Municipalities concerned about chemical spraying request meeting with Hydro One

Garlon 4 herbicide concerns intensified by threat of Garlon Extra

by Tom Sasvari

MINDEMOYA-The Manitoulin Municipal Association (MMA) is going to convene a meeting of Island municipalities, Hydro One and the Lake Manitou Area Association (LMAA), regarding concerns raised about the use of the Garlon 4 pesticides on Hydro's rights of way.

"I'd asked this letter from the LMAA be sent to the MMA, as our council (Central Manitoulin) as well as Assiginack Township (Council) had received a copy of the letter," said Richard Stephens, reeve of Central Manitoulin Township. "My concern is before we take a position on this issue, we should have an Island-wide perspective on this first, rather than doing this piecemeal. As individual municipalities we would not be a big enough group to call for the need for a review of the proposal."

Brenda Reid, an Assiginack Township councillor, pointed out her council had heard a presentation from a representative of the LMAA two weeks ago. "We are not allowing this pesticide (Garlon 4) to be used on our municipal lands. But, this pesticide can still be used on private property with specific permission being given by landowners."

"They have used this pesticide (Garlon 4) on right aways, but are now upgrading this to Garlon Extra (a stronger pesticide)," said Ms. Reid.

In the letter from the LMAA to both Central and Assiginack councils it is pointed out, "On behalf of the executive and members of the Lake Manitou Area Association (LMAA) I would like to reinforce our organization's stand against the use of pesticides, for example, Garlon 4, on Hydro rights of way which could leach into groundwater entering Lake Manitou or its tributary streams," said Paul Moffat, vice-president of LMAA.

"This was brought to your attention at an earlier date and we wish to reaffirm our organization's continuing policy of maintaining the water quality in our lake in as pristine condition as is possible," said Mr. Moffat. "This is only possible with the aid of the municipal governments that have jurisdiction of the lands surrounding Lake Manitou."

"Maybe it would be a good forum to have all the parties meet together to discuss this issue," suggested Mr. Stephens. "I think we need both groups together at one meeting, so there can be some interaction, questions and answers provided," said Mr. Stephens.

The MMA passed a motion requesting both Hydro One and LMAA representatives attend a meeting being convened by the MMA to discuss the concerns.

Proposed air charter going online to gauge local level of support

by Lindsay Kelly

MANITOULIN-The initiative to bring charter flight service to Manitoulin is moving ahead, with plans to set up a website and embark on a marketing campaign to spread the word about the prospective service.

Last week, a sub-committee of the Manitoulin Chamber of Commerce met with Wayne Munro, who is helping to spearhead the venture, to hear the latest update on the proposal to set up charter flight service between the Gore Bay-Manitoulin and Manitoulin East Municipal airports, and Toronto's Buttonville Airport.

After recently meeting with representatives of Sky Medical, the company proposing to provide the service, Mr. Munro said he is increasingly impressed with the company and its plans for expansion onto Manitoulin. "I had a really good meeting with Sky Medical," he reported. "They're very dedicated to this project."

The company works out of a full-sized hangar at Buttonville, with mechanics on staff, in addition to having a two-storey office space; the company offices operate out of the upper level, while plans are in the works to set up a passenger lounge on the main floor.

There is also a secure parking area on site where passengers can leave their vehicles locked up while away, and there are numerous transportation options for people arriving in Toronto from Manitoulin. Sky Medical has a van dedicated to transporting passengers between destinations, including hotels, car rental agencies, and subway and GO Transit stations, Mr. Munro noted.

The next step for the project, he said, is to generate interest amongst potential passengers who might use the service, and the fastest and most wide-reaching option is to set up a website. Ideally, the website would not only have information about the company, but also links to other Manitoulin agencies, like the chamber, the Manitoulin Tourism Association and local businesses.

If enough interest is shown within the next month, "we can probably get a few flights in over the Christmas period," Mr. Munro said. "Especially with the weather at Christmastime, a lot of people don't want to drive."

Essential to the success of the initiative is interest from passengers and other local organizations and businesses. Chamber vice-president Marg Jones, who operates Blue Bird Bed and Breakfast, suggested that destination packages could even be set up by working with local business owners. "I think if we get together with them, we can probably put some nice packages together," she said.

Mr. Munro also suggested contacting some of the larger companies on and off the Island to determine if they would be interested in the service.

If enough interest is shown, Mr. Munro anticipates there could be a "fairly regular Friday-Sunday schedule," on either a four- or six-seater plane, depending on demand. Sky Medical would determine the flight schedule and bookings, but "the plane has got to be full" for passengers to get the low-$400 ticket cost currently being quoted by Sky Medical.

