Watching consultants tell County councillors what they should do with their paramedic service over the next 10 years was an eye-opener last week.

I knew the County was growing. The 2021 Census pegged that expansion at just under 14 per cent. I also knew that the Highlands was old. However, I didn’t know that it is projected to be the oldest County in Ontario by 2046. We’re well on our way now.

It got me thinking about all aspects of our community as we continue to have more newcomers who are getting older. Has anyone planned for that over the next 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years and beyond?

There is a lot of talk, but not much action. For example, there have been copious discussions about housing, but very few shovels in the ground. There has been discussion about public transportation, but as recently as this month, it’s been nixed. There is endless chatter about worker shortages but nothing concrete to address that problem.

I started to wonder about other towns and cities. While it is very difficult to find apples to apples comparisons, I had a look at the Elliot Lake Retirement Living website. Let’s start with that very concept, shall we? There is no Haliburton County Retirement Living website.

When the Elliot Lakes uranium mines were slated for closure in 1996, some in the town began to plan for the future and that future was retirement living. Unlike Haliburton County, Elliot Lake was blessed with an abundance of mining homes left by miners. If only we had the housing stock they did and still do. It allows one-bedroom apartments to be rented for as little as $705-a-month up to a three-bedroom house for $1,200-a-month. Imagine.

Let’s look at health care. Elliot Lake has a complete continuum of care, from acute hospital care to assisted living and home care services. They have not only doctors, but surgeons. St. Joseph’s Hospital has 54 beds. They do surgery and deliver babies. They host specialists’ clinics. They even have a portable MRI machine.

The community has an excellent local public transit system. Bus service is provided throughout the city at very reasonable prices. However, to their favour, 95 per cent of Elliot Lake’s residents are within five minutes’ walking distance of a bus stop.

So, Elliot Lake had a community with a problem – its main industry was closing – and found a solution so it would not become a ghost town.
Here in Haliburton County, if we don’t have a vision of a healthy, resilient community in mind, we won’t know how to plan for it.

The first question is, do we want to continue to grow, and to get older, or are we happy with where we are at now? If the answer is stand pat, then we don’t have to trouble ourselves with building oodles of housing stock. Let’s just concentrate on ensuring we have the infrastructure to support the people we have now, and into our decidedly grey future. In which case, the answer is some sort of worker housing.

Then, we can talk about things such as better health care, and maybe even public transit.

If our vision is continued growth, then the planning becomes a whole lot more complicated.

Undeniably, this visioning should have started long before now and time is of the essence. It is imperative we begin now, today, to determine what kind of a community we want to be – and plan accordingly – or be left a skeleton of our former selves.

It’s not often I find myself at a loss for words during an interview.

A couple of weeks back, I had a Zoom call with Tom Regehr to discuss the work he is doing in the County through his new movement Voice Haliburton. Launched in tandem with a small working group committed to addressing issues surrounding homelessness, mental health and substance abuse in the Highlands, Voice is designed to show some of the community’s most disassociated and disenfranchised people there is a way back from a life of despair and addiction.

I sat for an hour as Regehr outlined his vision, explained his working methods, and went into detail on the circumstances and situations that led him down this path. He spent years in the late 80s and early 90s living on the streets in Brampton and Toronto, addicted to alcohol and a myriad of other substances (see last week’s edition for the full story).

While his story wasn’t unlike others I’ve heard before, I was impressed by the way he was able to not only bring himself back from the brink but launch a successful career advocating for people just like him.

He’s made a difference in just about every community he’s worked in. He got things started here this week, holding an inaugural Voice meeting in Haliburton Feb. 8. Another is scheduled for tonight in Minden. A third will be held via Zoom Feb. 13. He plans to run sessions every two weeks for the foreseeable future, bringing people together in a non-judgement, supportive setting to help them collectively work through their issues.

The more I thought about Tom, Voice and the working group, which features representatives from Point in Time, SIRCH, the Haliburton Highlands Chamber of Commerce, and the Haliburton County Public Library, the more I realized the current system we have in place to deal with these concerns is broken.

Most supports and programs today are funded by the province. Maybe it’s time that we saw our lower-tier governments take more of an interest in this kind of work.

