Photo: Anne Archer wearing a Murry dress at her studio/home.

Geoffrey Murray designs and makes women’s clothing when he is not drawing portraits, designing commercial spaces, or teaching “Anything Fabric”, a course that he created at Sharbot Lake High School.

This weekend he will be joined by his daughter Willa, who is a co-founder of the Toronto-based design company Mari Claro. She will have some of the handbags that she designs and makes using material salvaged from Mercedes Benz automobiles and other sources.

The two artists will be showing their work on the Tryon Road, south of Sharbot Lake, as part of the 19th Inroads Studio Tour. They will be at their home, which Geoffrey built a couple of years ago for himself and his wife, flautist and educator Anne Archer.

Murray has been “messing with fabric” as he puts it, since his art school days in the ’70s and early ’80s in Toronto and Halifax.

He did think at one time that he would have a career as a clothing designer in Toronto.

“When I thought I was winning there was stuff at Queen’s Quay and other Toronto stores and all that,” but as time moved on and other opportunities have presented themselves, clothing design has been simply one of Murray’s professional pre-occupations.

While the cut of his clothing has had a certain consistency over the years, he said that the kind of materials and designs that he works on reflect what he perceives will be suitable for the women who might be interested in his work.

A lot of that perception comes from the students he teaches fashion to at the Anything Fabric Program, which has an enrolment of 20 this year, in a school with just over 200 students.

“I look at what designs and materials 13 to 15-year-olds pick, and what they laugh at. It gives me an idea of what people are looking for,” he said.

The other way is to talk to people and get a sense of their overall style.

“After I design a house for clients I know what the clients want to wear as well,” he said.

Murray has also designed clothes for North Frontenac Little Theatre Productions, including making all the costumes for the production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” a couple of years ago. He has also made clothes for a number of clients in the local area and in Kingston in recent years.

This summer, as a prelude to the Inroads Tour, he has been showing his work at the Sharbot Lake Farmers Market, where sales have been good.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response at the market. It gives me the feedback I need to carry on working,” he said.

Geoffrey and Willa Murray are joined on the Inroads Tour by neighbour Bob Miller, an instrument maker who will be showing at his studio across the road. Just back down the hill and a few hundred metres down the road is Inroads Tour co-founder, printmaker Martina Field, making the Tryon road hub a major attraction at this year’s tour.

The Inroads Tour runs from 10-5, Friday to Monday, September 2-5. For information and a downloadable map and brochure, go to www.inroadstour.ca or call 613-335-2073

Dave Parkhill lives in Kingston, but he is a familiar face in rural Frontenac County, where he worked for 21 years as a paramedic out of the Parham and Ompah bases.

Parkhill is also the newly minted NDP candidate for LFL&A, and he said, “I may not live in the riding, but I’ve driven a lot of these back roads. I’ve delivered babies in this riding; I’ve started hearts in this riding. As we know, this is such a diverse riding. A young family in Carleton Place may not seem to have a lot in common with a Goodyear employee in Napanee, but I really think the NDP has a good way at looking at all these diverse needs.”

In addition to his work experience as a paramedic, Dave Parkhill made reference to his family life as providing the incentive to be active in politics. He is married to Heidi Penning, who deals with human rights issues on a daily basis as the Equity Officer at Queen’s University. They are also parents of four children, and Parkhill takes some of his political inspiration from all of them. He said one of his sons is 24 and has been holding numerous part-time jobs to get by.

“There is a lack of full-time employment in this region, which makes it hard for young people to get ahead,” he said.

Two of Parkhill’s and Penning’s sons have autism, and Dave Parkhill has learned quite a bit about how the political system in Ontario works by advocating for services for his sons.

“One of my sons could work and live independently with supports, but those supports are not available. My other son is in the school system, and has had some really good supports, but we have had to advocate for that. My wife and I know a lot of people and can navigate the system, but there are many people who don’t have that background, and as a consequence their children may not receive the same supports. I think that as a province we need to do a lot of work to make the public schools more pro-active in responding to needs,” he said.

