McGREGOR GOES FIRST OVERALL IN OHL SELECTION DRAFT

He thought it would be pretty cool just to hear his name mentioned on draft night.

Last night was the OHL Selection Draft, where teams from the OHL Major Junior A circuit go through the process of selecting players by which they can re-stock the cupboards.  That’s how it works in the OHL, you lose some, you win some.  Some of your players get drafted in the NHL Entry Draft, some graduate to other programs, and some retire from the league.  They’re replaced at the other end by prospects primarily from Ontario’s premium AAA hockey programs.

One such player involved in all of this is Braeside’s Kaden McGregor, a 5’11” centre playing for the Ottawa Valley Titans AAA program.

He did hear his name last night, in fact before anybody else heard theirs.

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RENFREW LANDFILL

There’s trouble at the dump, and that’s for sure.

Renfrew’s landfill is a happening place, but not as happening as it ought to be, particularly in keeping up with its legislative and policy mandates around the environment.

More than anything else, it’s a staffing issue that presents as the biggest problem, in that the landfill is under-staffed and has been for awhile.  And this shortcoming bites into operational efficiency and also presents as problematic when the fellow working there has to take a day off, go on vacation, or decides to go work somewhere else.

This is not the McDougall Museum, where a choice to close the place would hurt and be a blow to the community, but would be otherwise survivable.  The landfill is something that can’t be closed, so the option of shuttering the place and locking the gate simply isn’t a choice.

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TAKING A LOOK AT STAFFING

The staffing of any mid to large level corporation is always going to be a balancing act between what’s needed and what’s affordable, and unfortunately, those two factors are rarely in synchronicity with one another.

So there’s always going to come a time when the two need to be resolved with respect to one another.  And in Renfrew, that time may well be now.

If my information is anywhere close to being correct, the Town of Renfrew took on close to, if not slightly over, $1 million in additional staff salaries over the past calendar year.  It’s hard to root this information out of the budget spreadsheets because all salary information is department-specific, and there seems to be no global information regarding wages and overtime.  In short, they make you work for it.  But in two departments alone, there appeared to be a significant increase in budgeted salary for 2025 over 2024.  Public Works and Community & Recreation Services and Library together posted budget asks that together totalled over $1 million by themselves as compared to 2024.  Unless I’m reading the spreadsheet incorrectly, which is entirely possible.

And when you go through the staff roster, you see an awful lot of deputy-this and assistant-that.  And when you look at the job titles, you get a sense that things, in some places, are potentially seriously out of hand.  I’ve never encountered a jurisdiction with job titles that take ten minutes to say, and adding the word deputy or assistant doesn’t do much to make them any easier to say or remember.  

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THE ISSUE OF SUMMER STUDENTS

Being a student is serious work if you approach what you do with integrity.

The formula is well understood.  Go to school and concentrate on the reason for you being there in the first place, and I’m not talking beer pong here.

Do what you need to do, make the most of the experience, budget your money, and if there’s time and necessity, get yourself a part-time job to help with the bills or possibly enhance the quality of your student life.

You’ve done all that can be asked.  You worked a part time job throughout high school and managed to save some money.  Maybe your parents are helping you foot the bill for college or university.  If not, or if not enough to significantly move the affordability needle, then you apply for OSAP — Ontario Student Assistance Program — for an interest-free loan, and possibly a significant grant, to help you get to where you’re going.

September turns to April and you’ve got a year under your belt, but it’s expensive, and sure OSAP will likely be there for you again, but it’s not like you’re going to be dining out on Oysters Rockefeller with just OSAP.

So you need a summer job.  Preferably one that allows you to remain in your hometown, and not have to travel.  A job that pays a decent summer student wage, provides marketable experience, and allows you to sleep in your own bed every night with your cat Sparky at the foot of your bed, just like always.

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McDOUGALL MUSEUM CONSIDERED FOR BUDGET CUTS

How important is Renfrew’s McDougall Mill Museum?

A couple of points are worth considering before leaping to any kind of response.  First, the McDougall Mill was one of the very first structures in Renfrew’s history, located at the Second Chute of the Bonnechere River, and from there serving as the focal point for the community that would grow around it.  In terms of heritage and heritage buildings, the museum is the pre-eminent historical structure in Renfrew.  The fact that it’s morphed into the curation and preservation of important relics connected to Renfrew’s past makes all the sense in the world.

