Connecting the dots…

The Soo just authorized its top mandarin to pen a new bylaw forbidding smokers from lighting up at parks and playgrounds.
North Bay should embrace this expanded smoking ban zone.
While many puffers have the brains and respect to go down wind or off to the side for a nicotine hit, too many don’t.
And as a parent with a young boy playing baseball and other sports, I’d much rather he didn’t have to breathe in their exhaled pollutants and second-hand combustion.
Health matters aside, I just prefer he didn’t have to look up to coaches and parents with nic sticks hanging off their lips.
On the other side of the coin, there’s some great people involved in sport that just can’t seem to kick that filthy habit.
I’d hate to lose them and have health nuts take over and force a spit-free zone on the diamonds.

The Soo just authorized its top mandarin to pen a new bylaw forbidding smokers from lighting up at parks and playgrounds.
North Bay should embrace this expanded smoking ban zone.
While many puffers have the brains and respect to go down wind or off to the side for a nicotine hit, too many don’t.
And as a parent with a young boy playing baseball and other sports, I’d much rather he didn’t have to breathe in their exhaled pollutants and second-hand combustion.
Health matters aside, I just prefer he didn’t have to look up to coaches and parents with nic sticks hanging off their lips.
On the other side of the coin, there’s some great people involved in sport that just can’t seem to kick that filthy habit.
I’d hate to lose them and have health nuts take over and force a spit-free zone on the diamonds.

I’m in the midst of researching dog bites in the North Bay area and would like to hear from people who have had troubles in this regard.

Earlier this week, I interviewed someone bitten in the leg by a pit bull in the south end of town.

Initial research after the interview indicates he probably didn’t have to start a series of rabies shots, as his doctor advised, even though a request for a rabies vaccination certificate came up empty.

Peter Jekel, North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit environmental director, told me a dog only has rabies in his saliva in the last 10 days of its life.

That’s why the owner of a dog that bit someone is advised to chain up the animal and an investigator drops by after that period to discern if it was infected or not.

If the dog dies inside that period, the head is cut off and sent for testing.

Also interesting, Jekel said a leg bite isn’t an immediate concern because it takes months for the virus to make it from an extremity to the brain in an adult.

Only bites to the neck and up are an emergency as far as human rabies vaccination goes. The virus is only deadly when it gets to the grey matter between the ears.

The focus of the story I’m working on, however, is more about how dog bite victims should go about yanking chains to get somebody to act on the situation.

So far, I’ve found out both the police and North Bay and District Humane Society have the power to launch investigations.

More to come on this subject in the future.

BYPASS BRIDGE

The walkway spanning the North Bay bypass and connecting the Frost Street residential area with Chippewa Street is a cool green colour.

People who use the Kinsmen Trail to access the Kate Pace Way along the waterfront and into West Ferris and Callander will love it.

Crossing the Highway 11-17 bypass at O’Brien Street was dangerous and bothersome.

And too many pedestrian students were jumping the fences for a shortcut between home and their favourite study hall.

Somebody e-mailed me their concern about whether the $3.7-million structure was a waste of money if the Ministry of Transportation is still thinking of rerouting the bypass in the future.

I checked the www.northbaycrossing.ca website and it says the walkway can be dismantled and moved to wherever it’s needed in the future.

Another reader wanted to know if the walkway will have camera security to protect the people using it, as well as vandalism.

The MTO said it’s not going to have camera surveillance, although the lighting system and hundreds of passing motorists peering through glass panels should help deter crime.

POSTSCRIPT

Here’s a big thank you to Rick Dagg with Mr. Seamless Eavestroughing for being the first to make a donation to the Terry Fox Foundation through my online pledge form at www.terryfoxrun.org.

I’d like to hear from other people who have decided to participate in the North Bay run, walk and roll Sept. 13 for the first time, or even if it’s the first time in a while. I want to highlight why you’re taking part and maybe a long-lost friend will see it and make you a pledge.

The more the better.

