The $17 million project, fully funded and executed by Bell Canada, will bring fast, reliable internet to 7,000 underserved homes and businesses in the West Niagara town. Photo credit: Bell    Canada’s largest communications technology company is helping the Town of Lincoln get up to speed with its internet connectivity.  On Monday, Bell announced a […]

Niagara College winemaker Allison Findlay stands outside the school’s Wine Visitor + Education Centre in Niagara-on-the-Lake holding the institute’s latest award-winning ciders. Photo credit: Niagara College   The name ‘Niagara College’ is rapidly becoming synonymous with award-winning beer, wine, and cider.  In another spectacular display of the school’s alcohol-producing prowess, Niagara College took home no […]

Next week’s seemingly benign election for the vacated Mississauga—Lakeshore seat serves as a litmus test for the popularity of Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre (pictured, right), and their respective plans for Canada’s future. Photo credit: Facebook/Pierre Poilievre   Next week, voters in the federal riding of Mississauga—Lakeshore will head to the polls to cast their ballot […]

The innovate mode of transportation is set to launch next summer. A one-way ticket will cost approximately $25-$30. Photo credit: Hoverlink Ontario Inc.    By this time next year, Toronto-bound commuters from Niagara could well be zipping across Lake Ontario on a hovercraft instead of idling on the QEW for hours.  The brainchild of Niagara-on-the-Lake […]

 Photo credit: Global News   It’s a different kind of sticker shock. Now that Ontarians have been receiving cheques in the mail for rebates of their license plate sticker fees, the reaction to a government actually giving average folks   some of their own money back has been interesting to say the least.    Although the […]

At Niagara Regional Council’s latest meeting on Feb. 17, local acting medical officer of health Dr. Mustafa Hirji (left) would not commit to following the provincial timeline for easing public health measures set by Ontario’s top doc Dr. Kieran Moore (right) earlier this month. Photo credit: Niagara Region and Queen’s University   On Tuesday, Mar. […]

Leader of Canada’s Official Opposition Erin O’Toole speaks to a small gathering in Welland, Aug. 10, 2021. Pictured in back is Niagara Centre federal Conservative candidate and current Welland city councillor Graham Speck. Photo credit: Facebook/Graham Speck   Earlier this week, Canada’s Leader of the Official Opposition and head of the federal Conservative Party Erin […]

With the recent completion of the Tokyo Olympics, Canada’s top summer athletes now set their sights on the next big competition now exactly a year away: Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games.  Niagara’s international land crossings reopen to Americans After some 18 months of closure, fully vaccinated Americans travelling to Canada for discretionary reasons were once again […]

Oil rebounded from its biggest slump since November ahead of a key OPEC+ meeting that may see some supply returned to a fast-tightening market.  Futures in New York rose above $62 a barrel. The alliance gathers on Thursday and is expected to loosen the taps after prices got off to their best ever start to […]

It wasn’t that long ago when regional councillors representing St. Catharines were lobbying their colleagues from other parts of the region to support funding a significant share of the cost of the proposed new St. Catharines hospital. The vote passed with support from councillors from other Niagara municipalities and the billion dollar health care facility opened in March of 2013.

Once the prospect of a vaccine for COVID-19 became realistic, public opinion polls have shown an ever-increasing willingness among Canadians to partake in the inoculation. Surveys taken by the Angus Reid polling firm show that back in November 2020, about 40 per cent said they would get the shot. By December, almost 50 per cent said they would get vaccinated as soon as possible, and another 31 per cent would be willing to get the shot after a brief wait. A more recent Ipsos poll conducted for Global News showed 72 per cent of Canadians would get a COVID-19 inoculation as soon as possible, and about two-thirds believed the vaccinations should even become mandatory.

One of the consistent themes of Niagara’s regional council this term has been to veer off course from their mandate and weigh in on issues that are beyond their scope. From national child care strategies to de-fund the police to a national affordable housing strategy, there’s been a fairly regular stream of correspondence providing direction to MPPs and MPs.
One of the areas both local municipal councils and regional council weighed in on recently was that of decriminalization of drug possession. The original motion put before Council by St. Catharines Regional Councillor Laura Ip, urged the federal government to “decriminalize the possession of all drugs for personal use” while scaling up preventative and treatment services. It also urged the federal government to convene a taskforce to explore the “legal regulation of all drugs in Canada, based on a public health approach.”

Who exactly is George Soros? Is he a billionaire investor and philanthropist or a Machiavellian globalist bent on creating discord? Soros’ multi-million dollar donations to political causes has had direct influence on the outcomes of political battles and on elections around the world, including in Canada. So, what are the beliefs, aspirations, and goals of this man?

Many Niagara citizens and businesses have been finding ways to help support the community during these difficult times. Jordyn Allan is among those who want to help bring joy to residents who are more isolated than others during the COVID-19 pandemic. Allan recently graduated from Guelph University in Marketing Management and was set to start her new job at a local winery. She was later informed just prior to her start date that she would in fact not be working at the winery due to drastically reduced business. Like many others, Allan was devastated but determined to make the best of her time at home.

