Loblaws Inc. set

to purchase co-op

Valu-Mart grocery

stores in Gore Bay

and Little Current

by Jim Moodie

MANITOULIN-The final parts of the Manitoulin Livestock Co-operative mini-empire are now on the verge of disposal, with transfer of the two Valu-Mart stores to Loblaws Inc. expected to be complete by the end of the month.

"We've been in negotiations with Loblaws for about a year, and are just waiting on getting the final red tape done," said John McNaughton, chair of the co-op board. "That will basically wind up the bulk of the co-op."

Last summer the co-op parted with its Manitowaning hardware and feed store, while its fuel division, Gore Bay hardware outlet, and Little Current stockyard all found buyers within the past few months. Once the grocery stores in Little Current and Gore Bay officially change hands, the long-running agriculture-based enterprise will be essentially defunct, save for the remaining task of settling up with members and creditors to whom money is owed.

"If things keep progressing, we should have all this done and hear back from our auditor by April 1," said Mr. McNaughton. "Then we can have an annual meeting and bring all the information forward to our members."

Those who have invested in the co-op "will get a percentage back" on money they've put in, said the co-op chair. The precise rate of return won't be known for a while yet, but "we should be able to give them a ballpark idea of the amount they're getting," he said.

The transition of the two grocery stores to the Loblaws chain shouldn't represent an appreciable shift in their operation, since "Loblaws, which owns National Grocers, has been our supplier all along," noted Mr. McNaughton. "Now the parent group is looking at purchasing our properties and stores to either run as a franchise or have someone operate for them."

Loblaw Companies Limited is the largest retailer in Canada, with over 1,690 supermarkets operating under a variety of regional banners, including the namesake Loblaws. National Grocers is a regional division of Loblaw based in southern Ontario. Galen Weston is the majority owner of the parent company.

An agreement in principle was signed with the retail giant "a long time ago," said Mr. McNaughton, but official transfer of ownership has awaited completion of legal fine points. Most of this delay has been "from their end," he said. "They want to make sure the legal part is iron clad."

The co-op chair couldn't speak to what changes may occur under the new ownership, but his assumption is that few job losses would occur, while service and selection would, if anything, improve. And since the supplier is the same, shoppers should be able to count on seeing many of the same brands on the shelves, such as President's Choice, for some time to come, while the Valu-Mart banner itself is likely to remain the same.

The board is pleased that all of its assets have found takers and is content with the prices it is getting for them, particularly with the economy now in a nosedive. "Our investors can be thankful we started this process when we did, because it wouldn't be so advantageous to us economically if we waited until now," noted Mr. McNaughton.

At one point in recent years it was recommended that the struggling co-op, crippled by market changes and an outstanding bill for its share of a pension shortfall, should simply declare bankruptcy, noted the board chair. That would have put people out of work and robbed members of the chance to recoup their investments.

Mr. McNaughton is proud that the organization was able to soldier on and find legitimate deals for its businesses. "It hasn't been a fire sale," Mr. McNaughton stressed. "Generally speaking, we're very pleased with what we've received."

The co-op is now a shadow of its former self, but will "exist on paper until the grocery stores are officially sold, as these are our last functioning enterprises," said the board chair. As well, there are a few "minor things" left to tidy up, such as the sale of some vehicles.

The co-op formed in 1944 with the inaugural cattle sale on Manitoulin and is now, after expanding to include a variety of stores and sideline businesses, packing it in at the appropriate retirement age of 65.

Asked if a wake would be in order to mark the demise of such a venerable Island institution, Mr. McNaughton said the board has been discussing how to properly acknowledge the end of the co-op era. "We will maybe do something special at the annual meeting," he said.

"We do want to recognize how big a player it was in the past," said Mr. McNaughton. "It's tough to see it go, but in many ways it's a relief, because we've been able to keep people employed and our investors can now get some money back."

Northeast Town council

puts foot down regarding

any further landfill sites

within town boundaries

by Lindsay Kelly

NORTHEAST TOWN-If the Island-Wide Waste Management Study determines that a new landfill is necessary to accommodate waste from across Manitoulin, the landfill won't be welcome in the Northeast Town.

