District motorists were shocked to see prices at the pumps skyrocket about 10 cents a litre practically overnight late last week to hit what’s believed to be the highest price ever for gasoline here. And the summer season—typically a time when gas costs more anyway due to higher consumer demand—hasn’t […]
Editorials
While many new municipal leaders, including Fort Frances Mayor Dan Onichuk and Couns. Tannis Drysdale and Rick Wiedenhoeft, were gathering for the first time at the annual general meeting of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association last week in Thunder Bay, it also was the first such meeting for the new […]
April Fool’s night, 1989 will be forever etched into the hearts and minds of the 3,000 people jam-packed into the old Memorial Arena to watch our beloved Muskies capture all-Ontario gold on home ice with that 5-3 win over the St. Jerome’s Lions (Kitchener). Fortunately, thanks to the hard work […]
Members of the local Business Improvement Area deserve kudos for getting together at the Civic Centre last night to solicit ideas and hammer out strategies to revitalize the downtown core in the face of Wal-Mart’s opening here in January. Most on hand admitted they have been losing to Wal-Mart over […]
It seems most councillors were reluctant to talk about video lottery terminals (VLTs) at Monday night’s meeting, and let’s hope it stays that way. It’s somewhat ironic that the issue of VLTs in local bars, restaurants, and other establishments came back before council the same week the Alberta Knights of […]
The public—out of the loop because most of the discussion was done behind closed doors—will never know if Mark McCaig was town council’s first choice to be the new CAO for Fort Frances, or if he was offered the job because others had turned it down. Regardless, Mr. McCaig looks […]
Both the local Canadian Parents for French and Northwest Catholic District School Board should be lauded for keeping the French Immersion program afloat at the senior kindergarten level here this September despite enrolment that falls short of the minimum number of students the board requires. The value of local students […]
It’s understandable if many district residents still feel leery over the new federal riding of Thunder Bay-Rainy River, which officially comes into being April 1. Gone are our traditional ties with our similarly-sized neighbours to the north, like Kenora and Dryden, who share many of the same challenges and issues […]
Town council has been tossing around a major tax hike, much higher user fees, service cuts, and metered water usage as it tries to wrestle with a monstrous $2.7-million shortfall for the 2004 budget. It was inevitable, then, that the notion of “bag tags” for garbage was sure to rear […]
The Times welcomed new sports reporter Amy Scanlon from Ottawa earlier this month and she’s certainly had to hit the ground running. This past weekend alone, there was the ladies’ bonspiel to cover, along with a girls’ Atom and Novice hockey tournament, a women’s hockey exhibition series, a men’s and […]
Though lauded for his concern about the health consequences of exposure to second-hand smoke, ultimately the chief medical officer of health for the Northwestern Health Unit was whistled for overstepping his bounds in trying to ban smoking in all enclosed public places in the Kenora and Rainy River districts. In […]
On the surface, a resolution unanimously passed by town council at its regular meeting Monday night was aimed at calming the masses, so to speak, in stating the town only was in the preliminary stages of balancing the 2004 budget and that no decisions had been made yet. It also […]
