THE Ford government claimed last week that its proposal to increase speed limits on some of the province’s major highways is garnering “wide public support,” but the effort being put into this “pilot project” seems both counterintuitive and a waste of time.

IT’S THE weighty subject that Donald Trump doesn’t want to talk about, and it’s not the coronavirus or his country’s ballooning debt. It is, however, a topic of epidemic proportions.

TWO private member’s bills on the touchy subject of drug use being put forward by a federal Liberal backbencher are both intriguing and a bit unsettling.

IT WAS disconcerting, to say the least, to learn this week that a 75-year-old man needlessly suffered a broken neck last spring after he pulled out from Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.

IS IT time for an award that specifically recognizes exceptional citizens from Northern Ontario? It might not be such a bad idea, given that not one person among the latest crop of Order of Ontario recipients is from this neck of the woods.

IT’S NOT rocket science: A business can’t sell its product without customer demand, nor will it move very much off the shelves if the price for that product isn’t in the sweet spot.

A STARTLING revelation by Thunder Bay police chief Sylvie Hauth points to the growing challenges she and her officers face — the same challenges that senior government for some reason continue to ignore.

IN ADDITION to the fanfare and edge-of-your seat excitement, Canadian tennis marvel Bianca Andreescu’s stunning U.S. Grand Slam victory in New York City surely served as a reminder that virtually anything is possible.

THE current tendency to bash police causes us to lose sight of the fact that the main reasons for having police forces is to solve crimes and protect law-abiding citizens from violence.

NOT everyone who uses cannabis will do so while zipping along a major freeway. Still, a case just outside Sudbury last week gave one pause, and seems to confirm what police warned would happen when it became legal last fall to possess the drug in small amounts.

IN CASE you missed it, Saturday was Thunder Bay’s version of Arbor Day. City officials and other hardy folks with shovels, pails and wheelbarrows in tow were to gather at Dalhousie Parkette on the city’s south side to plant some much-needed trees and bushes.

A HEADLINE this week on a Doug Ford-friendly website was blunt: Cities must face reality. Some would argue they’ve done so for years, despite suggestions to the contrary coming out of the premier’s office these days.

WHEN it comes to your health, and vaccinations in particular, who do you trust? A movie star who is among the so-called anti-vaxxers (but never studied medicine), or your physician, who actually does have a medical degree?

NO matter how you slice the 400-page Mueller report, it did not result in criminal charges against Donald Trump, America’s most bombastic president in memory. Though former FBI director Robert Mueller plainly did not exonerate the president over an alleged conspiracy of Russian-based meddlin…

WHEN seatbelts became mandatory in this province just over 40 years ago, very few would have thought they were living in a nanny state.

IF YOU believe Premier Doug Ford, it was extremely difficult to find a drink in this province prior to him taking over at Queen’s Park. In its first budget delivered last week, the Ford government bemoaned the fact that there are a mere 3,000 outlets in Ontario that sell booze, compared to m…

TODAY is budget day in Ontario and while politicians of all stripes paint themselves as heroes for knowing best how to make the province a better place, the real heroes will carry on, without pay, doing what they do every day. They are volunteers, and they make a huge difference in our commu…

EVERY year, many Canadians — more than three million by some estimates — cope with the winter blahs by flying or driving to Florida. It’s a long way to go for a fresh orange, and a lot of carbon gets pumped out in the process, but old habits are hard to shake.

THOUGH Ontario may need to up its game in terms of enticing tourists with catchy slogans, Premier Doug Ford’s idea for changing the phrase on provincial licence plates seems lame compared to what other province’s sport on their vehicles.

WHOEVER came up with the idea for New Year’s resolutions in January didn’t think it completely through, at least in terms of timing. If the goal is to, say, shed 25 pounds before the beaches are open for swimming, few will ever get started on that monumental goal in the first week of the col…

IT’S THE first of April so one can’t help wondering: Does the Doug Ford Conservatives take us for a bunch of fools? Last week, as Finance Minister Vic Fedeli was assuring business folks and “the people” about his plans to tackle Ontario’s astronomical $13.5-billion deficit, the province anno…

IMAGINE, if you will, the seventh and final game of a Stanley Cup playoff. The score is 3-2 in favour of the team the NHL’s board of governors quietly believes should take home the cup this year. But there’s still one more period to go, so anything can happen.

IT’S JUST so hard to believe. Among more than 6,200 Ontario Provincial Police officers, the province apparently cannot find a single OPP member qualified to become the force’s next commissioner.

HOLD on a minute. The prime minister must resign, says Andrew Scheer. We need an RCMP investigation if not a full-blown public inquiry, added Jagmeet Singh. The Conservative and NDP leaders can smell blood in the SNC-Lavalin affair and naturally they are doing all that they can to hoist Just…

THE last time Thunder Bay parents were this upset the public school board had changed bus routes. This time, it’s much more serious. It turns out there were some good reasons for re-routing the buses. There is no good reason for having to lock students in classrooms while police search for s…

IT’S HARD to deny that we’re into the February blahs. Last week in particular, the persistent deep freeze put many Northwestern Ontario residents in a foul mood as winter’s worst banished many inside.