Niagara’s elementary and high school students won’t be heading back to the classroom. On Tuesday, the provincial government confirmed that Ontario’s schools would remain closed for the rest of the academic year.

The closures include public and private schools, licensed child care centres and EarlyON programs. The province said it is expecting a gradual reopening of child care services once public health indicators permit Ontario to transition to Stage 2 of its overall reopening framework. Emergency child care will continue to operate and provide support for health care and other frontline workers.

When my father Darsell and I started Absolute Combustion almost 15 years ago, we imagined that one day, we’d be a world-leading cleantech firm with thousands of employees, a strong international market and good prospects for growing even bigger. And so we poured everything we had into making our dream a reality – every penny in the bank, every possible hour in the day, and made every sacrifice we could on a risky bet that maybe one day, it would pay off.

While much focus was placed on the weekend protests by various unions towards the Ford government, many of the MPPs and in particular cabinet ministers were meeting key stakeholders in Niagara on important issues like health, business, the economy and the skilled trades.
Monte McNaughton, the province’s Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development was one such MPP who took the time to meet with business owners and those working in the construction sector to discuss key issues like the province-wide labour shortage, skilled trades and new government initiatives at a roundtable discussion.

Donald Trump’s visit to India this week is reminding us of Justin Trudeau’s shambolic tour of India, which was precisely two years ago. Trump’s many critics are joking about his pronunciation of Indian names, and speculating that he may starve without a steady supply of “hamberders” in the meat-challenged subcontinent. But even Trudeau’s usual defenders found it difficult to joke about Trudeau and his family’s daily Bollywood-inspired fashion parade, or spin the appearance of a Sikh extremist at an official reception.

After working as an economist for over 40 years, and making lots of wrong predictions over that time, you would think I had learned my lesson about trying to predict the future. But there is something just too tempting at the beginning of a new year about taking a stab at figuring out how some of the major events of the day will unfold, so here goes.

Ontario electricity consumers are well aware that their hydro bills keep going up despite attempts by the Conservative government to fulfill their election promise to reduce electricity costs by 12 per cent. It would be easy to blame the current government for not meeting this goal, but the reality is that the Green Energy Act implemented by the previous Liberal government a decade ago continues to haunt Ontario hydro consumers and impose stiff price increases every year.

So I walked into Canadian Tire after being a panellist on the John Oakley Show in Toronto, Monday and found myself looking at an assortment of canoes and kayaks on sale for season’s end.

One particular blue kayak caught my eye and the price tag only $399. I turned to my friend and said, “ya know, if I buy that I’ll still have $1,600 left for other camping gear.”

The fact that government employees enjoy much better pensions than the rest of us who pay for them is fairly well known, but the extent of the inequity and how much it costs private sector taxpayers needs to be better understood. The reality is private sector taxpayers should be outraged by the large contributions they are making to other people’s pensions while attempting to save for a much more modest retirement for themselves. The details of this situation were recently updated in an article by Fred Vettese, Chief Actuary for Morneau Shepell. Yes, that Morneau Shepell, the pension business inherited by the current federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

Niagara’s tiniest patients will have care closer to home thanks to the addition of five new beds in Niagara Health’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
According to Niagara Health officials the NICU can now care for sicker babies after the organization received provincial government support for the beds, supporting resources and equipment. The unit, at Niagara Health’s St. Catharines Site, will be able to provide care to infants with more complex health problems, including: premature babies born at 30 weeks gestation or more (previously it was 32 weeks or more); babies requiring ventilation; and babies needing advanced intravenous therapy.

We shouldn’t kid ourselves and believe for one second that the previous Wynne Liberal government was trying to get its fiscal house in order.
Or that, as some irrationally suggest, that the province’s fiscal challenges have been wildly exaggerated.
The reality is Ontario needs to balance competing needs to find money to fund existing public services, to improve those services, reduce our crushing debt and deficit, and build for the future by investing in desperately needed infrastructure like subways, schools and hospitals.

After an impeccable regular season and divisional playoffs, soaring through SOSSA, and overcoming a gauntlet of Ontario’s 18 best high school teams at OFSAA regionals, the A.N. Myer Marauders baseball squad fell just one run short of provincial gold at the final four OFSAA tournament in London on Wednesday.

“I’m really proud of the boys and their ability to grind out many moments that allowed us to achieve something very rare in an OFSSA silver medal,” said coach Dave Buchanan. “There were many players that contributed to the process. We as a program work very hard in the off-season and I believe it allowed us to get through those tough tense moments.”

Do you agree with the following statement?

For workers in high-risk roles, employers should be permitted by law to conduct random drug testing in order to confirm sobriety and ensure the present and future safety of the workplace.

If you answered “yes”, you’re in the majority.

According to a recent corporate study, 4 in 5 Ontarians believe that employers should be granted protection under law to randomly test workers in safety-sensitive positions; such as, for example, crane operators or airline pilots.