“We also have a daughter who is likely headed into the university system,’ he added, “and there is an obvious need to make sure Ontario has a university system that is open, and does not leave graduates in grinding debt afterwards.”

Dave Parkhill thinks that the NDP have “a good vision, a good platform, and the election will be a great opportunity to really start some conversations, have some fun, and make some changes.”

He said he will be campaigning actively, will be participating in all of the all-candidate meetings that are arranged. He says will also be using some new media, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to try and connect with disengaged young people during the campaign.

Jack Layton: A Tribute

This Guy Knew Jack

I didn’t know Jack By Jeff Green

Anyone who has gone through a cancer death in their own family - and that is almost everyone it seems - took a deep breath when Jack Layton appeared in public a few weeks ago to announce he was taking a leave of absence from his duties as NDP leader.

Although no one wanted to say it, even in the media, there was widespread fear that he was dying of cancer, and indeed it turned out that was the case.

Somehow the death of Jack Layton, who is a stranger to most of us, is being taken like the death of a relative, not a close relative, but like the death of a well-loved uncle or 2nd cousin.

All of the disdain that many people have felt for Jack Layton over the years, the accusation that he looked and sounded like a used car salesman, that he was full of talk and calculation, that he was always in your face, always talking, is long gone, and it seems to me it disappeared at the beginning of this spring's federal election campaign.

We all know that Layton was the biggest winner in the campaign.

Sure, Stephen Harper won his majority, and may go on to transform Canada over the next four or eight years, but Harper's victory was the result of years and years of effort, which resulted in grudging acceptance by the population.

Particularly in Quebec, but across the rest of the country as well, people decided they liked Jack; they could trust Jack.

We all knew about Jack Layton's prostate cancer, and we knew that he had recently undergone a hip operation. Although we did not know what his prognosis really was, though I expect he and those closest to him likely did at least know he was seriously ill, there was something in this campaign, either in his demeanour or in our collective perception of him, that was different this time around

During the two leaders’ debates last spring, it seemed, to me at least, that Jack Layton had a different tone than the others, and certainly a different persona than what he projected during previous campaigns.

He was a bit less jumpy, a bit less nervous. While the others were fighting for their political lives, he came across as someone who was more relaxed, someone who had taken a step back. Even the quips he delivered at the expense of the other candidates came off with a bit less bite.

Jack Layton, the bull dog, had developed a sardonic wit.

I forget the line, but at one point in the French language debate he delivered a pretty good dig at either Stephen Harper or Michael Ignatieff. It was a good line, it might even have been a line that he had prepared in advance, on the chance he could get it in, and it stopped the debate for a second. Layton smiled, but it was not the smile of someone who thought he had delivered a knock out punch and was going to win the debate and sway masses of voters. It was the smile of someone who had delivered a good line well. He was just enjoying the moment. While Michael Ignatieff was fighting desperately for his political life and losing, and Stephen Harper was simply showing nerves of steel and sticking to his well-rehearsed message, Jack Layton was just enjoying the moment.

Watching that debate, I remember thinking, maybe for the first time since he became leader of he NDP, that I liked Jack Layton. He had finally been humanized for me.

I might be wrong but I think part of what happened during this last election was that people across the country had a similar kind of reaction, and this feeling was tied in, at least partially, to the fact that Layton had cancer and had just had hip surgery. Quebec commentators have likened the “Layton effect” in Quebec to the electrifying referendum campaign led by Lucien Bouchard in 1990 just months after Bouchard lost his leg to necrotizing fasciitis.

This week “Smiling Jack”, or “Le Bon Jack”, is being remembered as the best loved politician in this country in a generation.

His political friends and foes seem equally moved at his passing. The funny thing is that the man that the Toronto Star is calling “Toronto’s gift to Canada” was not always a popular politician. He lost handily to June Rowlands in the race for mayor of Toronto in 1993 and finished well back twice in federal elections in the same part of Toronto where he served as a Toronto city councilor for over a decade.

When he ran for NDP leader he was greeted with mistrust. He was seen as a stunt politician from Toronto, but managed to win that campaign. He delayed running for a seat after winning the NDP leadership, and in 2004 he barely won his Toronto seat even with the cachet of being a national party leader. If he had lost that election, his federal career might have ended then and there.

