Letters & Op-Ed, May 25 2022

On behalf of the Friends of Maple Acre we would like to thank the Voice for the coverage of our cleanup, tree carving, and garden project. Your coverage was most appreciated.

As we continue with our enhancements we have seen the community interest increase and hope that this will continue with additional donations and support.

We are planning the return of our annual pre-parade BBQ on Friday May 27, from 4 to 7 PM in front of the library. Come out and support your local library. Enjoy a barbecued hamburger, hot dog, drinks, and fresh homemade pie.

In addition to the BBQ, the Friends of Maple Acre are celebrating over 100 years of existence and also celebrating the fire department that once shared this plot of land. To celebrate this milestone, a short vignette called “At Your Service,” will be performed in front of the Library at 6 PM sharp.

This dramatization is written and performed by some of the members of SAY IT! On Stage, an intergenerational theatre program run by the Town of Pelham. SAY IT! is in the process of building an original stage play in November, but were happy to devote some of their creative energy to this celebration of some important parts of Fenwick history.

The script for this short play was built with information gathered through both reading material kept in Maple Acre's historical collection, and through conversations with members of the Fenwick community.

“At Your Service” pays tribute to the dedication and hard work that have made Pelham Fire Station #2 and the Maple Acre Branch of the Lincoln Pelham Public Library cornerstones of the Fenwick community.

A silent auction will also be held inside the library with donated items.

Please come out and see our tree carving progress to date, enjoy the BBQ, explore the library, and enjoy the performance while waiting for our Fabulous Fenwick Lions Club parade.

All support and donations to our library projects are most appreciated.

Sandee Matthews Friend of Maple Acre Fenwick

Many will remember the brutal killing of my husband, Earl Clapp, on October 2, 2020. We have learned during the court process that there was no conversation or interaction between the thieves and my husband. Earl was simply walking down the street in their direction to check on noise. He was run down by a thief afraid of capture, and dragged for two kilometres to his death.

The Pelham community with the leadership of the Fenwick Lions demonstrated not only their support for our family but the unity and determination of Pelham residents in protesting against trespassing and theft on our properties and the violence that inevitably results. I have learned through the preliminary hearing that the planning and execution of theft of trailers, trucks, tractors, and ATVs has become routine and seen by perpetrators as their exclusive means of “earning” a living.

On June 7, beginning at 10 AM at the St. Catharines courthouse (59 Church St.), the perpetrator in our case will be sentenced. For our family and Earl's friends, we look to this as hopeful closure to what has been a difficult journey. But for the broader community, it is an opportunity to be present and demonstrate to the court and policy-makers that communities must not live in fear and be victims of what appears to have become a well-oiled crime machine.

If you would like to believe that the trailer, truck, or ATV that you have worked hard for is yours, and not a target for thieves who believe that there will be no consequence, I encourage you to attend for part or all of the day to show your concern. Observers are allowed to enter or leave a courtroom at any time unless the judge is speaking. It is expected that this hearing will go into the afternoon.

Questions? Email me at [email protected]

Tillie Clapp Fenwick

We want to alert the community that car break-ins continue, following a break-in story the Voice printed last summer. Two cars on Fallingbrook Drive, Fonthill, were broken into overnight on Friday, May 20. Unfortunately, neither homeowner had cameras or sensor lights, and valuable items were stolen. Are these the same kids from last year?

A Concerned Resident

My husband and I live on Effingham Street. The homeowners on the street have been calling the Town for years asking for assistance in slowing down the traffic on Effingham, where we call home.

The speed of the traffic makes it difficult to leave our country driveways (steep, treed, uphill). We have had many close calls. Also, we have witnessed numerous accidents. Something has to be done. Kids live in these homes and teenagers who drive. I fear every time they leave our driveway. Also, I have to drive my car around the corner in order to go for a walk.

We need to slow down the traffic. Especially near our address—someone has died on that turn already. We don’t need a repeat.

Kelly Burton Effingham

Thank you Welland Councillor Tony DiMarco for having a thinking mind and courage to speak out against the rushing of the process and especially pointing out the lack of consideration being extended to the public so they get to have input on this extreme Welland change of landscape forever, which includes future generations.

Mayor Frank Campion dressed down DiMarco for insulting the staff. Really? You as Mayor, that is where your loyalty lands, not to the public taxpayers?

