Current Events

Wind-Turbines

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

More than four years ago I was among a large group of people, mostly members of the local community, who stood in the damp chill of a late fall day in a farmer’s field south of Lion’s Head and celebrated the start-up of the Bruce Peninsula’s first large-scale wind turbine generating electricity for the Ontario power grid. As the huge blades of the towering, made-in-Denmark, $3 million, Vesta Turbine pulsed overhead with the characteristic “swish”ing sound associated with them, we were told it could generate enough electricity to power a community the size of Lion’s Head, population 500.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Continue reading →

Food banks a lifeline for single-parent families

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

Canada is widely regarded as one of the richest countries in the world.

But be that as it may, a record number of Canadians — close to 900,000 — are going to food banks in hopes of getting something to eat. Their hopes are not always realized. The need is so great that food banks are running out of food; and so the hungry, including a high proportion of children, stay hungry. Continue reading →

No Nets in Colpoy’s Bay

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

It boggles the mind. Where to begin? There are so many things wrong with the-affair-of-the-commercial-nets-in-Colpoy’s-Bay-last-weekend-that-weren’t-there-after-all that I’m tempted to say it sounds like the proverbial “comedy of errors,” starting with a couple of members of the Bruce Peninsula Sportsmen’s Association jumping to the conclusion that a First Nation fishing tug going slow on its way to the Colpoy’s Bay government dock must have been setting nets. Continue reading →

Long Voyage of the M.V. Sun Sea

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

The long voyage of the M.V. Sun Sea with its 490 refugee claimants from Sri Lanka reminds me of another, similar voyage almost 70 years ago. But the big difference is the people who spent what surely must have been three terrible months on board their small ship were allowed to set foot on Canadian soil, whereas the ill-fated souls aboard the S.S. St. Louis were not. Continue reading →

Foolish $9 Billion Plan to Build New Jails

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

If you live in a rural area, as many of us in this area do, you’ll maybe know the old saying, “the (insert name fruit or vegetable here) want picking.” Well, I’ve got rows of beans that “want picking,” and hundreds of pounds of potatoes virtually crying out from underground to, “please, please, please dig us up soon or heaven knows what we’ll do.” Continue reading →

Shipping Radioactive Waste Through the Great Lakes

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

The apparent lack of public concern about the proposed shipment of huge amounts of radioactive waste scrap metal from the Bruce Nuclear Plant from the Port of Owen Sound, through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway and on to Sweden for recycling is unfortunate. Continue reading →

Hopeness forest gorillas and those that overreacted during G20 are 2 totally different kinds of beasts

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

Just a few kilometres down our road here in the resurgent wilderness of Hope Ness on the Bruce Peninsula is perhaps one of the strangest, and certainly one of the most unexpected sights one would expect to find here of all places.

Just where the road passes through the deepest, darkest, most mysterious section of the Hope Ness-Hope Bay forest there’s been for many years a large group of jungle animals hanging on the tree trunks and branches on either side.

Gorilla Continue reading →

The Dead Demand the Truth

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

The war in Afghanistan where several thousand Canadian troops are serving to help bring peace, stability and good government to a country that’s never had it, and possibly doesn’t even want it (at least in the democratic sense that we in this part of the world think of it) has hit home.  Continue reading →

Hearing Set for Residential Development Near Native Burial Sites

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

A long-simmering dispute on the Bruce Peninsula over residential development on private property in the vicinity of native burial sites is the subject of a lengthy hearing set to begin this coming Tuesday before the Ontario government’s new Environmental Review Tribunal.

At issue specifically is the Niagara Escarpment Commission’s refusal last fall to approve development permits for two lots of record in a provincially approved subdivision. That was despite a staff report recommending approval, and despite the fact the NEC two years earlier permitted development on two other lots in the same subdivision. The people whose applications were denied appealed. Continue reading →