty smooth ride, thank you very much.

All of our local townships devote more money, and attention, to roads than to anything else. The eat up 50% of local budgets. They are to our municipal councils what healthcare is to the Province of Ontario, an essential service whose cost escalates each year, pushing up taxes and taking money from other services.

Municipal Council's always a slave to provincial policy, have been changing thier budgeting processes in recent years in line with a provincially mandated capital asset management process. What that means is all tangible municipal assets, such as parks, buildings, equipment, and yes, roads and bridges, need to be inventoried and given a value. The depreciation of those assets as they age must then be calculated and the replacement cost and date must be accounted for in each budget.

What this exercise does is create a huge cash requirement down the road because in the 2012 budget the fact that a township must put money away to replace a truck they just bought but will need replacing in 10 or 15 years.

This is all very good long term planning, designed to minimize budget increases over years. But it also means that the millions of dollars it would cost to bring all the roads in a township to a provincial standard must be always on the mind of Council members.

South and North Frontenac Councils have taken this Capital Asset Management project very seriously. In South Frontenac the 2012 budget includes a pla to spend millions on roads and millions each year afterwards on roads and road equipment.

While this is prudent, it does mean that South Frontenac will remain fixated on roads. This will limit their ability to look at other community needs, such as recreation and social needs.

People are always complaining that we do not get much for our taxes in rural municipalities as compared to urban ratepayers. To a certain extent this is not true, as our municipal taxes do pay for policing, social welfare, library and other costs that are delivered by outside agencies. Still, there is something to a local council taking the welfare of its citizen's into its budget debate directly, rather than simply transferring moey elsewhere ad trusting ti will be sufficient.

The fixation with roads, which has only intensified under capital asset management, does take the focus ofg of everything else.

In the City of Toronto, while the roads are crumbling, the budget debate is over public transit, library service, social housing, recreation, etc.

Our Councils will talk only about roads and bridges and waste sites.

I would not suggest that a township such as South Frontenac ignore their road needs, but with roads that are better than urban roads today, more attention could be paid to the very real social needs of its citizenry.

In 1996, as he still is today, Mike Procter was running the Adult Protective Services Program for Northern Frontenac Community Services (NFCS).

A number of the people he was working with at the time were facing the loss of ARC Industries, which provided many people with intellectual disabilities a job and a place to go every day for programming.

“The Community Drop-In was set up to give people a place to go, something to do once a week,” recalled Procter last Wednesday morning as he pulled a large pot of potatoes off the stove at the Anglican Church Hall.

With a bit of money from both NFCS and Community Living - North Frontenac, and the foundation of a partnership with the Anglican Church in place, the Community Drop-In, a weekly community lunch on offer to anyone with $2 in their pocket and an empty belly, got its start.

Fifteen years later it costs $4 for a meal, but for that price the Drop-In volunteers prepare a fresh, hot meal. Last week it was meatloaf, mashed potatoes and carrots, coffee and juice, followed by cake.

“There is no one in charge here,” said Mike Procter, “we all help out, and are able to feed everyone who shows up, if it is 15, 25 or 30.”

A number of people from all walks of life in Sharbot Lake come out for a meal on occasion, along with some of the people that Mike Procter works with on a daily basis, as well as Community Living clients and staff.

In addition to the weekly meals, the Drop-In has organized trips, and has been able to help the Anglican Church keep the kitchen going in their hall with the purchase of new stock pots, a stove and a vacuum cleaner.

The Drop-In has also donated to local causes on occasion, including a $150 donation to the Sharbot Lake Legion to help pay for their new septic system.

The Community Drop-In operates without funding support, based entirely on the efforts of the people who come out every week. The price may have to go up again in the coming months or years as food prices rise, but the Community Drop-In will still be the cheapest, and friendliest, lunch in town every Wednesday.

Pineview Free Methodist Church is doing it again - 24 years to be exact - of giving away clothing! It all started with people dropping off bags of clothing at Shirley Wise's house and at the Cloyne General Store, owned by the Clelands back then. They had so much clothing that they decided to bring it to the church basement and had those who attended the church go through it to see what we needed. It was a godsend to us young mothers to be able to clothe our families for nothing. The event was so productive that eventually it grew...and our little church at the time couldn't host the event anymore, so we moved it to Barrie Township Hall and called it the Free-Clothes Give-Away. The first time we opened our doors, over 358 people came into the hall over the two-day event to get clothing for their families. Pineview was the first to see this need and it spread like wildfire. Instead of doing it once a year in the fall, we were given so much clothing that we had to host two a year - spring and fall.