While Layton, and the NDP, showed steady improvement between 2003 and 2009, the 2011 campaign began with the party low in the polls and Layton looking like an aging battler fighting his last, losing campaign.

That it all turned around was remarkable, the orange crush, the orange wave, the rally in Montreal, the victory speech, all of it. And that he would be dead less then three months after suddenly becoming the most loved figure in Canadian politics for a generation is nothing less than stunning.

What we have learned this week, from hearing from his friends and political colleagues, was that Jack Layton was the real deal; that he really did have boundless energy and he really did try to help people when he could; that he worked behind the scenes with people who did not want to be seen in public with him to make political change happen.

He was a politician who, underneath all the bravado, was fighting for years and years on some of the great causes of our times: AIDS and homophobia, homelessness, Aboriginal rights and environmental causes.

And for all those years I thought Jack Layton was too cocky, too showy, too aggressive, too much of a salesman and not enough of a statesman.

Maybe it was just the moustache, or maybe I just really didn’t know Jack.

Michael Leibson: This guy knew Jack By Jeff Green

Michael Leibson is a composer and music teacher who lives on the Bennett Road near Maberly.

In the 1990s he was living in the Beaches region of Toronto, near Lake Ontario, and he found out that someone had applied for a permit from the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), to extract aggregate from the bottom of Lake Ontario right near his home.

The plan was to suck the aggregate into a vacuum tube and load it onto barges day and night. The permit would have been good for 20 years.

Leibson had not been a political activist before, but he started organizing his neighbours to fight against the proposed industry, which would be within sight, and hearing range of their houses.

After doing a bit of research, Michel Leibson found out that the water intake for most of Toronto’s drinking water was less than 500 metres from the location where the extraction was slated to take place. He also found out that a host of potential environmental impacts to the project had not been looked at by the company that was planning to extract the resource, or by the MNR.

The citizens’ group went to an environmental committee of Toronto City Council, and Leibson laid out their concerns. That’s when he met Jack Layton, who was a member of Toronto City Council at the time.

“The next thing I knew, he was giving me political advice, and he would invite me into his home, where there were always people coming and going. The place was like a village. With his wife Olivia, he opened up his house, all his resources, to whoever needed something.”

It took time for Micheal Leibson to get used to Jack Layton’s personality, however.

“His positivity irritated me a little bit at first, but in the end he charmed me. There was something likeable about him. I do think Jack had a very healthy ego and there certainly was showman in him, but he also really enjoyed people.”

As the political campaign that Michael Leibson found himself at the centre of gained steam, and Toronto City Council and Mayor Barbara Hall, and the Public Health Unit all came on side, Leibson realised that Layton, although not calling the shots, was gently pushing in to carry out the campaign in a certain way.

“He didn’t tell me what to do, but I realised that he had a management style. I was not doing his bidding but I was coming to learn from his experience with political struggles. It was really something.”

One anecdote that Michel Leibson recalled from that time bears repeating.

“I had set up a press conference to talk about what was being proposed and what the implications might be if it went ahead. Jack suggested we hold the press conference outside the water treatment plant on the lake. Just before it started he said ‘I’m going to do something a little unorthodox. I hope it’s ok’. So we started the press conference. I had a music stand set up as a podium and I spoke, then I introduced some scientists who talked, and then it was time to introduce the politicians.

It was not a summer day, but Jack came out wearing only a bathing suit. He walked out into the water carrying a glass container and filled it with water. He came back on shore and, still in his bathing suit, he waved the container in the faces of the reporters and the cameras, and said ‘This is what we are talking about, folks - your drinking water’.”

The citizens’ group eventually won the battle and the project was halted, but not before Leibson, again at Layton’s urging, met with a number of Ontario Conservative party politicians to explain the issues involved.

“I really didn’t want to meet with Conservatives; they were the enemy, but Jack said I really should. In the end it was the Conservatives who cancelled the project,”

Michael Leibson also gave Jack Layton guitar lessons for a time. He intends to go to Toronto for Layton’s funeral on Saturday.

