The Haliburton Highlands Secondary School Red Hawks girls field hockey soared to the regional championships but lost in a tight-game after a shootout Oct. 22.
After a run to Central Ontario Secondary School Association (COSSA) championships, the team fell to the St. Peter’s Catholic Secondary School Saints in the semi-finals 1-0.
Coach Steve Smith said the team took the game to double overtime where they managed to score, but the goal was called back. A five-player-a-side shootout followed, which did not go Haliburton’s way. “The girls carried most of the play throughout the game. Unfortunately, we couldn’t put the ball into the net,” Smith said.
The team had a successful run to make it to COSSA, winning a pair of 1-0 games to take the Kawartha Championships Oct. 15. The team had to go to two extra 7.5 minute periods versus the Crestwood Mustangs in the final. Bella Smolden scored the eventual game-winner in the first period and the team successfully held onto the lead the rest of the way.
“Nerve-wracking,” Smith said about the Kawartha championships. “If I had hair, I would have pulled it out.”
Goaltender Danaya MacDuff, who had two shutouts at Kawarthas, said her team put up a strong defence in front of her.
“They’re doing really good. They have shown so much improvement,” MacDuff said.
Emma Casey, one of two co-captains, said communication was key to the team’s success. “We did a good job with communicating with each other, which is something we’ve been working at all season,” Casey said.
The team making it back to COSSA was a return to form after they lost at Kawarthas in 2018. The last time the team won at COSSA to make it to provincials was 2016.
Smith credited the program’s success to community support.
“It has a lot to do with our community members that come and help. With former players that come and help on their reading weeks,” Smith said. “The program is strong. It will continue to be strong as long as the league continues to be a league.
“We want to compete, we want to play well and we want the girls just to represent themselves really well.”
“We’re just a very good team,” MacDuff said. “I’m proud of all of them.”
County of Haliburton council decided not to declare a
climate emergency but still voted to recognize climate change and continue
efforts to combat it.
Council discussed the idea and voted Oct. 24 to
recognize that climate change is occurring and negatively impacting both global
and local economies, environments and species. The resolution also directed
staff to continue their work to address climate change, to encourage the public
to take similar actions and to commit to the ongoing consideration of declaring
a climate change emergency.
Warden Liz Danielsen said although she felt it was
important to make a statement about climate change, she felt an emergency
declaration would be premature because the municipality does not yet have a
plan in place.
“Making a declaration of some form of emergency – and
this is a huge one – normally, there’s a plan,” Danielsen said. “We’re not
there yet.”
More than 400 jurisdictions in Canada have declared a
climate change emergency, according to the website for the worldwide movement.
The aim is to build public awareness and mobilize resources of sufficient scale
to address the issue.
The county is working on a climate change mitigation
and adaption plan and has recently hired a new climate change co-ordinator to
oversee its creation.
Council members agreed with Danielsen.
“We often talk about taking time to ensure you have
the right words on the page for the right reasons,” Coun. Carol Moffatt said.
“We have a brand new employee we haven’t heard from yet. I support just waiting
a bit to hear from that person.”
Coun. Cec Ryall questioned the use of the word
“emergency,” which he said is usually for more sudden events.
“What we’re facing here is not that. We’re facing a
change of the way the world is going to be from this day forward. It’s never
going to go back to the way it was,” Ryall said. “I’m not as concerned using
the word emergency as I am about doing nothing about the situation. I think
what we need to do is show by example. Show by the actions we take.”
Those actions are well underway, according to municipal
staff. Director of public works Craig Douglas noted the county is taking on
other environmentally focused measures, such as shoreline preservation and
flood plain mapping.
“Across all five levels of government, we’re already
committing millions of dollars,” Coun. Brent Devolin said.
Environment Haliburton! pressed county council to make
the declaration. In a letter to councillors, the group’s board said the
declaration should be made and followed with a series of public engagement
sessions to explain climate science.
“A declaration of a climate change emergency, at the front end of the County’s climate change planning process, is key to building the kind of community support essential to producing and implementing a climate change plan that can actually make a difference,” the letter said.
Group president Susan Hay said they are disappointed by the council’s decision.
“However, we hope to hear a strong message from them in the near future, recognizing the crisis that climate change represents to our community,” Hay said.
Council indicated that the resolution does not mean an
emergency declaration won’t be made in the future.
“We’re not done. We’ve hardly started,” Devolin said.
“We’re going to do something.”
Developers, politicians and advocates gathered to find solutions to housing at a forum Oct. 18.
More than 30 people attended the event at the West Guilford Community Centre. The summit featured presentations and discussions about how organizations could work to address the lack of affordable housing in Haliburton.
