A poisoned Red-tailed hawk – in care at Woodlands Wildlife Sanctuary in Minden Hills – has resulted in renewed calls for Minden Hills and other County townships to ban the use of rodenticides.

While the hawk was found in distress in Havelock, Allison Hansen of Minden, who is co-founder and campaign director for Rodenticide Free Ontario (RFO), said “this is happening with increasing frequency.”

Hewson made a delegation to Minden Hills council in January of 2023. She warned them about the dangers of the poisons and asked for a ban. Council voted to have staff put together a report and bring it back to council. However, that did not happen. Hansen said her dog died after ingesting a poisoned mouse.

“Other municipalities I have engaged have acted faster and been more responsive in recognizing that these poisons are inhumane, dangerous and ineffective,” she said.

Hansen said RFO is a small, grassroots organization of people who have dealt with personal cases of rodenticide poisonings and are working to move reform to protect people, wildlife, companion animals and the environment from rodenticides. She says they have helped municipalities move forward with their own rodenticide-free initiatives.

The hawk at WWS has been named Slater.

Woodlife Wildlife Sanctuary said the hawk was found on the side of the road, “barely able to stand.” A volunteer driver and her husband answered their call for a ride and brought him to the sanctuary as quickly as possible.

“The hawk was starved for sure, but his behaviour indicated there was more to the story. Normally, we would surmise that he had been clipped by a car, and had head trauma. But there were no signs of that,” WWS’s Monika Melichar said.

They gave him fluids, placed him in a warm incubator as he was still chilled, and watched for signs to tell them what was ailing him. When he defecated, there were symptoms of internal bleeding.

With the help of Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, Melichar said they were able to confirm he had been poisoned, most likely from a mouse dying from rodenticide-laced bait.

“Immediately, we started him on a Vit K protocol to bind and help flush the toxin out of his body. We can only hope that we’re not too late to save him,” Melichar said.

“Indirect rodenticide poisoning of our wildlife is happening all the time, but we just don’t see it. Many of these affected animals die a quick, yet painful death, out of sight and out of mind of the people that wish to rid their premises of rodents. Sadly, these deadly toxins spread out across the environment, like ripples in the water, and poison not just the targeted animal, but those that prey on them. One infected mouse can harm a mink, that can then harm a fox, and then a vulture, and on and on,” Melichar said.

She added it’s because the toxin can remain in the body for a very long time, and accumulate, until it is too much for the wild animal to handle. “The levels reach a critical point and then it’s all downhill from there.”

Melichar said they are determined to save the hawk, and are encouraged by even his slightest improvements. As of Oct. 23, she said Slater was on the mend.

“He’s standing more often and was able to keep down some solid food. It will be a long haul for him to completely rid his body of this deadly toxin, but we’ll do our best to pull him through.”

For more information on keeping rodenticides out of the environment, go to rodenticidefree.ca. To donate towards Slater’s care, go to woodlandswildlifesanctuary.ca/donate.

As Remembrance Day approaches, Irondale resident George Simmons reflects on stories he heard from his father, George Sr., a gunner in the sixth anti-tank regiment during the Second World War.

“He talked about the war quite a bit – mostly the hidden stuff that other people didn’t talk about… the shock of seeing Juno Beach. He could see all the dead and wounded on the front,” Simmons said. “What he saw stuck with him for the rest of his life.”

The elder Simmons was the inspiration behind a heartfelt memorial now in its third year. ‘Service, Courage, and Sacrifice’ commemorates known veterans from the First and Second World Wars and all other conflicts since, with photos, names, birth dates, and corps emblazoned on large flags, which, from Nov. 2 to 11, will be on display at the Irondale Church.

Simmons partnered with the Irondale Historical Society on the project, with his sister-in-law, Carol, taking an active role. They launched with 40 flags in 2022. This year, there will be 56 military personnel honoured.

“It’s for people that served in the war in some way, shape, or form, and has a tie to Irondale,” Carol said. “The people don’t need to have been born here, or even lived here. We’ve got cottagers that have been coming here for generations who had family that served. Some of them are included. Some are relatives or close contacts of people who live here. I put my grandfather on and he never set foot in Irondale.

“We feel it’s important to honour all who made the incredible sacrifice [to enlist],” she added.

George said his dad enlisted April 1, 1942 and was originally stationed, and trained, in Petawawa. When he got word he was going to Europe, George Sr. travelled first by bus to Montreal, then train to Halifax, and finally on the Queen Mary to England.

His dad would have been one of 20,000 soldiers on the boat, which famously took British prime minister Winston Churchill across the Atlantic three times during the war effort.

George Sr. was present during the D-Day landings and pushed further in-land. George isn’t sure where his father ended up, but heard about an encounter with a German soldier, who was taken as a prisoner of war. Simmons’ father confiscated film from the captive, which contained horrific images of fallen Allied soldiers.

“That was the thing that stuck with him most,” George said.

His dad was in Europe for the German Instrument of Surrender, on May 8, 1945, and was discharged from service a month later. When he returned home, the elder Simmons went to work for his father – also called George – who owned a sawmill in the community.