Then the Barrie Hall had to be shut down for renovations and we decided to move the Give-Away back to the church, which by then had built a new addition with a fellowship hall to accommodate large crowds. We had people as far as Sydenham, Ottawa, Oshawa, Renfrew, and Pembroke come to provide clothing for their families. It often surprised us to see new people who had never heard of the Give-Away leave the building almost in tears because of how blessed they were by being able to save money in such hard times.

As time went on, our volunteers running the event have grown older.....and we also noted that other places in the area were hosting their own events.....Flinton Rummage Sale, and the United Church Northbrook Clothing Boutique opened. Then Value Village hit the market. Clothing was not coming in in abundance, as it once had. We didn't want to be in competition with those who were trying to raise money for worthy causes. Our event doesn't raise much money at all. So we thought of shutting down the Give-Away, but calls from concerned citizens made us change our minds. However, we did decide to go back to hosting only one event annually – in the fall.

Now we work hand-in-hand with the Rummage Sale in Flinton. Whatever clothing they cannot sell, they donate to the Free Clothes Give-Away.

Either way the community gets the benefit from both events, clothing their families for the winter months. And whatever clothing is left over from the Give-Away is packed up. Some is sent to communities in the far north, and the rest is sent to March of Dimes, or Salvation Army. Over the years we used to get “garbage clothing” until I wrote an article about what the event is all about, and now we hardly get any garbage anymore.

We do get items we can use as rags, which benefits the local garages and school shops. Last year we had only two bags of garbage to throw out.

This year's Free Clothes Give-Away will be held Friday, October 21 from 9AM till 5PM, and Saturday, October 22, from 9AM till 2PM at Pineview Free Methodist Church, 14397 Highway #41, just south of Cloyne in the basement of the church.

Donations of clean, gently used clothing and linens may be dropped off at the church on Thursday, October 20 and Friday, October 21. Thanks, everyone.

Workers who showed up at the Burridge fire hall early on Election Day, October 6, to work at Polls number 99 and 100 in Lanark Frontenac Lennox and Addington, were surprised to find the building locked up.

As the time approached 9 a.m. when the polls were scheduled to open, Eva Ball, one of the polling clerks, finally received instructions from the Township of South Frontenac about how to get in the building and disable the alarm system.

“It took until 9:30 for us to get set up, and there was a couple that had arrived at the polling station early, before 9, because they had a medical appointment in Ottawa,” Ball told the News.

The problems getting into the hall were just the start, Ball added.

As the day wore on, more and more would-be voters arrived and said they had not received voting cards. Even though they were still eligible to vote, at least one person decided not to.

“One woman said she was so upset that after living in the same house for 45 years she had not received a card. She threw up her hands and said she wasn’t going to vote at all and she left,” said Ball.

About 100 people showed up at the Buridge polling station without voting cards, according to Ball, who was working as a polling clerk for the first time in this election. There were an estimated 12,000 missing cards in the riding.

Because of the way polling divisions are drawn up, a number of voters had to come to Burridge all the way from Perth Road.

Larry Zadow, the returning officer for the LFL&A riding, said that he was aware of some problems but that overall the voting went off pretty well in the riding. He said that his office, which was opened on September 1 in preparation for the election, has nothing to do with voting lists and voting cards.

“To be honest with you, we don’t do much with the voting list. We get that from Elections Ontario,” he said.

Zadow said that one of the functions his office performed was to visit each polling station to make sure they are handicapped accessible.

But according to Eva Ball, there is a 4-inch lip at the doorway at the Burridge fire hall, and people in wheelchairs needed help to get into the station.

Janice Sadloka was the Deputy Returning Officer at Poll 99.

She said she has worked on elections quite a few times and, “It seems the same issues keep coming up. We are always dealing with voters who did not receive cards and ones that are not on the voters’ list. When that happens we need to look at where they live, and sometimes they are supposed to be at another polling station, which does not make it easy for them to vote. The same thing happened in the federal election. We fill in forms to have the voters’ list updated but nothing seems to happen. The whole system needs to be upgraded.”

