Rather than be ticked off they couldn’t pick up their favourite bottle of liquor from the Haliburton LCBO, several would-be customers hammered their car horn and bellowed messages of support for staff walking the picket line along Highland Street July 5.

Last Friday was the first day on strike for Ontario liquor store employees, with more than 9,000 workers walking off the job following a breakdown in negotiations between the LCBO and Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).

Guy Alaimo, manager of the Haliburton LCBO, said it’s the first time liquor store employees have been on strike in Ontario. “The issue is a lot more than just wages – yes, money is a part of it, but the biggest issue for me and most of my employees is job security,” Alaimo told The Highlander.

He estimates around 70 per cent of the LCBO workforce are casual employees, who aren’t guaranteed hours and rarely receive benefits. He noted these workers only qualify for benefits after working at least 6,000 hours, which Alaimo estimated would take five or six years.

The latest offer, rejected by employees July 4, leading to the strike action, was for employees to receive a 2.5 per cent wage increase and LCBO to make an additional five per cent of workers full-time.

“Right now, 30 per cent of the workforce is full-time. They’re offering to bump that up to 35 per cent, but we want more than that,” Alaimo said. “The wage increase we’re asking for isn’t huge – we just want them to meet us on inflation, meet us somewhere fair.”

While Alaimo didn’t share how much workers were hoping to get, he pegged inflation and increase in cost of living at around seven per cent.

The Haliburton store typically has between eight and 10 active employees – four of them full-time, including Alaimo. He’s worked there for 10 years and considers himself one of the lucky ones.

“I started as a fixed-term employee, then went casual and became full-time very fast. In most areas in and around the city, you can become full-time working at LCBO after seven or eight years. It’s different here. In these small towns, to get a full-time position with benefits, I know some ladies who took 20 or 25 years to get that,” he said.

The strike is set to run until July 19, but Alaimo said stores will reopen earlier if an agreement is reached. With staff earning $50 per day on the picket line – much less than their usual take home – the local manager hopes the standoff won’t stretch into a second week.

It’s going to take some concession from the Ontario Government, though. One of the major sticking points in negotiations thus far has centred on the proposed expansion of alcohol sales in grocery stores and other outlets. While beer and wine has been readily accessible for several years, there has been talk of making liquor and ready-to-drink cocktails available too.

Alaimo feels that would be a mistake.

“Right now, about $2.5 billion per year goes right back to the Ontarian people as a dividend from the LCBO. If we move further and further into the privatization of alcohol sales, that money will be gone. It’ll go into the pockets of big business,” Alaimo said. “The system we have now is great. There’s no reason for change.”

All 680 LCBO stores in Ontario – including ones across the County – remained closed as of press time, though free home delivery is available. If the strike lasts longer than two weeks, LCBO says it will open 32 stores three days a week, from Friday to Sunday, with limited hours – though it has not disclosed locations.

On the phone from Prince Edward County, Linwood Barclay is asked for his advice to Haliburton County authors, other than his standard read and write.

“When you show what you’ve written to your mom, or your husband, and they say ‘it’s wonderful’, don’t believe them. Because what else can they say? What are they going to tell you? ‘This needs work’,” the author of 24 novels and counting shares.

“It’s tough, but if doing it gives you pleasure – and your dream isn’t necessarily to hit the Globe and Mail bestseller list – but you find it’s relaxing, or it allows you to work things through, just keep doing it. But being able to make a living in this kind of business is rare.”

Barclay is one of those rare novelists, and the former journalist with the Toronto Star and Peterborough Examiner is coming to Minden July 13.

He gets lots of event requests and gets to pick and choose which he attends. He selected Minden as it’s close to his “old stomping grounds,” living for years just south of Bobcaygeon. His family owned Green Acres, a cottage rental and trailer park on the west side of Pigeon Lake.

“This is not heavy lifting to come up and do this,” he said.

