Editorials

It looks like another opportunity to rouse community pride here is about to go by the wayside.
We talk about being a hockey town, and certainly seem to be, yet we’ve never bothered to enter the annual Kraft “Hockeyville” competition. And with the nomination phase for the 2012 title set to close in less than two weeks, sadly that appears to be the case again this year.

Do you know what today is? Well, besides Wednesday, that is—and Jan. 11.
Here’s a hint? It has to do with an important figure in Canadian history. Still nothing? Umm, someone who played a key role in forging Confederation back in 1867.
Okay, okay—final clue: our first prime minister.
That’s right, it’s Sir John A. Macdonald Day. Please celebrate responsibly.

Kudos to the Rainy River Arts Collective, a group which formed just this past fall but whose members already have stepped to the plate by organizing a snow sculpture contest to “make Fort Frances a winter wonderland.”

The Christmas spirit was alive and well again in Fort Frances and area this holiday season, with no better example than the 24th-annual community dinner on Sunday at Knox United Church here.

Of all the pressing issues facing the Town of Fort Frances these days, the one which seems to ignite the most debate involves that relatively small piece of open space known informally as the “Nelson Street Park.”

“Meals on Wheels” has been a very worthwhile program here for more than 40 years, and hopefully it will continue long into the future.
To do so, however, takes help. A recent push to get more businesses and organizations involved in delivering the meals has had some success but more volunteers are always needed.

The media has long been criticized for focusing too much on the “bad news,” with newspaper pages and newscasts dominated daily by coverage of wars, civil unrest, murders, natural disasters, economic chaos, and every other scourge that could possibly befall the human race.

Well, that didn’t take long.
On the first day back at Queen’s Park, barely six weeks after the Oct. 6 provincial election, the opposition Progressive Conservatives already have raised the spectre of bringing down the minority Liberal government by vowing to defeat the throne speech just minutes after it was read yesterday by Lt.-Gov. David Onley.

The prospect of a gold mine operation in Richardson Township, north of Barwick, remains bright after Rainy River Resources announced positive results from its latest Preliminary Economic Assessment of the gold resource at the site.

Local MP John Rafferty opened a can of worms last week when he chose the majority of his constituents over party lines by voting in favour of the Tories’ bill to abolish the long gun registry—a sore point here in Northwestern Ontario since it was established back in the 1990s.