The future of Remembrance Day services at the McMullen Park Cenotaph in Verona appears set as more than 100 people gathered on Remembrance Day to honour the fallen.

At the luncheon in the Verona Free Methodist Church following the ceremonies, one of the organizers, Linda Bates, announced that they plan to keep up the tradition next year, although they may change the starting time to 11 a.m. from 10:45 a.m. to better accommodate students from Prince Charles Public School.

“We think it’s more important to have the students here than to observe the moment of silence right at 11 a.m.,” Bates said. “It’s important students know and understand why we do this.”

There was a strong contingent of students and staff from PCPS at this year’s ceremony, both in terms of actual numbers and active participation.

Kate Walker and Madison Brushette read In Flanders Fields and Willa Morton gave the reply. Brent Orser and Emily Casement laid a wreath for the school.

The school has a history of Remembrance Day ceremonies. For several years, Verona remembrances were held in the school gym before a group of volunteers and the Verona Community Association brought the service back to the Cenotaph in 2016.

The 24th annual Verona Car Show Sunday was the biggest ever, with 303 entries.

When show originator Ed Asselstine did his last one before handing the reins over to John and Julie Nizman, there were 171 entries. The very next year, that rose to 270.

“That was the big jump,” Asselstine said. “John brings in things like Party in a Box, the military displays, the firefighters demonstrations and the vendors in the building.

“The old car people feed on the vendors.

“But these are all things that make Verona special.”

“The best thing about this show is that there’s something for everybody,” said Julie Nizman.

One new thing this year was the addition of live music, in the form of ZC Top, who cranked out the ZZ Top tunes complete with beards and everything.

“The drummer’s an old buddy of mine,” John Nizman said. “But we couldn’t have had them without Revell Ford sponsoring it.”

And there certainly were a lot of vehicles, everything from sports cars, to trucks to passenger vehicles and even an old dune buggy.

When asked which one he liked best, Asselstine immediately mentioned a ’51 Chevy two-door hardtop, his own.

But, it didn’t take him very long to also point out a black Beaumont two-door hardtop, which he identified as a ’67.

It may have started out as a ’67 resto project, but it evolved into Jack Bowes’ personal dream car.

“I had one when I was 19,” Bowes said. “It was black with a red interior.

“But I wrecked it.”

Now some of you might remember Bowes as the guy who had a car repair shop in Glenburnie for many years.

So, when he wanted to put together the ride of his youth, he was faced with a formidable challenge.

You see, the Beaumont is somewhat rare. They were made by Pontiac but only sold in Canada. They were the counterpart to the Chevy Chevelle.

Regardless, there weren’t all that many of them around to begin with and putting one together wasn’t easy.

“I didn’t get a car, I got a trailer load of parts,” Bowes said of his pet project. “It took me 3 1/2 years to do and I would totally do it again.”

He said there are about six cars put together to make this one.

One of those cars came from John McDonald, who was also at the show.

“This is the first time I’ve seen it completed,” McDonald said. “Holy s...!”

But Bowes took a few liberties to put together his dream car.

The engine and drive train are from a 2000 GMC truck. The suspension and tires are upgrades and there are a few cosmetic additions.

“And gauges,” he said. “It wouldn’t have had all these gauges but I really like looking at them.”

This wasn’t his first restoration job however. In his 20s, Bowes worked on a lot of drag racers.

But this one was special.

“It was designed to be a retirement project,” he said. “And since I didn’t have a job, I worked on it all day, everyday.

“It was a lifesaver in the winter.”

And, he’s very pleased with how it all turned out.

“It’s a blast to drive,” he said. “My wife calls it ‘the Mistress.’”

By the way, at their wedding, Bowes and his wife rode in the rumble seat of Asselstine’s Model A.

Jack Bowes and grandson Boyce Bowes are all smiles in Jack’s one-of-a-kind Beaumont two-door hardtop. Photo/Craig Bakay

Ewe Can Knit in Verona was a busy place Saturday as Heather Woodward and her mom, Darlene Slack, host All Dyed Up and the Purlin’ J’s Roving Yarn Van for a “Mini Fibre Festival.”

It was the fourth year they’ve done this and it was the busiest yet.

“A lot of yarn shops in Kingston have closed,” Woodward said. “But a lot of people who used to go to them are coming out here now because they know we have good product.”

They do have a lot of things you won’t find anywhere else. For starters, there are literally thousands of colours of yarn, and it’s not just sheep’s wool either.

“People come to see what we have and discover new products as well,” she said. “We have cotton, acrylic, wool, alpaca, cashmere . . . we even have tree wool.

