Blyth to hold New Year’s Eve fireworks display

Cory Bilyea Local Journalism Initiative Reporter cbilyea@midwesternnewspapers.com

NORTH HURON – Enthusiastic volunteers will host a New Year’s Eve fireworks display at the Blyth and District Community Centre, and North Huron council agreed to waive the fees associated with the event to help.

The Blyth Community Betterment Committee (BCB), with representation from the Blyth Lions, Legion, Ladies Auxiliary, Friends of the Village, and Blyth Women Sharing and Caring, submitted a letter of request to council at the Dec. 6 meeting.

“With the generous support of Bruce Power, we were able to purchase $1,600 worth of non-commercial grade fireworks to share with our community,” the letter of request said.

The BCB requested that North Huron council waive the facility rental/campground and fireworks permit fees and provide support from public works to plow the lanes in the campground, if necessary.

They also requested volunteers from the fire department to supervise and charge the fireworks and help manage the flow of traffic and parking at the campground.

The BCB will ensure a $5 million insurance policy and that COVID-19 protocols are in place and enforced at the event. In addition, they will take care of any promotions.

The Blyth New Year’s Eve fireworks display is a “free” community event.

The BCB and their partners have agreed to pay for the costs associated with the event, other than those related to municipal support.

The volunteers involved in the organization of this event have been working very hard to create a fun and safe community event and to raise the spirits of community members “during the challenging time of the pandemic.”

*** This article was originally published in the Dec. 9, 2021 issue of the Wingham Advance Times. To subscribe, call 519-291-1660 ext. 101.

Schreiner questions government’s original timeline to lift COVID-19 restrictions

Continued from front

“Ontario, like other jurisdictions around the world, is seeing concerning trends in public health and health care indicators, and additional measures are required to protect our progress for the long-term,” said Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health.

“All Ontarians are strongly urged to follow these and existing measures and get vaccinated with a first, second or booster dose if you have not done so already. These are the layers that are protecting everyone.

“By taking these actions, we can help to reduce the mobility of COVID-19 and its variants, protect public health and health system capacity and save lives.

“This is especially important as we enter the holiday season and spend more time with family and friends. We need to keep each other safe.”

Some opposition politicians, including Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner of Guelph, questioned why the government prematurely set seemingly random dates to end proof of vaccination requirements in the first place.

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“I’m relieved the Ford government has backed down from prematurely lifting the vaccine passport mandate they had originally set for [Jan. 17],” Shreiner stated in a press release.

“The science is clear. Vaccines work and vaccine passports are an important tool for public safety.

“Doug Ford should never have set an end date for vaccine passports before the system even had a chance to get started.”

Shreiner also called on the provincial government to:

• ensure small businesses have the resources they need to carry out the added step of scanning QR codes;

• “raise awareness and acknowledge that COVID is airborne”;

• supply high-quality masks and respirators such as N95s to anyone in highrisk areas, including healthcare or education settings; and

• make “significant investments” in ventilation upgrades to improve air quality in all congregate areas.

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Listowel Ford holding annual Blanket Drive, seeks community input on donation destinations

DAN MCNEE dmcnee@midwesternnewspapers.com

LISTOWEL – It’s round four for the annual Listowel Ford Blanket Drive, and this time around donated items will be finding homes through area organizations at the suggestion of local residents.

Since its inception in 2018, the Ford Blanket Drive has traditionally contributed blanket donations to the London Sick Kids Hospital NICU through the Children’s Health Foundation. With the COVID-19 pandemic limiting what that organization can accept in terms of decontamination protocols, initiative founder and Listowel Ford Product Specialist Matt Cory said it was decided to open up the Blanket Drive to area organizations that could best benefit from them this time around.

“Anyone who would benefit from having these blankets, reach out to us and we’ll add them to our list,” said Cory. “We’re just going to start dividing them before and after Christmas.”

Launched in mid-November, the 2021 edition of the Ford Blanket Drive will ac- cept donations of all new blankets until Dec. 20. To date through all four years of the initiative, approximately 850 blanket donations have been received.

“It really blows me away that Listowel is still going strong even during COVID and everything,” said Cory. “From year one, I still have some of the same ladies who donate 100 blankets themselves, they’re excited.”

2021 organizational recipients currently include the Emily Murphy Centre in Stratford and It Takes A Village in Listowel. Anyone looking to donate or seeking more information can reach out to Listowel Ford at 519-291-3520.

“There’s going to be a lot of them. We have 150 already, and the majority of them still aren’t here yet,” said Cory. “It’s going to go bigger and bigger. Now that we’re spreading it out, I think it’s a good idea to spread out the success we’ve had.

“We just wanted to incorporate the community and the people donating, so they get a say for the blankets to go somewhere that means a lot to them.”

Local resident charged with school bus violation

LISTOWEL – The Perth County Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have charged the owner of a vehicle after it drove through the stop arm and flashing lights of a school bus.

On Nov. 24, police were contacted after a vehicle was seen just before 9 a.m. driving through the overhead red flashing lights and extended stop arm on a school bus, while it was stopped loading kids on Tremaine Avenue South in Listowel.

The license plate of the vehicle was obtained, and the owner, a 33-year-old resident of North Perth, was charged with fail to stop for school bus – owner.

If convicted, the driver/owner can be fined not less than $400 and up to $2,000 for a first time offence, and a fine not less than $1,000 and up to $4,000 or imprisonment for subsequent offence(s).

They would also be subjected to six demerit points to their license.

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