EVERY taxpayer in this province owes Hazel McCallion a big thank you. McCallion, the famous former mayor of Mississauga, who at 98 remains remarkably engaged in civic affairs, has done us all a huge favour: she is not taking our money.

HYDRO One’s bid to build a new high-voltage power line between Thunder Bay and Wawa, which came crashing down Thursday courtesy of a provincial Order-in-Council directive, was doomed from the start.

IN THE House of Commons this week, federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer took a swipe at his main political opponent over the latter’s alleged lack of real-life experience.

MANY people who visit a remote fly-in First Nation for the first time come away feeling a bit shocked. Whether they are police officers, doctors, tradespeople or teachers, the scale of the poverty and lack of resources can take one’s breath away.

MAKING unintentional errors despite all best intentions is part of the human condition. There isn’t a person on this planet who hasn’t experienced things going awry at the worst possible moment as a result of making an embarrassing mistake.

BY MOST accounts, it was quite a haul. When a sharp-eyed Dryden provincial police officer last Friday stopped a vehicle for a traffic violation on Highway 17, it was found to contain a whopping $800,000 worth of cocaine.

WHETHER you believe former federal Treasury Board president Scott Brison left on his own accord last week, as he claimed, or was pushed out by a ruthless Liberal party brass, it’s never a good sign when senior cabinet members bail in an election year.

OF THE numerous options for New Year’s resolutions, getting one’s financial house in order ranks among the biggies. Many who started the new year up to their eyeballs in debt were likely seriously in the red well before the bills from the holidays started rolling in.

IT IS supremely ironic that while anti-immigrant sentiment continues to burble up in many parts of Canada, the economies of less prosperous regions continue to struggle due to a shortage of the most basic economic resource: people.

SATURDAY, Oct. 13 is International Carrier Appreciation Day. When our newspaper carriers deliver the paper throughout Northwestern Ontario, they fulfil the work of our entire operation to make sure the efforts of every department serves the readers and advertisers who sustain us.

IN HIS official response Monday to a tentative deal between this country and its two southern trading partners, Premier Doug Ford made sure to give a special nod to Ontario farmers.

NEWLY-ACQUIRED Montreal Canadiens forward Max Domi acted like a first-rate goon last week. And while he’s hardly the first NHLer to do so on the ice, it was disconcerting to see such an ugly spectacle kick off a season in which the Habs aim to improve their record.

FORMER prime minister Jean Chretien once observed that, while many people would like go to heaven someday, very few want to have to die to get there.

RON Howard, who directed Apollo 13 and other modern Hollywood gems, once allowed that while he wasn’t much of a math or physics whiz, he was nevertheless fascinated by science, and enjoyed developing big-screen stories that emerged from that field.

NAME a municipal council in this country, in a medium or large city, that is not occasionally accused of being dysfunctional and unwieldy, or incapable of “getting things done,” and we’ll show you a politician who is devoid of ego.

WHEN North America was in the throes of the Great Depression nearly a century ago, some economists and political leaders — U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt chief among the latter — believed that using government cash as an economic stimulus was the only way to revive businesses and thereby …

MAXIME Bernier is skilled with the instant communication capabilities of social media. He’s been giving federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer headaches as he uses Twitter posts of insight (or is it incite) to rile up critics on topics ranging from supply management to immigration.

POVERTY should be everyone’s concern. How we help the poorest among us to become beneficiaries and contributors in our economy is a measure of our success as a society. While that nobel thought is shared by most Canadians, they can’t be blamed for looking at the federal government’s new pove…

PRIME Minister Justin Trudeau’s fairly unequivocal dismissal last week regarding rumblings about a possible snap election was probably one of the best calls he’ll ever make as a politician.

WHEN former U.S. president and renowned pragmatist Herbert Hoover nearly a century ago promised “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage,” it was on one level just another politician trying to tap into the hopes and dreams of a weary electorate.

WITH news that talks will resume today to end the four-month strike at the Port Arthur Health Centre, thoughts turn to the aftermath. Things do not look good.

ANOTHER Northwoods League baseball season, another rough ride for the Thunder Bay Border Cats on the field. The Border Cats, the lone Canadian entry in the U.S.-based summer college league, are wrapping up their regular season this weekend at Port Arthur Stadium. They are second-last in the …

MAYORS are the stars of the show in municipal politics. While it’s somewhat crass to compare local government to entertainment, it’s equally naive to pretend performance is not part of the job.

IF PREMIER Doug Ford ever ponders the historical relationship, in a democracy, between politicians and the media, he might come to understand that any attempts to control the latter have been utterly futile, and always will be.