Opinion Columns
Trevor's Take: Here we go again
The ominous spectre of the Omicron variant is just starting to affect our case counts. By the time you are reading this, the situation will be much worse than it is as I write this.
Opinion Columns
The latest Opinion Columns stories from Lindsay and the City of Kawartha Lakes.
Opinion Columns
Benns' Belief: Windows of change
My grandmother never wanted me to grow up. She told me so every time I would visit her rural Apsley-area home.
Environment
Doug Ford’s government has been no friend to the environment
Since 2018 when Premier Doug Ford and the Ontario PC Party took power at the provincial level, there has been no shortage of concern caused by the governments persistent shunning of environmental considerations in favour of economic ventures.
Opinion Columns
Facts have no place in the blame game
The other day I spent a couple of hours reading some recent federal Conservative party press releases and I am excited to say that I have since gained some valuable life coping skills.
Environment
Me and my EV
When my mother was 96 she watched Al Gore’s second climate documentary, An Inconvenient Sequel. “Ginny,” she said, “I didn’t know things were so bad. What can I do?”
Opinion Columns
Benns' Belief: Perspective is everything
As I write this in mid-November the thermometer dips. Winter’s here, I realize, and the maple tree starts to shed its leaves outside my office window. I despise winter.
Opinion Columns
Benns' Belief: Public school board’s delay in getting back to normal semesters hurts students
There’s not much that Education Minister Stephen Lecce says these days that is widely supported. But when he announced a return to normal semesters in time for Feb. 1 – the traditional time when a new semester would begin – students, parents, school boards, and even unions were largely happy with the idea.
Opinion Columns
Trevor's Take: Cry Freedumb
As we enter what many call the last mile of our vaccination efforts to achieve herd immunity, and eagerly await vaccination for kids aged 5 to 12, the vocal minority of conspiracy theorists and selfish individualists is getting louder and more aggressive in its efforts to derail our progress.
Opinion Columns
Benns' Belief: What if our health was considered in all policies?
It is virtually beyond argument to say that nothing matters more than our health. No matter our social class, the church pew we sit in, or the party we most want to see take power, it is our health that is the great equalizer.
Opinion Columns
ATV issue: When servant leadership fails, your voice doesn’t matter
The old rail trails long been abandoned, crisscross the countryside and are now enjoyed by cyclists, hikers, wildlife and, in some areas, ATV enthusiasts. There is one such trail that travels north from the Ganaraska Forest, and on up to Haliburton.
Opinion Columns
Omitting emitting is good for what ails us
Imagine you’re in a game show, facing two doors. Behind door No. 1 is a gas-powered car, engine running. Behind door No. 2 is an identical electric car, also running. To win your choice of car you must spend two hours inside the hermetically-sealed room with that running vehicle. Now the choice becomes life or death.
Opinion Columns
Benns' Belief: Past and future city
This is a story about the past, circa 1970-80. It’s about a little town with a river running through it (and a sprawling rural county) that seemed far away from the vast smudge of lights of Toronto.
Opinion Columns
Reconnecting and making memories
I live and breathe politics and am what some people call a policy wonk. The impending federal election should have me feeling like a kid in a candy store. But I’m just not feeling it at the moment. After the last gazillion months of COVID, I’m feeling the need for a break.
Opinion Columns
Mission-oriented capitalism
Last month this space focused on how the market has extended its reach into our daily lives by ensuring that everything is for sale, from air for our tires to bottled water to our free time. More than ever, the value of something is equated with its monetary value determined by the market — not for its intrinsic worth to you or me.
Opinion Columns
Climate emergency – a burning issue
"My concern came in hearing of that new Canadian temperature record in Lytton , 49.6 C, a heat usually associated with Jacobabad, Pakistan, one of the hottest places on the planet."
Opinion Columns
Benns' Belief: What is the value, not the price?
Why do we buy water? Quite simply, big business has told us we should. It’s healthier, says Nestle Pure Life and Aquafina (the latter owned by Pepsi). Why put your faith in stringent municipal testing in towns or cities when you can put your faith in the Corporation?
Opinion Columns
Trevor's Take: Elder stories, elder care
One of my favourite stories my grandfather used to tell me from his time running a taxi business in Lindsay, way back in the day, was of a return shopping trip that ended up being only a one-way fare. Grandpa had taken a regular customer, known for his drinking, to a local bootlegger in town.
Opinion Columns
Benns' Belief: Here's why Canada Day must go on
As Canada Day approaches, we are bearing witness to the shocking continuation of the unearthing of unmarked graves of young Indigenous people. In the process, our collective consciousness has been ripped apart. Our sense of knowing who we are as a people – surely the minimum sense of nationhood -- has been shattered.