While acknowledging there are problems, Larry Zadow said that things should be kept in perspective.

“We have over 100,000 voters in this riding. If we have problems in less than 1% of cases, that’s not that bad,” he said.

Editorial by Jeff Green

Taking a quick look at the online electoral map after last Thursday's election, you would think that the Conservative Party had won the province.

The map is almost entirely Tory blue, except for a few pockets of red, and a large block of orange at the upper left hand corner But by looking at the lines between the blocks, and realizing that the small corner on the bottom right can be clicked to bring out another map, this one of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), which contains dozens of ridings, you realize that the while the blues won the greatest land mass, the Liberals won just one less than half the seats.

The last Liberal standard bearer in our region, Leona Dombrowsky, who was the incumbent in our neighboring riding of Hastings – Prince Edward, lost her seat by several thousand votes, and now there is no one within government with a vested interest in rural Eastern Ontario.

On the other hand, Randy Hillier’s standing in a rural-dominated Conservative caucus should be enhanced, and his convincing victory in LFL&A can only help.

The LFL&A riding has turned into a heart-breaking riding for the Liberals. Candidate Bill Macdonald was buoyed in the run up to the campaign and during the campaign itself by a warm reception at doorsteps throughout the riding. Even in the Lanark Landowner heartland of Lanark Highlands people said they were supporting him.

He had signs on lawns throughout the riding and he felt that he would be at least close to Randy Hillier this time around. But, just as his federal counterpart, Dave Remington, learned during the federal election last spring, when it comes time to vote, LFL&A electors tend to vote Conservative.

Although Dave Parkhill ran a good campaign for the NDP, his local riding association is threadbare compared to the Liberals. Their signs went up late, they had little in the way of volunteer support, no campaign office. And yet, Parkhill also took votes from the Liberals.

In the end Randy Hillier (PC) received 22,475 votes (50.1%, up from 40% in 2007) while Bill Macdonald (L) received 12,519 votes (28%, down from 38.5% for Ian Wilson in 2007). Dave Parkhill (NDP) received 8,118 votes (18%, up from 12.5% for Ross Sutherland in 2007) and Nancy Matte (Green) received 1,748 votes (4%, down from 7% for Roly Montpelier in 2007)

In contrast to four years ago, LFL&A is now a blue stronghold, provincially as well as federally.

People were just polite to Bill MacDonald at their front doors, all the while planning to vote Conservative.

Editorial by Jeff Green

Reading through the coverage of the provincial election that will end its dreary run today, one of the sideshows has been a number of articles in both the Ottawa Citizen and the Globe and Mail about LFL&A incumbent Randy Hillier.

The Globe and Mail even dispatched a columnist, John Ibbitson, to interview Hillier supporters in Carleton Place and Hopetown. The resulting article “Meet Hudak's booming - but minimized - voice of rural Ontario” poses and then rejects the idea that a comparison can be drawn between Randy Hillier and Lanark Landowner supporters and the Tea Party movement in the United States.

Here is an excerpt from that article that caught my attention.

“The truth is, there is no discernible Tea Party within Ontario politics. There is only a dwindling rural population 'who have been bypassed by the urbanization of Ontario,' observes Jonathan Malloy, a political scientist at Ottawa’s Carleton University.

“Some within it embrace a 'rural populism' that is 'suspicious of the urban experts who know what’s best for us,' he believes.”

A retired couple from Hopetown and a sawmill owner in Lanark Highlands were interviewed as well, and they dutifully said that Mr. Hillier “tells it like it is” unlike the “citiots” who are migrating to Eastern Ontario from places like Ottawa and Ontario.

The column also talks about Randy Hillier's disdain for “the excesses of environmentalism, multiculturalism, publicly-funded health care and the like”.

As long as Hillier sticks to talking about urban indifference to rural reality and mindless bureaucratic interference in rural life, he represents a large constituency in Eastern Ontario. It is when he sways into ideological territory that he loses a number of us.

Back in 2005, the ideological side of Mr. Hillier and the Lanark Landowners movement was identified in this newspaper.

