The Rural Voices Network

The Women’s Institutes of Ontario very recently launched a project to develop a “Rural Voices Network” (RVN) and whist it is early days yet it gives me some extra hope that our rural voices will become more audible in Queens Park and Ottowa. I have written extensively about rural issues, government reports about such issues and even tried, unsuccessfully, to better define exactly what 'rural' encompasses , this initiative then is one which I fully support. The WI has long been active in rural communities, far more I suspect than in urban areas, and thus may well already have more insight than most into the challenges that rural communities face.

Activities within this initiative include creating a Project Advisory Committee, a literature review, ‘Let Your Voice Be Heard’ public forums, online forums, public survey and establishing collaborative networks.  The RVN project is sponsored by a $140,200 grant from The Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF). The purpose of the RVN Project is to examine what enables rural citizens to participate in the common life of their community, and to identify barriers to rural civic engagement.  The Rural Voices Network is driven by the mandate to give rural citizens a space to have their voices heard, and to collaborate with charitable organizations and leaders in all levels of governance. 

They will be holding several Public Forums commencing Nov 10^th 2011 in 7 communities to understand why and how people participate in the common life of their communities. All community members are welcome to participate in the forums. The aim of the public forums is to have rural citizens ‘voice’ their opinions, life experiences and ideas to be key influences for a Province-wide survey relating to rural civic engagement.

They also have an Online Forum where citizens can initiate discussion and forward ideas or respond to other interested rural residents without the need to participate in a face to face Public Forum. I for one expect to be quite active in said space over the next few months as this idea progresses.

Finally a Tip o the Hat to The Guelph Mercury for publishing an article on this and thus bringing it to my attention.

Election numbers

Just a quick observation on the Ontario election numbers and the percentage turnout. I dont know how the percentage turnout is calculated when large numbers of voters amongst those who chose to vote were not even 'on the list', we wonder how many who did not vote are also missing from the voters list. My contact at one particular rural voting location tells of complaints about long line ups due to so many revisions being required, perhaps as many as 50% of those voting either were not on the list or their address contained errors and thus did not match their identification. Many did not receive their voter cards due to these address anomalies and, as I said in previous posts, many had to drive some distance to vote and thus were already somewhat frustrated. A considerable number of voters left extremely upset without voting or were turned away due to being at the wrong location, we wonder how much effect this had upon the outcome, with the tight numbers at some polls it could make the difference between one candidate or the other being elected.
Elections Ontario does not get any accolades for this one, given that we now have a minority government and thus  they may NOT have four years to prepare (we wonder what they have been doing for the LAST four years) for the next election  there is MUCH work to be done in the next little while.

All in all it seems that my first impression was correct it was indeed a CF!

Elections Ontario Responds

Having written to Elections Ontario to express my concern with the voting locations which some rural residents are asked to attend, that being some distance beyond several closer polls, I was surprised to get a quick response. Here is what they had to say on this issue:-

“Returning Officers must consider a number of criteria to find the most suitable voting locations including convenience for electors; the location’s capacity; the extent to which electors are likely to be familiar with the location; any significant barriers that electors will encounter in reaching the location; and any other factor that may be relevant to the proper conduct of the election.

Additionally, recent amendments to the Election Act require that all voting locations are fully accessible. To meet these new requirements, Elections Ontario has developed comprehensive Site Accessibility Standards to help Returning Officers find the most accessible voting locations in their electoral district.

The changes we have made to selecting voting locations mean that some buildings which have held polls in the past are no longer used. In some instances, electors may therefore have to travel further to a voting location than in the past.

In the examples you have cited, it is true that in some instances there may be other voting locations that are closer geographically, however these locations are already at capacity. The electors would then be assigned to the next closest accessible location”.

I have a couple of comments regarding this, firstly how is that Elections Canada managed to find locations with sufficient capacity and access to have us vote locally, secondly I view the distance we have to travel to vote a significant barrier to many voters, and the fact that we drive past an open poll to get there a significant disincentive to vote.

A poll clerk at one of the advanced polls told me that there is already considerable discontent with the voting locations (this not from the area mentioned in the original post), as another who worked in previous polls said “It’s broken on all levels and no amount of tweaking is going to fix it – it needs a major overhaul.”, Whist talking about the federal election it is clear that the same hold true at the provincial level.

Its long past time for 'electronic voting' be it by phone, on the internet or by machine at a poll location – preferably all three! Elections Canada is working on such an initiative I believe. Let us hope that any system devised is shared across the country with both the provinces and municipalities- or will everybody devise their own system each different from the next? I think we all know which way that will go!

Ontario Election Cluster F**k!

