The Creemore
ECHO
Friday, May 26, 2023 Vol. 23 No. 21
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Residents clash on opening Creemore to ATVs by Trina Berlo A public meeting was held in Stayner Wednesday evening to hear public input on the possibility of expanding ATV access in the Creemore area. The meeting was attended by about 75 people who appeared to once again be evenly split in support and against. The meeting was held in review of Clearview Township’s Off-road Vehicle Bylaw 20-71, to seek public opinion on options including creating a permit system to give off-road vehicle drivers in the settlement areas of Creemore and Dunedin direct access to designated approved OFATV trail. Other options presented were to open all municipal roads except where safety and environmental sensitivity was a concern, or to maintain status quo, meaning to stick with the prohibited zone south of County Road 9 and west of Airport Road. Township staff outlined the options and the considerations needed for each option. For example, the township only employs two bylaw officers who are often not on duty evenings and weekends
Staff photo: Trina Berlo
Mayor Doug Measures moderates a public meeting on the topic of ATV access at the arena in Stayner on May 24. so council would have to consider how a permit system would be enforced. As part of the review, staff is proposing that fines be approved in order to better enforce the bylaw, whatever the outcome. At the outset an attendee yelled out,
“Why were we segregated in the first place?” When Stayner councillor John Borderick raised the issue of opening access to all township roads back in July of 2020, a compromise of sorts was reached when former Creemore councillor
Thom Paterson and the Creemore and Area Residents Association, among others, proposed taking a ward-by-ward approach, essentially banning them in Creemore but allowing them elsewhere (off-road vehicles are not permitted on county roads and provincial highways). This issue was raised again last year by former New Lowell councillor John Lamers in response to requests from residents who said they wanted to access trails without having to trailer their offroad vehicles. “There are a lot of people bitching about the four-wheelers who don’t live in Clearview Township,” said Creemore resident Bob Ransier, who said he has an ATV but can’t get out of Creemore with it. “If you are going to allow bicycles on the road you should allow ATVs. I call that discrimination.” Former councillor and Lavender Hill Road resident Marc Royal said he is not in favour of segregation and finds ATV users to be respectful of the rules of the road. “Permits are unmanageable and unnecessary,” he said to applause. (See “Off-roaders” on page 3)
Citizens hold vote on hospital privatization by Trina Berlo Local volunteers with the Ontario Health Coalition have been out in the community promoting a citizen-led referendum with the hope of pressuring the provincial government to halt steps toward privatization in healthcare. The Ontario Health Coalition’s province wide referendum campaign includes an online vote throughout the month of May and physical polling stations in Stayner on May 26 and 27 to vote on the question: Do you want our public hospital services to be privatized to for profit hospitals and clinics? Yes or No. “Now that Bill 60 has passed, our job at the Ontario Health Coalition is
to do everything in our power to stop its implementation,” said executive director Natalie Mehra in a press release. “We have to make it politically impossible for the Ford government to privatize our public hospitals., To do this, we are mounting a massive People’s Referendum. We have set an ambitious goal of a million votes to save our local public hospitals.” In Clearview Township, Jillian Ives is leading the charge. She is a thirdgeneration health care practitioner and said, as a therapist who worked with marginalized people and the daughter of beloved local doctor Bill Ives, whose father and son also had long careers in rural medicine, she believes there is a
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lot to protect when it comes to public healthcare in Ontario. She said the data shows that access to universal health care results in an a healthier population overall. “I am very motivated to keep people in a position where they can get good care,” said Ives. When it came out I was kind of irritated but I didn’t understand that really they are using our taxpayer funded pool of money to pay for-profit [medical practitioners] rather than taking that money and putting it back into the public system.” The Ontario Health Coalition says public hospitals in Ontario have the lowest funding in Canada, and the (See “Polls” on page 5)
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