Second, the McDougall Mill’s place in the community is embedded in the town’s corporate logo, and it’s been prominent in just about every effort at promoting Renfrew beyond the town’s limits.

It stands as the very symbol of Renfrew.

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COUNCIL GRAPPLES WITH BUDGET FIRST DRAFT

Chopped, slashed, and cut.

As much as that might be the language of your hairdresser, those were the watch words when it came to over five hours of budget deliberations in what would be the first of several meetings intent upon bringing forward a new budget for 2025 in Renfrew.

If there was any fluff, either real or imagined, in previous municipal budgets, then Council had a machete stroke to apply to it.  There will be no fluff left unattended by the look of it.

Councillors Kyle Cybulski, John McDonald, and Andrew Dick sported the sharpest knives during the opening session, at times making Elon Musk look like just some guy with a chainsaw.  The three councillors were the most heard-from when it came to a line by line presentation by Renfrew Treasurer Charlene Jackson.

In fact, it was Councillor Cybulski who showed up with a document representing twenty-some hours of homework whereby the councillor determined that axing any number of expense items was the way to move forward, because, as he said, “it all adds up.”

Addition by subtraction.

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TARIFFS, PENGUINS, AND DOCTORS

By now, everyone knows we’ve taken a 25% tariff hit from our erstwhile friends and compadres the Americans for the sole reason of, well, I don’t know because they make no sense to me.  That puts me roughly on par with all the economists and tariff experts out there who are pretty-much all saying the same thing.

There’s no doubt that there’s something afoot about what Trump and his acolytes are up to something nefarious., including the possibility that he and they are all Russian puppets bent on weakening America and its western alliances, which if true, would mean they’re doing nothing less that one hell of a job.

I think that, as Canadians, we’ve also done one hell of a job of absorbing these hits to our economy and our sovereignty.  Yes, we’re mad, in fact mad as hell.  But I still hold on to the belief that what we’re seeing is another example of that famously stereotypical Canadian restraint.  But our restraint is nothing compared to that shown by the inhabitants of Heard and McDonald Islands.  Sure, they were only hit with 10% tariffs from the Trumpers, but still they’ve been victimized like seemingly everywhere else, and one would think that they’d show some sort of disinclination, disappointment, or outright rage.  But they don’t.

Because they’re penguins.

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CANADA HOLDS U.S. DEBT CARDS

Of all of the nations on this Earth, which one has the greatest level of national debt?  If you answered the United States of America, then you’re absolutely right.  It appears the world’s richest nation is also the one carrying the biggest debt load.  If you think that statement to be one that self-cancels, or doesn’t make any sense, then you haven’t considered why the “Land of the Free” is also the nation with the most citizens behind bars, another little oxymoron that competes with many others.  How about the nation with the greatest medical expertise in the world having over 40% of its population without health insurance?

You get the point.  The U.S. is a nation of many dichotomies.  And debt is one of them.

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COUNCIL DEFERS ICE MARKING CONTRACT DECISION

Eastern Rink Services.

As the name implies, it’s a company specializing in providing services to rinks, something we have two of now with the Ma-Te-Way expansion yielding a second ice pad for community use.

Specifically, it’s a company that paints the ice, as in paints the markings on the ice, the lines, the graphics, the whole deal.  If you’ve ever wondered how they get the ice so perfectly marked up in our hockey arenas far and wide, then companies like Eastern Rink Services come into the conversation.

The company came to my interest during the last Renfrew Town Council meeting when a contract came up for painting the markings on the ice at Ma-Te-Way for the 2025-26 season.  Shawn Eckford, Recreation Operations Supervisor, had the item tucked into the agenda, the type of decision-making minutia that makes up a large chunk of a council meeting.  These things fly past Council all the time, routine matters that often don’t provoke much discussion, just a show of hands and we’ll be on our way.  If Council had a drive-thru window, it would be stuff like this that gets done there.

But this was different.

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THE KEYBOARD WARRIORS

Am I a keyboard warrior?

The term was used by Mayor Tom Sidney to describe somebody, or somebodies, who level commentary and/or criticism of Council decisions, actions, inactions, and procedures.

It would seem that, by this comment, the mayor is demonstrating the possibility that such commentary, from whatever source or sources, is starting to strike a bit of a nerve, if that nerve hasn’t been tweaked before.

The comment came as Council was discussing debt load, debentures, and possible impact on rate levies, which is municipal-speak for the amount of money you pay in property taxes.

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