THURSDAY JUNE 22, 2017
14,000 REBATE!
$
PROVINCIAL
on all
ELECTRIC FOCUS 185 KM RANGE!
18001 LESLIE ST,
(South of Greenlane) Newmarket
905-853-5000
For 150 years, temple stands as beacon among farm fields
Voted the BEST Window Company again by Reader’s Choice Awards! See Our Ad In This Paper
NEWMARKET SHOWROOM
16700 Bayview Ave., Unit 15
905.853.9400
www.northerncomfortwindows.com
ONLINE at yorkregion.com News, events and information on your desktop, laptop or mobile device
Sunday Reads
An aerial photograph of the Sharon Temple taken from a bi-plane and Main Street, Sharon
SIMON MARTIN smartin@yrmg.com East Gwillimbury is in the midst of a rapid transformation that is moving the town from a predominantly agricultural community to one that is turning into a more residential area. Just how
long do those agriculture roots stretch back? While in 1867 if you drove down Leslie Street in Sharon on horse and buggy you most likely would have seen 100acre farms, Sharon Temple board president Jim Pearson said. “Virtually everybody was a subsistence farmer at the time,”
Pearson said. “There was probably jobs like a blacksmith, a wheelwright or a storekeeper but they were more part time.” To see how important agricultural was in 1867 all you had to do was read the pages of the Newmarket Era and North York Intelligencer. An excerpt from
1867 reads, “Mr. Stephen Howard 1st Concession East Gwillimbury had a Leicester ewe that dropped a lamb weighing 15 lbs when 3 days old and weighed 36 lbs when 22 days old.” It turns out Stephen Howard is the distant relative of
Explore unsolved mysteries and read new work by Canadian authors. yorkregion.com/sundayreads
uReport the News newsroom@yrmg.com www.facebook.com/yrmgnews @yorkregion yorkregion.com/ureport
O See CHILDREN, page 3
COMMUNITY
Pride Parade draws colourful crowds to Newmarket KIM ZARZOUR kzarzour@yrmg.com Rainbows were running rampant down Main Street in Newmarket the morning of June 17 for the 2017 York Region Pride Parade. It was the first time the parade was held in the town after several years in Richmond Hill, and by most accounts, it was a roaring success. "This is just phenomenal," said Michelle Gouffray. "Newmarket really stepped up to the plate of inclusivity." The town’s Main Street was shut down for the Saturday morning event that culminated in a concert with a family-friendly party at Riverwalk Commons. The local farmers market and artisan fair drew even more crowds, making the village core a happening place on a sultry day. Kevin Dupuis, a pharmacist at the Main Street Robins IDA, hap-
Kim Zarzour/Metroland
Michelle Gouffray, who has volunteered with the York Region Pride parade in years past, said this year’s event in Newmarket was "phenomenal". pily donned a rainbow tie and decorated his storefront as part of the celebrations. Several pharmacy staff – on-duty and off – joined him to cheer the parade.
"Vendors have really embraced the whole idea," he said. "It’s fun, it brings a lot of people out and everyone’s in a good mood."
Several restaurants created festive offerings for the day, from rainbow hamburgers at Cachet restaurant to a colourful cheesecake confection at Hungry Brew Hops.
Francine Collins said she moved to Newmarket recently and was thrilled to hear the parade would be a few blocks away. "It’s fantastic," she said. "Newmarket is such a diverse community and this pulls everyone together. I imagine some people’s nose will be out of joint, but hopefully they’re in the minority." Vanessa H., 23, said she has just come out as gay and appreciated a chance to celebrate in a safe place. The Holland Landing resident said it isn’t always easy to be different in a small town and events such as this let young people know they don’t have to feel alone. Unlike Toronto, police were a big part of the Newmarket event, representing York Region, Simcoe South, Peel, Durham, RCMP and OPP. They were greeted with cheers and applause as they made their way down the street. l See NEWMARKET, page 10
NEWS
’Garbage food for garbage people’ not solution LISA QUEEN lqueen@yrmg.com Society needs to shift from treating the growing number of hungry as charity cases needing a handout to ensuring everyone has a basic income that allows them to feed themselves. That was a key message of Food Fight, a York Region Food Network seminar aimed at taking a bite out of food security issues at the Newmarket Community Centre June 20. "What we’re doing now is not
changing people’s lives or helping people. We’re still living with high levels of poverty and food insecurity and that’s bad for all of us," executive director Joan Stonehocker said. "All of us need to demand from our politicians that we change the way that we are doing things so we don’t have people who don’t have enough to eat." Skyrocketing housing costs, precarious employment and social assistance rates of about $8,000 a year for a single recipient are leaving people unable to
afford food, Stonehocker said. The inadequate answer, so far, has been to direct people to places such as food banks rather than addressing income inequality, she said. While many would rather blame low-income earners for their situation, it’s in taxpayers’ best interest to boost people’s incomes to reduce health and criminal justice costs, Stonehocker said. Food insecurity is a growing
SAVE UP TO 20%
l See TAKING, page 2
ON OUTDOOR SPEAKERS
905-898-7133 www.liptons.ca
save on selected models of weatherproof outdoor speaker boxes, in-ceiling, and rock type speakers.
Full installation available at your location: call or drop by for a quote.
Lisa Queen/Metroland
Dr. Lisa Simon, associate medical officer of health with the Simcoe Muskoka District Health, keynote speaker at a Food Fight seminar on food security issues in Newmarket, spoke about benefits of guaranteeing everyone a basic income.