At that time the founding statement of the Landowners was posted on their website, and included the following - “Using taxpayers’ dollars, our governments support and promote Quebec, Native, Arts, Homosexual, Urban and Multi cultures. However when it comes to the independent, peaceful rural culture in Canada, government support is stifling, suffocating and controlling.”

All of this, and Randy Hillier's subsequent actions, have formed a major part of Liberal candidate Bill MacDonald’s campaign message, which is only fair since just about everything Randy Hillier does is on the public record. MacDonald has called Hillier an “embarrassment”.

But Bill Macdonald is a political opponent of Randy Hillier’s and is trying to win an election.

Mr. Ibbitson is a commentator however, and by focusing on Hillier and his supporters’ ideological bent and ignoring completely any consideration of the real issues that are faced in Eastern Ontario, he effectively writes off the people who continually struggle to keep their families fed and their communities alive in this region.

And there are real issues in this region that are worth fighting for.

The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation did indeed decide that sugar shacks should be taxed as industrial operations.

It is in the interest of urban Ontario that farms and forests thrive, but it is the rural ratepayers who foot the entire bill to keep farm and managed forest tax rates low.

Based on the Provincial Policy Statement, which favours an urban model of housing development, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs is forcing restrictions on new housing developments in rural municipalities that will further erode the potential for growth.

The OPP has been permitted to continually downgrade its services to our regions while increasing costs, and ambulance service remains a touchy issue.

Whoever wins the provincial election tonight will inherit a set of grievances in rural Ontario.

The urbanization of Ontario was not created by any government; it is a fact of life. But governments have indeed placed bureaucratic restrictions in place over the past 10 to 15 years that have hit smaller and poorer communities hard. Many of these have been motivated not by any plan that is geared to fostering strong rural development, but by institutional thinking and fear of financial liability. The Safe Drinking Water Act is a prime example of this kind of legislation.

Whether people arrived in eastern Ontario 10 years ago, or 20, or come from families that have lived in rural Ontario for 100 or 1,000 years, we all have a real interest in the future of our region and we look to government and to our urban neighbours for support and respect.

We will find out tonight if Randy Hillier will continue to be the one who is charged with bringing our concerns to Queen's Park.

Whether he is or not, we need governments to take those concerns seriously, because we will not simply fade away, as some urban newspaper columnists are predicting.

Photo: Detail of Thelma Robbins’ quilt

Over 100 diners packed the hall at Trinity United Church in Verona on September 24 for the first-ever African dinner party called “Flavours of Africa”. Organized by Grandmothers-By-The-Lake, the South and Central Frontenac branch of the Stephen Lewis Foundation’s Grandmother to Grandmothers Campaign. The event was completely sold out. The Frontenac grandmothers’ group founded by Carol Southall aims to raise awareness and funds for the thousands of African grandmothers single-handedly raising 13 million children orphaned by the HIV AIDS pandemic there.

Diners paid $25 per ticket and tucked into a sumptuous six-course meal that included an assortment of African dishes prepared by members of the group. Prior to dinner, guests perused an assortment of African crafts and art for sale, including two African-themed quilts made and donated by award-winning master quilter Thelma Robbins of Ottawa. After the meal diners enjoyed a selection of African songs courtesy of Verona’s five-piece vocal ensemble, The Kangaroos, and the toe-tapping percussive sounds of the all-female drumming group, Get in the Car.

The evening ended on a more serious note as Adele Colby, chair of the group, spoke of both what has been accomplished and what still needs doing. Adele was chosen to attend the first ever "Grandmothers’ Gathering" in Swaziland in 2010, and the trip left her more passionate than ever in her efforts to raise funds and awareness for the cause. She spoke of the enormous task the African grannies are faced with and the grace and courage with which they are striving to do that. “Prior to the trip I thought I understood why I was doing this work but after meeting and talking to these indomitable women I now know the true meaning of what we do …. One thing that came through loud and clear on that trip was that these women didn't need us to tell them what to do; they knew exactly what needed to be done; what they did not have were the resources to do it and that is what they desperately needed from us.” Adele spoke of the positive results of that conference, one being the fact that the grandmothers’ pension of $28 every three months has since been increased to three times that amount. She also touched on what remains to be accomplished. “Despite the fact that there are now six million African people receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS, there are still ten million more who require treatment. This is crunch time for the AIDS pandemic and although we are on the verge of a breakthrough we are running out of money. The global fund is in deep trouble and the recent Canadian bill to restore the efforts to allow for the distribution of medicines to underdeveloped countries, though passed in the House of Commons, went to the wayside in the Senate.” She encouraged people to put more pressure on the Conservative government during this next session of parliament.

