From Peter at ADEDA
All In The Fundy Family
ADEDA’s Managing Director Mike Gushue was in Saint John last week to speak to a gathering of the mayors from the major municipalities in Atlantic Canada. Over 20 mayors listened as Mike made the case for the continuance and upgrading of the vital ferry service between Digby and Saint John. Not content to just get in front of this key audience, Mike spent the earlier part of the day meeting with senior port officials, talking to local and regional government leaders and doing a CBC TV interview.
And he had support from the top in the “Loyalist City”.
Saint John Mayor Ivan Court related how “on the very first day I was elected, I welcomed an early morning call, on my cell phone, from a guy named Mike Gushue who wanted to talk about the Digby to Saint John ferry. Since that time it has been a pleasure to work with Mike and to be part of the Transportation Coalition that is ensuring the future of this important service. Through this association I feel the bond between our two regions is stronger than ever and why my office is open to my good friends in Annapolis and Digby. The future is bright for both our communities as we build on the resources of the Bay of Fundy”.
Mayor Court went on record as well with the major print media to strongly call for a new funding formula for the ferry service.
Senior Surfers
Like so many people my age I often feel that I’ve free fallen into cyberspace like Alice into the rabbit hole. I’ve had some horrible experiences with computers – I don’t know what I’m doing a lot of the time, had some incredibly embarrassing encounters, and blindly try new stuff. But I’m usually awed and entranced by the outcomes. It’s sort of like reliving my first dating experiences. And like Alice I’m ultimately more fascinated than frightened by my journey. Doors open daily on whole new worlds of knowledge and communication that I would never have imagined. So I was reassured to learn that this intrepid willingness to venture into new technology in my advancing years is a trait shared by the residents of Digby’s Tideview Terrace, whose residential community will create the opportunity to be the first long term care facility in Nova Scotia to venture into the cyber world.
Resuscitation Prognosis For Wellness Centre
Active efforts are still very much underway to restore the vital community health and recreation services that had been provided by the former Lifeplex facility in Annapolis County. The popular community healthy living facility was forced to close recently as its fiscal requirements and program offerings were placed under reassessment. A positive development in the chances for its reopening was evident in the willingness of the Council of the Municipality of Digby to consider a request for major funding support. The facility is being presented with a new business plan and receiving strong endorsement from area adherents such as ABCC General Manager Marc Phillips who in his presentation underlined the importance the facility plays in the marketing strategy of that international conference and training centre.
This Week’s Tip of the Hat
Can’t sign off on this week’s updates without a congratulatory “shout out” to two folks in Annapolis Digby who received the honoured recognition of their peers. Congratulations to filmmaker, writer and photographer Tim Wilson of Bear River who received a prestigious national media award for his film “Griefwalker”, a feature documentary for the National Film Board.
And also to Jim MacAlpine, the Acting Warden for the Municipality of Digby who was elected as Vice President of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities at their meeting in Sydney. It continues to be obvious that, whatever the field – the leaders can be found right here.
From ADEDA
Monday, November 8, 2010
Buying Local
"If the 391,000 households in Nova Scotia shifted 10% of their existing purchases from non-local businesses to Local Independents (locally owned and independent businesses), we would see the creation of new jobs and millions of dollars of new economic activity in Nova Scotia, all without raising taxes or spending a dime more than we planned. The elegance of the 10 percent shift right now is that it doesn’t ask people to expand their budgets and spend more. It asks people to be more conscious about where they spend what they’ve already budgeted for." - http://www.ballens.ca/
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Nova Scotian for Prime Minister
Ninth-grader gets chance to run Canada... for a bit
By: Mia Rabson / Hill Talk
Posted: 8/11/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0
OTTAWA -- For at least a few minutes last week, a Grade 9 student from Nova Scotia was running the country.
Melanie Lynn Renn won the Ultimate Dream Job Contest by the Learning Partnership and ScotiaBank.
For her grand prize, she got to go to work with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
She started the day at 24 Sussex Drive, drove in the prime minister's motorcade to Parliament Hill, got a personal tour from Harper of the House of Commons and had a meeting with him in his Centreblock office, where she sat at his desk.
"He let her run the country for a few minutes," joked one of Harper's staffers.
Melanie Lynn, however, doesn't have aspirations to be prime minister. She'd rather be Indiana Jones and her career plans don't include Parliament Hill unless it is to excavate the site as an archaeologist. The Hill was alive with youth all day Wednesday as Melanie Lynn was joined by scores of other ninth-graders, who held reporters' tape recorders, learned how to use boom mikes, scrummed MPs, sat in on press conferences and glimpsed the daily ins and outs of life on Parliament Hill.
Melanie Lynn is not the only one whose day likely brought on some serious envy.
National Post columnist John Ivison brought his nephew with him to work that day and scored a trifecta.
In the span of one afternoon, 14-year-old Adrian Burger interviewed Harper, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton. Adrian is now in a pretty exclusive club of journalists granted a one-on-one interview with this PM.
-- -- --
It was a great day for students to be on the Hill because last Wednesday was also the day government announced its decision not to allow a foreign company to take over Saskatchewan's PotashCorp.
No matter that most in Ottawa probably couldn't tell you exactly what potash is (one national reporter remarked it was the first time he'd ever written the word potash in a decades-long career on the Hill), the resource was all the rage in the nation's capital last week.
At least until Environment Minister Jim Prentice stunned everyone with his resignation.
The big question was whether or not the government was going to allow the hostile takeover of PotashCorp by Australia's BHP Billiton or whether it would deny a foreign takeover for only the second time in the last 25 years.