Having just received our “Notice of Registration” card in the mail we were surprised and dismayed to learn that we did not vote in one of our local communities of Chatsworh or Desboro or Wiliamsford but were expected to drive some distance to Holland center. Upon checking where others around our area were required to vote it became even more bizarre in that some folks would be driving practically past our door to vote at a CLOSER poll whilst other (including ourselves) would be driving PAST an OPEN poll in order to get to the one specified by Elections Ontario.

Is this a concerted effort to discommode rural voters or are the folks who set this up totaly unaware that maps exist that would tell them where these locations are?

Just for you interest here are a few of the WEIRD decisions in this regard:-

Let us take those at the North end of Concession 4 near County road 40 just a mile out of Chatsworth they are asked to vote miles away at

HOLLAND CHATSWORTH CENTRAL PUBLIC SCHOOL
Address: R.R. # 3,  777346 HWY 10,  HOLLAND CENTRE,  ON  N0H 1R0.

...... as are many others just to the west of Chatsworth, However those a little further to the west on the North end of Concession 8 for instance get to vote at

WILLIAMSFORD COMM. CTR.
Location: LOUNGE
Address: 112 SALTER ST,  WILLIAMSFORD,  ON  N0H 2V0.

....they like ourselves must ignore the closest poll at

CHATSWORTH FIRE HALL
Location: COMMUNITY/TRAINING ROOM
Address: 76 MCNAB ST,  CHATSWORTH,  ON  N0H 1G0.

.......... and drive way down the road to Williamsford. We on the other hand must ignore the nearby Chatsworth poll, drive practically PAST the Williamsford poll and travel all the way to Holland Center.

If this is typical of how the polling locations are figured out then I predict two thing, 1) Many folks will ignore their cards and go to the nearest poll (if they are aware of it through others) and get turned away. 2) Many will look at the distances involved in getting to their poll and simply not bother.

Whilst I really do encourage folks to vote option '2' is looking increasingly attractive particularly in that the advanced polls, whilst open anywhere from 5 to 10 days depending upon where you go, are even further away.

You can check thing out for yourselves at this search form provided by Elections Ontario

http://faq.elections.on.ca/faq/faqsearch.do?language=en

but don't even bother to try it unless you have a great deal of patience as it is hardy 'user friendly' , is slow to respond, and there is no fuzzy search here, one minor thing wrong and it goes tilt! Additionally it seems that many of the lots and concessions do not exist according to the search engine.

Have fun checking out your voting location, you may have to book some extra time off to get there.........

UPDATE - I now learn that there is also a polling station in nearby Desboro (where we voted for the federal election), the excuses that Elections Ontario has given for the unavailability of local polling locations is thus total nonsense!

UPDATE #2

For a map of the above polling locations go here.

Broadcast TV stations in Ontario.

A few weeks ago I wrote of the difficulty in finding out the current and future status of various Broadcast TV Transmitters in Ontario with regard to which were or were not switching to Digital transmissions as of the end of August.

Whilst we will find out by default very shortly the following link to a list of ALlocated, APproved and OPerational transmitters directly from the Industry Canada database thanks to Jon LeBlanc is a good indication of current and future plans.
It also gives the Latitude and Longitude and the height of the transmitter site which is helpful for those wondering where to point their antenna or if they are within range. It is unclear how often Industry Canada updates said list.

http://www.user.dccnet.com/jonleblanc/Canada_TV_Stations/ON.html

Another useful site for rural folks is this one, which allows you to input your location and then produces a list of stations close to you and the direction to actually point your antenna.

http://www.2150.com/broadcast/default.asp

Crude but Effective

Its been a little thin here this summer, there is always another thing on the list ahead of blogging. One of those things is now dealing with the glut of apples and pears on our trees just now becoming ready for picking and deciding what to do with it all. Having always wanted to try making cider but not sure how to effectively crush large volumes of fruit ready for pressing I recently came up with a quick and easy method of doing just that.

Use the wood chipper! Yes, thats right give that chipper a good clean out, remove the screen, place a polly feed bag over the outlet and dump a ½ bushel of fruit in the top and 15 seconds later you have a bag of pulp ready to be pressed, my press takes two such bags per pressing and yeilds between 2 and 3 gallons of juice.

So I now have several liters of Pear and apple juice (suitably heated to kill the wild yeast) in the fringe, an experimental gallon each of cider and perry bubbling away in the corner AND some pear butter made from the squeezed pulp (waste not want not) on the go in the slow cooker. Biggest problem is that this was all done with a couple of bushels of early 'fallers' and I already have 2 or 3 bushels of pears ripening in the basement, many, many more on the tree and have not even started on the apples.

