The tremendous number of volunteers of all ages, the quality of the signage, the management of the huge number of people attending (often well over 900 vehicles at one time) and the oodles of quality vendors selling or giving away everything from morning coffee, to good old hotdogs to Thai dishes and Samosas.

Overall, though, it was the spirit of the event that was so good, in fact many commented that the Fall Fair at the Ganong Nature Park was the best ever. Insiders point especially to the work of this year’s chairperson of the Fair organizing committee, Colleen Winchester, the former principal of St. Stephen Elementary.

Colleen taught school for 35 years and for 15 more was a vice principal or principal. As such, she knows an impressive number of kids and now, grown-ups, who passed through her school. Not surprisingly, many activities at the Fair were kid-orientated –one face painter spent two full days painting smiling young faces.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has had a rough week, losing another “safe” Liberal seat, this time in Montreal, and seeing the departure of his Quebec Lieutenant Pablo Rodriguez from his cabinet.

The Against the Flow blog has been amply critical of Mr. Trudeau, to the point that a recent column called on the Prime Minister to leave his job.

And yet, the Liberals’ loss of the Verdun seat had been widely expected, as had been the departure of Rodriguez to seek the leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party.

However, it was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre who lost the most feathers in this tumultuous week in Canadian politics. Despite Mr. Poilievre’s much-vaunted leadership in the public opinion polls and his constant screams of “Axe the Tax”, not one other party leader has announced that his/her party will support Mr. Poilievre’s Motion of Non-Confidence in the government next week.

Despite “Ripping up” the NDP’s Confidence and Supply agreement with the Liberals, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not support Poilievre’s motion. The Conservative leader tried to shame Mr. Singh into precipitating an election by saying that Singh was only propping up the government to ensure that he could collect a big Parliamentary pension this coming February. However, the egg was all over Poilievre’s face when it transpired that his pension would be three times higher than Jagmeet’s at a nifty $200,000 per year.

At last count, 516 local newspapers across Canada, including the Saint Croix Courier, have closed their doors since 2008. As the editor of one of those newspapers describes it, the main cause is simply “social media.”

Yet, there are two local bright stars for the free press despite the depressing avalanche of closures across North America.

CHCO, the courageous and tireless community television station in Saint Andrews, has bought the recently closed Saint Croix Courier, which was founded in 1865, 159 years ago. Through virtually its entire publishing life, The Courier was independently owned and operated, including during the era of the dominant Irving media ownership, and then the current Postmedia control in New Brunswick and much of North America.

Meanwhile The Quoddy Tides newspaper has been publishing twice a month since 1968, covering communities “touched by the tides of Passamaquoddy Bay” on both sides of the border between Canada and the United States. Throughout its 56-year life “The Tides” has been published and edited by its founder Winifred French and, since her death in 1995, by her son, Edward French.

CHCO acknowledges that it is new to the newspaper business, but not new to journalism. In a statement to this blog, Vicki Hogarth, CHCO, expresses it this way: 

Jagmeet Singh, the federal NDP leader announced Sept. 4 that his party has ripped up its confidence and supply agreement with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

Singh said: “In the next federal election, Canadians will choose between Pierre Poilievre’s callous cuts or hope.  Hope that when we stand united, we win.  That Canada’s middle class will once again thrive together.”

The NDP leader described the government’s decision to impose binding arbitration to end the dispute between the rail workers and their employers as “a line in the sand that was crossed.”
All this sounds like a pretty weak rationale by the NDP leader.

Embarrassingly for Mr. Singh, it appeared to many that he was doing the bidding of Conservative Leader Poilievre who had just demanded that Singh break the agreement with the Liberals and precipitate what Poilievre hopes will be “The Carbon Tax Election.”