I was chatting with a local the other day about a recent story I wrote on Dysart’s 2023 budget. He queried why I hadn’t broken down and provided further analysis on some of the key numbers included. He focused on the $20,501 the township is planning to spend on social and family services this year, saying that was shamefully low when compared to the $2.9 million earmarked for recreation and culture.

And to be honest, he’s right.

While it’s not in a municipality’s mandate to provide the kind of mental health and addiction supports Regehr is focusing on, all our lower-tier councils should be concerned with, and trying to find solutions, for this kind of thing.

It’s not easy work, and there’s no quick fix. It takes time and care to help someone turn their life around.

Credit to Regehr and the Haliburton Mental Health and Substance Use Working Group for recognizing this and guiding people on those first steps towards possible redemption.

It’s hoped our municipal leaders follow suit and get involved too.

PROBLEM
Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – account for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions. Made of decomposed carbon-based organisms that died millions of years ago, fossil fuels are extracted from deposits deep in the earth. The processes of extracting them, transporting them, burning them for energy, and using them to manufacture plastic or steel – and a myriad of other goods – all contribute to global warming. Fossil fuels are non-renewable and currently supply around 80 per cent of the world’s energy.

To keep global warming below catastrophic levels (there are current estimates of 4-7 degrees Celsius warming with continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels), the IPCC advises carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero by 2050.

Despite repeated global promises to reduce carbon emissions (e.g., Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement, COP26), analysis of oil and gas companies suggests we are currently on track to produce more than double the amount of coal, oil and gas than is recommended for us to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Profit from oil and gas companies goes to the stock exchange and makes executives rich. A handful of the world’s biggest oil firms are projected to report profits of US$200 billion from 2022. This money goes to the shareholders rather than to the public that pays for the fuel, in a blatant transfer of public money to private fortunes.

Oil and gas companies are known to falsify their public image. In 2019, BP spent millions on an advertising campaign about its low-carbon energy and cleaner natural gas. In fact, more than 96 per cent of BP’s annual expenses remain on oil and gas.

Oil spills in recent years have been devastating to our oceans’ ecosystem. And while natural gas is often promoted as a cleaner energy source than coal and oil, it accounts for a fifth of the world’s total carbon emissions.

Gas pipelines contribute to deforestation and loss of habitat. Hailed as one of the largest private sector projects in Canadian history, a $6.6 billion pipeline in northeastern B.C. will carry natural gas, obtained by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) to a $40-billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal for export to Asia. Construction of the 670-kilometre pipeline will cross about 625 waterways, including vital habitat for salmon.

Poorer countries desperate for revenue often get trapped in debt, entering agreements that sacrifice their own resources and environment. Ecuador gets 19 per cent of its revenue from heavy crude oil sales. As drilling and sales increased, global markets allowed Ecuador to borrow against this perceived asset. Yet citizens of the country have no safe or running water, endure contaminated rivers, no sanitation, despite many living next to profitable drilling sites. After 30 years of oil extraction and devastation to the rainforest ecosystem, the human inhabitants are reported to suffer social, physical, and psychological damage.

For 10 years, Ecuador sought international help to prevent oil drilling in what may be the most biologically diverse place on the planet, Yasuní National Park, a 9,800-square-kilometre area containing more than 380 known species of fish and 590 identified bird species. This UNESCO Biosphere Reserve has, in one single hectare, more than 100,000 different insect species (more than all of North America), and in 2.5 acres it contains more tree species than the U.S. and Canada combined. The park is also home to two Waorani clans, whose traditional isolated lifestyle is threatened. But the promises of international relief didn’t materialize, and in May 2022, Ecuador’s president announced plans to double Ecuador’s oil production to one million barrels per day by 2025.

County council’s special meeting Monday on the shoreline preservation bylaw was disappointing on a number of fronts.

Dysart mayor Murray Fearrey and deputy mayor Walt McKechnie reiterated their intention to withdraw their township’s support of the bylaw. The previous council had already refused to delegate authority to the County.

A majority of Dysart council would have to officially endorse that plan of action. Pat Casey, Nancy Wood-Roberts, Tammy Donaldson, Carm Sawyer and Barry Boice could still have an impact on the outcome of Dysart’s buy-in, but we doubt they’ll disagree with Fearrey or McKechnie.