Given that I also want to make some pear wine and only have enough equipment to make about 20 gallons in total it looks like I will be once again giving away fruit to anyone who drops by as we hate to see stuff go to waste and the chickens and peacocks (who love fruit) are already overloaded with the left over pulp. Apple pie anyone?

Oh, then there are the grapes which are also loaded with fruit..........

Broadcast TV in Grey Bruce

You have all seen the bits on your screen saying that you MAY have to change your old tv for new or get a 'digital converter' if you want to continue to watch station that you receive via an antenna rather than satellite or cable. For many of us cable or satellite is not an option for reasons of cost or unavailability so we are left wondering if we will have to buy one of those converters or not. I have spent many hours trying to find out if the stations I receive here just south of Owen Sound are are going , a) to continue broadcasting from the local transmitters, b) Continue broadcasting in 'analog' format as they are now, or c) switch to broadcasting in digital format on a new channel.

In some cases that information is easy to find and the stations involved will readily give you that information when requested, in other cases they are no so forthcoming.

What follows is the result of my inquiries in this regard.

Channel 2 CTV 'Georgian Bay' transmitter north of Wiarton will continue broadcasting as is, no change.

Channel 8 CTV / CKNX 'Wingham” transmitter will continue broadcasting as is, no change.

Channel 12 TVO 'Owen Sound' transmitter from Keady will continue broadcasting as is, no change.

Channel 20 CBC 'Owen Sound' transmitter from Keady - unable to get definitive answer, presumed to continue broadcasting as is.

Channel 45 CBC “Wingham” transmitter - unable to get definitive answer, presumed to continue broadcasting as is (see below).

Channel 4 Global 'Owen Sound' transmitter from Keady – unable to get definitive answer despite multiple requests via internet, email AND phone, presumed to continue broadcasting as is but I start to wonder what they are hiding!

What follows is a little more information on some of the above...

CTV / BELL

An email inquiry to CTV resulted in a speedy and definitive response indicating that both channel 8 Wingham and channel 2 Georgian Bay would remain unchanged.

TVO

Conventional TV stations like TVO will be allowed to continue broadcasting in analog beyond August 31, 2011 in markets where we do not make the conversion to digital.

High-and Medium-Powered TVO transmitter sites that will continue broadcasting in analog include: Peterborough, Owen Sound, Sudbury, Kingston, Penetanguishene, Sault Ste. Marie, Hawkesbury, Huntsville, Timmins, Pembroke, Parry Sound, Kenora, McArthur Mills, and North Bay. TVO will also continue to transmit an analog signal via more than 100 Low Power Repeat Transmitters across the province.

http://www.gopublic.org/?page_id=914

CBC

"The Corporation will continue to offer analogue service beyond the August 31, 2011 shut-off date established by government in all markets not identified by the CRTC as mandatory for digital transmission."

There are some markets, such as London, which are mandatory for Digital Transmission, and CBC does not operate a station there (but does operate a transmitter). In these cases, CBC will shut down the analog rebroadcaster and not replace it with a digital rebroadcaster.

http://cbc.radio-canada.ca/newsreleases/pdf/DTV_plan.pdf

GLOBAL / SHAW

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which takes place on August 31, 2011,[13] CIII-DT-41 will move from channel 65 to its current analog channel number, 41, following transition, because of the phaseout of channels 52-69.

Global intends on transitioning its CIII-TV Paris and CIII-TV-6 Ottawa transmitters to digital by August 31, 2011. CIII-TV-7 Midland (serving Barrie) is also required to broadcast in digital by August 31, 2011 or cease broadcasting. Global has decided to transition Midland's transmitter after the deadline and by 2016. CIII-DT-41 Toronto will increase coverage area to serve the Barrie area between the transition deadline and when the Midland transmitter begins broadcasting in digital.

CIII-TV-55 Fort Erie is required to vacate its channel frequency as of August 31, 2011. Global has decided to shut down this transmitter. Coverage to the areas in Canada served by the Fort Erie transmitter will be provided by CIII-DT-41 Toronto.

Global plans on transitioning all of its transmitters to digital by 2016.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIII-TV#Digital_programming

NOTE this is from wikipedia, neither Global or their owner Shaw has ANY information available regarding individual transmitter sites and both the web site and phone number supplied on air will not lead to further information.

There are many rural residents and cottage owners who receive broadcast TV in the Grey Bruce area and they should not replace their analog TV or purchase a digital converter on the assumption that their signal will be unavailable in analog as of august. For the most part it would seem that thing will remain as is for the next several years in this area, at this point in time the only questionable broadcast that MAY be changed or discontinued is Global as broadcast in analog format on channel 4.