Aging Well, CARP Chapter 54 and Places for People organized the event. Places for People vice president Fay Martin said it led to important conversations.
“Wherever you have people who don’t usually talk to each other, talking to each other, you usually get the ingredients for progress and I think we accomplished it,” Martin said.
One of the focal points of the day was a panel of mostly private developers talking about different projects they are working on in Haliburton county. Developer Bill Switzer discussed building a series of semi-detached housing units through a private-public partnership in Minden. He credited the efforts of the Minden Hills Housing Task Force for helping the development make progress. He said he hopes to finish it in three years.
“We hope that we will set up a formula that can be transported to other areas,” Switzer said. “It’s not that difficult to do, but people like me, you need a roadmap. And there is no roadmap right now on how to do this.”
Minden Hills Housing Task Force chair Bob Carter spoke about the difficulties posed by the lack of housing and said private developers are not focused on affordable developments.
“There’s not a line of developers who are waiting to come into Haliburton to build housing,” Carter said. “If we want this done, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”
The day wrapped up with a series of group discussions on what actions need to happen to implement different housing models.
“The conversation was very robust. People were not necessarily ready to stop,” Martin said. “There was a very good quality of engagement.”
Algonquin Highlands Mayor Carol Moffatt said she wants to keep the conversation going.
“There’s definitely a lot more housing being developed … but there remains huge gaps and hurdles, too much confusion, a wee bit of misinformation and definitely not enough options,” Moffatt said in a Facebook post. “We need to do better.”
Martin said she would like to see the summit lead to something in the vein of the Minden Hills Housing Task Force at the county-level. She further said the county needs to address development hurdles and incongruencies across the different townships.
“There needs to be someplace where people can talk about what’s happening, what needs to happen and being part of helping to make it happen,” Martin said. “Now would be a really good time to have those conversations and begin to harmonize those bylaws.”
As SIRCH Community Services executive director Gena Robertson spoke to a crowd of people helped by her organization over its 30 years, she reflected on its impact.
“Programs, groups, training and social enterprises all serve as a vehicle for people to positively impact other people,” Robertson said. “All those ripples from every positive action reach far beyond our program and far beyond the time it occurs in.”
Dozens of people impacted by SIRCH gathered Oct. 17 to reflect on and celebrate its 30th anniversary. People joined together at the Haliburton Community Funeral Home to recognize all of the social services SIRCH has offered.
SIRCH began in 1989 as a parent support program named the “Supportive Initiative for Residents in the County of Haliburton,” which was quickly shortened according to the charity. But Jim Blake, who has served as a SIRCH staff person, said another name was informally considered.
“Someone came up with the idea, why don’t we have it stand for ‘So it really can happen,” Blake said, via a pre-recorded interview played at the event. “A brilliant underpinning of what SIRCH is all about. If you think it and you believe in it and you put energy into it, it really can happen.”
SIRCH has kickstarted hundreds of programs over the years, from cooking training to kindergarten preparedness to parenting programs and many more. It also started other programs that it divested itself from, such as Volunteer Dental Outreach in 2011 and a community hospice program.
Liz Kerlie participated in the Community Action Program for Children, which provides services to families with young children. Kerlie said the programming SIRCH offered made a tremendous difference in her life and helped her towards a college degree.
“I can honestly say I would not be where I am today without the help of SIRCH,” Kerlie said. “Because of SIRCH, my future and my family’s future is exceptionally brighter.”
SIRCH board of directora president Barb Fawcett commended Robertson for her work.
“A young woman returned to the County she grew up in with the vision of making the community a better place for all,” Fawcett said. “We love you and are grateful always. You touch our lives and the lives of those who came to know SIRCH as a place of refuge, healing and strength.”
Robertson said she was humbled and grateful to hear people talk about what SIRCH has achieved. She credited its longevity to its flexibility in delivering programs.
“Our mandate enables us to go where we need to,” she said. “We’re not in a box.”
Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock voters are seeing blue
with a tinge of red after Monday’s federal election.
They convincingly re-elected Conservative incumbent
Jamie Schmale, who garnered 49.2 per cent of the vote. His nearest competitor
was the Liberals’ Judi Forbes, whose party will form a minority government when
Parliament resumes. Forbes had 25.9 per cent of the vote followed by the NDP’s
Barbara Doyle (14.7 per cent); Green Elizabeth Fraser (8.3 per cent) and the PPC’s
Gene Balfour (1.9 per cent).
“It just means that the parties will have to work together to keep Parliament going … and the confidence of the House,” Schmale said at the Cat and Fiddle in Lindsay Monday night.
