Phil Porter

President Rick called our meeting to order today
at pm at The St. Catharines Golf & Country Club. 
Those who joined President at the head table included:

• Guest Introducer: Phil Porter
• Guest Speaker: Honourable Jim Bradley
• Sgt-at-Arms: Art Weaver
• In-the-spotlight: Jaquelyn Bradshaw
• Registrar: Kelly Buckley

Introduction of Guests: Phil Porter

• Visiting Rotarian Doug Foss
• Youth Exchange In-student Bekki Kugler
• Youth Exchange Out-going Student Carly Gemmell
• Karen DeRoche, guest of Mary Margaret Murphy
• Christine Clark, guest of Rotarian Betty Lou Souter
• Bill Hallett, guest of Rotarian Betty Lou Souter
• Brad Hammond, guest of Rotarian Larry Ross

Jaquelyn Bradshaw

Member in the Spotlight: Jaquelyn Bradshaw
Jaquelyn was introduced to our Club by Martha Abra June 3, 2004.  A financial advisor at Edward Jones in St. Catharines, Jaquelyn enjoys canoeing, scuba tennis and travel.  She is a member of the Rib Fest Advisory, Dinner & Registration, Youth Leadership and Camp Enterprise Committees and Chairs the Children’s Committee.  Outside of Rotary, Jaquelyn has been and continues to be very active in our community:

• Executive director for the Association for Community Living (1990 to 2000);
• past Board Member and Secretary of the Whipper Watson Rehabilitation Board.
• Secretary for the Canadian Federation of University Women of St. Catharines;
• a member of the Welland Avenue United Church Finance & Property Committee; and,
• an advisor for the Accreditation Council of Ontario.

Jaqueline will be marrying Dalton Clark this May.  Jaqueline’s main claim to fame is she won a $1,400 50/50 pot!

Birthdays:

• March 4: Ian Elmes & Len Fenig
• March 5: John Travers
• March 6: Don Shaw
• March 7: Roger Segalin
• March 10: Rick Merritt

John Travers, Rick Merritt, Don Shaw and Roger Segalin

Grace: Ron Sloan

O Canada: Don Shaw

Toast to the Queen and Canada:  by President Rick

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Carly Gemmell

• 35 of our members have not paid their dues.
• One of our guests today, Brad Hammond, was a Youth Exchange student to Germany in 1999.
• Janet Johnson introduced our new Out-going Student Carly Gemmell.  Carly is from Laura Secord and speaks French fluently and some German.  She will be going to Brazil for a year where she will learn Portugese.  She really seemed to enjoy her Temagami experience and made a lot of friends there.
• Margaret Jarrell reminded us that he Night of 100 Dinners will be at Club Roma this year on March 31.
• Wendy Southall made literacy in Niagara personal through her comments  related to her daughter (employed in the literacy field) her grandchildren and her profession (some applicants have literacy issues).  She challenged us with two words, Tenifer and Buccal.

• Wendy Southall

  Tenifer is a trademarked name for the end result of a chemical bath nitriding process that embeds nitrogen into an iron-containing alloy to create a corrosion-resistant finish that is a dull grey in color and extremely hard. The generic term for this type of process is carbonitriding. Glock, an Austrian firearms manufacturer, utilizes this process to protect the slides of the pistols they manufacture. Buccal is the adjective form of cheek.  This is the preferred area of sampling for voluntary DNA analysis. 
• Umfundisi has been approved for matching grants by our District 7090 World Community Service Committee. (Go get ‘em Chris!)

HAPPY DOLLARS

Mark Zammitt

50/50 Draw:  With $119 at stake, Archie Heide won the chance to draw any ace – he drew the Jack of Hearts!

Happy Dollars: Collected today by Mark Zammitt
Mark led by commenting that he will not tell a joke as he does not want to be sent to Rotary Jail.  He recounted a sad $ story about his car that received a severely dented bumper while parked at Pearson International – got it repaired and two days later got it smashed again while parked!  This morning someone broke off one of his wiper blades…  Two weeks ago, Mark participated in a bike race in the snow along with 45 others and survived.