“Jack was a guy who thrived on being around people, and he really walked the walk. I would like to honour him as a person. He was just a beautiful guy.”

When the second Flinton Relay for Life was in the planning stages, staff members from the Kingston office floated the idea of setting a goal of raising $100,000, an increase over the $82,000 that was raised in the first Flinton Relay in 2010.

“I thought they were crazy. How were we going to raise $100,000 in little Flinton?” recalled relay chair Carolyn Hasler this week.

Somehow, when all of the money was counted this year, the total was $130,081, a number that mystifies the local organizing committee.

At the end of the relay, the total was about $80,000, but though committee members knew there was more money that had not been counted, no one expected another $50,000 would come in

“I don't know how we got there, I really don't,” said Hasler, “but there were so many fundraising events that people held, some raising $500, some $1,500, and the money has kept coming in. It's really an amazing total for little old Flinton.”

To put those numbers in perspective, there are 267 houses in the Flinton postal exchange.

A wrap up meeting for the 2011 relay was held in mid-July, and at that time committee members started considering whether to do the relay again in 2012.

“We have a really strong group, but some committee members need to step back so we need people to come forward to do it again. And we need to consider whether we want to keep approaching our sponsors again. They are all local businesses, and they are asked to help all the time, so we have to think before we ask them again and again for money,” said Hasler.

That said, the total of $130,000 is a real morale booster for the committee, as is the total that has been raised in the two years, which is almost $215,000.

A meeting is scheduled at the Flinton Recreation Centre on Wednesday, September 16 to confirm and begin organizing the Flinton Relay for 2012. Anyone interested in getting involved is invited to come to that meeting, which starts at 7 pm.

As far as a fundraising goal for that event in light of what has been raised so far, Carolyn Hasler was adamant.

“Don't even talk to me about that,” she said. 

Organisers are confident that the weather will co-operate as the Sharbot Lake and District Lions Club hosts an event that will be raising money for a special cause: covering the costs of training guide dogs for use by the visually and hearing impaired, physically challenged and autistic children. For dog owners, the walk is an opportunity to mingle with their favourite people, other dog owners. And there will be treats available for the dogs, and their owners as well.

Carolyn Bond is the principal organiser of this year’s event, and she encourages as many people as possible, dog owners and non-dog owners alike, to come out and support the walk. People are encouraged to collect sponsorships for the 5 km walk, which starts at the Sharbot Lake beach and goes past the Family Health Team onto the Trans-Canada Trail for a couple of kilometres along Sharbot Lake.

People can register or donate online at Purinawalkfordogguides.com. Just look for the walk locator box at the bottom of the page and navigate to Sharbot Lake.

But if all that is too complicated for the dog days of summer, just come out to the Sharbot Lake Beach at 11:30 on Sunday, July 31, and register in person. There is no minimum donation required, and tax receipts will be issued for donations in excess of $20.

“It costs $20,000 for training and other costs through the life of a Dog Guide, and the Lions Foundation is able to put 100% of the money raised at these Dog Guide walks towards covering those costs,” said Carolyn Bond.

As an added bonus this year, one or two people who use Dog Guides will be on hand to do the walk with their dogs.

Carolyn Bond will be at the Sharbot Lake Freshmart on Saturday, July 30, to promote the Sunday walk. She will be joined by another Lions Club member, Jean Graham, and a young pup of Jean’s that is a candidate to be a future Dog Guide.

by Lorraine Julien

Photo: Wild Parsnip courtesy Roy Lingen

The leaves and sap of Wild Parsnip can cause severe skin reactions when the plant is flowering, as it is now in July. Be extremely careful if you see this biennial plant growing along our roadsides and in other undisturbed areas. It looks very much like a tall Queen Anne’s Lace but the flowers are yellow rather than white. Wild Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) grows about 2-5 feet tall and is a member of the Carrot family the same as dill, celery and caraway. This plant has a long, thick taproot that is edible.