Ideally, the website would include a list of passengers who have already signed up for flights, and other passengers would be able to sign on to those same flights to help fill up the plane.

The chamber expects to have the website up and running within a few weeks, following which they hope to embark on a print and radio advertising campaign. "I really think we can get this going really quickly, especially with Christmas coming," Mr. Munro said. "But we need to advertise now."

Chamber past president Owen Legge encouraged local organizations to get involved and work together on the project, suggesting that everyone can benefit by boosting tourism across the Island. "This is one area where we can all fit together to make one good organization to get this happening," he said.

Potential passengers interested in accessing the charter flight service on Manitoulin are asked to contact the Chamber of Commerce at 377-7501 or office@manitoulinchamber.com.

Island deer hunters asked to participate in MNR's chronic wasting disease survey

by Jim Moodie

MANITOULIN-Hunters on Manitoulin this November will be asked to participate in monitoring for chronic wasting disease (CWD), a degenerative brain condition lethal to deer that is similar to the bovine scourge colloquially called "mad cow."

An animal infected with CWD will become emaciated, get "the staggers," and eventually die.

"We began testing for this experimentally in Meaford in 2002, and across the province beginning in 2003," explained Tore Buchanan, senior technician with the Wildlife Research and Development Section of the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR).

The MNR focussed initially on areas deemed most vulnerable to an infection, "based on proximity to areas with CWD, densities of deer populations, and number of deer farms," said Mr. Buchanan, and has gradually expanded the monitoring program to include other parts of Ontario.

This will be the first time Manitoulin's deer are sampled for the disease. Other areas included in the 2008 study include Cockburn Island, Espanola, Sudbury and Parry Sound.

Hunters will be approached in the field by ministry researchers and asked to allow a tissue sample to be taken from the head of a harvested animal. "We will have four crews, with two in each crew, covering the Island," said Mr. Buchanan. As well, hunters leaving Manitoulin will encounter CWD technicians at a check station set up in Espanola.

"We've taken 48,000 samples so far in Ontario, and our goal is to get another 500 from each of the zones we're testing this year," he said.

For purposes of CWD monitoring, the province has been broken up into 14 zones, of which Manitoulin is one. Since over 1,000 deer were checked (for other health determinants, like weight and antler growth) in Espanola when the MNR last set up a station, Mr. Buchanan is confident his team will collect the required number of samples.

Only adult deer will be tested for CWD, he noted, as the disease "has a long incubation period and rarely shows up in fawns."

Hunters need only part with a small amount of tissue from the cranium of their carcass, which will not prevent them from mounting the head or consuming the meat, although many hunters may wish to await the results of the test before they dine on the venison.

While CWD is unlikely to show up in the Island herd, and isn't believed to be transmissible to humans, Mr. Buchanan said that consumption of an animal found to be contaminated with the disease is "not recommended."

Hunters who provide samples for the study will receive a participation crest, as well as a number that will allow them to find out whether or not their deer passed the screening. "They can go on the Internet and check the result for that specific animal," said Mr. Buchanan. "It's highly unlikely (the disease) is here yet, but they can hold off eating the deer until they find out."

Those not contacted by the roving crews or approached at the check station can still contribute to the CWD study by dropping off the heads of their animals at one of two freezer locations established by the MNR on Manitoulin: Bridal Veil Esso in Kagawong, and the Blue Jay Creek Fish Culture Station in Tehkummah.

These sites are already set up to receive samples, as the archery season got under way on October 1, and will remain available through the gun hunt, which runs from November 17-23 this year on the Island.

In depositing material for testing, hunters will be required to provide some personal information for possible follow-up as well as rough coordinates of the location in which the deer was harvested. "We break the province up into 10-kilometre grids, similar to what is done for the bird atlas, so you just have to identify what block you're in," said Mr. Buchanan.

Chronic wasting disease first showed up among captive mule deer in Colorado in the late 1960s, and has since spread among white-tailed deer, elk, and even moose. "We recently had the fourth case in North America of CWD in moose," said Mr. Buchanan. None of the four has been in Canada, however, he added.

Most of the occurrences of CWD have been in the US, principally among middle and western states. Apart from Colorado, other states where deer and elk have been diagnosed with CWD include Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

The problem areas in Canada have been Saskatchewan and Alberta, where entire herds of infected farmed deer have required euthanization to prevent further spread of the illness. While Ontario has so far been spared a case of contamination among wild and farmed deer, an instance of infection did arise at the Toronto Zoo involving mule deer imported from the US.