He shared how his dad died when he was 16 and he largely ran the business. He spent hours cutting grass, his imagination running amok. “I would sit on my John Deere riding mower imagining stories and I think that is what has stayed with me… that kid was writing. I was cranking out stories like crazy from about Grade 6 on.”

Briefly turning to his latest offering, I Will Ruin You, Barclay is asked about resonating with the main character, Richard.

“Probably there is a little bit of me in all of the main characters,” he replies. “These main characters are in no way equipped to deal with the kind of people they’re going to come up against. They have regular jobs. They’re not ex-Navy Seals, spies or cops. They’re teachers, small-town newspaper reporters, used car salesmen because that’s the kind of people I know, who I hang out with. I always say, ‘what would it be like for people like us brought up against some pretty bad business’?”

He is asked about anxiety – something he references in his characters. “I’m a great worrier. About small things and big things,” he says.

Quoting Martin Luther King’s “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” he adds, “I’m starting to think it doesn’t look that way to me and so it’s easy to become very discouraged. It’s hard to find any kind of silver linings these days. There seems to be a celebration of ignorance lately and a rejection of actual facts. It worries me a great deal.”

Does writing fiction allow for an escape? Not really, he says, rather sometimes prickly subjects find their way into his books. For example, there is a theme in I Will Ruin You where parents question the appropriateness of a book that English teacher Richard is having his students read. Barclay is no fan of banning books. “If you have an axe to grind, you can still do it in the context of a thriller.”

He said he sometimes gets feedback from readers who do not want this opinionated content, and offers sardonically, “and my thinking is, that’s why we become writers, to keep our thoughts to ourselves.”

So, why is he continuing to do this – with novels 25 and 26 coming out next year?

“You can’t imagine not doing it. What are you going to do? Sit around, watch TV and have this great idea for a book and not do it? I think that would be hard. If you have a job that you hate, you can’t wait to retire and that’s wonderful. But to have the privilege of doing something you really enjoy, why would you throw that away?”

Bookapalooza begins at noon Saturday with an exhibit hall filled with dozens of local authors. Admission is free. A ticketed conversation with Barclay happens at 3 p.m. followed by a book signing. There’ll be a reception and dinner with the author at the Dominion Hotel at 6 p.m. This is a paid event. See more at haliburtonarts.on.ca/ bookapalooza

If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood…who you gonna call?

In the case of Minden Hills manager of cultural services, Shannon Kelly, who oversees the township’s Heritage Village, it was the Paranormal Seekers.

Kelly invited the Durham Region-based group’s researchers this spring for a look at the Stirling Bank building, Stanhope Schoolhouse circa 1898, and Bowron house, a log cabin from the 1860s.

Spokesperson and lead researcher, Rachel Cross, heads up the nine-person team.

“Our goal is to go into these locations, find that spooky, interesting history, share it with everyone and get people interested in learning about the past and learning about the culture in their community,” she said.

She added they often say, “a haunting is history waiting to be heard. We kind of bring that past, connect it with the present in that interesting way that hopefully grabs people’s attention and gets them to come out, whether they’re going to have an experience or not.”

They did have encounters when they descended on the site on a mid-April evening with researchers, investigators, intuitives and technology.

It was a dark and dreary Friday night, April 12, when the group arrived, beginning with a tour and setting up base camp in the cultural centre. They began their investigations in Stirling Bank.

“Immediately, right off the bat, it was like bang, bang, bang, things began to happen and we couldn’t even get our equipment out fast enough,” Cross said.

She added they captured a figure on their structured light sensor (SLS) camera. She said it was in human form and appeared to be pointing towards military artifacts in a cabinet. They just didn’t know which one it was pointing at.

She noted they were the first people to be in the building since January, “so this could be why things were happening. Whoever was there was like, ‘oh, people’.”

She said right after that, their equipment batteries started to drain – something that happened all night long, and a sign the entities were drawing the energy. “Anything they can use to manifest, to get what they want across, how they’re going to show themselves,” Cross said. She noted the video cameras only lasted for about seven minutes before batteries completely drained.