Dave Dale’s column appears Thursday and Saturday. He can be contacted at ddale@nugget.ca

There’s no peace in Bedrock this summer as North Bay bangs its collective head over a proposed rock quarry.
The showdown at city council Monday is between the Friends of La Vase Portages and the majority of councillors over two different kinds of natural resources.
Paddlers, with Coun. Chris Mayne steering the canoe, are fighting to protect heritage and environmental values.
Voyageurs used the La Vase portage route between Trout Lake and Lake Nipissing during the fur trade more than three centuries ago.
Nipissing First Nation people probably showed them the worst possible path through muddy, mosquito-infested bog as a lark. The huge canoes loaded down with iron trade tools and furs on the return were too heavy for the express portage along the escarpment.
It received Canadian Heritage River Status a few years ago and attracts tourists to the area.
Mayne and crew don’t want Don Fudge and the Bedrock company making any gravel out of the mini-mountain they call Murry’s Lookout.
Anybody hearty enough to take the portage already endures the disturbances created by Miller Paving’s quarry to the south. Adding another decade or two of blasting once the Miller land is flat is beyond their tolerance level.
Portagers are calling for a 200-metre buffer, like the kind designated for resource extraction activities in provincial parks.
City staff originally recommended a 60-metre buffer. They adopted the 120-metre zone suggested by the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority following subsequent provincial consultation.
Staff called it a saw-off to accommodate the needs of both camps.
Council, in its infinite wisdom and penchant for kicking Mayne at every opportunity, is disregarding staff. They support a 60-metre buffer–which includes a 20-metre road allowance already in place.
Coun. Dave Mendicino says Mayne’s call for a 200-metre buffer would basically eliminate access to the aggregate in the area.
The property is only 300 metres wide to start, and there’s a 30-metre buffer protecting the provincially significant Parks Creek wetland to the west.
Roy Summers, avid canoeist and protector of natural assets, is probably correct in saying the issue will eventually be decided by the province.
Ontario is not often accused of planning ahead, but it has stated quite clearly that aggregate resources will be given access as long as it’s managed properly.
On the other side of the coin, natural values need protection from unnecessary development. It takes people like the Friends of La Vase Portages to do it.
I’m in disagreement with all the parties on this one.
The buffer should be 100 metres, the minimum 60 metres, in addition to the 20-metre road allowance (not including it) and another 20 metres for good measure.
That’s about a football field in length. And if the paddlers are wise, they’ll use their strong public support to negotiate a few stipulations–like a month of no activity at the quarry in prime tourist season. The developers should throw in a piece of Murry’s Lookout for future generations.

Video link . . http://bit.ly/uyjJL

The North Bay Baseball Association took a swing at improving its profile in the community and held a tournament this weekend to benefit the North Bay Food Bank.

They picked a good weekend with not much else going on and I just happened to be the reporter on duty Saturday and Sunday. Which was fortunate, sort of, because my little guy is on the mosquito Tim Hortons Stingers rep team.

The food bank story landed on the front page of the paper, the baseball association received some ink and I was able to watch Dylan play baseball. Community journalism doesn’t get any better than that.

A lot of things can go very wrong in sports for children. But on a good day, with the sun poking through the cloads and a light breeze blowing, there’s not much that compares to an afternoon at the ball park. You can hear the kids cheering each other on, the “tink” of a metal bat hitting a baseball and resulting cheers from the stands is exciting. Even the sound of a pitch hitting the catcher’s glove and an ump calling a strike brings back great childhood memories.

With only a few exceptions, most parents are fairly mellow outside the hockey rink and most coaches keep their negative barking to a minimum. It’s usually a positive experience.

Nipissing District Association tried an experiment this spring with high school baseball. Many of the parents of young baseball players were excited by this development. High school baseball would be a nice addition to the current options for our kids.

School sports are important and we’ve got some great athletes in many different sports finding success at the post-secondary level. And with more and more kids joining minor baseball, the timing was right.