More worrisome is a recent discovery of CWD among farmed deer in a nearby state. "It was found in Michigan this summer," said Mr. Buchanan. "So it's kind of surrounding the province right now."

The infected Michigan deer came from a farm northwest of Grand Rapids, said Mr. Buchanan, but to date the outbreak has remained confined to that spot. "Any deer hunted now in that county has to be tested, and all the tests have been negative so far," he said. "It seems to be isolated."

At the same time, even with rigorous containment and scaled-up testing, CWD isn't easily stamped out in places where it has cropped up. "We have found that it's able to persist for quite a while," said the MNR researcher.

The disease is believed to spread in one of two fashions: from animal to animal through saliva contact, or via the environments in which an outbreak has occurred. Mr. Buchanan said that even after infected deer or elk are removed from a CWD hot spot, the disease can linger in that place and infect new animals that are exposed to the site.

CWD is "not a virus or a bacteria," stressed Mr. Buchanan. "It's a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy that's related to mad cow, scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease." The latter affects humans, but there is currently no evidence that the version in deer, elk and moose will impact people-or cattle, horses and pigs, for that matter.

Once this round of testing in northeastern and central Ontario wraps up, the MNR will have covered off most of the province, with only an area of northwestern Ontario remaining. "Our last zone in the northwest will be sampled next year," said Mr. Buchanan.

If the disease fails to show up in any of the samples taken across the 14 zones, "we can be 99 percent sure" that Ontario is CWD-free, said Mr. Buchanan.

Vigilance will still be required, however, and monitoring for CWD will be ongoing, albeit on a less frequent basis. "We'll keep going through the province and keep checking," said the ministry rep. "We'll probably be back every five or six years to make sure it hasn't shown up in the meantime."

Clocks back at bedtime this Saturday

MANITOULIN-Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour before bedtime on Saturday, as Daylight Savings Time ends on November 2 for all of Canada except Saskatchewan.

The extra hour of sleep used to happen in October, but beginning last year the dates were adjusted to be in harmony with the US, which extended its daylight savings period by four weeks.

Daylight time now begins on the second Sunday in March, three weeks earlier than the traditional start, and lasts an extra week in autumn, with the "fall back" date occurring on the first Sunday in November.

EDITORIAL

New MP wrong to raise proportional representation debate

In the October 22 edition of the Manitoulin Expositor, MP Carol Hughes, in one of her first interviews with this newspaper since her election in Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing, weighed in on the potential of Northern Ontario losing another riding, answering that the proportional representation system of electing MPs would be the answer.

"At the end of the day, proportional representation needs to happen so that the North, which is so vast, has enough MPs to represent them," Ms. Hughes said.

As a representative for the North in Ottawa, Ms. Hughes should probably recheck her math and look more into how such a system would impact the North before continuing to support this policy.

Even during the campaign Ms. Hughes mentioned changing Canada's electoral process to this system-a stance held by the NDP as a whole-but the MP's comments last week suggest that she has not sufficiently understood how proportional representation works and how it could adversely impact rural areas with small populations, such as our region.

While it is true that Northern Ontario is geographically vast, a system based on proportional representation would favour areas large in population, not land. By looking at the results of this month's election, it is clear that Northern Ontario is better served under the current system.

On October 14, 369,971 people voted in Northern Ontario, sending 10 MPs to the House of Commons.

As a percentage of everyone who voted compared to seats in the house, this means that 2.67 percent of the entire voting population received 3.26 percent of the seats in Ottawa.

Since a system of true proportional representation would divide seats up based on the percent of votes received, if the election were waged under those rules, Northern Ontario would have received 2.67 percent of the seats in the house. This would mean just eight seats for the North instead of the current 10, assuming 306 seats total.

The fight for proportional representation has always been more about politics than people. A quick look at the rhetoric from Fair Vote Canada-the major force behind fighting for electoral change in this country-shows that the organization is very concerned about the under-representation of the Green Party, Liberals from the West, and suburban Conservatives, but not so much about regional perspectives that are nonpartisan in nature.

To suggest that those voters aren't represented in Ottawa is to assume that having an MP from their region standing up for their community counts for less than having someone who shares their ideological views.

Ms. Hughes herself could have been a casualty of the very system she supports (in a theoretical proportional representative election), and if that were the case, many people would agree that the people who make up Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing would have lost a strong voice in Parliament.