Has anyone noticed as you drive around Welland today that you can feel your lungs filling with the fumes of more and more vehicles being added to the grid? And what about the lungs of the earth, our God-given trees toppled down throughout Welland and now with this sudden takeover of 62 hectares more climate-changing nature help to be eliminated—all at the whim of a mayor and certain councillors.

This antiquated idea that cookie-cutter houses save the day is wrong-headed in my estimation. People buying those houses have demands and demands cost money compared to benefiting from 62 hectares that could draw people from all over. Did you see that green spaces are so in demand they now have to be booked. Not to mention home to myriad wildlife that goes where?

Niagara is being turned into a concrete city and is that what the public wants? Check out the drug use, knifes and gun deaths going on in Hamilton, Toronto, etc.

Politicians should not be entitled to such abuse of public lands. Truly they are not the owners and where will all this influx of people go for proper hospital care?

Thanks as well to the three other Welland Councillors Graham Speck, Bonnie Fokkens, and John Chiocchio who are doing a correct job of thinking of the taxpayers.

Faye Suthons Wainfleet

August 6, the first day of competition for the Canada Summer Games, is fast approaching. The games organizers are ticking off items from the list of “things yet to be done” at a steady pace. From past games it is estimated that 5000 volunteers will be needed to make these games run smoothly. The organizers are very close to this number and will continue to accept volunteers right up to opening day.

Prior to every Canada Games a torch relay takes place and sees the Roly McLenahan Torch travel through parts of the country as it makes its way to the host city for the opening ceremony. In keeping with this time-honored Canada Games tradition, the Niagara 2022 Torch Run will begin in Ottawa then head to Montreal for its unprecedented journey on water. From Montreal it will travel by boat to the Welland Canal, where it will disembark to continue the land journey across Niagara. The torch will then visit all 12 municipalities and engage with local residents in the lead-up to the 2022 Games. The torch will be in Pelham on Saturday, July 16, which coincides with our annual Summerfest festival. Please keep this date in mind and if possible come out and show your support for this once-in-a-lifetime event!

After the final leg of the land programme is complete, the torch will arrive at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines on August 6 for the opening ceremony, where it will ignite the Canada Games Cauldron and officially commence the competition. ◆

There is a crisis in the medical system in Ontario and across the country. There is a shortage of family doctors. Millions of people do not have access to a general practitioner. The problem is not new and has been decades in the making. According to Statistics Canada, 4.6 million people did not have a family doctor in 2019. The issue is severest in northern communities, the Maritimes, and Indigenous reserves.

The resolve of this matter is not an easy one and may even worsen. Many communities have established recruitment commissions to attract doctors to their constituency. Although communities disclaim competing with each other, each is developing incentives more attractive than their neighbour. The additional staff and cost of incentives is especially troublesome for the budgets of smaller communities.

Many of these incentives include cash and various other perks such as assistance with office space and jobs for the doctors’ spouses. Cash incentives are an attractive perk to many medical graduates as they finished their studies, owing significant amounts that subsidized the costs associated with their schooling.

A number of local doctors have or are about to retire and their patients are frantically searching for a family physician. However, they are finding the patient quota for these local doctors is maximized and they are unable to take on more patients.

There are some serious consequences associated with the sparsity of family physicians. One of these is that a person’s malady is not detected in its early treatable stages and may become a major trauma or more difficult and expensive to treat. Family doctors are the front line in the healthcare system and treat medical issues in the early stages before these become more debilitating.

Another consequence to the shortage of family doctors is the impact on the hospitals in communities where there are too few doctors for the area population. That often results in people who suffer from minor ailments to attend emergency departments of nearby hospitals. Such visits put an enormous and unexpected load on those hospitals and their often times limited staff. Ideally, such minor ailments are most effectively handled by clinics operated by family physicians.

Another reason that there is a shortage of family physicians is the fact that fewer med students are choosing that specialty. They observe this sector as being the least compensated and choose other specialties that have greater earnings potential. In some cases, family doctors are compensated on a per visit basis. While this rate varies from province to province, in British Columbia this rate is capped at $30 per visit.

The Canadian Resident Matching Service, used by graduating medical students to get their first posting, reports there were 1,569 family medicine positions available in 2022. According to that Service, 99 of these positions went unfilled this year.

It is to be hoped that future elected officials will turn their undivided attention to resolving this crucial issue. According to the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the problem of this doctor shortage will not be overcome until the provinces make this specialty more winsome by introducing more attractive compensation packages.◆