That message was made explicit during a recent meeting at which council voted in favour of a motion that speaks against the development of another landfill within the town's limits as part of the ongoing study.

Marcel Gauthier, a representative who sits on the Island-Wide Waste Management Committee, said that the committee's goal has recently taken an unexpected turn that's in opposition from the group's original mandate.

"At last month's meeting, there was a change in the focus of the committee," Councillor Gauthier explained, noting that the group is now concerned with "finding a suitable site to have an Island-wide landfill."

The committee has identified 10 sites within the municipality that have been deemed suitable for the project; however, Councillor Gauthier objects to the idea of the Northeast Town being host to another landfill when it just opened its own landfill six years ago.

"I was a little put out when I heard about this, because we have a state-of-the-art landfill facility," he said. "We recycle, we have a lot of diversion, and we encourage residential composting."

The Northeast Town landfill's certificate of approval (C of A), which was secured in 2000, validated the facility for a 40-year life span, starting in 2003, the year the landfill began operating, the councillor noted.

The town's aim, however, is to adopt diversion techniques that would divert 60 percent of the municipality's waste away from the landfill, and so far the town has been doing a good job, he added.

"It's a very aggressive goal," Councillor Gauthier said. "We have curbside pickup in Ward 2 and we have bins at the landfill, and we encourage composting."

He also pointed to the initiative taken by landfill employees to put windows, lumber and other building materials aside for residents to use, in addition to the hazardous waste days held periodically to allow residents to drop off hazardous household products, such as paint and batteries, rather than put them in with regular landfill waste.

While the town has also studied the idea of composting at the landfill site, the cost incurred would be "just crazy," he said, making the option cost-prohibitive.

One other option introduced by the waste management committee is for the Northeast Town to accept garbage from the other municipalities, and the town would be compensated for this, Councillor Gauthier pointed out.

"We would take their garbage and they would pay us, but our C of A doesn't allow it," he said. "If it did, it would probably reduce the life of our landfill by 15 years, but I don't know for sure."

He suggested that the town make its preference known immediately, letting the committee know the town doesn't want a landfill and it doesn't want garbage from the other communities, so it can focus on other options.

He received support from Councillor Bill Koehler, who agreed the town should "lay our cards on the table."

"I'm certainly not in favour of us ever accepting other waste," he said. "We all know what we went through closing the other landfill."

However, Mayor Jim Stringer pointed out a few snags in the motion.

"This is all private property, and if the group is prepared to develop a landfill on private property, I'm not sure on what basis we can object to it being in our municipality," he noted.

He suggested that the municipality could be "opening a can of worms," since an objection from the municipality could open it up to complaints and investigation by the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB).

The mayor also noted that, at a cost of $400,000 per year, the operation of the landfill is a costly business, but the committee is offering a possible alternative that could assist the community.

"If we could maintain the life span and reduce the cost of operating the landfill, there could be a benefit to us," he said.

Councillor Jib Turner suggested the entire study was taking far too long to complete, suggesting he had seen a lot of "this type of activity," which he referred to as a "bait and switch operation."

"Why would they change the plan without coming back to any of us?" he asked, adding, "This is a complete setup in my mind."

The councillor said he believed that drawing out the study was simply a way to keep the consultants employed and that the work the municipality paid for when it opted into the study wasn't getting done in a timely fashion. "We spent that money five years ago and now they're bringing us information that we didn't ask for," he said.

Councillor Dawn Orr wondered whether the committee could even legitimately change the terms of reference from the original study at this stage.

Lake Manitou appears exempt

from new lake trout restrictions

by Jim Moodie

NORTHEAST ONTARIO-Regulatory changes are in the offing to reduce pressures on lake trout in the sprawling fishery zone that includes Manitoulin, but Lake Manitou anglers appear to be off the hook.

"I've made the case that Lake Manitou deserves special consideration," said Wayne Selinger, biologist with the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) in Espanola. "I've done an evaluation of Manitou and it's presently in fairly good shape for lake trout."