Colby ended the evening on a positive note. “On the ground in Africa an extraordinary thing is happening at the grassroots level. People are coming together at the community level and hope abounds and much of that hope is the result of Canadians working hand in hand to provide those critical resources these grandmothers need to succeed.” Anyone who would like to donate can visit www.grandmotherscampaign.org. To join the Grandmothers by the Lake, contact Adele Colby at 613-375-8845.

Photo: Reverend Nancy MacLeod, The Right Reverend John Chapman, Bishop of Ottawa and The Venerable James Roberts, Archdeacon of Lanark & Arnprior

Members of the congregation of St. Alban's Anglican church in Maberly filled the parish hall on the evening of September 25 for a special Evensong service celebrating the 125-year history of a very unique church.

One of the few A-frame churches in the Ottawa Diocese, the church was named after St. Alban, who was venerated as the first British martyr. During the persecution by the Emperor Diocletian in 300AD, Alban was scourged and beheaded after protecting a priest.

Formal worship in Maberly began with the Mission of Maberly, which first met at the Maberly school house in May 1883 with 80 worshipers in attendance. Shortly after that, members of the congregations decided they need a proper building of worship. In a memorabilia of the church compiled by Helen Strong in 1986 to celebrate its 100-year birthday, it is written: “The pioneers of Maberly and the surrounding district were in no way lacking in the initiative, determination, perseverance and prayer to produce a building which they believed was only fitting for their place of worship. Many were eking out a living on the hilly and rocky land, hence the Dominion Churchman mentions many contributions of one dollar or less when the appeal for a building fund was begun.”

John Acheson, one of the members of that first congregation, who was born in 1843 on the Acheson homestead on the Scotch Line near Perth, was delegated the task of designing and building a church. Timbers used in the frame were cut from his farm, now the Munro Farm on the Fall River Road and swamp ash was squared up at the local sawmill and used for the interior paneling. The building cost $1500 to construct and was built in the Gothic style and includes stain glass windows made by McCosland and Sons of Toronto.

In September 1886, the cornerstone was laid and the church was dedicated on December 6, 1886. Over the years the building has undergone numerous renovations. The foundation was repaired in 1938 and in 1941 hydro was installed. A new roof was put on it in 1952 and the building was totally rewired in 1969. At first heated with two wood burning boxes tended for years by Mr. John Gordon, it was switched to oil in the early 1960s. Structural work was done to the masonry work in 1978 and in 1979 the wood floor and furnishings were completely refinished. Records show that a Sunday school existed from early times and a number of other organizations have continued to meet there over the years, including the Ladies Guild, the Mothers Union, and the Junior Auxiliary.

The church has warmth and charm because of its impeccable design, its small scale and wooden interior and it holds countless memories for members of its congregation.

The Right Reverend John Chapman of Ottawa, who spoke at the celebration on Saturday, highlighted the special history and memories the church holds for so many. ”There have been prayers in this place through wars, through the depressions; there have been countless marriages, baptisms, parties, and when you think about the course of human history in the last 125 years and that there have been people praying in this place throughout all of those experiences, it’s almost overwhelming to think about.”

Reverend Nancy MacLeod has been at the church for the last four years and said, “We're celebrating a very historic and vibrant place, where the focus of the people here is very outward. The people are making use of the building for vibrant worship and are also reaching out into the world.” The church regularly puts on community lunches and euchres along with supporting the food bank, the Meals on Wheels program, and the Salvation Army. The congregation has been instrumental in rebuilding St. Jude’s Cathedral in Iqaluit, which burned down years ago. Following the celebration, guests enjoyed a plethora of desserts and had a chance to reminisce about a much beloved place of worship.

There was no shortage of strong language at an all- candidates’ meeting that was presented by the Frontenac News at the Verona Lions Hall on Monday Sept. 19.

