Democracy is hard work. And by that I don’t mean just for political candidates who, among many other things, participate in all-candidates’ meetings or debates where they’re asked all kinds of questions on the complex political issues they’re supposed to know everything about. I take my toque off to anybody who has the courage, or whatever it takes, to do that in front of a live, national television audience, or a crowd of several hundred people in a local riding. Continue reading
Gaelic In The Bruce Part 2
Last week’s column about the Grey-Bruce area’s Gaelic heritage appears to have struck a chord. I’ve been getting phone calls from readers who expressed a heartfelt interest in the subject because of their Scottish Highland ancestry, and a strong desire to share their family history. That included whatever they knew about that tragic episode in Scottish history known as The Scottish Clearances and the crucial but now little-known role it played in bringing their ancestors to this area. Continue reading
Gaelic in The Bruce, and a Painful Heritage
I was passing some time in the quiet room of a local medical facility recently when a small book on a little-used bookshelf caught my eye. It was a copy of the Bruce County Historical Society’s Centennial Book, published in1967.
We’re All Going to End up Paying More, Yet Again, for Electricity
Taken in splendid isolation key aspects of the new long-term deal between the Ontario government and Bruce Power for the long-awaited refurbishment of nuclear generating units at Bruce A and a fixed-price contract for the electricity they produce is good news for this area. Barring any unexpected calamities, and assuming the challenging job of rebuilding Units 1 and 2 is successful, the future prosperity of Kincardine, Saugeen Shores, and other communities near the Bruce Nuclear plant is assured for the next 30 years. Continue reading
What’s With the Weather?
Out west on the Canadian prairies they’re praying for the rain to stop falling. Here in Grey-Bruce and much of southern Ontario we’d like nothing better than a few old-fashioned rainy days. Continue reading
How Not to Grow Strawberries
I’ve always had a lot of respect for traditional farm families, those people who have devoted their lives to the backbreaking and often heartbreaking job of trying to scratch a living from the ground, day after day, year after year, sometimes generation after generation. A good part of my childhood was spent living with and amongst such people, and I’m sure it taught me a lot about what life is all about for most people who live on this earth: hard work, the planting of seeds, and plenty of hopes and prayers that the sweat of one’s brow will be rewarded with a bountiful life-supporting harvest. I believe those things apply to any honest work a person might take on.
History of Black Settlement in Grey-Bruce
A project to develop a new school curriculum about this area’s long-neglected history of black settlement is a great idea, of course. Better late than never. But I can’t help but wonder how those early black settlers might feel and what they might say, knowing it would take so long for their presence to be celebrated with such interest. I have an idea, based on a brief conversation I had many years ago with an angry man in a place called Amber Valley, an historic black settlement in northern Alberta. But more about that later. Continue reading
Are Safeguards Adequate at the Bruce Nuclear Site?
Worse has happened, and is still happening, to Lake Huron and the other Great Lakes than the spill of “mineral oil” into the lake from the Bruce Nuclear site after a recent transformer fire there. Continue reading
Ontario Taxes Will Indeed Go Up
It’s that time of year again across the Canadian landscape: the taxman cometh. And many are the howls of outrage here in Grey-Bruce, and elsewhere in Ontario, at the rate property taxes are going up to help support the cost of municipal government. Bruce County’s 13.2 percent increase in county taxes especially raised some local eyebrows. But it may be a sign of things to come for a lot more municipal taxpayers in Grey-Bruce and elsewhere in the province, if somebody at Queen’s Park doesn’t soon do something fundamental about fixing the Ontario eight-year-old downloading fiasco. Continue reading
Drinking Water Source Protection in Ontario
Being human, we tend to take for granted what we have plenty of, like water in Ontario – in the Great Lakes, in rivers and streams, and underground aquifers: drill or dig a well and you got water, no problem; put a hose or intake pipe into the lake and get lots of water, no problem. Build a pipeline here, another one there. Why worry? Be happy. Continue reading
Finding Hope Ness 