Under a thick veil of secrecy, Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship has partnered with the new owner of the Ramada Inn on Brookdale Avenue to transform the hotel into a temporary shelter for asylum seekers.
The hotel was purchased by a numbered Toronto-based company several weeks ago. With-in days of the sale, the feds had a deal with the new owner to use the hotel to house folks – some entire families – crossing the Quebec-New York State border with little more than the clothes on their backs and a suitcase.
Incredibly, the people who should have known about the set-up were kept in the dark by the feds.
Did the department’s public relations hacks not come back to work after the Christmas/New Year’s break?
Nobody at city hall was told despite the fact busing more asylum seekers to the city will have a huge impact on social and health services.
There’s a less concerning issue of dozens of hotel rooms being taken out of the mix and loss of accommodation tax revenue for the city.
MP Eric Duncan said he started to hear rumours of the hotel being turned into a temporary shelter but had to do some digging to find out what was going on.
The feds seem to have taken the approach that hey city, it’s your problem. Deal with it!
And, if what the New York Post reported this week continues, staging areas such as Cornwall may need more centres to contend with the flood of humanity expected to increase when the warmer weather arrives.
New York City has been overwhelmed by the crush of illegals shipped to the Big Apple by Texas. According to The Post, 40,000 illegals are being housed in NYC hotels and shelters with more arriving every day.
To take pressure off American’s biggest city, the state ripped a page from the Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s playbook. The Post reported that the state is offering all illegal takers a free bus ride to the Quebec/New York State border. A photo in The Post shows folks boarding Adirondack Trails buses. Several of those boarding the buses said they did not feel safe in crime-ridden New York City and looked to a better future in Canada, so jumped at the chance to cross another border.
Post readers had some interesting comments. Keep in mind that folks who read The Post are cut from a different cloth than say Washington Post or New York Times readers.
One of the more thoughtful comments was from a reader who said he had entered the United States legally, meaning he went through all the red tape, a process that took almost two years. The reader wondered, quite correctly, why “line jumpers” were being fast-tracked. New Canadians, who navigated the legal route, could be asking the same question.
That was one of the nicer comments accompanying the on-line story.
Here is a sampling of other comments:
It’s scary when people from El Salvador are fleeing New York because there’s too much crime.
Leaving New York (City). Who wouldn’t?
Forget the illegals, let’s put the politicians on the buses.
Somebody suggested a Go-Fund Me page to help ship more “guests” to the Canadian border.
Another said the free-bus-ride-to-Canada was a “good start.”
So, now said another, the U.S. is funding an invasion of Canada. Does this mean war?
Guess they (illegals) haven’t heard about the homeless crisis “up there” (aka Canada).
This from a not-a-Justin Bieber fan: Can we put Justin Bieber on one of those buses to Canada?
Somebody said good on the illegals who took the bus-to-Canada offer, noting that there’s very little crime in Canada and free health care for all residents. Plus, plenty of better paying jobs.
There were a few shots at our prime minister.
Perhaps remembering that Trudeau the Elder had a fondness for a Cuban dictator, he was referred to as Justin Castro.
Somebody speculated that Trudeau will make sure all the new arrivals get a free bag of weed from his government.
FEBRUARY 1971 – This was the last term for Grade 11 and 12 classes at St. Raphael’s Academy in St. Raphael’s. It also meant the end of student boarders who accounted for 64 of the 141 students. Grades 11 and 12 had been part of the school since 1914. It would continue Grades 9 and 10 with day students. … Van Leishout Const. Was given the contract for the first phase of the downtown urban renewal project. The contractor had the winning bid of $5,000 to demolish the old fire department garage along with buildings at 330 to 334 Pitt St. And 13 Third St. W. … Anne Pescod, 18-year-old Cornwall Collegiate student, was crowned Queen of Frostbite ‘71, the city high school winter carnival. Runner-up was Colette Duhamel, 17, of St. Lawrence High School. … Stormont MPP Fern Guindon was named tourism minister. … Rookie Blair MacDonald scored two goals to help Cornwall Royals defeat Drummondville Rangers 6-3. Brian McCullough, Mike Renaud, Mark Smith and Bob Murphy also scored. It was just the 13th win of the season for Royals, last in the 10-team league. …. Anchor Motel Mavericks won the Cornwall Minor Hockey International Bantam Tournament, beating Brampton Kodiaks 2-0. Goalie Rene Desrosiers was named the tournament’s top goalie, giving up just five goals in six games. Chico Ouellette and Denis Fortier had the Cornwall goals. Mavericks coach Ford Markell was named the tournament’s top coach. … The city budget called for a property tax increase. A house with a $5,000 assessment (average for the city) would pay an additional $30. This didn’t include the education tax. … A provincially-funded winter tree-cutting program aimed at providing much needed jobs for city and United Counties residents was under way with 400 men – drawn from the unemployment and welfare rolls – hired on.
TRIVIA This city landmark was destroyed in a 1997 Valentine Day fire.
TRIVIA ANSWER Paul Anka’s hit song Diana was about the girl next door in Ottawa, where he grew up. The Anka family had a strong connection to a Cornwall family and made a little known guest appearance in Cornwall … more about that in a future column.
QUOTED “So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.” – Peter Drucker