She said there was “surprisingly lots going on. More than we thought.”

Other bits of technology were “going off.” One of the team members thought she saw a shadow, and what looked like flashes going by, and their music box began to play. She said they tried to figure out who the person was by asking questions, answered via a ghost box app. It was inconclusive.

Moving to the schoolhouse, Cross said the SLS camera captured something on the ceiling. She isn’t sure what it was. “We don’t know if it was just somebody saying ‘what are these people doing here? I’m just going to stay up here and hang out’ type thing. The music box did go off. It went off so much I had to physically turn it off because it wasn’t stopping. And when I went to turn it back on, it was dead.” She said that was unusual since it usually winds down and does not cut out completely. She said another member of the team thought he saw a shadow.

The last stop, Bowron House, continued to suck the batteries, Cross said. “We just want to talk to you, don’t drain our batteries,” she recalled thinking. She sat on the floor in the parlour with voice-cancelling headphones and a blindfold while plugged into the ghost box. The others asked questions while she repeated words she was receiving. She said a bell they use also rang once.

Cross said they do research about once a month and activity at the Heritage Village was above average, especially the Stirling Bank. However, they were never fearful.

“Everything there was great. When we went into the Bowron House, we felt like there were a lot of eyes on us, ‘what are you doing in my house… maybe you should leave’ type thing, but it wasn’t menacing or evil.”

Kelly said she has not experienced any paranormal activity in the original buildings in the Heritage Village, but has had community members share stories with her. She has worked with Cook and her team in Port Perry at the Scugog Shores Historical Museum, and reached out to her again when she came to Minden.

And stay tuned as Cross said they will be back in August to investigate another Minden property.

Terry Moore has dedicated a large chunk of his adult life towards learning about, and protecting, the natural environment in Haliburton County.

He is one of the driving forces behind Environment Haliburton!, a non-profit whose mandate is to provide a strong voice to encourage positive green initiatives and oppose those that could have an adverse effect on the environment.

Moore was the guest speaker at a recent event at the Haliburton Legion, where he told those in attendance how they can help make a difference in the Highlands. He discussed his experience in individual and collective actions people have taken addressing many issues around the County, such as green burials and shoreline preservation.

Having helped to bring green burials to Haliburton County, with the practice soon to be available at St. Stephen’s Cemetery in Algonquin Highlands, Moore spoke of its many benefits. He said he and wife, Shirley, have been advocating for green burials for about five years, following the death of their son, Kyle. Moore said they wanted to leave an environmental legacy for him after his death.

He said green burials are a simple process – bodies are wrapped in biodegradable shrouds, or placed in a biodegradable casket, then laid directly into a grave site. The spot remains unmarked, meaning it can be used again in the future. Moore said green burials are more environmentally-friendly than traditional burials and cremation. The St. Stephen’s site will be operational by next spring and will feature 180 plots.

“This is the kind of thing that can actually make a difference, can empower individuals to do something to really change things,” Moore said, noting that, by sharing personal experiences, people tend to engage more. People are generally quite receptive to that.”

Moore discusses various environmentbased topics on his regular Planet Haliburton show, which airs on CanoeFM the last Thursday of the month, from 6 to 7 p.m. and the following Saturday from 7 to 8 a.m.

The annual Highland Yard fundraising run is going on hiatus for a year, Places for People president Susan Tromanhauser confirmed last week.

The event has been a staple in Haliburton County since 1971, with the community coming together to support various important local causes. Recently, it has served as one of P4P’s major recurring fundraisers, bringing in more than $20,000 in 2023.

Tromanhauser indicated Highland Yard has generated approximately $200,000 for P4P since 2012.

“It takes a lot of man hours to pull the event off – what is it the kids say now? We don’t have as much bandwidth as we used to,” she said. “It’s not that we won’t ever do it again. We are going to continue with it – but not for 2024. We just don’t have the manpower to continue at this point.”