He gathered with supporters
to watch the election results on CBC taking to the stage to speak to party
faithful when it became apparent he had been re-elected, although his party
fell short on the national stage.
Later, he told The
Highlander, “any piece of legislation now is going to have multi-party
support. In the last Parliament, there were lots of pieces of legislation that
got two, three, four party support, it’s not unusual.”
He said the Liberals will
have to be careful with confidence votes, such as the Speech from the Throne
and the budget. However, he does not anticipate those being torpedoed since the
public does not have an appetite for another election following a string of
federal, provincial and municipal elections.
“It will be a lot of give
and take and we will see who the dance partners are at the end of the day …
there are pros and cons to minority parliaments for sure … but Canadians expect
us to work together and that’s what we hope to do.”
Forbes told The
Highlander, “I’m delighted that the Liberals will be forming the next
government. We know that we need a progressive government in this country to
help move forward a lot of the great initiatives the Liberals have done over
the last four years.”
She said she was personally disappointed she “won’t be the champion and the voice for HKLB. I actually believed that this riding deserved to have a voice with the government that is in power.”
However, she said in adding
up the Liberal, NDP and Green support (a combined 48.9 per cent) “we do have a
very progressive riding … so that to me is heart-warming. I believe that this
riding really believes that we need to move forward in a progressive way.”
Doyle told The Highlander, “Everybody
says this riding will only ever stay blue – so what’s the point, right? But we want change so we fight.
SUBHEAD:
Affordability resonated with voters
“It just means
we have a lot more work to do. Really, we know that we need improvements in
this area and the Conservatives are not the ones to do it. So, we’re going to
keep holding them accountable, keep fighting them on a municipal level, on a
provincial level, a federal level, every level until we get everything the
people in this riding need.”
The Green Party nearly
doubled its vote from the last election, finishing with 8.3 per cent compared
to 2015’s 3.99 per cent.
Candidate Elizabeth Fraser
said it was higher than she was expecting and it “kind of warms my heart the
response the Green Party has had in this riding.”
For her personally, as a
Carleton University student running in a federal election, she said it was
“very challenging” and there were some rough patches but “overall it was a
really positive experience.”
She said she would consider
running again in future.
As for the party taking
three seats – its most ever – she wishes they’d done better since they had a
strong platform, candidates and campaign.
“There’s only so much you
can do. I’m actually really excited there will be minority government I am
looking forward to it.”
Schmale said he thought the
party platform of affordability resonated with HKLB voters. “It worked well at
the doors here. People’s heads started nodding and the pain was real.”
The second-term MP said
despite the riding being a Conservative stronghold, he and his team took
nothing for granted. He said they knocked on doors and made phone calls.
“The last four years as the
MP, I tried to get out to as many events as possible, making myself as visible,
as accessible, as possible and I think that mattered. That way I was able to
take the concerns that I was hearing on the ground to Ottawa and fight for
people there.”
He said it’s a formula he
will repeat, as well as “being the people’s voice in Ottawa, not the other way
around. Not being Ottawa’s voice to the people and so I think that is something
that is very important.”
Asked how long he sees
himself in office, Schmale replied, “I hope to keep doing it as long as the
people want me to serve. I guess we’ll re-evaluate eventually, but right now
it’s a great job. I love what I do. It’s an honour to serve.
Haliburton Highlands Secondary School celebrated and honoured its high achievers with its annual awards assembly Oct. 11.
More than 140 students from Grades 9-11 in 2018/19 were recognized through the honour roll and more than 60 individual awards. Students, donors, family and community members packed the school’s gymnasium to celebrate the occasion.
Principal Chris Boulay said students should take pride in their accomplishments and in reaching their goals.
“You’re to be congratulated for your hard work and your dedication to your studies,” Boulay told students. “Your achievements are vast … you all should be proud.”
Scholarship fund awards committee chair Melissa Stephens said the community had provided more than $45,000 to students across all grade levels for the 2018/19 school year.
“It’s nice to be able to give the money out to as many kids as possible,” Stephens said. “I’m just very thankful for the support from the community.”
The assembly is the end of months of work for the committee, starting around May, to prepare all the bursaries.
Stephens said the assembly is also a good opportunity to show new Grade 9 students what awards are available. She added it is a chance to remind graduating students to start applying for bursaries in their last year. The school hands out Grade 12 awards at the graduation ceremony in June.
“Any amount that we can give to graduates, especially to help them offset their costs as they’re going to school helps,” Stephens said. “A lot of kids don’t know that money is available.”
Stefan Solaris made the honour roll as a Grade 10 student and earned the John Tait Memorial Scholarship for the highest mark in the transportation technology course TTJ2O.