But I heard the NDA voted to not adopt baseball as a high school sport. Does anyone know why?

Every so often, there’s a slew of news illustrating why it’s important to do a lot of research before buying property or renting a townhouse.
Neighbourly love only goes so far these days and those forested green spaces are only a chainsaw away from becoming beehives of activity and parking lots.
And the devil really is in the fine print.
Ski Club Road residents were bristling this week at the proposal for a 50-unit condo development in their neighbourhood.
If it’s not going to be very rich people moving into very expensive dwellings, they don’t want the heartache of more traffic and potential property devaluation that might bring.
The site is already zoned to allow 20-odd units, but the market can bear more, and more means more money. And we all know coin makes the world go around.
People who recently invested in the area or lived there for decades were probably just getting used to the quiet dead-end atmosphere. The south portal of the Norad underground installation closed only a few years ago.
Here’s a big hint for anybody with money and foresight: No matter where you live, there will be something built uncomfortably close to your space unless you buy the land yourself.
Bonfield residents on Development Road are figuring this out as a proposal for a dragstrip in the middle of an old farm pasture picks up speed.
The town council tried to deflate the plan by declining the application to amend the industrial zoning, citing incomplete studies and a preference for quiet, country living.
They want to be a bedroom community serving people who want to move out of North Bay and Mattawa seeking peace and tranquility.
And people who live in the town don’t want to listen to engines roar all summer long.
Proponents, however, appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board and won a tentative victory when they were granted permission as long as the sound pollution is studied and mitigated.
The township is trying to appeal the decision to divisional court by taking issue with how the OMB member conducted the hearing.
Meanwhile, people who live near the proposed dragstrip are not giving up.
They are dead set against the intrusion, and anybody who lives on a lot near a quiet farm area can relate to their fears.
Unfortunately, there’s not much economy in Bonfield these days and the people who own the land have a right to develop it as long as they jump through the hoops.
I guess the key is making sure they can keep the dragstrip activity down to a dull roar.
And if it does get developed, I can only suggest to the people who live there they should create some kind of road-side business to capitalize on traffic. And then save up the coin to buy a big chunk of their own land and build a castle with high walls in the middle.
Last, but not least, is poor Roger Emond of Lake Heights Road who created a mini-petting zoo for furry and feathered rodents.
He saw a bunch of bush behind his townhouse and carved out a sanctuary for feeding birds and chipmunks, complete with a shack to store feed.
But not everybody enjoys the commotion and droppings that come with such a hobby.
The axe fell this week with the townhouse managers deciding to enforce its rules to please the majority rather than the individual.
I feel a bit sorry for Mr. Emond, because the world is shrinking to the point nobody can do anything without stepping on somebody’s toes.

NOTE: This blog was first published as a Soapboxing column June 20.

Subsequent research led me to believe such an origin is mythical, and certainly not the modern use.

Regardless, it taught me to think a little longer about political correctness before writing columns, a practice I detest. It erodes freedom of expression more than it heals the underlying social sores.

That said, I Googled the phrase mighty white of you” to get a sense of how other people understand its meaning.

I’ve always used it sarcastically, a rejection of how my European forebears (not forefathers) claimed superiority over people of colour.

I assumed it derived from the so-called master race as a notation of respect, something a white guy would say to another white guy who just did him a favour–such as bailing out his debt-ridden corporation.

I’m fairly confident, however, it’s evolved into a back-handed compliment underscoring how someone may think they are doing a favour when their actions are actually cheap and self-serving.

It’s an insult to my own white race and by extension, anybody who acts arrogant or superior, no matter the colour of their skin.

I’ve even used it to bring a native buddy of mine back down to earth and boy oh boy, does it ever do the job.

FIELDER’S CHOICE

North Bay council picked a grand-slam of a location for its future sports complex.

The Lakeshore Drive property will easily fit three athletic fields and one or two ball diamonds. It beats by a country mile the Cedar Heights option booted around a few years ago.