Peggy was $2 happy for having spent 12 days in Florida and because the garden centre is opening (sure sign of Spring).

Marg Jarrell

Lumpy was happy about a newfie who thought he had won a motor-home at Tim Hortons and in fact only won a bagel??

Lezlie was happy for 3 of her tennis students qualified in the Boys Under 18 category from a field of 35.

Archie pointed out, dressed in a jacket and tie, that he only dresses this way for Jim Bradley and the Pope and he is neither liberal nor catholic!

Bob Ure was happy to note the return of 12 robins to his backyard.

Art Weaver was happy for the story in The Standard about Rotary Park and because his son has qualified for the Traveling Team for the Special Olympics Power Lift.

Program

Jim Bradley

Phil Porter Introduced our Guest Speaker, the Honourable Jim Bradley Minister of Tourism. Minister Responsible for Seniors, the Green Belt and Oak Ridges Foundations.  He note that Jim failed Phil 3 times in Grade 7 and went on to City Councilor from 1970 – 1977.  Jim has been in the Provincial Legislature since 1977!
Jim began by recognizing Rotay as a strong builder in our community.  He has over the years employed 4 former Rotary Youth Exchange students.  Today Jim’s presentation covered a lot as follows:
 System Changes

• His government has installed fixed elections for early October every 4 years.  The next one will be October 10, 2007.
• It is now law that campaign contribution sources must be disclosed as the support comes in.
• From the next election on, the Provincial Auditor will report the financial state of affairs on the eve of the Election.
• Freedom of Information laws now apply to Hydro.
• All government advertising is now placed through the Provincial Auditors Office.
• Cabinet Members must maintain a 67% attendance requirement or face a $500 fine.
• Offices that remain independent of the government include the Provincial Auditor, The Ombudsman, Freedom of Information and the Child Advocate.

Local Items of Interest

• Our new hospital is one of the largest such projects in Ontario
• The QEW Widening through St. Catharines is the largest single project in Ontario in 2007.

Provincial Federal Relations
In the past, Ontario has been benevolent and sharing.  Today there is a $23Billion gap between what Ontario contribute and what Ontario receives back.  This is no longer tolerable.  While Quebec wants federal $ to come without any strings attached, Ontario does not care about stipulations about how the money is used.  The Maritime provinces with oil want the oil, don’t want to pay royalties and want the Federal support to continue.

The new NHS Hospital and Cancer Centre

• No question about the need – current facilities old and no longer suitable.
• Traveling to Hamilton for radiation treatment is very onerous.
• Our population in Niagara is older and aging faster that the rest of Ontario; therefore, we are experiencing higher demand for cardiac and cancer care.
• While 1/3 of us at some time in our lives will need psychiatric care, this area of health care is historically short changed.  The tertiary Mental Heath facilities are badly needed.
• Jim paid tribute to the cooperation now enjoyed between the NHS and the HDH.
• Government funding will now cover 90% of building costs (ed. up from 70% recently).  10% must be raised locally (ed. and many equipment $ must be raised locally).
• While this is a P3 partnership, the community will own and operate the hospital and cancer centre.  The builder is responsible to deliver the facility on time and on budget because significant penalties are built in.  With this type of system, the MOH does not anticipate low ball bids.
• Today almost 50% of Ontario’s annual budget is Health Care!

Betty Lou Souter asked on behalf of the Community essentially, “When does the shovel go in the ground?”
Jim provided the following as his answer:

• Prequalified contractors are preparing their bids now and we should see bids submitted during 2007
• Ground will be cleared in 2007
• Construction will begin in 2008
• Remember that the last estimate did not include SARS implications and was approximately $300,000,000.

Speaker Thanked by: Kelly Buckley
Kelly thanked Jim for his overview and the time today.

President Rick announced that the Club will be supporting literacy through a grant to the Don Bosco Society in Sri Lanka.  This is an agency that can likened to The Children’s Aid Society here; it has many mandates and literacy is included.  We will be donating $2,100 through our Literacy Committee, the Charitable Trust and World Community Service.

Jim Bradley and Rick Merritt

NEXT WEEK’S PROGRAM

St. Patrick's Day