The same can't be said for other parts of Zone 10, the vast fisheries management area that extends from the French River in the southeast to as far north and west as Elk Lake and Wawa. Manitoulin was lumped into this zone last year and represents its southernmost precinct.

Between 2000 and 2005, the MNR conducted an assessment of lake trout across Northeastern Ontario, choosing 130 randomly selected lakes in the region that host the cold-water species, the bulk of which fell within Zone 10. And the results weren't promising.

"The bottom line is that only 32 percent of the trout lakes assessed were found to have a high abundance of the fish, and of these, nearly half were fished beyond an acceptable level," noted Mr. Selinger. "The report card for Zone 10 doesn't look encouraging, and something needs to be done to address that."

Lake Manitou, the Island's only lake to accommodate the species, makes for a dramatic exception to this general trend, however. "It's 10,000 hectares and far more productive," said Mr. Selinger. "It's kind of like a lake trout factory, would be one way to put it."

The big spring-fed lake benefits from warmer temperatures than the rest of the region, which translate into "higher growing degree days" for trout, said the biologist, as well as boasts a limestone base that "builds that further and drives lake trout growth and maturity."

All of the other lakes in the zone that support a lake trout fishery are in Canadian Shield country, and their concentrations of this popular sport fish aren't doing nearly so well. Sudbury lakes, in particular, are taking a big hit.

"The Sudbury area has the lowest quality lake trout lakes in Fisheries Management Zone 10," reads a fact sheet produced last month by the MNR. "Only 20 percent have good or healthy lake trout abundance and 53 percent are classified as degraded."

There are several reasons for this decline. "Acid damage is one factor, although many of these lakes are recovering," noted Mr. Selinger. "Obviously fishing pressure and harvest are part of it, as well as the spread of species like bass and rock bass that aren't typically a component of a lake-trout lake."

The introduction of bass generally occurs through "careless use of bait and unauthorized stocking," said Mr. Selinger. And about a quarter of the trout lakes in Zone 10 have now become colonized by bass species, according to the five-year study.

While some trout lakes can withstand the presence of such finny kin, others suffer from the competition, as bass gobble up a lot of the prey fish along the shore. "You can point to some lakes and say it hasn't made much difference, but it's kind of like Russian Roulette," said Mr. Selinger.

Other forces influencing the health of lake trout in the zone are water quality and climate change, noted the MNR biologist. "Lake trout like cold water, so if warming occurs they are going to get squeezed," he pointed out. "That's part of the need to act now, because these other things on the horizon will put even more pressure on the situation, so we have to cut back on angler take."

In looking at the information gathered by the MNR, members of the Zone 10 advisory council, which includes an Island representative, have recently agreed upon a series of management strategies to curb angler impact and preserve populations of this freshwater char, which is judged to be the second most popular sport fish in the zone.

Mr. Selinger wasn't in a position to discuss the specific recommendations, as their unveiling awaits an Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) posting for public comment, although he allowed that strategies to deal with overharvest almost necessarily involve an adjustment to one (or all) of the following: limits, size restrictions and season dates.

The Expositor has independently obtained a draft of the changes that are apt to be put on the table, the most striking of which is a proposal to reduce the winter fishing period by over a month, with the opening date for trout fishing delayed until February 15. That would affect every lake in the zone save Lake Manitou, which has been recognized for its higher rate of productivity and would preserve its January 1-September 30 season.

The one change that could impact Island anglers is the daily limit, which could be reduced from three fish per day to two.

Another strategy being proposed is to maintain similar seasons for put-and-take fisheries to deflect fishing impact from lakes where naturally reproducing trout are more vulnerable.

Lake Manitou has a combination of planted and naturally occurring lake trout. "It's not a put-and-take lake," stressed Mr. Selinger. "It's both stocked and has strong natural recruitment, so we're just supplementing what's there."

The stocking of lake trout in Manitou is currently following a "two years on, two years off" cycle, said the biologist, "so that we can see what the natural year classes will be."

