So Long, Randy Hillier
“They sentenced me to 20 years of boredom, for trying to change the system from within” - First We Take Manhattan – From the album “I'm Your Man” by Leonard Cohen “Our political system is broken, there is no sense spending any more time trying to fix a broken system… READ MORE
From Russia, With Love?
“Russia news provides a platform for objective journalism where Canadian msm (Mainstream media) creates fabrications” The headline above is a tweet from local MPP Randy Hillier, who has been absent from his Lanark Frontenac Kingston riding for many months now as he pursues his own political agenda, while being paid… READ MORE
Word of the week – Endemicity
During a COVID-19 briefing last week, Dr. Piotr Oglaza said that he expects the coming 'endemicity' will change the way we all deal with the virus. For a second or two, I did not catch the meaning of the word. I could not remember ever hearing it before and I… READ MORE
Province Knew What Omicron Could Do in Early December, & Delayed
It is very very rare for us out here in the rural backwaters of Eastern Ontario to have any real idea what goes on in the back rooms of Queen's Park. Decisions that are made in those back rooms have an impact on our lives, to be sure, but our… READ MORE
New year, Same as The Old One
In order to gain some perspective, I took a look at the editorials we ran in the first two weeks of the year in 2021, and it is clear that some things have changed over the past year, but others haven't. The first week's editorial published on January 8, 2021,… READ MORE
50 years and counting
We had some big ideas, they never quite got to the point of becoming plans, to mark 2021 as the 50th year of the Frontenac News. But as with everything this year, the weeks just kept rolling along in a COVID vacuum, and it was as much as we could… READ MORE
Randy Hillier revealed his true colours a long time ago
On Saturday Randy Hillier put up an apology on his Twitter account. He acknowledge that he should not have tweeted pictures of people who had died, against their families witshes, and made unsubstaintated claims abou their cause of death, all to to support his unsubstantiated claims about how dangerous the… READ MORE
The “new normal” is starting to look pretty normal
Aside from a spike in cases in the local region over the last ten days, the news has been pretty good about COVID in Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington, and in Ontario as a whole. The 4th wave of COVID-19, fuelled by the Delta variant, did not result in much… READ MORE
Politicians Need to Engage The Housing Crisis
One of the unexpected impacts of COVID has been a leap in property values, even in more remote, non-waterfront locations. This has created opportunities for many and wealth for some, but it has also had a dark side, creating a whole class of people who are either homeless, or living… READ MORE
How Do You Make A Holiday Out of Reconciliation?
Like many others, I did not pay much attention to the federal legislation to establish a National Truth and Reconciliation Day, and make it a federal statutory holiday. For most of you reading this in our print, it is a day later than normal, because September 30 fell on a… READ MORE
We have a vaccine for COVID, but nothing to stop the housing crisis in Frontenac County.
We are in the midst of a 4th wave, the delta wave, of COVID-19, and although we worked hard at it and are still working at it, we did not get vaccines into enough arms to prevent it from circulating in our communities. The variant is circulating mostly among un-vaccinated… READ MORE
You can prod, but you can’t force anyone to get vaccinated.
No one wants to say it, but the delta variant has shown some vaccine resistance, and that is why governments and public health officials, alike, are wringing their hands about the people who are choosing to refuse a vaccination. Two months ago this week, during a zoom media briefing, just… READ MORE
Disrespect
Justin Trudeau met with the new Governor General Mary Simon at Rideau Hall on Sunday. He did so in order to request that Governor General, as the representative of Queen Elizabeth, dissolve Parliament to make way for fresh elections. This quaint detail about how elections are called in Canada is… READ MORE
Will the province deliver on rural Internet, or was EORN a better bet?
Everyone wants better Internet, and there is an entire industry that is devoted to delivering the Internet, just as there are more and more businesses that cannot operate without reliable Internet service. In cities, it is a competitive market. There are hundreds of thousands of subscribers, all located within metres… READ MORE
There is a fast(ish) train coming, and it is not so slowly rounding the bend
The federal government has just announced the launch of a procurement process for the construction of new passenger rail service in the Quebec City to Windsor Corridor, including a new rail line running between Ottawa and Peterborough through Lanark, Frontenac, and Lennox and Addington Counties. In the recently approved budget,… READ MORE
Residential Schools: Not A Proud Past
In 1996, after an incident at one of our plants in Manitoba, a plan was put in place to have a “Cultural Awareness Program” and I volunteered to be a facilitator. My company and the local Band Council formed a team to develop the program to try and create a… READ MORE