The 82-acre site (32.8 hectares) beside Sunset Park Public School is much more accessible for a greater number of people.

Unfortunately, nothing good comes without challenges and there’s likely going to be some debate about the loss of wetland near La Vase River.

Callander, Powassan and East Ferris residents will surely enjoy its proximity to their rural abodes. And many North Bay residents may find the Highway 11 route to Lakeshore Drive quick and convenient.

But I predict the intersection at Pinewood, Lamorie and Lakeshore will need some redesign eventually. Big tournaments might create a very long stacking of cars.

LUMINARIES

You don’t have to be on a Relay for Life team to participate in the annual event Friday evening. And it’s not necessary to spend the entire night there honouring cancer survivors and those who lost their battles.

Individuals and families are welcome to join your friends, family members and neighbours who are gathering at the 22 Wing track.

Drop by for an hour or so sometime between 7 and 10 p. m. and spend $5 to sponsor a luminary to honour a person you know who has battled cancer.

There’s also a lot of great talented performers there for entertainment.

Every gesture of support is appreciated.

(THIS BLOG WAS FIRST PUBLISHED AS A SOAPBOXING COLUMN JUNE 18)

There’s no harmony in the harmonization tax being implemented in Ontario.
It’s the biggest tax grab in provincial history, adding 8% to a long list of products and services previously not taxed by Queen’s Park.
A close second in the record book of tax grabs is the Ontario Health Insurance Program “premium” the Liberals re-initiated.
While we’re told over and over these paycheque eroders are necessary to deliver government services, semantics can’t alter fiscal reality.
For a hint at how harmonization will create discord in your household budget, add up your electricity and other energy bills over 12 months, tack on 10% for yet to be announced hikes, and then slap 8% on top.
That’s just one area where the HST hits you in a sacred spot; watch the cost of gasoline rise like a hot cloud of fumes on a smog-free day.
Obviously, the $1,000 taxpayer rebate/bribe the Grits invented to lubricate the change beginning next summer won’t slow down the revenue stream leaking out of your wallet.
Taking a shot in the dark, I’d say household budgets will be pinched a minimum of $2,000 annually by the HST.
Harmony will never sound pleasant to voters again.
There’s also not a lot of smart in the smart meters being shoved down people’s throats an inch at a time.
The contraptions should be called ‘Idiot Meters’ to match the warning lights in cars that tell people when to add oil and to describe why they’ve been invented.
For just a few billion dollars, we’re going to learn the hard way how to conserve energy and lower peak consumption trends.
Rich people, of course, won’t need to change their consumptive ways.
For the rest of us, we don’t really need an in-home wireless device installed on the living room wall to figure out we can’t afford to heat or cool the home.
A screeching siren at 7 a.m. is more than enough to tell the kiddies it’s time to slip on the snowmobile suits and pile up the laundry for the weekend.
As for these recently installed digital meters, there should be an inquiry called into how they record energy surging into homes.
Most of the people who call me say their usage has mysteriously increased without any idea how.
I’m contemplating an experiment this weekend. Even with the panel breaker turned off, I bet the little nasty will digitize a phantom kilowatt or more.
You can probably tell I’m growing more bitter by the day. Mostly I’m frustrated by the cost of living that’s going up in real time while the government tells me inflation isn’t an issue.
The middle-class in Canada once had a lifestyle that was the envy of the world and it is quickly slipping through our fingers.
Very soon, two or three families will be living in the same home to make ends meet, a harsh frugality our grandparents worked hard to erase.
Canadians like to laugh when they see several generations of immigrant families living together under the same roof.
An eerie silence has replaced those unsustainable giggles.
With all that in mind, forgive me for my cynical views while covering ground-breaking ceremonies, such as the one Friday outside Cassellholme Home for the Aged.
I was photographing a row of politicians and administrators standing behind a pile of dirt near the site for a new affordable housing complex for seniors.
The Castle Arms IV project is one of the first such investments in this district for two decades, partly because the federal and provincial governments have been playing partisan games for decades.
Groundbreaking political events often leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. I know that projects are often delayed until all the elected officials can find time in their busy grip-and-grin schedules.
Upon arrival, I count the number of heads with public salaries being wasted on political horn-blowing.
The tradition is for everyone involved to throw a shovel-full of soil into the air.
This time — call it luck — the wind was blowing directly at them.
And the Calvin in me had to ask for two extra takes, leaving them with as much dirt in their mouths as possible — the same bad taste I get while reviewing my pay stub deductions.
Call it taxpayer retribution.

