Lessons from a good day in Verona
A lot of things went right last Monday in Verona. When an electrical fire started at McMullen Manor, 28 people had to evacuate the building on a bitterly cold and blustery day. They did not know where to go at first and were sitting in their cars, but since one… READ MORE
Will The Conservatives Now Throw The Senate Under The Bus?
Although I do not share the view that the Senate expense affair will have a long-term impact on anyone but those who actually touched the money, it is still all bad for the Conservative government and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Whether you agree with the planned suspension of the three… READ MORE
Bedard Appeal May Have Ripple Effect On Land Claim
The fallout from the ruling by former Justice Chadwick for the Algonquins of Ontario to the effect that the names of 500 members of the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation are to be removed from the Algonquin electors' list is just starting to become apparent. A number of those 500 people… READ MORE
Hard Times For Journalists
The main benefits of being a journalist are two-fold. First, journalists can dress poorly. Second, journalists get to sit in judgement of public figures. This judgement lies at the root of all reportage - editorials and news reports alike (that’s a trade secret, news reports are only editorials masked as… READ MORE
Forty-Two Homeless People In Frontenac County?
“It would be nice, at some point, to do an in-time survey of homeless people in Frontenac County,” said John Whitesell of OrgCode consulting, which has just completed a homelessness reduction plan for Kingston and Frontenac County, “but for now we have to be satisfied with a reverse-vector analysis.” The… READ MORE
Paramedic Protest Exposes Fault Lines In Amalgamation
After being rebuffed at Frontenac County Council, the Kingston-based OPSEU local that represents the paramedics in Kingston and Frontenac County are now trying a kind of end-run. They are trying to influence Kingston politicians concerning the delivery of land ambulance service in the city. There is something odd about this.… READ MORE
No Budget For County
Even though a climate of acrimony and mistrust has become entrenched at Frontenac County Council in recent months, the decision that council made last week to defer their budget deliberations until May 2 is hard to understand. The budget was on the agenda last week, but before the agenda was… READ MORE
Retail Therapy
As those who live in communities that have lost their store know only too well, it is very difficult to keep a community together once it has lost its basic retail infrastructure – its grocery store, gas stations, restaurants and the like. It's not impossible, but it is very difficult.… READ MORE
Frontenac County Council On The Brink
Frontenac County Council had poked and prodded at their 2013 budget for a couple of months, and they had managed to get it to the point where county ratepayers would be paying no more than they did last year. The requisition to the townships was down by 0.34%. To get… READ MORE
Editorial - It is time for a cooler head to prevail
What can I say about the decision by Janet Gutowski to remain as warden of Frontenac County Council? On one hand she is fully within her legal rights to keep the position. While there has been a ‘gentleman’s’ agreement that the chain of office is to be passed on every… READ MORE
Editorial - How to Get Rid of A Mayor
Editorial by Jeff Green From a distance it has been a lot of fun watching the trials and tribulations of the City of Toronto and its outlandish Mayor Rob Ford. In the first instance, there was the outrage of the Toronto Star, whose editors still can't believe that the citizenry… READ MORE
Editorial - How to Get Rid of A Mayor
Editorial by Jeff Green From a distance it has been a lot of fun watching the trials and tribulations of the City of Toronto and its outlandish Mayor Rob Ford. In the first instance, there was the outrage of the Toronto Star, whose editors still can't believe that the citizenry… READ MORE
Editorial - Notes on pipeline 9
Editorial by Jeff Green One comment sticks in my mind from a meeting I attended last week about the ‘reversal’ of Enbridge oil Pipeline 9, which runs through our region. In the midst of his cautionary presentation about Enbridge, pipelines, and leaks, Adam Scott from Environmental Defence that the matter… READ MORE
Premier Hudak, I presume - Editorial
Editorial by Jeff Green I have a theory that there is an eight-year "best before" date on governments in Canada. It comes from the fact that, quite apart from all of the machinations about independence and right/left splits that took place while I was growing up in Quebec, the provincial… READ MORE
Editorial: Québec question might just outlive me
Editorial by Jeff Green As I have looked in a cursory way at the results of the Québec election. it occurs to me that my own life has been measured out by the Québec question, and that the future of Québec in or out of Canada will likely not be… READ MORE
Editorial: I’d rather be fishing, too
Editorial by Jeff Green Let’s see. You have a chance to go lake trout fishing, and maybe fish for arctic grayling as well, at a remote, fly-in location on Great Slave Lake in the middle of the Arctic summer, or you can go to a Frontenac County Council meeting. I… READ MORE