Editorials

On Monday afternoon, I heard that the Frontenac Gazette/Kingston Heritage had shut down. Soon after, I found out that the entire newspaper landscape in Ontario has been dealt a blow. The two major players in the market had agreed to cease competing...

Readers who get their news from sources other than this one and who have a keen eye for numbers, may notice that we are reporting an increase of 4.5% in the Frontenac County budget, while official releases from the County itself and reports in other...

For years I attended, and covered, Remembrance Day events. I always feel the emotions, the weight of loss, but never thought much about the political implications of the ceremonies. To me, we paid homage to the old soldiers who fought on our behalf...

Frontenac County Council has approved, in principle, a plan to donate $55,061 each year for the next ten years to the University Hospitals Foundation of Kingston, the fundraising arm of the Kingston General, Hotel Dieu, and Providence Care hospitals...

Most readers of this paper received MP Scott Reid’s Constituency Referendum in the mail last week.* Mr. Reid, long an advocate for legalising cannabis, is placing his vote on Bill-C45 - the Cannabis Act, in the hands of the registered voters...

I happened to be driving while the ceremonial investiture of Julie Payette as Governor General of Canada was taking place late on Monday morning. The CBC Radio 1 commentators were talking in breathless tones about the spectacle, making it all sound...

Like many very small business owners I was wary when I read about increases opf the minimum wage to $14 in January and $15 a year later. It is a big jump from where it is now, big enough that it will affect the entire labour market over the next...

A lot of people who live in rural areas value their privacy. For those living on lakes, privacy is hard to come by. That view of the water brings a view of other people with it. There are next door neighbours, across the bay neighbours, and boaters...

When the Central Frontenac planning committee were putting their agenda for the year together they came up with the idea of a John A. Macdonald Ball in October, to celebrate the local heritage of the countries’ first prime minister. Macdonald...

It’s been a long haul for the development of the K&P Trail in Frontenac County, and as was pointed out at the Grand Opening of the Trail in Sharbot Lake last Saturday, the trail is not quite complete even yet. In fact, even though a Trans-Canada...

North Frontenac Mayor Ron Higgins is a retired consultant who ran for the position of Mayor when a vacuum was created in North Frontenac politics after the sudden death of former Mayor Bud Clayton. None of the people who were on council at the time,...

Last year then Frontenac County Warden Frances Smith met with representatives from Via Rail who were working on developing a business case for the Shining Waters Railway line, a fast rail that if built, will bring passenger rail from Toronto to...

On July 13’th Craig Bakay of Frontenac News wrote about my plan for trying to resurrect North Frontenac’s economic viability. The article, titled “NF Mayor “two months” away from a futuristic plan for community development” generated a...

(Editors note - The path forward for our waste systems in Eastern Ontario has become identified as a long term issue by Frontenac County Council, and Addington Highlands Council as well. Here Gray Merriam takes a look at recycling in terms of...

Those of us who are over 55, have some memory of  Canada's Centennial year. I happened to be a kid living in Montreal in 1967, and as part of their efforts to make the World's Fair, Expo '67, a crowd pleasing success and to make it accessible to...

There is a debate raging in the pages of Canada’s major old school media outlets, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, CBC, etc., all Toronto based bastions of the written word. The rest of the world is preoccupied with other matters: melting ice...

The coroners inquest into the death of Robert Srigley took place two weeks ago  in Sharbot Lake. It finally revealing some of the details around the sequence of events that led to his death. The jury that heard all the evidence will be submitting...

It’s been almost 4 years since Bob Srigley was shot by police on the porch of his trailer on Arden Road. We know a few things about what happened, but only a few. He was armed with what the Special Investigations Unit report into his death...

When I plant a garden each year, I am free to grow as much lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, squash, peas, beans, or potatoes as I am able to. Sometimes I grow extra and give some away. If I grow more squash than I can eat and my neighbour grows more...

Septic systems are as much of a defining characteristic of rural areas as pickup trucks, fishing rods, beaver dams, and rubber boots in the springtime. Urban residents can remain blissfully unaware of what happens once everything is flushed down the...

“Do no harm.” That’s how Craig Bakay started his article in opposition to the Central Frontenac Septic System Maintenance and Assessment Program passed by Council. Do no harm. That is exactly what a septic system is supposed to do. It takes...

Primum non nocere . . . “First do no harm.” It is indeed a pity that committees of council have no form of Hippocratic oath to adhere to. Rather, they are free to focus with tunnel vision on one particular dogma without need to consider the law...

It’s safe to say that a company of the size and wealth of Feihe International has never expressed an interest in doing business in Frontenac County before. As we saw from the census just last week population growth in Frontenacs not only lags...

There are a lot of things that could, and have, been written about last week’s revelation that the Trudeau Liberals will not reform the electoral system even though Mr. Trudeau himself repeatedly promised they would before and after his party took...