“About the only things we don’t have are are camel or yak.”

She said they cater primarily to knitters and crotchetiers but they have a number of rug hookers as customers as well.

“And it’s people from all walks of life,” she said. “There are even some guys.”

One aspect of having a fibre festival she also likes is that it brings people into the community.

“A lot of people have never been here before and we like to point out the other shops in town like Nicole’s Gifts and Local Family Farms,” she said.

For Woodward, the knitting has many attractions, but for her, it’s generally the finished product that gets her most excited.

“It’s nice that you’ve done something,” she said. “You’ve made it.

“And it’s so nice to give somebody a hand-knitted something.”

But she’s also attracted to the colours, and that’s something guest Master Knitter Deb White can attest to.

In fact, White is enjoying a recent bout of success with one of her own creations — the Ma, Ma, Ma, Verona hat (like a skater-boy toque), both in pattern sales and finished products. By the way, the name is easier to understand if you sing it to My Sharona.

“There are over 100 of these patterns out there,” White said. “It’s very popular on the yarn crawl.

“The thing is, no two ever turn out the same, regardless of the colours you use.”

Dear Frontenac News and readers,

Please allow me to respond to the July 24th editorial “One take on the shortage of primary care physicians” by Dr. Emma Cronk. Being a rural family physician myself, I applaud Dr. Cronk’s achievements, concern for her community, and desire to serve the health care needs of her rural community. I am concerned, however, that her years south of the border have led to a careless disregard for facts and a tendency to blame foreigners for our complicated domestic issues.

Dr. Cronk’s letter might lead people to believe that students from Saudi Arabia and other countries are taking up spots in medical schools and/or family medicine programs that would otherwise go to Canadians, but the data simply do not support that. I consulted the publicly available 2018 Canadian Medical Education Statistics produced by The Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada to gather information on how many international students are attending Canadian medical schools at the undergraduate level and the post-graduate residency program or fellowship level. The document is 161 pages long, but I’ll share a few interesting facts I discovered.

First, let me address the undergraduate (= medical school) situation. Of the 2,872 new medical students throughout Canada in 2018, only 9 of those students (=0.3%) were not Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Three of those students came from the USA, and six came from elsewhere. Those spots were not “held” for foreign students … they competed for them. Of the 13,635 Canadian students (citizens and permanent residents) who applied for spots in a Canadian medical school in 2018, 19% were admitted. Only 3.4% of the 294 foreign students who applied for spots in Canadian medical schools were admitted. Of all the foreign students currently attending a medical school in Canada as an undergraduate (i.e. as a medical student) there is only one single student from Saudi Arabia here on a student visa. The country most represented in terms of foreign students attending Canadian medical schools on student visas is actually France, with a total of nine students.

Second, let me address the issue of foreign students and international medical graduates (IMGs) at the post-graduate or residency level. It is certainly true that some residency programs reserve spots for IMGs. Among the 1,466 trainees who began a family medicine residency program in 2017, 238 (16.2%) had earned their medical degree outside Canada, just as Dr. Cronk did. It is important to note that 49% of all post-graduate trainees in residency programs or fellowships are actually Canadian citizens or permanent residents who earned their medical degree outside of Canada, and are now returning to complete their training and hopefully practice in Canada. Looking at family medicine programs in particular, only 18 of the 3,514 family medicine trainees (0.5%) in 2018 were not a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.

The IMGs I trained with in the Queen’s University Family Medicine program were all Canadians, or married to a Canadian, and all planning to practice in Canada. Moreover, acceptance into the family medicine residency program as an IMG is conditional upon signing a “Return of Service” commitment, in which the IMG resident promises to practice in an Ontario for at least five years after completion of their training. They do not take their training and run back to some other country to practice.

Yes, in 2017 there were 1,561 doctors from other countries who came to Canada on student visas for post-graduate training, but they come here to train in specialties such as thoracic surgery (62.5% of trainees), neonatology (56.3%), pediatric general surgery (50%), cardiac surgery (48.6%), and critical care / ICU (45.2%) – not family medicine (0.5%). Yes, in some cases the medical schools receive money from other countries to fund the specialty training of international students. These international funds help to subsidize the cost of training for Canadian students. How is that a bad thing? I think it’s great!

Looking at the actual numbers of international students in medical schools and these various residency training programs, I fail to see how this practice of training international students contributes to the shortage of family doctors in rural areas. I could go on for another few pages about numerous other factors that do contribute to the shortage of family doctors in rural areas, but I will not. I just hope that I have to some extent dispelled the notion that international students are to blame.

