There are a myriad of disturbing concerns that stem from the drama surrounding some members of the Canadian Senate and their travel expense claims (in the case of Senator Pamela Wallin) and housing allowances for senators whose primary residence is deemed to be more than 100 km from Ottawa and this net embraces Senator Mike Duffy, Senator Patrick Brazzeau and Senator Mac Harb. Senator Duffy was headline new ...

No one is happy with the loss, so far, of two weeks of the Chi-Cheemaun’s 2013 sailing season (and the angst associated with the threat of more weeks that might have been lost while repairs are made) so it’s a major relief that the seasonal sailings will commence this week. A sailing season that will begin this year, two weeks later than usual, is far from ideal but this experience, in which two senior leve ...

A public building collapsed nearly one year ago in Elliot Lake. There were two fatalities, the community was shocked at the collapse of their shopping centre and the ensuing deaths as well as other injuries and just now a public enquiry is examining every aspect, in detail, of the building’s construction more than 30 years ago and its maintenance since then. These include: problems with the roof parking sys ...

What a week! It’s a significant irony that just as the International Joint Commission (IJC) announced it was recommending man-made intervention in the St. Clair River in order to slow down the outflow from Lake Huron/Georgian Bay in an effort to begin to reduce the drastic drop in lake levels that has happened over the past few years, the Owen Sound Transportation Company (OSTC) determined that it could not ...

If anything puts the lie to the International Joint Commission’s (IJC) “do nothing” option regarding the dropping water level in Lake Huron (and Lake Michigan that shares the same level) it’s the breaking news on Monday of this week that the Chi-Cheemaun is unlikely to be able to begin her sailing schedule, as usual, on the first Friday of May. That day, May 3 this year, is much anticipated on Manitoulin an ...

Quite the weekend: Mr. Mulcair, at a national policy meeting of the NDP, gets a 92 percent approval rating while the Liberals give the leadership of their national party to Justin Trudeau by what it would be an understatement to call a landslide victory. While the Liberals’ second-place finisher in the leadership race espoused a “unite the progressive parties” stand, her runner-up position was so far behind ...

What a good idea MPP Mike Mantha has to lobby the Ontario government for support for small (fewer than 100 users) municipal water treatment plants through a private member’s bill which, if successful, would move the yardstick on the matter from a lobbying effort to a position of policy. The issue, at least on Manitoulin, has been prompted by the enormous additional burden the residents of Sunsite Estates, a ...

When former Ontario Premiere Dalton McGuinty assigned the task of examining the state of Ontario’s tourism sector to Greg Sorbara, one of his closest political allies and a former high ranking and powerful cabinet member, it was fairly certain that there would be significant changes in the areas impacting the tourism sector over which the government has control and where it has input. In Northern Ontario, t ...

Late last week, the publisher, the editor and two other staff members from The Expositor attended the annual convention of the Ontario Community Newspapers Association, this paper’s provincial professional organization. The professional experience of the Expositor’s participants covered the whole gamut of the various departments and activities required to publish a newspaper and, among us all, we participat ...

Almost six months ago, The Expositor printed a front page editorial, something that this or any paper rarely does, that urged the government of Ontario to dedicate a significant marketing strategy and a budget to go with it to the Chi-Cheemaun ferry service in light of its dwindling ridership. This was the same week that the Owen Sound Transportation Company, the operator of our ferry service, began its res ...