A number of well-meaning and reasonable letters have come in to the paper over the last few months about the decision South Frontenac Council made to change the way they charge residents for waste management. Instead of charging $125 per household...

South Frontenac and Frontenac County have both completed their budgets for 2017.  While it may not have been a picnic for either of them, they were both at a significant advantage when compared to what politicians in smaller, more remote townships...

Was anybody else stupid enough to be out driving around Tuesday night? I don’t usually write in the first person but for this brief report, I don’t have much else. Tuesday night was committee of the whole for South Frontenac Council. It was a...

As we start a new year there are changes afoot with the News and across Frontenac County as well. First, readers of this paper will likely already have noticed a byline that is familiar to many but not in the pages of the Frontenac News. I have...

Last Thursday (December 15) Jule Koch died peacefully in her sleep at St. Mary’s by the Lake hospital in Kingston, two months after her 65th birthday. She took ill in late October with what she thought was Lyme’s disease, but found out on...

Last week, the governing Liberal Party of Canada received a comprehensive, detailed all party report on electoral reform which presents them with a set of options that they are not willing to undertake, including holding a referendum on electoral...

Randy Hillier has said and done a lot since he stopped working as an electrician for the federal government, donned red suspenders and formed the Lanark Landowners Association (LLA). With the LLA he learned how to get attention, whether by driving...

I always love that line from the tv show where a family stands in order in front of a goofy host and tries to fill in a statement such as “Pasta is to spaghetti as pie is to ___? They give their answer and the hosts says, ... “and the survey...

I was a bit distracted when putting the paper together last Tuesday. As the evening wore on the unease I had already been feeling due to matters close to home, began to mount and mount as the results of the US election rolled in. By 11:00 when...

The noise from down south is deafening these days as Donald Trump is sinking in his own bloated ship of fools. That might all change, of course, but at this point it is unlikely and that is a good thing. I was surprised when the tape of Trump being...

When the K&P trail project was first being floated about 10 years ago, the fact that the section between Tichborne and Sharbot Lake is privately owned was discussed. The logic was to work from south to north, deal with all the complications along...

Mystery Train. Slow Train Coming. Long Black Train. Morning Train. Night Train. Train to Paradise. Waitin' on a Train. Trains of no Return. There is an endless string of song lyrics that come to mind about the idea of a return of passenger rail...

Anyone who has been to the Frontenac County offices in what is known as “The Old House” will know that it is an apt name. The space still looks and feels like a house. There are large unused rooms, a round staircase reminiscent of Gone with the...

This August we are in the tenth consecutive month of above-record temperatures. Not only is it clear that global warming is real but it is also clear that climate change is characterized by vastly increased variability in resulting weather. Forest...

It is no secret that North Frontenac's mayor, Ron Higgins, is convinced that installing wind turbines anywhere in North Frontenac would be a bad idea. Under his recommendation, North Frontenac Council declared itself a “unwilling host” at the...

At first glance, the branding exercise that residents of Frontenac County have bought and paid for has resulted in a dull, empty logo. It has three colours representing rocks, fields and lakes, a crumpled maple leaf, and some clipart trees that are...

Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers remain in a legal lockout/strike position. Either side is poised to give 72 hours notice of their intention to suspend the service indefinitely. Nonetheless, after playing a game of chicken for a...

The recent Long Term Sustainability Plan (LTAP) presented to the board of directors of the Limestone District School Board in late May, recommended that Prince Charles Public School in Verona be closed and the students be sent to Loughborough Public...

Those of us who live here are well aware of some of Sydenham village’s traffic challenges: we have learned that most weekdays it’s advisable to avoid the corner of Wheatley and Rutledge for the fifteen minutes morning and afternoon when the...

Over the past few months I have been asked a couple of times to make sure that I let our readers know either that the average ratepayer will pay $34 more per $150,000 in assessment in one township; or that the tax rate increase is 0.03% in another...

There is a concept called “bureaucratic creep”, which describes the tendency of organizations to develop more and more levels of bureaucracy over time. The number of people doing the actual work of the organization, be they factory workers,...

Municipal councils set policy; they set budgets; and they provide oversight to ensure that everything is running well. It is not their job to run the township; that is the job of township staff. There is indeed a grey area in all this. Councilors...

As someone who owns a business that provides a service to other businesses, I have an interest in economic development in Frontenac County. What I've learned over the years is that business success is more about individual passion and drive than...

Seven thousand and seven hundred Algonquin electors are eligible for a ratification vote on the Algonquin Land Claim Agreement in Principle between February 29 and March 7. Voting will take place in nine off-reserve communities, including Sharbot...

The new Liberal government finds itself dealing with harsh realities even before they deliver their first budget, as promises that looked good when sketched out as headlines in campaign literature documents get bogged down in the endless details of...

In 2008, politicians in Lennox and Addington (L&A) County were faced with the option of closing the Denbigh Ambulance Service and re-allocating resources to the south end of the county to satisfy an ever-increasing demand. At that time they resisted...