Randy Hillier, the Progressive Conservative incumbent, was the first to speak, and he wasted little time on pleasantries, characterizing the last eight years of Liberal Party rule under Dalton McGuinty as “atrocious”.

“Our provincial debt load has doubled to $130 billion and what do we have to show for it? We are now a have-not province. We need help from powerhouses such as Newfoundland and New Brunswick. Atrocious. We have 550,000 people unemployed, and what does McGuinty want to do, give a $10,000 tax credit for businesses to hire new Canadians, who haven't been here 5 years. What will that do for us here in Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington?” Hillier said.

“Wasn't that a good story?” said Liberal candidate Bill MacDonald in response. “If everything was so bad, where was our representative? This is a bad news story using numbers that have no basis whatsoever. In my opinion, especially in Frontenac and Lennox and Addington County, our representative has been non-existent, a no-show at meetings, someone who voted against every job creation measure ... In this riding alone, the McGuinty government has invested $36 million in infrastructure and Mr. Hillier has voted against every job creation measure that the Liberal government has proposed. And the Conservatives have no plan at all for job creation.”

Nancy Matte, the Green Party candidate, picked up on the tension between the other candidates.

“I don't want to hear what people haven't done or things that have gone wrong in the past,” she said, “I'm more interested in making good decisions for the long term health of the economy and the environment. We need to remember that things get magnified over time. The Green Party wants to talk about how food and farming and education are all related.”

For his part, Dave Parkhill from the NDP talked about his background as a social activist. He began as an advocate for his two autistic sons, which he said led him to work with school boards, agencies, care providers, and many others. “Eventually I found myself really getting engaged in how the system worked. I continued along that path, and have taken on a bigger role got on some boards along the way, and now I am entering politics for the first time. In this election I think that when people look at the NDP jobs policy they will see something that makes sense. What it says is that when someone creates a job, they get a tax break, and not a small tax break but a real tax break. That will work as well here as it does in Toronto.”

Members of the audience asked questions on topics as varied as rural cell phone and broadband service, public education, the candidates’ perceptions of theirs and their parties’ weaknesses, agriculture, and more.

In their responses to a question about public education, Hillier and MacDonald exemplified a stark difference of opinion that may be played out more comprehensively at a Public Education Night scheduled for Loughborough Public School next Monday night (September 26).

“Look at what's happening in our schools,” said Randy Hillier. “We have gotten rid of the fall report card, and we are now teaching sex ed in grade 1. We need to provide the teachers with the tools they need and let them decide what to do, and we need to get the bureaucrats out of the classroom.”

“After 8 years of Conservative rule, barely half of the students could write,” countered Bill MacDonald. “Since the Liberals took power eight years ago, 550 new schools have been built, including a high school in Smiths Falls, and a new school is coming to Sharbot Lake in a couple of years. Full-day kindergarten has been brought in to many schools and will be extended to the entire province soon. Today Ontario schools are ranked in the top ten in the world.”

Dave Parkhill did not paint as rosy a picture as Bill MacDonald. “There are problems in our schools, and more so in the rural areas, and it stems back to when Mike Harris ruined the funding formula. All these years later, the formula is still broken,” he said.

Although there have been a series of articles in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper about a tax dispute Randy Hillier's wife has had with the Canada Revenue Agency over capital gains taxes, which resulted in lien being placed on the Hillier family home before the dispute was resolved in recent weeks, there were no questions from the floor about that issue.

But it did come up nonetheless, leading to the most potentially explosive exchange of the evening.

The final question of the evening was about taxation, and Bill MacDonald was the last candidate to answer the question.

“I'll start by pointing out that I pay my taxes,” MacDonald said.

This prompted Randy Hillier to grab his microphone.

“Don't you start talking about that,” he said angrily, but the exchange was interrupted and MacDonald was told by the moderator (yours truly) to stay away from snide comments and answer the question as it had been posed.

There are two other opportunities for readers in the News' distribution area to attend all-candidates’ meeting. There is a meeting tomorrow night (Friday, September 23) at the Kaladar Community Centre as well as the aforementioned education forum in Sydenham on Monday night.

(We would like to thank the Verona Lions for the set up of the hall and Dale from Sound on Sound productions – Soundonsound.ca for the professional sound system.)