To Dr. Cronk, I share your frustrations about our shortage of rural family doctors, and I appreciate how much it pains you that you are not able to step in and fill that need for your community. It is indeed a tragedy that Dr. Cronk is currently unable to live and serve in our area. Perhaps Dr. Cronk’s experience could inform future policy to prioritize excellent candidates who have their heart set on rural family practice.

Sincerely,

Sabra Gibbens MD, CCFP

Family Physician in Verona

Dan Desjardins welds old pieces of metal together to make animals, birds, flowers, etc.

And this past weekend, he made his art world debut at Art in the Sawmill, Verona’s summer visual arts showcase.

He’s a rookie at this, but like a baseball rookie, he had a veteran to whom he could turn for advice and guidance.

“Mac (The Pine Man) McCormac introduced me to this,” Desjardins said. “This is my first as an exhibitor but I was here last year with him, to see what it was like.”

Desjardins and McCormac go way back. Both were bus drivers in the Kingston Transit Service and retired about the same time.

Now Desjardins does have something else to put in the time during his retirement. He plays guitar in the Swift Kick Blues Band. The constructive sculpting came about as a bit of serendipity.

“The welding I do is mostly a hobby,” he said. “About a year ago, my sister asked me to make her a couple of figurines and it just sort of carried on from there.

“I’ll see something and say to myself, ‘I can make something out of that, like birds, turtles, masks.”

He said old pieces of metal seem to bring out his creative side.

“I like to create,” he said. “I’ll find a a piece of metal — or a shovel, and I envision what I can do with it.

“This is bringing out my artsy side.”

But early on in the show, he’s also finding another aspect he’s enjoying.

“I like to mingle and meet with people,” he said. “They ask me what’s going on and where I get my inspiration from.

“And this is a good starting point to find out what people are interested in.”

The South Frontenac Planning Department receives a steady stream of inquiries from individuals and developers who are looking to do business in South Frontenac.

Given the nature of land use planning, especially in a rural area where each piece of property brings unique challenges with it, some of these inquiries go nowhere, and others can seem like a rabbit hole, leading to a years’ long, expensive, detailed process that is sometimes mired in controversy and often results in delays and added costs.

The township has ramped up its planning department to deal with the influx of complex applications, and developed a closer working relationship with Frontenac Count’s planning department, since applications for plans of subdivision and plans of land use condominium, which are the most complex and quite often controversial planning applications, are subject to approval by Frontenac County.

On top of everything, the fact that much of the demand in the marketplace is for year-round homes on water within a short drive from the city of Kingston, pitting development pressures against environmental concerns in many cases.

And now the building permits sales data is starting to indicate that the planning boom in South Frontenac may be resulting in an increase in construction activity. For a number of years, permit sales have hovered around the $30 million mark annually in the township.

The second quarter (April to June) is the busiest each year, but this year it was the busiest quarter in at least 4 years. The construction value was $14.8 million over the 90 day period, $1.8 million more than last year, $2 million more than the same period in 2017, and $3 million more than 2016. The total is about the same, in one quarter, as the three other Frontenac Township combined permit values for most years.

And it is new construction of single-family dwellings that is the main driver of the construction boom in the township. Permits for 39 new homes were issued in the 2nd quarter of this year, an increase over 26 in 2018 and 32 in the 2nd quarter of 2017.

If the pattern from previous years holds, more new home permits will be sold in the second half of the year than in the first half and the total for 2019 could very well reach 85 to 90, well up from 66 in 2018, and 71 in each of 2017 and 2016.

It all sets up a pretty interesting context for the township to be conducting both a Strategic and an Official Review just as the Chief Administrative Officer, Neil Carbone, assumes his role. There is a short survey posted on the township website for the Strategic Plan, and public meetings are set for Sunbury, Sydenham and Verona this month, all aimed at creating a document that may be referred to by council and staff if they are seeking direction when making decisions over the next few years. But while a strategic plan may, at best, reflect the intentions of the council and residents of the township and one or two over-arching goals, it has not real teeth.

The Official Plan, however, can create new opportunities for residents and developers alike, and can close off opportunities as well, all within the confines of a set of provincially mandated standards as expressed in the provincial policy statement and codified in the provincial planning act.

Claire Dodds, the Director of Development Services for South Frontenac, outlined a process for updating the township Official in a presentation to a Public Meeting as part of the August meeting of Council on Tuesday night.

As she worked through the process in her report, she made reference to an issue that defines an area of tension both within the township and between the township and the planning policy directives coming from the Province of Ontario.

Under the heading of growth management, one of the bullets in the report says: “Province permits limited growth in rural areas and direct majority of growth to settlement areas”.