Instead of asking if he had contact with Schreiber, the lawyers should have said, “While you sipped lattes and cursed Jean Chretien and Kim Campbell, did Schreiber ever give you money in any form or currency as payment or future payment for services rendered in the past or to be rendered in the future?”

Just for the record, the Oliphant commission was given a forensic accounting report that found the payments to Mulroney likely came from commissions Schreiber collected as a middle-man in the Airbus deal.

Irony? Coincidence? Karma? You decide.

But Mr. Chin’s continuing public service didn’t end there.

Mulroney also provides text book accounting strategies. He testified this week that it was not unusual to declare $225,000 in cash as income six years after it was received. That’s what you do with a retainer for future serv- ices.

Schreiber, however, insists that he paid Mulroney $300,000 to lobby Canadian officials over the Bear Head proposal. German firm Thyssen AG wanted to build light armoured military vehicles in Canada.

Whatever the inquiry concludes, the millions being spent on it are worth every penny.

It’s cheap comedy compared to North Bay’s leachate–leaking Merrick Township landfill, which was engineered” at the same time Mulroney and Schreiber were quaffing java in a hotel room.

City council got another taste of this messy legacy Monday when staff gave an update on the 1994 boondoggle built for $6 million.

They’ve spent more than that since trying to fix it and may have to build a $6-million treatment facility if natural attenuation strategies rot on the vine.

How does a landfill become a sinkhole?

Take half a dozen highly educated professional consultants and mix them with twice as many elected officials in an oxygen-deprived chamber. Bake until you can’t stand it any more.

Basically, they built the darn thing on top of a natural spring. And within a couple years the toxic leachate bubbled up and started heading toward the Little Sturgeon River instead of filtering through the dirt.

I’ve come up with a cheaper solution. Take all those discarded plastic water bottles and fill them up with the leachate and bury them in one of those clay-lined pods.

I’m told they don’t decompose for about 700 years.

Admittedly, this isn’t an original idea. I stole it from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization that’s looking anew for a friendly host community willing to do the same with spent nuke fuel.

Hopefully, they don’t use the same bright lights who scoped out North Bay’s landfill.

Coun. Chris Mayne, affectionately nicknamed the Amazing Green Horn by yours truly, has agreed to a little blog debate beginning this afternoon.

The subject is his tried-and-so-far-failed attempt to convince his fellow North Bay councillors to ban plastic water bottles from municipal facilities. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has since jumped on a similar bandwagon, and so have a few notable union leaders, such as Sid Ryan, and Maude Barlow of Council of Canadians fame.

They want everyone to stock up on reusable stainless steel canteens, saying the plastic bottles are unnecessarily filling up landfills, the production of them is killing the planet and municipal tap water is just as good or better.

I’m taking the position that bottled water is a safer, more convenient option that should not be banned from public places. Arenas and other municipal facilities should be allowed to stock bottled water because drinking fountains are either not maintained to ensure cleanliness or they are out of order. Bathrooms are not exactly prestine locations to get drinking water, either.

I support the promotion of reusable water canteens, but I don’t like the idea of banning what has proven to be a reliable source of refreshment. It sure beats buying pop or sugar-filled juice beverages when you forget to bring the stainless steel or other type of containers.

There’s plenty of other issues to talk about.

But I’ll keep some of my powder dry for rebuttal.

The stage is all yours, Coun. Mayne.