flooding, muskoka river, 2019
Muskoka River and Brendale Square 2019 flooding. Photo: Dan Pinckard

Floods, drugs, finances and hospitals: Our top commentary of 2019

 

At Doppler, we strive to provide readers with opinions across a wide spectrum of topics from a diverse group of writers.

As in past years, Doppler writers and readers were eager to share their opinions on a wide variety of topics important to the Huntsville community.

These were some of the commentaries that engaged our readers the most in 2019.

Click on each title to read the full commentary.

To our detriment, much of Huntsville’s swamp area has been filled in ~ Brian Tapley

“These wet, low lying areas, the land that realtors despise and consider of low value, is actually the sponge that nature has provided to even out the water flow. Water that remains trapped in these areas for even just a few days will not cause the rapid rise and fall of rivers and lakes but will gradually trickle out. This, at least in nature is a good thing. Trouble is that for us this land is fairly, or at least on the surface appears, fairly useless. I mean you can’t build on it or park on it or anything most humans want to do on it.”

 

She Speaks: Muskoka has an addiction problem and it’s not what you think ~ Kathleen May

“The heart of addiction is not access, though ease of acquisition doesn’t help. The soul of addiction isn’t ‘chasing the good feeling’, though as far as motivational factors, feeling good is a winner. People who are addicted are not ‘riff raff’ (seen most recently on a local paper’s comment section), they aren’t scum, and they aren’t the dregs of society.”

 

If only there were a way to compare the Ontario Liberals’ financial record. Wait, there is. ~ Patrick Flanagan

“There is always room for improvement in any endeavor. However, these findings suggest to me that the province’s finances were not out of control during the Liberals’ tenure. I hope that a similar analysis in four years’ time will yield a similar conclusion.”

 

Listen Up! At this time Huntsville needs to support the recommendation for two new hospitals ~ Hugh Mackenzie

“The retention of a fully acute care hospital in Huntsville has been a controversial issue for several years. It is an extremely critical issue for our community. In 2019 the Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare Board finally came up with a recommendation for a modern acute care hospital in Huntsville. It is not a perfect solution and it may not be fully achievable but it is an important step to have the hospital board supportive of a fully acute care hospital here. My argument in this Commentary is that for this reason, we are better to work with the hospital board to get the best possible outcome for Huntsville rather than working against the board and being on the outside, when hard decisions have to be made about affordable and effective acute care hospital services in Muskoka.”

 

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