The elimination of roadside spraying has assisted in the spread of this weed, which has now spread over most of North America. Wild Parsnip is tolerant of a wide range of conditions and soils; however, it does not like shade and prefers sunny areas.

The greatest concern is for people who gather wild flowers or those who use grass trimmers or other vegetation-clearing devices along roadsides. There’s a good chance they may not realize how dangerous this plant can be. After contact with sap from the leaves or stem, it takes about 2 days for a rash to appear. The sap reacts in sunlight, causing the skin to turn a purplish colour with boils filled with clear liquid forming underneath, as with a second-degree burn. It is extremely painful but not itchy. Scars from the burns and the purple discolouration could persist for years and you may have a hypersensitivity to ultraviolet light for a long time to come. If the weed comes into contact with the eyes, temporary or permanent blindness can result, though this doesn’t appear to have happened to anyone in our area yet.

If skin does come into contact with the sap, public health officials advise people to immediately seek shelter from the sun and wash the exposed skin thoroughly with soap and cold water. If done immediately following contact, the skin will likely not suffer burns.

The best way to control Wild Parsnip is early detection and eradication. If there are not many plants, a very effective method of control is to cut the entire root just below ground level with a sharp shovel or spade. Cutting below ground level prevents re-sprouting. In some soil types in wet conditions, you may be able to pull the plants out by hand as long as your arms and hands are covered.

Note: Use extreme caution and ensure that all exposed skin is covered (gloves and a long sleeved shirt). Burning does not seem to impact the plants themselves – they quickly regenerate. However, in the darkened soil following a burn, Wild Parsnip rosettes are easy to recognize and can be controlled by hand digging.

Note also that biennial plants do not flower until their second year so the first-year plants can only be recognized by their leaves.

Recent articles in the Kingston Whig-Standard and Westport Review Mirror reported the death of a 70-year-old man from Portland, Ont in late June . He had come in contact with Wild Parsnip and suffered severe burns to his hands and arms – so severe that he was admitted to hospital, where he died. In the past few years, he had suffered poor health and was in and out of hospital. Since this person had a weakened immune system, it would seem that the burns from Wild Parsnip may have contributed to his death.

Wild Parsnip was introduced to North America hundreds of years ago by European settlers who brought over a few plants to provide them with another source of food.

When researching Wild Parsnip, I came across several websites that provided recipes to cook it! Apparently it tastes very similar to parsnip from our gardens. The recipes included instructions for the root to be boiled and mashed, baked, cut in thin strips and deep fried, and also as a relish. The roots are harvested in late fall or early spring when the leaves are generally dead and withered or very small. At this time, there is very little sap and the hot, sunny conditions required for the rash to strike, do not prevail.

On a recent trip along Highway 7, I noticed Wild Parsnip growing along the roadside every now and then and it is abundant all along Road 38 from Kingston to Sharbot Lake.

If you think you have this weed growing on your property and you’re not absolutely sure that it really is Wild Parsnip, there is a lot of information on the Internet or you could contact your local weed inspector. They’re listed in the municipal pages of your telephone book. The accompanying photos are courtesy of Roy Lingen and are posted on the Verona Community Association’s website at www.veronacommunity.on.ca/misc/parsnips.shtml

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or Steve Blight at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Photo:  Liberal candidate David Remington greets voters in Sharbot Lake

Prior to the first all-candidates’ meeting in Kaladar, LfL&A Liberal candidate David Remington took to the streets of downtown Sharbot Lake in an effort to get to know those living in rural communities. “So far I've knocked on a couple of thousand doors in rural areas in an effort to meet people and show them my style of politics, which is to be accessible and in the community. I've been doing so for the last year and a half now, not just since the campaign started, partly because I strongly feel that you can't get an idea of someone’s personality just from a sign.” He laughs and adds, “And I'm also willing to take more than five questions a day.”

Asked what he's hearing from people, he replied, ”One big concern is making sure there is a plan to get more doctors into rural communities, and jobs of course is a big concern. As a small business person myself for 20 years I think these communities need more small businesses, which really are the backbone of our economy. It's organizations like the Frontenac CFDC and their federally funded loan programs that are helping. I want to see more of that and want to work with the business community to see what it is they need and how we federally can help.”