It’s disheartening because it would have been nice to have countywide consensus, regardless if it’s the County or lower-tier townships who put the boots to the ground on this bylaw. With Dysart having the most shoreline properties in the County, the teeth have been blunted somewhat.

Fearrey and McKechnie have their reasons.

Fearrey told the Jan. 30 meeting the bylaw does nothing to address historic, damaging activities on our shorelines, such as lawns to the water. He’s worried people doing basic things such as weeding on shoreline road allowances will, by bylaw, need permission. He’d prefer more public education, enhanced septic inspection programs, and real fines for violators, not the $930 wealthy landowners are now laughing at as they decimate natural flora and fauna. He thinks it’s too complicated and expensive and feels building and bylaw departments at the townships can take care of the problem.

Fearrey suggested policing could happen at the building permit stage. But, can it? Shoreline naturalization has never been the purview of building departments. And, with all due respect, surely all of those historic attacks on Dysart’s naturalized shorelines happened during the 40 years that Fearrey was the head of council. What will change now? He and McKechnie alluded to some plans they may have, but didn’t share them with their County colleagues, a bit like school kids covering their homework.

Don’t take it personal, Fearrey said. We love and want to protect our lakes. We’re just speaking up for the people of Dysart, McKechnie chimed in.

And, perhaps, that is part of the age-old problem. Mayors and deputy mayors of Algonquin Highlands, Highlands East, and Minden Hills are ready to move the needle. Now, they’re a bit scared it’s going to cost them more if Dysart opts out. Despite a services delivery review, I sniff some silos building back up. And that is a shame.

Coun. Jennifer Dailloux said the bylaw is very much a regulatory piece, and council can use a raft of other measures to address Fearrey and McKechnie’s concerns. She had hope.

Coun. Bob Carter publicly expressed the same disappointment as well.

After five years, countless hours of staff time, and a great deal of money, County councillors are now going to have to repeal the bylaw, and go back to their own councils to see if they remain onboard. Chances of a bylaw being online for the start of this building season seem slim. And, so, the bad apples will continue to flaunt the unwritten rules and regulations. The real losers from Monday’s meeting are our 600-plus lakes.

Who would have thought the revolution would begin on Maple Avenue in Haliburton village?

Hats off to SIRCH, whose repair café is shining a light on consumption run amok and providing a counterpoint that’s 100 per cent in tune with who we are as Highlanders.

Back after a pandemic-enforced break, the repair café is an opportunity for people to get their broken stuff fixed; volunteers skilled with screwdrivers and Super Glue will resuscitate our dead consumer goods.

Big business won’t be happy. Over the decades, manufacturers have baked in obsolescence with products that are hard to fix.

The results, as we reported last week, are showing up in our landfills. The amount of construction and demolition waste in Dysart, for example, has gone up 38 per cent in a year, helping to double our costs to haul it away to the lucky place, out of sight and mind, with a big enough hole to put it in.

Meanwhile, we run down to Costco or log in to Amazon and get the shiny new thing. Perhaps we like it that way. Buying new makes us smile; ripping out and building back bigger makes us feel we’ve accomplished something.

But what if we know deep down it doesn’t work like that, and so we have a sensation in our stomachs that something’s amiss?

The “right to repair” movement is gaining traction. Legislators in the United States have passed laws requiring manufacturers to make things fixable. Attempts at similar laws have been proposed at provincial and federal levels in Canada, but nothing significant has passed yet.

The movement is having an impact, however. The latest incarnation, for example, of Microsoft’s Surface Pro computer allows you to replace the battery – that’s one less laptop in the electronics bin and more money left in our pockets. Last month, John Deere relented to allow farmers in the U.S. to fix their own tractors.

The repair café is part of this movement.

But this is more than just a bunch of folks pushing a rock up the vertical mountain of materialism. Instead, it’s reframing what a good life means. It’s telling us a new story about what makes us happy.

And that’s where the Highlands can be a seed of revolution.

Haliburton County is a place where what we do for the community counts for more than the size of our house, where GoFundMe requests get met within days, where saying hello to friends on main street is more valuable than the latest iPhone.

Our future will be secured only when we realize a thriving community and environment is what makes us happy. That hanging out for 30 minutes while we learn to fix our broken reading glasses is more fun than adding a new pair to our shopping cart.