The answer was yes.
Although Industry Minister Tony Clement didn't really give the reasons for the rejection Wednesday, most knew it was done mainly for political reasons. Saskatchewan, where the minority Conservative government holds 13 of 14 seats, was soundly against the takeover. Say yes to the deal and Harper risked losing some of those seats.
The decision was surprising enough the opposition wasn't sure how to handle it, having spent the greater part of the last few weeks thundering at the government it should say no.
So all those students spending the day on the Hill will be able to tell their grandchildren they were there when the Harper Conservatives shed their fiscal-Conservative ideals rather than risk losing the next election by allowing foreigners to buy Saskatchewan's biggest company.
-- -- --
Nothing screams Friday on Parliament Hill like a late-afternoon dumping of government documents.
Not just any documents mind you, documents the government knows the opposition and the media desperately want to see.
They did it earlier this year with Afghanistan detainee documents.
They did it Friday with the long-awaited specifics of where Canada spent more than $860-million on the G20/G8 summits last June.
Hosting world leaders certainly costs money. Nobody expects Prime Minister Stephen Harper to feed foreign leaders peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on paper plates or make them sleep at the Super 8.
But when the government is constantly preaching about spending restraint at a time when the deficit is at record levels, at a time when thousands of Canadians are still out of work, it's really hard for any government to justify some of the more opulent-looking expenses.
Like a $20,000 ice sculpture, $12,000 for tablecloths and $11,000 for 24 place settings.
Or the loot bags handed out to delegates such as $2,559 on eight Hudson's Bay blankets for political directors, $2,362 for crystal CN tower replicas, $1,260 for stained glass, $3,039 on woven shawls as gifts for leaders' spouses and $17,955 for 30 bowls given as gifts to the leaders.
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 8, 2010 A4
By: Mia Rabson / Hill Talk
Posted: 8/11/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0
OTTAWA -- For at least a few minutes last week, a Grade 9 student from Nova Scotia was running the country.
Melanie Lynn Renn won the Ultimate Dream Job Contest by the Learning Partnership and ScotiaBank.
For her grand prize, she got to go to work with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
She started the day at 24 Sussex Drive, drove in the prime minister's motorcade to Parliament Hill, got a personal tour from Harper of the House of Commons and had a meeting with him in his Centreblock office, where she sat at his desk.
"He let her run the country for a few minutes," joked one of Harper's staffers.
Melanie Lynn, however, doesn't have aspirations to be prime minister. She'd rather be Indiana Jones and her career plans don't include Parliament Hill unless it is to excavate the site as an archaeologist. The Hill was alive with youth all day Wednesday as Melanie Lynn was joined by scores of other ninth-graders, who held reporters' tape recorders, learned how to use boom mikes, scrummed MPs, sat in on press conferences and glimpsed the daily ins and outs of life on Parliament Hill.
Melanie Lynn is not the only one whose day likely brought on some serious envy.
National Post columnist John Ivison brought his nephew with him to work that day and scored a trifecta.
In the span of one afternoon, 14-year-old Adrian Burger interviewed Harper, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton. Adrian is now in a pretty exclusive club of journalists granted a one-on-one interview with this PM.
-- -- --
It was a great day for students to be on the Hill because last Wednesday was also the day government announced its decision not to allow a foreign company to take over Saskatchewan's PotashCorp.
No matter that most in Ottawa probably couldn't tell you exactly what potash is (one national reporter remarked it was the first time he'd ever written the word potash in a decades-long career on the Hill), the resource was all the rage in the nation's capital last week.
At least until Environment Minister Jim Prentice stunned everyone with his resignation.
The big question was whether or not the government was going to allow the hostile takeover of PotashCorp by Australia's BHP Billiton or whether it would deny a foreign takeover for only the second time in the last 25 years.
The answer was yes.
Although Industry Minister Tony Clement didn't really give the reasons for the rejection Wednesday, most knew it was done mainly for political reasons. Saskatchewan, where the minority Conservative government holds 13 of 14 seats, was soundly against the takeover. Say yes to the deal and Harper risked losing some of those seats.
The decision was surprising enough the opposition wasn't sure how to handle it, having spent the greater part of the last few weeks thundering at the government it should say no.
So all those students spending the day on the Hill will be able to tell their grandchildren they were there when the Harper Conservatives shed their fiscal-Conservative ideals rather than risk losing the next election by allowing foreigners to buy Saskatchewan's biggest company.
-- -- --
Nothing screams Friday on Parliament Hill like a late-afternoon dumping of government documents.
Not just any documents mind you, documents the government knows the opposition and the media desperately want to see.
They did it earlier this year with Afghanistan detainee documents.
They did it Friday with the long-awaited specifics of where Canada spent more than $860-million on the G20/G8 summits last June.
Hosting world leaders certainly costs money. Nobody expects Prime Minister Stephen Harper to feed foreign leaders peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on paper plates or make them sleep at the Super 8.
But when the government is constantly preaching about spending restraint at a time when the deficit is at record levels, at a time when thousands of Canadians are still out of work, it's really hard for any government to justify some of the more opulent-looking expenses.
Like a $20,000 ice sculpture, $12,000 for tablecloths and $11,000 for 24 place settings.
Or the loot bags handed out to delegates such as $2,559 on eight Hudson's Bay blankets for political directors, $2,362 for crystal CN tower replicas, $1,260 for stained glass, $3,039 on woven shawls as gifts for leaders' spouses and $17,955 for 30 bowls given as gifts to the leaders.
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 8, 2010 A4
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