Remington also attended the Verona Community Improvement Plan meeting on April 5. “I wanted to listen to what people are saying and to find out how can we help.” Remington sees the role of an MP as “to try to help communities, which in some cases means getting out of the way, and in other cases is by offering funding for specific projects.”

Liberal signage was up first in the Sharbot Lake and surrounding area and I asked him how it was that the Liberals were out of the gate first in that respect. He replied, “I think we've been first out of the gate on many things. We've been organized and working really hard for the last year and a half to try to earn respect and votes and a big part of that has been by not taking anything for granted.”

How is he feeling? “I am feeling confident, and having run in the 2008 campaign I now feel that I have a benchmark of what to expect. I'm getting a very good response. This time around there are fewer people sitting on the fence and more people willing to say, 'You are our guy.” People now know me better now than they did in the last campaign and that's the result of a lot of hard work over the last year and a half.”

What else has he been hearing? “People talking about the attack on democracy by the Steven Harper government as something they do not want. Instead they want a government that is more open, more transparent and willing to work with people. People want a government that will not kick people out of rallies. We're seeing that people really care and want to be active. People want a leader that will take any question. That is democracy.”

For those feeling lack-lustre about the election and having to get out to vote, Remington had this to say. ”If you look around the world right now at countries like Libya, Egypt and others, where people are literally dying for democracy and the right to vote, you realize that we have to exercise that right. I don't think that it’s too much to ask. I'm asking people to look at me, my platform and the liberal platform and to make an educated decision on who best would represent you and we're getting a very good response.”

David Remington will appear next at the all-candidates’ meeting at the Verona Lions hall on Wednesday April 20 at 7pm.

Steve Lloyd has had a special guitar for several years. But he won't have it for much longer.

Steve will be giving away the guitar, which has been signed by a unique mixture of country and hockey legends, as part of a fundraising event at the end of April in order to raise money for an education fund for the children of Verona resident Greg Brown, who died last year.

“Greg was a relative of mine, though my mother, and that's what got me interested in setting this event up,” said Steve from his home in Sydenham this week.

On Saturday April 30. from 8pm to midnight at the Lions Hall in Verona, a number of musician friends of Steve and his wife Penny, who both used to be in the band Shot Gun before 'semi-retiring' from the music business last year, will be performing at an evening of music.

Steve and Penny have always been involved in fundraising for a number of causes over the years, and as this event was being developed the idea of raffling off his guitar came to Steve.

“It's a pretty good guitar,” he says of the instrument that he purchased at Renaissance Music in 1997. But it is what has happened to the guitar since Steve has owned it that makes it such a collector's item.

Steve went on a road trip with a radio personality, the Big G from Kix93.5, to Nashville in 2005. And as they met personalities and celebrities on that trip Steve had them sign his guitar.

“We stayed with Big Tom from the Survivor show on the way down, and he signed it, and while we were in Nashville we did some shows from the Country Music Hall of Fame and that is where Jean Shepard, Jan Howard, Jeannie Seely, the Wilkinsons, and a bunch of other people signed it.

Later on Steve won a contest that sent him to the Air Canada Centre in Toronto to try and score a goal on well known former goalies for a large prize. He didn't get very far on that score. “I'm not much of a skater,” he admits, but he did get his guitar signed by Curtis Joseph, Billy Smith, former Olympic gold medalist, Samantha 'Sam Jo' Small, Rick Smith and others.

Tickets are available on the raffle for the guitar for a $5 donation to the Brown Children’s Education Fund. They can be found at Leonard Fuels, Verona Hardware, L.D. Power Sports, Local Family Farms, Ella’s Cafe and Bakery, Renaissance Music, Hillside Coffee, and Naish's General Store.

The guitar will be raffled off at the end of the musical evening on April 30. Among the performers will be Don Cochrane, Dieter Boehme, Rick, Lyne and Amber Pilon, Tony Abreu, Ray Dube, Brian Rudachek, Steve and Penny Lloyd, and more. There will be Karaoke, and a silent auction will also take place. People who would like to donate to the auction are asked to call 613-376-7688.