The Highlands gets it right. We can be a beacon for how a community could be. And we can begin to repair our broken world.

Zoomed Out is a new column that looks at the big picture – the stories behind the stories.

In 2022, oceans were the hottest ever recorded. More than 90 per cent of the heat that greenhouse gases trap ends up absorbed in the oceans. Because sea surface temperatures significantly influence global weather, the warming of the oceans is “supercharging” extreme weather. More moisture in the air from hurricanes and typhoons causes intense rains and flooding, but also larger and more rapid intensification of hurricanes. Until recently, colder water from deeper ocean layers would have tempered a hurricane’s escalation.

Research released by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this month show that the extreme weather events of 2022 were intensified by global warming and climate change. This international team of scientists said, “The Earth’s energy and water cycles have been profoundly altered due to the emission of greenhouse gases by human activities, driving pervasive changes in Earth’s climate system.” They added, “Measuring the oceans is the most accurate way of determining how out of balance our planet is.”

And they conclude that this warming of oceans, with its effects on weather and ocean life, will continue to increase unless we manage to reach net zero emissions.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
• Keep waste out of the water system. All water on Earth is connected. Water down the drain or run-off from the yard ends up in rivers and eventually into the ocean. Pesticides, fertilizers, cleaning products and other chemicals reduce oxygen in the oceans, killing sea life. Even manure in the garden contributes to algae blooms in water systems that disrupt the natural balance.

• Reduce pollutants by choosing non-toxic chemicals and disposing of chemicals properly.

• Use as little fertilizer as possible.

• Reduce waste by cutting down on packaging and what is thrown away. What ends up in the landfill contributes to global warming and leaches into groundwater. Garbage is also a hazard for marine animals that try to eat or become entangled in it.

• Be informed about seafood options. Choose from sustainable seafood guides and eco-friendly fisheries.

• Boat responsibly, adhering to speed limits and “no wake” zones. Anchor away from animal habitat and endangered vegetation.
• Strictly follow catch limits when fishing. Practice catch and release.

• Choose low-phosphate detergents and non-toxic cleaning products. See Consumer Reports’ Greener Choices. Baking soda and vinegar are options.

• Avoid souvenirs and jewellery made from marine animals or animal parts, including shells and especially coral.

• If you have a salt-water aquarium, ask where and how the animals you buy were collected. Look for evidence of aquatic stewardship in pet stores and ask for animals that were carefully harvested and well cared for. And never release an unwanted pet into the ocean or any waterway. Organisms that don’t belong can crowd out the locals and disrupt the ecosystem.

• Reduce your carbon footprint. All fossil fuels burned (oil, gas, coal) add carbon dioxide to the air and contribute to warming oceans, also increasing acidification that makes it hard for corals and clams to build skeletons and shells.

• Power down. Try drying laundry on a clothesline or rack. Walk, bike, carpool to work or school. Replace light bulbs and older appliances with newer, more efficient models.

• Switch sources from burning fossil fuels, whenever possible. There are subsidized alternative energy programs that may work for you.

• Teach your children about climate change. A fun, informative and interactive resource is found at: climatekids.nasa.gov.

• Preparation for climate change includes readying for heavy rains and potential floods. What are some things you can do to reduce property damage from high winds and heavy rains? What about planting trees to support soil and reduce mudslides?

The push is on for a CT scanner for Haliburton County.

County of Haliburton staff and councillors have been talking about it for a few months. And, on Monday, Haliburton Highlands Health Services (HHHS) waded into the conversation.

HHHS said it had planned to include the addition of a CT scan machine as part of its master planning process.

CAO Carolyn Plummer said HHHS knows the diagnostic tool would make a positive impact in the community, and is something Highlanders have wanted for some time.

HHHS said it’s taken steps to do a feasibility study, to determine if it’s possible to proceed now, rather than waiting for the master planning process to be completed.

We think the answer to that question is start now. Do the study to demonstrate whether a CT scan machine is feasible and put a full application in to the Ministry of Health.

The County’s director of emergency services, Tim Waite, and CAO Mike Rutter, would be more than happy to sit down with HHHS staff to work on a feasibility study and application.