Simmons felt initiatives like this are important, so that newer generations can learn about the sacrifices of their ancestors.

“Those guys are almost gone. I don’t want what they did to be forgotten. I think the stories need to live on,” Simmons said. “One big remark we’ve got since starting this, is how we’re putting faces to the people. These are Irondale’s biggest heroes and deserve to be recognized.”

The flags will be in place at the church for 10 days – the parish will be open, too, with war-era antiques and family heirlooms on display. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

On Nov. 3 at 1 p.m. there will be a presentation from Belinda Wilson, who participated in a 15-day pilgrimage across northern Europe in 2013, visiting battlefields in France and Belgium where thousands of Canadian soldiers fought and died.

After seeing how popular the initiative has been in Irondale, Carol is encouraging other townships in the area to do something similar. She’s also urging people with ties to the community, who have had family serve, to reach out and have their loved ones featured in next year’s event.

Families are asked to contribute $50 – which covers a large flag, kept by the society, and miniature versions they can take home. Anyone interested can reach out to historical@irondaleontario.ca.

“By doing this, I think we’re bringing history alive a little bit. We’ve had multiple generations come and have their picture taken with flags, which is really nice. Little kids coming and learning about what great grandpa did. It’s emotional for lots of families,” Carol said.

With the rollout of the Canada Dental Care Plan (CDCP), Volunteer Dental Outreach (VDO) has announced changes for its Haliburton clinic effective Jan. 1, 2025.

The CDCP is a federally-delivered public plan designed to help ease financial barriers to accessing oral health care for up to nine million uninsured Canadian residents. They are assisting people with an adjusted family net income of less than $90,000 and no co-payments for those under $70,000.

The program has been accepting applications from seniors 65-plus, people with valid disability tax credit certificates, and children under 18-years-old. In 2025, all remaining eligible Canadian resident can apply.

The VDO board recently issued a media release saying that in response to the evolving landscape of dental care in Canada, they are adjusting their services to better meet community needs.

“With the federal government’s continuing rollout of the CDCP, many low-income residents in Haliburton County will now have wide access to affordable dental care, resulting in a decreased patient load at VDO.”

In the new year, VDO will no longer provide dental care through the Ontario Seniors Dental Care Program.

VDO president Bill Kerr said in an interview that people 65 and up represent about one-third of the work VDO does, so, “a third of everything is disappearing as of the beginning of January.”

He added, “our policy has always been we look after the dental needs of people in Haliburton County that have nowhere else to go, and we don’t want to be taking patients away from other practices that are operating, and the majority of the patients that qualify for VDO are now qualifying for the federal program.”

However, the board stressed that VDO will remain open to provide care to those County residents who do not qualify for the CDCP, and meet the VDOs qualifications. Basically, they look at household income, the number of people living off of that household income, then household expenses to make a decision.

The board said in light of the changes, they are also suspending the 2025 Lisa Kerr Memorial Golf Tournament fundraising event. The board said it would assess community needs before making further decisions.

They don’t know what impact rolling out the federal program to all age groups will mean next year. Kerr said the original plan by the end of 2025 was to have everybody covered.

Kerr said that, overall, what is happening is good news. “

I thoroughly enjoy doing dentistry for free for people that can’t afford it. But if there are other opportunities, I’m quite comfortable doing other things, it’s not something I need to do. If they roll out the way they say they’re going to roll it out, we anticipate the amount of appointment time, the amount of patient time, to continue to reduce.”

However, it’s still a wait-and-see for VDO as a Liberal federal election defeat could change the playing field once again.

In the meantime, they have taught people about how to qualify for CDCP and to apply for it.

He also thinks his late wife, Lisa Kerr, would be pleased with the direction dental care is going.

“Lisa is going to love that there is access to care because she was the one that would drive to someone’s house and pick them up if they didn’t have a ride. She was all about looking after people. It was all of our dreams that one day the government would step up and look after the people that needed it the most.”

After a frustrating meeting with representatives of the Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) last week, Dysart et al and Minden Hills mayors, Murray Fearrey and Bob Carter, said they will now take a school busing issue to the province.

Fearrey and Carter said they were told the new busing rules – stating elementary-aged students living within 1.6 kilometres of school, and high school students within 3.2 kilometres, aren’t eligible to be bused – were set by the Ministry of Education a few years ago.

Carter said, “each board put them into place over a period of time but they hadn’t gotten to Haliburton and Minden yet. This is the year they got to it.”

Carter and Fearrey are worried about the danger of children walking country roads, particularly as Daylight Saving Time ends Nov. 3, bringing darkness in the morning and evening.

The Minden Hills mayor said the board representatives said they sent staff to drive Highlands’ roads, but were not concerned.

“We suggested that perhaps the roads in July and in January are different, but that didn’t phase them too much,” Carter said.