Highland Yard ran unencumbered for 49 consecutive years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It paused for two years, skipping events in 2020 and 2021, before returning virtually in 2022, where runners were encouraged to complete two-kilometre, fivekilometre, or 10-kilometre circuits in their own time.

Rotaract Haliburton Highlands came on board as a key supporter post-pandemic, assisting with the virtual effort in 2022 and taking on more of an organizing role for the event’s return to in-person last year, where more than 180 people participated.

Tromanhauser said Rotaract did re-commit for 2024, but that still left organizers short in numbers.

P4P has announced a pair of events in August, which Tromanhauser hopes will help fill the void this year.

Residents of Oakview Coliving are hosting a community luncheon at their property overlooking Little Hawk Lake Aug. 17, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Cost is $25 per person if people book by Aug. 3, or $30 per person after. All proceeds will go to P4P.

A fundraising concert is taking place at Haliburton Forest Aug. 31, beginning at 7:30 p.m. On stage will be Grievous Angels – fronted by Charlie Angus, MP for TimminsJames Bay. Tickets are $40, with all profits to be directed to P4P.

Tromanhauser said volunteers with the nonprofit housing advocate are already thinking of ways to bring Highland Yard back in 2025.

“We’re hoping to come back new and improved – it might have a bit of a different look to it, but we definitely intend to continue. Highland Yard has been around for over 50 years. It’s a historic event here in Haliburton County, so we don’t want to lose it,” Tromanhauser said.

Pat Bradley and Gail Simon, volunteers with the Minden Healthcare Auxiliary, are reminding the public to have cash in their pockets July 12 as the group brings its annual ‘tag day’ fundraiser back to the downtown.

From 9:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. volunteers will be at Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons, Foodland, Valu-Mart, Home Hardware and Pharmasave collecting donations, which will be used to upgrade the Haliburton Highlands Health Services site in Minden. Volunteers will also be at Boshkung Social from 2 to 6 p.m.

Despite losing its emergency department last summer, the former hospital site still provides services to the community – Simon says the auxiliary supports facility upgrades and equipment purchases throughout the facility, though has focused primarily on Hyland Crest over the past 12 months.

The group recently gifted $40,000 to HHHS for several upgrades and also invested around $5,000 supporting an adult day program at the site.

“Now we’ve spent all our money, we need to fill the coffers back up again,” Bradley said.

The auxiliary is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Formed in 2000, the volunteer group has raised and donated approximately $360,000 to the Minden site.

Simon confirmed the auxiliary renewed its commitment in May to support HHHS for at least another year.

“We generally have monies that come in yearly from donors who received great care here and want to donate or are just long-term residents of Minden and want to give back. If we disappeared, who would collect that money?” Simon asked. “We felt we should carry on.”

The auxiliary boasts 43 members, of which 20 actively give their time planning events, running the gift shop at the Minden facility, and assisting with programs for long-term care residents. Simon said they’re a “small, mighty team” that could benefit from some new blood.

The group meets three times annually for general meetings, with members required to complete at least one three-hour shift at the gift shop each month. The gift shop is open Tuesday to Thursday and Saturdays from noon to 3 p.m.

Bradley said ‘tag day’ is the only regular fundraiser the auxiliary has – she feels it’s important for the community to show their support as HHHS relies on donations to upgrade its facilities.

“We are focusing on long-term care right now. We all know there have been so many cutbacks within the healthcare system in the last few years and long-term care facilities only receive operating costs [from the province]. There’s no way for organizations like HHHS to put money into the maintenance of equipment, buying new equipment, changing spaces – this is where we step in to provide support,” Bradley said.

“Auxiliaries are needed to fund the things the government isn’t – often very important things,” she added.

For more information on the auxiliary, or to become a member, visit hhhs.ca or contact 705-457-1392 ext. 2927.