In general, though, Manitoulin's largest and deepest lake has proven itself to be a virtual hot house for the species. "They grow faster and mature younger there," said Mr. Selinger. "Across the zone, they will reach 40 centimetres at age seven. In Manitou, they're only two or three years old when they reach 40 centimetres, and are mature at age four."

He attributes this speedy growth largely to the limestone environment, which has "innate productivity." To make the argument for Manitou's exemption from the proposed changes to lake trout regulations, the biologist compared dissolved solids in this lake (a key measure of productivity) to those of other lakes. "Manitou has over double the amount of the next best lake in the zone," he said.

In a paper he prepared on the status of Lake Manitou, Mr. Selinger writes, "Based on the analysis of some key parameters known to drive lake trout productivity and population dynamics, Lake Manitou very clearly resides outside the bounds of the (Zone 10) data set."

While the recommendations concerning the trout fishery-including Manitou's exemption from significant changes-await public review and ministerial sanction, Mr. Selinger is confident that the unique nature of this inland lake will be reflected in any future decision.

Manitoulin as a whole has already, along with the French River, earned a distinction within the broader zone as "specially designated waters," meaning there is an existing recognition that exceptions should be made for this area when it comes to management strategies.

If there is a risk to Manitoulin's unusually bounteous resource, it would likely be an increase in visits from off-Island anglers who find the opportunities for lake trout fishing scaled back in other areas of the zone.

In her own words...

Junior Citizen of the Year Eden Beaudin

writes about meeting Ontario's Lt. Governor

by Eden Beaudin

TORONTO-The day was beautiful out. Crisp, with the sun shining bright-and no snow! I travelled to Toronto on Monday, March 2. My family and I were hosted by the Ontario Community Newspaper Association (OCNA) and the corporate sponsor TD Canada Trust. We stayed at the Marriot Hotel at Yonge and Bloor Streets. The rooms were so nice, although there wasn't a swimming pool, but it was still very nice.

The next day all the families and junior citizens went to the first floor of the hotel where we had the first ceremony and lunch. We had a meet-and-greet luncheon. We were received by Dave Sykes, publisher of the Goderich Signal-Star, Abbas Homayed, president of the OCNA, and Anne Lannan and Lynn Fenton of the OCNA. I felt scared-I was the youngest one.

We watched a video about the junior citizens. There were 12 recipients. I felt nervous when my part came up in the movie clip. We all received bags of goodies. In the bags there was an Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year lapel pin, atlas, leather notebook, water bottle, a book called Elijah of Buxton-this was the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award winner-and a letter from Minister of Education Kathleen Wynn, and a cheque. This money will go towards the next Pegasus Literary Writing Award 2009.

After lunch we took a bus to Queen's Park. We were hosted by Ontario's lieutenant governor, the Honourable David C. Onley, for another presentation. We were to have a guided tour of Queen's Park but because we were running behind we had to skip this. I was looking forward to seeing this important building.

All the junior citizens were gathered into the office of the lieutenant governor before the ceremony where proper protocol was reviewed. We learned the proper way to address the lieutenant governor is "your honour."

We were received in the music room by our families, publishers, directors and the staff of OCNA, representatives from TD Canada Trust and guests. The recipients sat in the front row. Each recipient was called to the front to receive our award and another lapel pin from His Honour while a citation about our accomplishments was being read-I felt scared.

There was a professional photographer and we all got a picture with His Honour as well as a group picture.

While I was there, Mike Brown, member of provincial parliament for Algoma-Manitoulin, gave me a certificate-only me-to acknowledge and congratulate me. I was honoured to meet him because I got a congratulations card from him earlier.

The other junior citizens were impressive. Some had projects to help homeless people, doing drives to donate blankets, some have physical disabilities and are still to help their communities and benefits to help kids in places like India, pencils for kids in Niger, food drives, coaching and raising money for research. There was one other First Nations girl from Pikangikum; her name is Keerie Peters.

All young people can make a positive change in their neighbourhood. Even if it is a small change.

I was honoured to be invited to Queen's Park. Queen's Park has many works of art and lots of portraits and history. I also saw the history of our swing bridge. A little bit of our home in Queen's Park.

