Two busy men coming together on a hot Saturday morning to discuss the common good. One, the Warden of Renfrew County, was on his way to the AMO, a conference of all Ontario municipalities in Ottawa. The other, a late-to-the-party hobby journalist, was attempting to give off the impression of being busy by attending a pow-wow hosted by the Algonquins of Pikangikum.
Time was short, so I, the hobby journalist, wanted to get as much information about VTAC as I could, thankful that I had the opportunity in the first place, albeit brief.
The result is informative and engaging, all the result of the Warden illuminating the back story of VTAC, something important to every resident in this County.
While not my original intent, I’ve decided, with permission, to post the entire 18 minute conversation, because I think people need to hear, and need to know how this thing got started, how it was nurtured and implemented, and what the track record might be to date.
We’re talking about peoples’ health here, arguably the most important topic possible. It’s about the very real fear that people experience when they have no doctor, yet the need for one keeps popping up in life. All of this in a day and age where hospital emergency visits can take many hours, where you willingly, perhaps desperately take your ailment or one of a loved one and sit in a room full of sick and injured people for most of the day. And how, faced with this as their only known option, people make the decision to not go at all and hope for the best.
We can do better than that, and we have done better than that, or at least the people who were running with the ball have. And what they cobbled together, in a truly remarkable effort with a truly remarkable result, is nothing short of a near-perfect solution to a really big problem.
People need to know about this. They need to talk about it and share it with others. And they need to understand the measure of comfort that comes from living in one of the most progressive, forward-thinking counties in the province, at least when it comes to County governance. Aside from this topic today, progressivism and this part of the 613 area code do not often holiday together, so it’s a bit of a treat to hear about something like this coming out of our neck of the woods.
My thanks, once again, to Warden Peter Emon for his time spent with me, and more importantly for the conceptual work, the timely program roll-out and the impressive implementation he and all related partners involved put forward.
I don’t want to outrun my leash here, but this is one of the most effective governmental responses I’ve witnessed, and to think it happened right here in Renfrew County. This, along with other County-led projects like MESA and modular housing builds are just some concrete examples of how we are are more than capably led by the people entrusted with servicing our needs as citizens.
So thank you to Warden Emon, who also happens to be the Reeve of Renfrew, and to everyone involved in the program and its execution. Together, you’re making a positive difference in the lives of your citizens. There’s no trophy that can be bought, nor any plaque inscribed, that can adequately capture the appreciation of what VTAC represents to the rest of us, or at least for those of us who know about it.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 