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No Clearview Pesticide Ban

Instead, Township will work with CLEAN to educate residents

by Brad Holden

With the provincial government now actively working toward an Ontario-wide ban on cosmetic pesticides, Clearview Township will take an educational approach toward curbing residents' use of the chemicals rather than introducing its own prohibitive bylaw.

That decision was made at Monday's Council meeting, after a report from Public Works Director Richard Spraggs recommended that the Township do nothing now that the Province is taking the matter into its own hands. Bill 64, which would ban cosmetic use of pesticides across Ontario, was given first reading at Queen's Park on April 22. It is now working its way through the committee process.

Spraggs' report came in response to a request from members of the Clearview Eco Action Network (CLEAN), who visited Council in late January asking for a ban.

CLEAN member Jill Bates was in the audience Monday night. During the meeting's public participation pe....read more

Music, Fiction and Fortuitous Timing

by Brad Holden

Paul Quarrington, one of this country's best-known novelists, is very familiar with the Creemore area. He is, after all, a fanatical fisherman, and for several years it was his tradition to open the spring trout season with a reading and a few songs at Lynn Connell's Creativity Art Retreat, followed by some midnight angling on the Noisy River.

The next morning, of course, he'd be dragged by his friend David Gray to the Fisherman's Breakfast.
 
"I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I never quite understood why the fishermen were sitting around eating breakfast," he joked last week, talking to the Echo in advance of his appearance at the Mad & Noisy Gallery this weekend. "I'd be sitting there grumbling, this is all very nice, but what about the fishing?'"

With the 2008 season now almost a month old, Quarrington won't be nearly so distracted when he takes the stage at the gallery at 5 pm on Saturday. The event is being billed as "Not Just a Reading," and indeed, you ca....read more