I am honoured to be part of this prestigious group of young people. I would like to thank everyone for supporting me. The trip was really fun!

r efforts to encourage literacy and writing amongst the youth of Manitoulin.

Post-Labour Day school start should be mandated

High school students and those who employ them during the summer months are this year being presented with a further complication. Because Labour Day, the first Monday in September, falls on its latest possible date (September 7) this year, school boards, including the Rainbow District School Board, have made the decision that the 2009-2010 school year will begin on Tuesday, September 1.

We're being dealt a double blow here: in the years when Labour Day occurs late in September (as it is this year) and school has begun the day following Labour Day, the final week before class starts has been a bonus week in regions like Manitoulin that depend heavily on tourism. Family vacations can be prolonged and students have an extra week of work.

It's hard to argue with the underlying principle as the Ministry of Education has mandated 194 instructional days in the school year, leaving it up to individual school boards to establish their own particular start and end dates.

The Rainbow District School Board, after wrestling with the issue, determined that it had no choice other than to begin the next academic year a full week before the Labour Day holiday. Other than the mandated instructional days, the academic year must include Christmas holidays, the week off at March break, professional development days and the other statutory holidays: Labour Day, Thanksgiving, the new Family Day, Good Friday, and Victoria Day as well as the non-stat holiday, Easter Monday (which is almost solely celebrated by schools and a few branches of the civil service).

The number of instructional days in schools in most provinces has been steadily increasing over the past two decades following the well-publicized observations that Canadian students, on average, scored behind their peers from nations in Europe and Asia where young people have more instructional days annually than was typical in our country. The goal has been to narrow this gap in terms of both achievement levels (especially in math and science) and days spent in school, based on the assumption that the two will vary in direct proportion.

That's the background.

In our particular case, the Rainbow School Board shares its school bus fleet among three other school authorities, most of them in the Sudbury region and none of them, except the Rainbow District School Board, operating on Manitoulin Island.

The majority rules and the Rainbow Board and its sister boards have jointly opted for the August 31 back-to-school date based at least in part on what most school board partners could agree to and then the corresponding impact that decision would have on the boards' transportation consortium.

Across Ontario, some school boards will make this same choice while others will find ways in which to compact the school year in such a way that mandatory teaching days, school holidays, statutory holidays and professional development days are reconciled with a post-Labour Day school start.

It will be a patchwork and it will not be good for tourism on Manitoulin, from any perspective, nor will the impact be positive on the tourism industry anywhere in Ontario.

The next year, 2010, will be pretty much the same thing: the first Monday in September, Labour Day, will fall on September 6, so the first day of school will in all likelihood be Monday, August 30. Another lost bonus week for Manitoulin, and Ontario tourism and for that extra week of student jobs that would have matched that extra pre-Labour Day week.

A few years ago, the Ontario Ministry of Education fixed the start and end dates of the Christmas break and established it as an absolute two-week holiday.

In the interest of this province's all-important tourist industry, the Ministry of Tourism must similarly mandate the start of the academic year as the day following the Labour Day holiday, at the same time giving school boards enough discretion so as to allow them to work all the pieces of the puzzle into a workable school year. This could include the reduction of teaching days for those school years that begin with a late Labour Day holiday.

In an era when our economy is going to require all the help it can get, the Ministry of Education must realize that it can exert indirect economic influence in this way.

Harper government bad news for reform on First Nations

To the Expositor:

I must say, I'm not enchanted with the Harper government's ideological approach to managing this nation's affairs-even when they have to hold their collective noses, and adopt economic models that the Reform faction of the CPC have been congenitally opposed to for all their political life. But the latest moves by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl makes me feel that they are just a bunch of cheap and narrow-minded hicks!

In two announcements in the last few days, Strahl has unilaterally announced plans to "transparently manage the way First Nations bands are funded," followed by a leak that the Conservatives have been withholding funds for badly needed Native school construction because "the communities were located in opposition ridings," government documents suggest.

