North Grenville receives a grant for Cycling Program

The Municipality of North Grenville is one of 120 municipalities across the Province of Ontario which will receive funding from the province for new bike lanes and other cycling infrastructure.

A statement from the Municipality says that: “The Municipality of North Grenville are recipients of a $75,996 Ontario Municipal Commuter Cycling Program grant! We will be doing a Municipality-wide cycling commuter plan as part of the transportation master plan.”

OMCC is supported by proceeds from Ontario’s cap and trade program. The purpose of this program is to provide direct, dedicated, annual funding to Ontario municipalities to support the implementation of commuter cycling infrastructure to encourage people to get out of their cars and onto bikes for their daily commute or other frequent trips.

It is a multi-year program with $93 million available in the first year. Funding for future years will be determined based on availability of cap and trade proceeds. All Ontario municipalities are eligible for annual OMCC funding to support up to 80% of costs associated with their implementation of eligible commuter cycling projects.

The United Counties of Leeds & Grenville received $303,059 under the OMCC Program.

Is social enterprise the key to the future of local food?

by Deron Johnston

Recently, at the Eastern Ontario Local Food Conference in November, there was one breakout session that was of particular interest to this writer. It was a session on “The Role of Social Enterprise in Developing Sustainable Local Food Systems”. It was described as “this panel will profile the importance of social enterprises in building a sustainable local food system by showcasing innovative business models and the impact they create”.

Three specific examples were introduced by a founder, a marketing executive, and an executive director. The first enterprise to be showcased was called Klink Coffee. It was created by the John Howard Society of Toronto, a not-for-profit organization. What’s unique about Klink, explained Mark Kerwin, is that it provides jobs and skills training for people returning from the criminal justice system. These people would normally find it very difficult to find employment with a criminal record. They currently sell their different blends of coffee online, but hope to expand to a café and storefront in 2018.

The second organization featured was the YWCA of Hamilton. Executive Director, Denise Christopherson, told the over-capacity crowd