There is no doubt that the NDP would benefit from proportional representation-Fair Vote Canada's numbers suggest that the party would have received 20 more seats under that system-but it is less apparent that it would be of any benefit to the North.

The election of MPs by proportional vote-in one form or another-is something of an article of faith for the New Democratic Party and NDP leader Jack Layton is going to expect his troops on the ground, like Ms. Hughes, to speak to the issue when they have the opportunity.

Ms. Hughes had the opportunity and has said the requisite positive things about election by proportional vote.

That should satisfy Mr. Layton, who will be clearly taking the "sacrifice of the few for the good of the many" approach if he expects Ms. Hughes and her Northern Ontario NDP colleagues to continue to push for election reform in this manner.

It is far more encouraging to read that Ms. Hughes has pledged to "advocate for the fact that we don't need a reduction of seats in the North."

We hope that Ms. Hughes and her Northern NDP colleagues will make common cause with the Liberals and Conservatives to argue against any further redistribution of ridings away from Northern Ontario.

When the provincial Liberals came to power under Dalton McGuinty's leadership, a plank in their platform was to resist redistribution and that is precisely why there is one more Northern Ontario seat in the provincial legislature than there is in the House of Commons. Interestingly, the seat that didn't disappear is the one that includes the communities at the far northern end of the federal riding: Hearst and Kapuskasing.

Clearly, the Northern communities could be appended to the Timmins-James Bay riding, which would make the rest of the riding somewhat easier for an MP to serve, but without the disappearance of this-or any other-Northern riding.

While this flies in the face of Elections Canada's general bias in favour of having more or less similar populations in every Canadian electoral district-explaining why the North as lost ridings in the past which have been gained in southern Ontario-all of our major parties must co-operate in demanding exceptions, not just in Northern Ontario, but also in other sparsely populated areas of Canada.

When you consider that Ontario voters soundly rejected a system of mixed-member proportional representation in the last provincial election, it is clear that people in this part of the country are not interested in a proportional vote.

Although Ms. Hughes was given a strong mandate to serve the people of Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing, she should also remember how little the people of Ontario wanted this type of electoral reform.

Letters to the Editor

Community volunteer thanks concert promoters, volunteers

Bowerman disappointed that groups benefiting from concert underrepresented

To the Expositor:

I believe a huge bouquet of thanks should be given to Craig and Kelly Timmermans of radio station 100.7 and KT Promotions for trying to assist our community in purchasing a new sound system for the recreation centre by bringing entertainers Rebekkah Paige, Crystal Gage and Jaydee Bixby to Little Current on Tuesday, October 21 and arranging for Crystal Gage to entertain the residents of the Centennial Manor the next morning. What a pleasure it was again to watch her bring a smile to the faces of the residents and have them shaking what their mother gave them. Thank you to the folks from all over the Island and Espanola area who supported the evening of great entertainment. Sadly, you outnumbered the folks from the local groups that will benefit from this system but who failed to support this event. I understand that this event fell short of reaching the total that was required but not for a lack of promoting it.

Linda Bowerman

Sheguiandah

Patients should manage own care

System can work faster, better

To the Expositor:

My heart goes out to the families of the late Anita Frank and Craig Starke as per articles of September 24 and October 1. I lost both of my parents to cancer in 2003 and 2004. I supported both parents through their terminal illness.

Unfortunately it took this experience to realize that each person must be their own advocate in managing their journey through the health system. As your own advocate, go for a second or third opinion. Ask for referrals to specialists. Keep a journal of your symptoms, doctor visits, research the Internet. An article in a Canadian health care magazine sates the following: "Be determined about managing your way through the system. Many Canadians think that health care is much more of a system than it is, that it's more connected, that someone is managing your journey for you. And the reality is, we have terrific physicians and hospitals, but if you're not on top of moving along the course of your treatment, a lot of things can happen slowly or not as effectively as they should."

A resource that is available for consumers that is user friendly is the 2 Revised Edition, Advice From The Rudd Clinic - A Guide To Colorectal Health, by Dr. Wm. Warren Rudd. According to the book, Canada's Rudd Clinic is an internationally recognized centre for the treatment of diseases of the colon and rectum. Advice From The Rudd Clinic is a concise guide to the most common colorectal problems treated by Dr. Rudd and his colleagues. The Rudd Clinic is located on 123 Edward St., Suite 825 Toronto, Ont., M5G 1E2. Phone number is (416) 597-0997, fax number (416) 597-2912. The Internet address is www.RuddClinic.com.

Regina Beaudin

M'Chigeeng