Admission will be a $10 donation.

Over 60 citizens present at a public meeting in Denbigh were united in their determination to keep their ambulance services in the Denbigh community.

On June 16, Denbigh resident Paul Isaacs led a public meeting at the Denbigh hall to inform the community at large about the IBI Group’s 2010 Ambulance Service Review Update, which was presented to county council at their June 8 meeting. The public meeting was brought about by Addington Highlands Reeve Henry Hogg, who, though he could not attend, felt strongly that the public should be informed of the issue.

Councilor Tony Fritsch expressed his strong belief in preserving the current service. “Denbigh is the logical location for an ambulance base to best serve in this region and it must be retained”.

AH Councilor Adam Snider then reviewed the IBI report, which recommends that “the northern services be consolidated to a single base along the 41 corridor in the Northbrook/Cloyne vicinity and one ambulance be relocated to Loyalist Township, where it can be put to more cost effective use.”

One reason given in the report for the proposed change is the presence of the Lakelands Family Health Team (LFHT), which now operates clinics in both Northbrook and Denbigh. At the meeting, a number of staff from LFHT made mention of the fact that at no time were they contacted by the IBI group prior to the completion of the 2010 report. Janice Powell, executive director of the LFHT, who also served on the 2008 Community Ambulance Committee, said she was surprised to find her team mentioned at all in the report. “We provide primary care service, not emergency services. We do not have the equipment, or the resources to be providing emergency care, and are open only during regular business hours. As far as I'm concerned the ambulance service has to stay, and I am prepared to come back on the committee to fight for it.”

Susan Peters, nurse practitioner at the LFHT, strongly reiterated that point. “Rural communities are under-serviced to begin with and a decrease in ambulance response times will mean that people will die. I do not have access to first line emergency drugs, nor IVs. The bottom line here is that the ambulance must stay.”

Dr. Tobia of the LFHT also spoke from the audience. “It's really quite simple. One life up here in the north is worth as much as one in the south. The biggest issue here is ambulance response time.” Dr. Tobia cited the projected response times resulting from consolidated service stats taken from the 2010 report, which state that with the new proposal, only 13% of Denbigh calls will be responded to within 15 minutes, a decrease from previous years, whereas in Odessa there will be an increase, to 97% of calls that will be responded to within 15 minutes. Dr. Tobia continued, “The notion of reducing response times is ridiculous, especially when all of the guidelines are proving that survival rates depend on people getting to the hospital sooner.”

Gary Foster, Hall 3 chief with the Kaladar/Barrie Fire Department, addressed the issue of the fire department’s need for ambulance services in the area to deal with serious injuries and medical calls. “We dread the fact that right now this area is less serviced by ambulances than any areas in Renfrew County. I can tell you right now that if service is reduced, the result will no doubt be more deaths.”

Paul Isaacs agreed. “This report does not take into account the types of calls that we get here. Out of the total calls, this service has a higher percentage of serious calls than those in Napanee, which means that while we may have fewer calls, they are of a more urgent nature.” Isaacs also brought up the issue of the shape of the service area as well as the widely spread population. “L&A County is extremely long and narrow, and the majority of the population lies within 30 miles of the lakeshore, which means that the service cannot operate the same way it does in other areas. This is a problem in bureaucracy, which seems to deem that all areas require the same kind of service, which is simply not the case.”

Councilor Fritsch addressed the 2010 report’s account of increased cost in the current service since 2008, which many present at the meeting believed was the result of the province’s discontinuation of volunteer service. “One thing that irks me was the 2008 report’s argument to omit volunteers due to the high cost of managing them. The idea to go to full-time paramedics rather than volunteers was supposed to reduce the administrative costs, but instead the costs have increased, not decreased,” he said.

Deputy Reeve Bill Cox weighed in on the overall costs. “This is not a cost saving proposal in any way. If you look at the report you'll see that cross border service is cheaper than supplying your own.”