While this logic makes sense as a general rule, it does not easily fit the reality in Frontenac County. For one thing, the demand is greater for lots in the countryside, and particularly near water, than within the hamlets. Secondly, among the hamlets only Sydenham has a municipal water system and none of the hamlets have a municipal sewage system, more density in hamlet is not necessarily advisable since that involves crowding septic systems together as well as stressing the water table.

As part of its Official Plan review, South Frontenac may look at changing the boundaries of its hamlets to create more opportunities, and it may also look at the possibility of creating smaller scale, privately held water and sewer systems within individual developments. This is something that the Frontenac County Development department has been looking, and in Claire Dodds report to council she refers to proposes changes in provincial policy that might create “flexibility by clarifying perceived barriers to sewage and water treatment policies in rural settlement areas.

There is another factor that will certainly become apparent as the Official Plan process gets underway in South Frontenac. There are a significant number of people in any rural township, and certainly in one experience growth pressure such as South Frontenac is facing, who will see only a downside to significant growth.

Rural landowners do not necessarily want to live too close to their neighbours, in fact they often don’t want to see their neighbours at all. And just about every proposal for a waterfront development will be opposed by neighbours on the lake, for good environmental reasons and for self interested reasons as well.

These are just some of the tensions that will be expressed through the Official Plan process in the township.

Managing growth, creating business opportunities in the retail sector, and creating employment through growth, will be major factors throughout this process, which is projected to take over 2 years to complete.

While only a small percentage of residents will take an interest in the Official Plan, those that do will be taking a keen, active interest, and many who don’t will still find, eventually, that the plan that emerges from this effort will one day have an impact on their living situation or their financial situation.

On July 16, 2019 at approximately 10:50 p.m. Frontenac Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) responded to a vehicle fire that was parked in a driveway at a residence on Verona Sand Road in the Village of Verona, South Frontenac Township.

Upon police arrival, the South Frontenac Fire Department had extinguished a fully engulfed red pick-up truck parked in a driveway of a residence. No persons were inside the vehicle at the time of the fire and there was minor damage to the residence .

The OPP are continuing with this investigation and are seeking the assistance of the public. Any person with information regarding this incident should immediately contact the Ontario Provincial Police at 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).

New Leaf Link (NeLL) was pleasantly surprised and honoured to be selected as the recipient of $8200 raised by the Jerry Irwin Charity Golf tournament held in Verona on June 8th.

Each year, the Irwin family from Sydenham remembers Jerry Irwin by holding a golf tournament at Rivendell. Jerry was a community-oriented person who believed in helping children through sports. He was a man of few words, but he commanded respect by acting on the motto “everyone can play” in his extensive volunteer coaching life. Jerry was a life-time member at Rivendell who started the Wednesday Afternoon Men’s League. He was also instrumental in establishing the North Frontenac Flyers team.

MacKenzie and Chris Irwin spearhead the golf tournament with Chris’ mother, Valerie Irwin, and many other relatives—e.g., cousin Jim Ferguson and brother Shawn who attended the cheque presentation ceremony at the Harrowsmith Free Methodist Church. All the members of the Irwin clan told us that keeping the fundraising dollars local was important to them as it would have been to Jerry: “We like NeLL because it helps people here in this community.”

Jerry’s “everyone can play” motto is in keeping with NeLL’s mandate to provide opportunities to people who need assistance as social participants. Family members and NeLL participants gathered to meet the Irwins and to thank them for their generosity. NeLL has been operating in South Frontenac since 2009 with “go local” values in its cooking, arts, fitness programs, and community outings. Chris Irwin stated: “we loved the fact that [NeLL] was local” and that “this place [the Harrowsmith Free Methodist Church] is up the road from where we grew up.”

2019 marks the beginning of 45-weeks per year of a Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday program for NeLL participants who reside in South Frontenac, Central Frontenac, and Kingston. And for the first time in its 11 years, NeLL is open in summer. High school students are welcome to join NeLL’s regular participants in the summer term of cooking, drama, art, music, dance, puppets, martial arts, and soap-making from the fully accessible Harrowsmith Free Methodist Church.

The Irwin family’s generous gift helps the NeLL family this summer and fall to pay for supplies for arts programs, food for the cooking classes, local instructors, and transportation to places of interest such as the Happy Tails Sanctuary, the Penitentiary Museum, the Agnes Etherington Art Gallery, or the Fish Hatchery in Sharbot Lake.

For more information please visit www.newleaflink.ca , or follow us on Facebook. Our new logo is from a collective printmaking activity with local artist Gabriel Deerman.

