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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DEBT AND TAXES

Last tax year, Renfrew property owners were assessed a 10% tax increase to compensate for the additional burden the completion of the Ma-Te-Way complex represented when the dust finally settled on that project.  That 10% increase yielded somewhere in the area of $1 million dollars, and it was proposed at the time that the full additional amount raised be applied to the Ma-Te-Way debenture for the entire thirty-year term of that instrument.

It seems like a clean solution.  Sure, nobody’s going to host a block party and applaud a 10% additional hit on their property tax bill, but you grit your teeth and carry on, taking some small measure of comfort knowing that the increase will be perpetually applied to the debenture debt load and interest.  But it still chafes to know that you’re paying this levy increase so that the books can look a lot better for property owners thirty years downstream from now.  But you do it because you’re an awesome citizen prepared to do your bit for the common good.  

Good for you, and thank you.

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DISENTANGLING FROM A GRANT

Cars and cameras came back to the agenda again on Tuesday night at Council, sort of like a bout of heartburn that lingers after you’ve pounded down a warehouse-sized jar of Rolaids.

The heartburn has nothing to do with Council itself, or with the administrative staff that toils night and day, it’s more a matter of entanglement with other agencies and municipalities, and being part of a situation where the provincial government decided to change course mid-stream and leave everyone hanging as they did.

A quick review reveals that an Auto-Theft Prevention grant was applied for by three different entities, Admaston-Bromley Township, the Ontario Provincial Police, and the Town of Renfrew.  This was back in the day when there used to be a Police Services Board as an arm of the municipal corporation, which was the very thing changed by the provincial government when they decided to go to an amalgamated board containing several municipalities, including Renfrew.  Our Police Services Board of the time saw an opportunity to support the initiative, since Renfrew was part of a back-road network of stolen vehicle transportation used by the bad guys in an effort to avoid anti-theft surveillance along the Highway 401 corridor.

It also had a side benefit, that being that the cameras involved could perform a double-duty as monitors for the downtown stretch of Raglan Street, where numerous instances of graffiti and hooliganism ate into the carefully cultivated atmosphere the town and the BIA — Business Improvement Association — had worked so hard and spent so much to achieve.

It seemed like a good deal.

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COUNTY ASKS RENFREW FOR HELP IN BUILDING MODULAR HOUSING

Renfrew County is asking Renfrew Town Council to support them in the construction/building of forty modular units on the grounds of the Bonnechere Manor property.

The units will be of the prefabricated type, and will be a step towards alleviating some of the pressure felt by citizens when searching for affordable housing.

The target demographics are seniors not yet ready to enter long-term care/supportive accommodation and support workers who work either with these people, or with the people in the Manor proper.  A possibility exists that affordable housing for people not in the first two groups might also be made available through the project.

The County is asking the Town to waive the usual fees associated with the building of homes or housing, a number that’s in the area of some $58,000 in lost fees.

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STICKING UP FOR CANADA

When you’re at war, you usually find out pretty quickly who’s-who and what’s-what.  It’s in moments of high import, or a crisis, where you find out a lot about the people in your life, whether they be family or your circle of friends and associates.  Your colleagues at work fall into this as well.

We’re at war with the United States.

Economically, yes, but just like any shooting war, they aim to cause us harm, are doing it intentionally, and have as their end-goal the weakening of our own country to the point where we desperately request to be officially absorbed by them, or annexed if you will.

Whether it be done with bullets and missiles or tariffs and dollars matters little.

They have intentionally set out to cause us existential harm.  That, to my mind, meet the criteria for a declaration of war.

Never mind their nonsense involving hordes of undocumented immigrants pouring over the Canadian border into the United States.  And ignore their stated intention to stop the dangerous flow of fentanyl across that same border, a peril of epic proportions, what with 43 pounds of the stuff having crossed in the past year, about one one-thousandth of the amount sneaking into America through Mexico.

This is the casus belli of the American attack, their justification for being the jerks that they’ve become.  But it really has nothing to do with any of that, since the real problem at the Canadian border has to do with hard drugs and guns that flood across in the opposite direction, as in into Canada from the U.S.

It appears that, when it comes right down to it, they’re the problem at the border, but that doesn’t sell at home, so they blame us for their own failings and use it as a pretext to come after us and our country.

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