“They gave us some examples of new areas in Huntsville, but it’s a lot different walking on a street that has no sidewalks in a subdivision in the middle of a city, as opposed to Hwy. 118, or Bobcaygeon Road, or CRD. 121.” He said the reps rebutted they have a school in Kirkfield, and in other rural areas.

Fearrey said he could not understand the answers, and while trustees are “honest and good” people he feels they rubber stamped an administrative decision.

Carter added TLDSB indicated they had only two public complaints. He asked whom people should contact if not happy and was told Patricia Hayward, transportation services supervisor, and Tim Ellis, superintendent of business services.

Carter said he was “shocked by the nonchalance” of the responses given, particularly after driving the roads children are now walking. “There’s a lot of dangerous roads that don’t even have shoulders.”

Fearrey said he was “annoyed” and “I just can’t believe the process.”

The Minden Hills mayor added townships such as Minden and Dysart can’t suddenly build sidewalks, hire crossing guards, and install flashing lights as they are expensive. Nor does he know where they would put crossing guards. In Minden, he said there are quirky areas in front of the post office, at Bobcaygeon Road and Water Street, and at Bobcaygeon and Deep Bay roads.

Fearrey said they cannot do maintenance to offset the changes as, “we can hardly afford what we’re doing now. We can’t start trying to get out before the buses, or before the children walk to and from school, we only run the plows one time a day.”

Carter said, “these kids are going to be going to school in the dark. If it’s snowing, we will have plows, we will have icy roads. It’s not like we can put out some cones, and put a sidewalk or a protected area in place, because some of these roads aren’t even wide enough for two cars.

“I don’t want this to be another one where the province reduces services in a department and then turns to the municipality to pick up the slack. They don’t raise taxes but make us raise taxes to pay for these things we are really not set up to do.”

He added not all families have a second car for driving kids to school, and in some cases, parents have to be at work before school starts, and after school ends.

Fearrey said on Oct. 18, he would be contacting MPP Laurie Scott about the situation. The two mayors will also be pushing to have a delegation at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) conference in Toronto in January.

“The ministry of education can’t do a one rule fits all scenario, particularly when talking rural Ontario, this is ludicrous,” Carter said.

Fearrey said he told TLDSB, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an accident here because you can’t walk on some of these roads in the winter.”

Minden Hills mayor Bob Carter is on the board of Habitat for Humanity Peterborough and Kawartha Region, and also sits on the board of Kawartha Lakes Haliburton Housing Corporation.

The housing advocate will be attending the Oct. 24 housing summit in Minden.

Updating The Highlander on some initiatives to date, he said the County is looking into communal servicing for water and septic.

Following County of Frontenac director of economic development and planning Joe Gallivan’s delegation to County council in September 2023, Carter said the upper-tier government has been looking into communal servicing with director of economic development and tourism, Scott Ovell, working behind the scenes.

“I think in the next couple of months, you’ll see it. There’s lots of legal issues setting it [a municipal services corporation to oversee communal servicing] up, towns have to own it, but we’ve been doing the research at the County so we’re very much going to do that.”

Carter said Ovell had been following along with Frontenac County and the issues they’ve had getting the Frontenac MSC set up.

“We want to make sure it’s set up once, and good,” Carter said.

As for housing strides being made in the Town of Collingwood, Carter said he believes one problem in Haliburton County and Minden Hills is they have no strategic plan.

“We really need to decide what we want to be when we grow up, like how much growth we want to have, where we want to have growth and so on.”

He conceded housing has been the most frustrating portfolio since he has become a local politician, now into his sixth year.

“The only way you’re going to be able to get anything supportable is through densification. You’ve got to be building up. People aren’t necessarily going to want that, but we don’t really have much of a choice.”

He said Collingwood has more available land, and a much larger tax base.

In the Highlands, he said, “we’ve got all sorts of projects that people are planning, and have talked to us about, we’ve done pre-consultations, but bringing it to fruition is really difficult. There’s no money coming from the government.”

Speaking to the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus 7-in-7 initiative, he said another problem is having shovel-ready projects ready when the government advertises funding with short notice.

The EOWC’s 7-in-7 regional housing plan proposes building at least 7,000 community rental units over seven years across the region to address wait lists. Using a mixed-model approach, the 7-in-7 plan was designed to bring on nearly 21,000 additional market rate units. This would total 28,000 housing units.

The plan requires partnering with the federal and provincial government, as well as the private and non-profit sectors, and Indigenous partners.

Carter said he and fellow Habitat and KLH Housing board member Fay Martin plan to meet with the Frontenac and Collingwood staffers after the summit.

“They’re (Collingwood) looking at lots in a city you can put a house on, in ones and twos, but I’m more interested in 30-40-50s.” He said he’s been told by some people that 100 houses wouldn’t sell but “the numbers are huge in what you can potentially sell. Having some on the market would make it easier for employers to recruit.”

He noted Habitat for Humanity is working on three or four projects in the County, including the Wee Care property in Haliburton. They take time, with environment assessments and geotechnical work.

“There’s lots going on… but even after you go through that, you have to bring it to fruition by hopefully having enough money.”