Denbigh resident Yvonne Rosien, a former first response volunteer with the now defunct volunteer ambulance service, recalled getting paid $2 an hour as a volunteer and questioned why that service was discontinued. “I have watched a 50-year old woman die when an ambulance was standing by in Northbrook. I want to get other politicians involved and see them out here seeing how this issue is going to affect people in this community. It will affect every single one of us at one time or another.” Audience member Frances Rosenblath said she is alive as result of the ambulance services here. “Fifteen years ago I suffered an allergy attack and went into anaphylactic shock and if it wasn't for the ambulance service I wouldn't be here today.”

Members of the community planned to meet at a second meeting on June 21 in Denbigh, where a plan would be discussed on how to present their recommendations in a unified way to county council.

Photos: Algonquin Sharing Day in Maberly

A group of 30 gathered at the Maberly hall on June 25 for a day of Algonquin sharing organized by Dr. Lynn Gehl. The first event of its kind to be held in Maberly, the day included a number of panel discussions led by a roster of academic speakers on topics ranging from the Algonquin Land Claim and self government, the South March Highlands, education, identity, the Treaty at Niagara Wampum Belt Exchange and much, much more. The day also included a potluck feast and the event attracted all kinds of interested members of the community aboriginal and not from near and far.

I arrived near the end of the day just in time for Dr. Gehl's talk on Wampum diplomacy and her presentation of her very own Wampum bundle. She spoke of the symbolic significance of her three Wampum belts; the British and Western Great Lakes Confederacy Belt, the Two Road Wampum Belt and the 24 Nations Wampum Belt. All three demonstrate the Algonquin tradition of symbolic literacy and represent artifacts that date back to the Treaty of Niagara in 1764, where the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was ratified, and which Dr. Gehl described as Canada's first constitutional document and a good example of what came to be known as forked tongue diplomacy.

A second panel discussed the topic “Protecting the Land” and focused on the South March Highlands, located on unceded Algonquin land near Kanata. The lands have recently have been the site of much controversy and protests when developers began cutting down the conservation forest there. Grandfather William Commanda, the 97-year-old spiritual elder for Algonquins in Ontario, has declared the area sacred. Currently, various community groups along with members of the Algonquin community are protesting the cutting, declaring it as “violence against nature”.

Daniel Bernard Amikwbe, who helped organize the Algonquin Sharing Day, said the topic took up a good deal of discussion at the Maberly event because “it represents a pivotal point for Algonquin people right now.”

Bonita Lawrence, a professor of indigenous studies at York University, spoke about her project on Algonquin identity, which will be published next year under the title “Fractured Homeland; Identity and Survival in Federally Unrecognized Algonquin Communities in Ontario”. Over a period of seven years, Lawrence interviewed Algonquins across the territory about their views on homeland and identity.

Also in attendance at the event was Mireille Lapointe, co-chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, who teaches Algonquin studies at the high school level and who weighed in on the discussion about “Decolonizing Education”. “Education is very important and up to this point we have always had the colonizers’ model of education and history. But that is slowly changing which is something I never thought I'd see. Now not only are Aboriginal studies becoming more mainstream in Ontario, but also a lot of the books being written are by indigenous people; so not only is it important that these courses continue be funded but what is more is that the teachers themselves be educated in indigenous issues at the college level as well.”

Marcello Saavedra Vargas of the Quechua-Aymara nation of South America, who is a professor of Aboriginal studies at Ottawa University, also attended the event to learn more about the Anishnabe people and came as an ambassador of his people. He was very interested in the teaching of the Wampum diplomacy and the Wampum belts and said, “Oral traditions are very important for indigenous people because we feel that oral forms keep knowledge alive and vibrant. The moment you put knowledge in written form in a way you are killing the spirit of that knowledge.”

Dr. Gehl's aim for the Day of Sharing was “to share Algonquin knowledge and the research that is being produced in the academy with Algonquin people and also to ensure that academics are working with Algonquins for our cause not just their own cause. We want to start a dialogue and it is important for Algonquin scholars to make allies with other scholars as well.”

Dr. Gehl surpassed that goal and it looks as though there will more Algonquin Days of Sharing in the future.