An internal memo advising Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl of the situation caused a furor in the House of Commons on February 25, with Strahl being reprimanded for his personal attack on NDP critic MP Charlie Angus. An angry Strahl shouted that Angus "is a shameless self-promoter who will take publicity based on the backs of needy Aboriginal people." Commendations to Charlie Angus by the way, though I have to say, he is a one-man band whichever party he runs for, because I have seen no evidence that the rest of the NDP elected representatives like Carol Hughes have anything like his enthusiasm for championing First Nations causes!

"No real issue (about the school project), just sitting in an opposition riding," states a March 2008 memo from a senior Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) official in Toronto. The memo written by the Indian affairs department's Jean-Paul Fournier specifically notes that projects in Wabaseemoong, a small Manitoba Native community near the Ontario border, and North Spirit Lake in Northern Ontario, were ready to go: "No real issue, just sitting in an opposition riding."

Minister Strahl has an unenviable track record. In this portfolio, he cancelled funding for post-secondary education at a college on band land in Tyendinaga near Kingston. Fortunately, the province stepped in, thanks in part to lobbying by Brent St. Denis (while he was still our MP) and Mike Brown. Michael Bryant, then Ontario's Minister of Indian Affairs, found short-term funding to keep the college open, but this issue still sits constitutionally at Minister Strahl's door for long-term resolution.

Stephen Harper's government showed their true colours when they first came to power when they refused to acclaim the Kelowna Accord into law. This piece of legislation was, in my opinion, the best work of Prime Minister Martin's government, bringing together as it did all the constitutional players, federal, provincial and territorial governments and all the First Nations and Aboriginal leaders.

I believe this legislation could still (and should) be revived, should the CPC be finally run out of office and a Liberal government under Michael Ignatieff elected to lead this country.

But it will take heavy duty lobbying from ridings like this one-with a significant population of First Nations voters-to make this happen! As with any cause, dedication and hard work are the lubricant that greases the wheel.

Paul Darlaston

Kagawong

Grandma Dorothy will be missed

Resident mourns loss of Island's oldest resident

To the Expositor:

Recently, a wonderful lady, affectionately known to me as 'Grandma Dorothy,' passed away at Little Current's Centennial Manor. Grandma Dorothy Anstice was 106 years young! Although not a relative by blood, to me she was the closest thing to it. She was my cousin, Justine Russell Anstice's, mother-in-law. I enjoyed many visits to the Anstice farm in Tehkummah, where Grandma Dorothy, over tea and cookies, would love to talk of family and friends.

Six years ago my wife Candace and I were visiting the farm, and on the morning we were leaving, Grandma Dorothy asked if she could ride with us to the Sault to attend her son Ken's 80th birthday. I had a rough old '83 Dodge half-ton and told her if she didn't mind riding in the old truck, she was more than welcome. Through the Espanola hills, I looked over and asked her what she thought of the ride so far? With her hands on the dashboard and looking straight ahead, she said, "A horse used to pull me when I sat up on the buckboard. If I can ride that, I can ride anything!"

Grandma Dorothy was 100 years old when she took that memorable ride with us. I'll never forget that, and I'll never forget her!

Ron Pyette

Sault Ste. Marie
 

European Greens set example

Canadians should demand food safety vigilance

To the Expositor:

It's no coincidence that governments of the European Union, Germany, and Belgium lead the world in strict laws on bovine growth hormones, genetically modified seeds, and promoting green energy-or that these governments have had Green political representation for decades. If you want more of the same, then vote more of the same (or don't vote at all, as that also counts as a vote for more of the same). If you want laws that will protect our children's quality of life, air, water and soil, then help out the Green political movement. Bovine growth hormones are illegal in dairy in Canada, but have charges ever been laid on those producers who do use it? There's no warning on dairy products coming from the US, full of BGH. Growth hormones are common in Canadian beef and chicken, also not labelled. Growth hormones affect our children's development, and mess with the life cycles of other animals. As for the Ontario Liberals continuing their love affair with the nuclear industry, please support our local watchdog, Northwatch, to ensure the inevitable generators, incinerators, mines, processing plants, and 10,000-year lifespan dumps are built to the highest standards.

Sarah Hutchinson

Sandfield