Editorials, Letters & Political Commentary

NDP Environment critic Sandy Shaw is demanding the Ford government block Nestlé from handing Ontario’s water rights to an American private equity firm, One Rock Capital Partners, which is planning to buy Nestlé’s North American water-bottling operations. The province’s moratorium on new or expanded permits for water taking for bottling is due to expire on April 1. On Monday, United ...

Official Opposition NDP critic for Colleges and Universities, Laura Mae Lindo (Kitchener Centre) has released a statement in response to a government announcement regarding Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) for micro-credential programs: “Students don’t just need permission to borrow more money — they need a break on student loan repayments. COVID has taken away their summer jobs, and delayed their ...

In politics, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Right? Obviously, there is a wide range of political perspectives that are aimed to achieve similar goals. The path to achieving those goals is often far more controversial than the actual goals themselves. The People of Ontario vote every four years to elect the governing party that they collectively believe ...

  The Ministry of Transportation has finally unveiled the results of its northeastern Ontario rail corridor survey. Unsurprisingly, two-thirds of respondents indicate they would use a future rail service if provided with an option to depart once a day with costs equivalent to a intercommunity bus.   This concept shouldn’t be so foreign to politicians and bureaucrats working in North ...

Small businesses hit hard by the pandemic have an ally in NDP Leader, Jagmeet Singh who is revealing his party’s plan to help these businesses survive as cornerstones in our communities. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are ready to go to great lengths for big corporations, but since the beginning of the pandemic, they’ve done the bare minimum for the small businesses ...

Dear Brenda It has been 2 years since the Ford government destroyed the Ontario Autism Program without a plan in place. During this time therapeutic capacity has been decimated and over 42 thousand families have been forced to wait, many in crisis, watching their children lose precious developmental time. While Northern Autism Families welcomes the recent return to open communication ...

Vic Fedeli has dug himself into a pit with endless promises to restore Ontario Northland Railway (ONR) passenger service “before the next election.”  He’s now appealing for help from Liberal Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota.  Politics, passenger trains, and ill-advised promises make strange bedfellows.   The good news is MP Anthony Rota has offered to assist the ...

Dear Brenda, Today I went skiing. Yesterday I skated on Spencer’s amazing ice rink on Wawa Lake. The day before I snowshoed behind the hospital. And all of the fun and beauty of nature I experienced was due to Wawa volunteers. So I would like to send a virtual hug and/or a pat on the back to you who have ...

The Ministry of Transportation will be publishing sometime soon the results of a passenger rail survey it conducted in the region. The government claims this is an integral part of the process of keeping people safe, providing reliable transportation options and connecting communities in the North. Politicians of all stripes have long talked a good game about improving public transit ...

Anniversaries are, generally speaking, a thing we enjoy celebrating. We like to look back to recognize our wedding dates and birthdays because it brings back special, irreplaceable joys from days gone by. Canadians who watch or listen to the news regularly were reminded on January 25th of a much darker anniversary.  We were reminded that the 25th was the one ...

Les anniversaires sont, d’une manière générale, une chose que nous aimons célébrer. Nous aimons regarder en arrière pour reconnaître nos dates de mariage et nos anniversaires, car cela nous ramène des joies spéciales et irremplaçables d’autrefois. Les Canadiens qui regardent ou écoutent les nouvelles régulièrement se sont fait rappeler le 25 janvier un anniversaire beaucoup plus sombre. On nous a ...

Je ne suis pas du genre à regarder beaucoup la télévision et je n’ai vraiment pas beaucoup de célébrités que je suis ou que j’admire. Mais il y a un type populaire, et un Canadien en plus, que j’aime bien. Et c’est précisément à cause de ce qu’il dit et fait. Ce n’est pas un acteur ou un athlète, mais ...

I’m not one to watch a lot of television and I really don’t have many celebrities that I follow or admire.  But there is one popular fellow, and a Canadian at that, who I do like.  And it is specifically because of what he says and does.  He’s not an actor or sports hero but rather just a common guy ...

Frank magazine employed an effective and evocative word when reporting on dubious political statements back in its heyday:  nose stretchers.   What’s a nose stretcher?  Think of Pinocchio when he told tall tales.  Think of actor Leslie Nielsen in the movie, Airplane, whose proboscis grew each time he uttered soothing words to calm the frightened passengers without regard for the ...

Hooray for Nova Scotia who now presumes that adults are willing to donate their organs when they die. Organ donation is in most jurisdictions, an opt-in system. That means that you must state that when you die, you want your organs to be donated. Nova Scotia is now implementing a system that means if you do not want to donate ...