“I feel good. I feel proud,” Solaris said. “It’s a very good opportunity for the school, to receive these awards from people in our community.
“I like to prove that people in a small town can make it.”
The first draft of the County of Haliburton budget for 2020 sits at a 3.97 per cent levy increase.
CAO/clerk Mike Rutter said at an Oct. 11 all-day meeting that the budget “is very much a work in progress,” but he’s confident it will come in at a 3.5 to four per cent hike.
The first draft is seeking an additional $908,177 from 2019.
Rutter emphasized the county goal of sustainability, or “having the funds available to replace or repair the asset at the optimal time … this really has become part of our culture.”
During his presentation, he also commented that there were still a lot of unknowns, such as the extent of provincial government cuts, the results of grant applications and allocations, service review study recommendations, staff suggestions for cutting costs and relying on assessment growth assumptions of one per cent.
He said they had achieved sustainability in a number of areas, such as: physician financial incentives and recruitment; IT hardware; emergency medical services fleet and equipment; public access defibrillators, new housing units, LiDar and GIS; roads fleet; pavement preservation and broadband, resurfacing, bridges and culverts, hiring a climate change coordinator and tourism marketing.
There is still work to be done in the area of shoreline protection and reserve balances, he told county councillors. He also said staff were looking for direction on transit, since they have $50,000 put away but have not made any decisions. While they have hired a climate change staff person, there’ll need to be future direction on any plans. In the area of paramedic resources, he said they’ll likely need another car or shift as call volumes increase. He suspects there will be more needed in the broadband portfolio and decisions about economic development made.
Treasurer Elaine Taylor said staff goals and objectives include keeping tax increases as low as possible while providing efficient service delivery. She is also keen to enhance financial sustainability by focusing on long-term financial planning with an emphasis on zero-based budgeting. Taylor said they’d spent about 56 per cent of the levy as of Aug. 31, with about two-thirds on operating costs and one-third on capital.
“We expect to end the year on budget.” She noted Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF) funding has been decreasing, they’ve got over $1M from the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Fund for the Hawk Lake Road Bridge. They received $548,000 in gas tax money. Reserves are sitting at about $4.5 million. There’s also been talk of borrowing $3 million to put towards road works. In Taylor’s opinion, the 2020 budget pressures will come from the unknowns around OMPF; MPAC assessments; health unit costs; winter maintenance and social services and housing. Budget talks are continuing.
The $12.5 million Minden arena project saw its contingency fund plummet from the end of August to the end of September. Meanwhile, early details were released around a fundraising campaign for the building’s renewal at an Oct. 10 meeting.
Director of community services Mark Coleman said month-to-month, the contingency fund went from $298,811.15 to $137,024.04 – a drop of $161,787.11. A contingency fund is a reserve of money set aside to cover possible unforeseen future expenses.
He told council this largely stemmed from awarding some major contracts that will cost more than were anticipated. He said four to five key tenders had gone overbudget, such as for drywalling, light fixtures, window glazing, and flooring and tiling.
However, he added the project was “still on the good side of the ledger. September has been a big month for the project. Everything is progressing quite well.” He added there were no “alarm bells” on the part of the architect or builder.
McDonald Brothers (MBD) and Parkin Architects will be providing council with a look-ahead for the remainder of the project at a November committee of the whole meeting. Coleman said they were very close to finalizing most of the tenders.
Asked by Coun. Bob Carter for more specifics, Coleman said 90 per cent of tenders had been awarded in terms of dollars for the project.
Mayor Brent Devolin noted “earthworks almost buried us out of the gate” – $140,000 over-budget last April, but there are some anticipated savings as well, such as for landscaping.
Sneak peek in November
The arena fund raising committee has set a goal of $750,000 to put towards extras, or to offset costs. Coleman said they’ve come up with a hierarchy of donors with community founders at the top, then leaders, builders, sponsors and donors.
He said people could purchase a metre of the walking track; a square metre of ice; name rooms, donate cash, or specify cash towards identified items. He said the committee is also proposing events, such as dances, rides, charity hockey games and bringing in celebrities.
Coleman said all donors will be acknowledged on a wall of recognition and invited to official campaign ceremonies as well as the grand opening. “The wall of recognition will take the shape of a wall section centrally located within the main lobby of the new facility following the model hierarchy,” his written report to council said. “Other donor signage and plaque locations would be located appropriately throughout the facility.”
He estimated it would cost upwards of $40,000 to finance the fundraising campaign and for the donor wall, signage and plaques. Carter was uncomfortable with the concept of borrowing $40,000 from the township to offset the fundraising costs. He has always maintained that any costs related to the arena project should be accounted for within that project. He also suggested that any fundraising above the $750,000 should be used to offset project costs.
