Thursday, January 28, 2010

Northern Growth Plan Youth

Young people in the Kenora area have a number of reservations with the Northern Growth Plan drafted by the provincial government.

About a dozen people took part in a round-table discusssion last night.

Mike Greaves from the Northwest Business Center says local youth have some interesting ideas about how to improve thelocal economy.

Some of the people attending the forum suggested theNorthern Growth Plan seemed like it was written bybureaucrats from southern Ontario.

The province is going to be gather feedback for another month or so before finalizing recommendations.

Northern Growth Plan Youth

Young people in the Kenora area have a number of reservations with the Northern Growth Plan drafted by the provincial government.

About a dozen people took part in a round-table discusssion last night.

Mike Greaves from the Northwest Business Center says local youth have some interesting ideas about how to improve thelocal economy.

Some of the people attending the forum suggested theNorthern Growth Plan seemed like it was written bybureaucrats from southern Ontario.

The province is going to be gather feedback for another month or so before finalizing recommendations.

Accident Update

One person was injured following a two vehicle accident on Highway 17 east of Kenora.

The OPP say that around 7:30 yesterday morning a westbound tractor-trailor unit lost control about 40 kilometers west of Vermillion Bay.

A second westbound transport ran into the first semi.

One truck was pushed off the highway, but the other one end upblocking both lanes of traffic.

Third vehicle, a passenger van, managed to avoid the accidentscene, but lost control and ran into a rock cut.

One of the truck drivers sustained minor injuries and was takento Lake of the Woods District Hospital for Treatment.

The Trans-Canada was closed for about three hours while policeconducted their investigation and the wreckage was removed from the scene.

Lakehead University Applications Up

Lakehead University is becoming a more popular option for high school students.

The Thunder Bay school has seen a 7.9 percent increase in the number of students who have listed the university as its first choice.

Fred Gilbert is the president of Lakehead and says the new campus inOrillia may be one reason why more students have applied.

Gilbert says they also expect an increase in the number of mature students applying to the university in the fall due to the economic downturn.

Kenora Monopoly

Kenora M.P. Greg Rickford is getting on the Monopoly bandwagon.

Over the past week, there has been a push to have Kenora nominated for one of two wild-card spots on the new Canadian Edition of Monopoly.

Rickford says he's pushing the initiative not only in northwestern Ontario but Manitoba as well.

Rickford says he's added a link on his website for Monopoly Votes.

Local residents have until February 8th to try to push Kenora into the top ten in voting for the wildcard spot.

Kenora is currently ranked number 3.

Ontario Colleges Strike

The union for Ontario's community colleges teachers has reportedly rejected a ``final'' offer, but collegeswant the teachers to vote on it.

Ontario's College Compensation and Appointments Council says it made the offer to OPSEU on Wednesday after several days of talks.

After the union rejected the offer, college management asked OPSEU to bring it back to the about 9,000 members for a vote.

The council says the offer was better than previous ones because it shortens the contract to three years, instead of four, and offers a slightly higher salary increase.

However, the council didn't agree to many of non-salary demands, such as adding more preparation time or changes to workload.

A strike would curtail classes for at least 200,000 full-time students.

Ontario Hospital Budgets

Premier Dalton McGuinty says Ontario hospitals won't see their budgets freeze in the spring budget.

His government has already warned hospitals that the most they can expect is a two per cent increase because of the hard-hit economy.

Speaking at a Mississauga school, McGuinty pointed out that funding to hospitals has increased 42 per cent since he took office in 2003.

N-D-P Leader Andrea Horwath says that's still bad news for Ontario hospitals because many of them are swimming in red ink.