For months, they have been telling council the same story. County ambulances are driving south daily to take patients for CT scans. While in other jurisdictions, such as the City of Kawartha Lakes and Peterborough, they are being called to 911 emergencies. In some cases, they are sitting outside Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay and Peterborough Regional Hospital waiting to discharge their patients due to long off-loading times.

Having a machine here would also mean people who have to take HHHS transportation or private vehicles for scans would not have to take half a day to do that – spending money out of County in the process.

It would hopefully mean quicker diagnoses, allow us to be a healthier community with screening and preventative medicine, and attract the health care workers we so desperately need.

County officials talked about how their recruitment efforts are being hampered by the lack of a CT scanner. New doctors, in particular, don’t want to come to areas where there isn’t one. The machine is akin to a blood test in today’s diagnostic world.

Plummer said it would be a long journey requiring strong community support.

We don’t doubt the community’s willingness to help out. After all, it raised the money to build two hospitals. It supports the HHHS Foundation.

We can’t express the same confidence in the ministry of health or Ontario government – which have landed Haliburton County and other rural and regional hospitals in the mess they are in.

For example, we find it unfathomable that the provincial government allows private agency nursing companies. Having them in our hospitals to cover for nursing shortages is costing HHHS an exorbitant amount of money every month. Further, it is creating tensions between HHHS nurses and agency nurses since the agency nurses are making at least double the money of permanent staff.

The provincial government should instead have a pool of its own nurses that it can make available to rural and regional hospitals – and urban ones if needed – when they go through staffing shortages to ensure wage equity.

But that is another battle for another day. For now, we encourage HHHS and the County of Haliburton to work together on finding out if we can get a CT scan machine, estimated to cost $2.5-3 million, figure out how to raise the money, and get going.

I recognize that Haliburton County Snowmobile Association president John Enright was joking when he said people should put white crayons in their freezers, wear their pyjamas inside out, and put spoons under their pillows, to bring snow to the Highlands.

And I respect that Sir Sam’s Ski/Ride owner Doug Wilkinson says the winter-yet-to-come is part of his industry, that he takes it in stride because there’s nothing he can do about it, and that it’s not all doom and gloom. He is staying optimistic.

I think Yours Outdoors owner Barrie Martin is the one hitting the proverbial nail on the head, when he says that in the longer-term, winter tourism is going to be an endangered species in Haliburton County due to climate change. He anticipates that, one day, we will have five months of November-like weather. He’s worried about the impact of climate change on winter tourism in the future.

And, from what County climate change co-ordinator Korey McKay has had to say in her reports over the past couple of years, he is right to be worried. All of us should be.

Let’s look at some excerpts for McKay’s report on our greenhouse gas inventory and climate projections.

• As the global average temperature increases, the County of Haliburton will see higher average temperatures and more extreme heat. The average annual temperature could increase by over 4°C toward the end of the century. Higher average temperatures will result in warmer summers and milder winters.

• Climate projections for our region from the Climate Atlas of Canada, based on a business-as-usual scenario where global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, would see the average winter temperature increase by 5.2°C toward the end of the century. We may see an additional 45 mm of winter precipitation toward the end of the century.

• The County is also predicted to see more variable weather conditions and extreme weather due to increased energy in the atmosphere from higher temperatures. This results in more storms, including ice storms, snowstorms, and thunderstorms.
While McKay’s report speaks to the end of the century, we are already seeing evidence of this climate change trend. We had the big dump at Christmas, followed by the big freeze in the early new year. As I sit to write this column, on Jan. 9 at 5:15 p.m., it is 0 C outside. There is a freezing rain warning.

When we further look at excerpts from McKay’s Corporate Climate Change Adaptation Plan, she comments that the impacts of increased temperatures will mean more mild winters that may lead to winter melts causing disruption to outdoor events and programming for winter-based recreation.

To this end, she suggests continuing to communicate weather dependency when planning for events that depend on snowpack and consider developing alternative programming for low snowpack conditions.

In other words, we are past putting crayons in freezers, wearing our pyjamas backwards and putting spoons under our pillows.
McKay says the impacts we will experience in the future depend on global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So, we are at the mercy of forces outside of our County. But, locally, it means those who plan traditional winter tourism activities in the Highlands have to plan ahead and pivot in future.