Coleman said the committee will launch the campaign on Nov. 26 at the Minden Community Centre, coinciding with a public sneak-peek and controlled walk through of the project site in partnership with MBC and Parkin Architects.
My voter information card arrived in the mail recently and is attached by magnet to the fridge. It’s a reminder to make sure I get out to vote today.
I get to cast my vote at the Mill Pond Restaurant in Carnarvon. I usually go to Zion United Church but because it’s up for sale, the owners couldn’t guarantee they would have a polling station on election day. I think it’s pretty cool I get to vote at my hunger hang-out.
Location aside, voting is never an easy prospect for me. First of all, I am a journalist. Since journalists are supposed to be non-partisan in their reporting, I always have an internal debate as to whether or not I should vote at all. By choosing a party, or candidate, am I showing a bias? Will it affect my coverage? Then, I feel guilty. People have died fighting for the privilege of voting around the world and so I feel I should exercise my democratic right.
Growing up in Sudbury, the daughter of a steelworker, my early voting patterns were modelled on that of my parents, so without a great deal of thought I habitually marked down the NDP on my ballot.
Since then, I have opted for other parties over the years – at both the federal and provincial level – generally basing my decision on what the party stands for, asking if their values match my own. It’s the same with candidates. Do they reflect the values I hold near and dear to my heart?
This weekend, I took one of those online quizzes to see how things were looking this time around. I went with I Side With … since it had an extensive 2019 political quiz tackling everything from housing, to foreign policy, healthcare, crime, the economy, immigration, the environment, education, social issues, science, domestic policy, transportation, electoral and local issues. I won’t share my results, for obvious reasons, but I wasn’t overly surprised at the outcome.
The federal election also naturally came up at a social function or two over the weekend. We talked about the nuance between local candidates and national parties. For example, the people we were visiting with were impressed by Green Party leader Elizabeth May but were fairly confident her local candidate, Elizabeth Fraser, would not be elected.
Others said they liked incumbent Conservative Jamie Schmale, but they were not convinced by the Conservative platform this time around.
The age-old question of voting for candidate or party was bandied about. Others said none of it mattered since they thought Schmale would get in anyway, regardless of who else is running.
That was countered with a vote for Fraser, which would show support for the Greens and their environmental stance.
At the end of the day, voting is a very personal thing. Your choice does reflect who you are and what you believe in and sometimes it does involve factoring in how to make that vote strategic.
All that really matters is that you do vote. I’ll be heading to the Mill Pond Restaurant Monday and instead of ordering my usual breakfast special, I’ll be exercising my democratic right to choose who I want to see lead Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock and Canada through the next four years. I encourage you to do so, too.
Local elementary teachers held a strike vote Oct. 16 in the
wake of stalled negotiations between their central bargaining unit and the
province.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), which
represents teachers, occasional teachers and designated early childhood
educators, has called on its locals to hold strike votes across the province amid
collective agreement negotiations with the provincial government, the Ontario
Public School Boards’ Association and the Council of Trustees’ Associations.
The ETFO also filed for a conciliation officer to help the process Oct. 16 and
said negotiations have come to a “virtual standstill.”
Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) teacher
local president Karen Bratina said more than 650 people attended the local
strike vote, where they were provided information about the bargaining process.
The results will not be disclosed until November after all the ETFO locals have
voted.
“I’m very confident that teachers at Trillium Lakelands will
have given a strong mandate,” Bratina said.
The ETFO collective agreements expired Aug. 31. ETFO said in
an Oct. 16 press release that the province seeks up to 2.5 per cent spending
reduction in the education sector. As part of that, ETFO said the province
wants teachers and occasional teachers to agree to up to $150 million in
collective agreement strips.
“I would say that is the greatest threat to our world-class
education in Ontario, the cuts,” Bratina said.
Another issue Bratina identified is increasing violence
against teachers. A University of Ottawa study found 54 per cent of elementary educators
reported they experienced physical violence in the 2017-18 school year.
“The violence in our schools continues to grow because there’s
a lack of supports,” Bratina said.
The Ministry of Education could not be reached before press
time.
Local bargaining between TLDSB and its teachers will also
soon take place and will not await central bargaining, Bratina said. She added teachers
are circulating a survey to create a preliminary submission, which will be
presented to TLDSB in November.
Bratina said she could not predict how local bargaining will
play out.
“It’s my hope that locally, we will be able to come to a
fair agreement,” she said. “Like central bargaining, locally we just want what’s
best for our members.”