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Chad and Nicole Van Camp have owned the Verona Hardware store for 15 years, but they have a way to go to match the longevity of the previous owners.

Ken and Evelyn Harper purchased the store in 1971 and ran it for 33 years. Steven and Victor Merrill, a father and son team, opened the Verona Hardware store in 1929 and ran if for 42 years before selling to the Harpers.

“90 years under only three owners, that’s a pretty good record for continuity in a small-town business,” said Chad Van Camp earlier this week. It wasn’t easy for him to find a lot of time to talk, because it is July and the summer traffic is here.

“It’s a very, hands on business. There is no hiding, people expect to see you, they expect you to have what they need and to be able to bring it in if you don’t have it. Service is everything in this business, and every day is different,” he said.

Just that morning, a call came in from a customer in Toronto, saying his wife was at their cottage with a dead battery in her vehicle.

“Just as our truck was headed out the man phoned back said a neighbour had stopped by and boosted the battery so we didn’t have to. Our truck as going that way anyway on a call, so it wouldn’t have been a problem. When the phone rings, you never know what’s going to happen.”

Since Verona Hardware sells Rona products, Chad feels they can compete on price with stores in Kingston, but as an independent store he is also able to bring in product lines, like outerwear in winter and fishing tackle in the summer, that he can’t get from Rona. And he can provide the kind of service that creates loyal customers.

This Saturday, to mark the 90th anniversary, Verona Hardware is holding a party. The first 100 customers in the store will receive a free 5-gallon Rona pail, and everything they purchase that fits in the pail will be half price. There will be specials throughout the store all day, as well as $10 propane tank fill-ups.

Between 11am and 3pm there is a fundraising BBQ, with all proceeds going to Frontenac Minor Hockey.

“We want to celebrate, and bring people into the store,” said Chad, “it is the summer time, after all.”

Customers haven’t really been screaming, but they have been asking, if Limestone Creamery might consider starting to make their own ice cream using the single source milk that they produce and process on their farm, located on the same property as the farm store at the southern edge of Frontenac County on Sydenham Road.

It is a logical extension for a business that has been following a path that started when Kathie and Francis Groenewegen decided to take transition their traditional dairy farm to an organic farm about 20 years ago. Their business has been evolving ever since, particularly once they began processing and marketing their milk themselves.

They sell their own organic milk at a farm store on their property, deliver it to customers living within a reasonable distance from their house, and extend their reach by selling it through selected stores that are located a bit further away, such as Local Family Farms in Verona.

“Our location, it turned out, was ideal, since we can easily deliver to Kingston and our store is located on a busy commuter road for South Frontenac residents,” said Kathie, as a steady stream of customers shopped for milk, fresh baked goods, and a variety of organic products from other local and regional farmers, bakers, jam makers, and others organic producers.

Everything in the store is available for delivery as well for weekly deliveries to Kingston, parts of South Frontenac and into Stone Mills township.

One of the reasons the Groenewegen’s decided to get into the marketing end of the milk business was to make their operation capable of supporting another generation of farmers, as their children Olivia and Patrick were interested in farming.

When they were building their processing facility, the Groenewegen’s talked to the Frontenac CFDC, and they were able to get a grant to cover half the cost of one of the major pieces of equipment that they needed.

The next big project that they are embarking on is to replace their aging barn with a new, open barn. These modern barns eliminate the need to gather cows twice a day for milking as the cows are able to decide when it is time to be milked. With the aide of a little bit of training and the incentive provided by a little bit of grain (the Groenewegen cattle are 94% grass fed, supplemented by peas and corn that are grown organically on the farm) the cows will be able to control the milking, at the same time making life a little less onerous for the farmers who have been waking up for 5am milking duty for generations. It will also be tied to technology, with the cow’s milk production, body temperature, and other information being monitored every time they come in to be milked.

“It will be good for the animals, which is really important to us,” she said.

The larger barn will also allow the farm to reach its capacity of Holstein and Jersey milking cows.

Ice cream is a bit of a side business, but it is also a response to customer demand, and it has involved the purchase of equipment and the necessary approvals from inspectors, and learning new recipes.

“People love ice cream, of course, and they want to be able to eat some that is made from organic cream and other ingredients that are locally sourced, so we are working with Gorr’s Maple Syrup, Fruition Berry Farm on Hwy. 15, and others to develop recipes. And it tastes pretty good. We hope to have our ice cream available later this summer,” she said.

There are a few others who are hoping for that as well, now that the warm weather has hit the region. Even if they are polite, local food lovers, Limestone Creamery customers are at least silently screaming for ice cream.