CFN – Without question …We need facilities that provide safe and dignified care for aging neighbours and family members.
Without question …The Cornwall Community Hospital needs money to continue service to the community.
Without question …We have the opportunity to take care of both needs.
With the political know-how we have at City Hall and the social conscience and will of Cornwall residents, the site of the Cornwall General Hospital can be sold, the Cornwall Community Hospital can receive $2,000,000, and the greater community of Cornwall and the counties can make right, the wrongful lack of care and respect for our elders.
This city’s social structure, its civic services, the community facilities from which we and our children benefit; we owe it all to the labours of ordinary men and women that came before us.
We were given much; it is our duty now to give the same.
Friends and neighbours, members of communities all around, I ask that you make yourselves heard and seen… that we work together to acquire and transform the former Cornwall General Hospital into a multi-use, seniors-focused facility.
Our aim is a facility that provides for, long term care beds, husbands and wives together in their late life, “life-lease units”, a venue for community events, and commercial and office space to subsidize it.
Everyone has a gift, a talent, a little time or some resource …This community needs all of that, right now.
Please talk to your neighbours, your workmates, and your own family members. Call or write to city councilors or your MP and MPP. And please, contact the Concerned Citizens Coalition.
Join the chorus for common sense and fairness.
Jim Marshall
Cornwall, ON
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This facility is badly needed Mr. Marshall. I pray that this goes through on the positive side. There is a huge need for long term care for the community. We don’t need for profit housing that is geered towards the wealthy people who can afford to live where they wish but the ordinary people do not have that option.
People like yourself Mr. Marshall, Mr. Mark MacDonald, Mr. Dave Windsor along with others have been working mighty hard for the community including councellor André Rivette and councellor Maurice Dupelle.
This facility needs to be preserved for everyone and let us all pray that everything goes well.
Jim Marshal ,
I remain interested in any opportunity to help the elderly and keeping the general hospital within the community.
Its rather unfortunate that people in our community prefer to talk rather then provide actions on what they clearly agree with.
Society has over generations become less involved in their community and more involved in self-serving issues such as watching honey bo bo.
Over the last number of months I decided to no longer be Canadian apathetic as this appears not to be only a local issue but a national issue.Apathy only leads to the politicians telling citizens what they want as opposed to the citizens advising the politicians.
I have become involved and attended numerous meetings and learned that few people make the effort to be community involved.
This is evidenced by empty city hall chambers that is unless there is a net benefit of some sort for that individual to be there.
It unfortunate that people feel that far removed from their community.
There is great interest in the General Hospital and its loss to the community and as well the potential service it could provide to the elderly.
But because of good o’l fashioned Canadian apathy our citizens will let others stand for them and thereby lose a cherished medical facility such as the general hospital and we will have nobody else to blame but ourselves.
I prefer to not let others decide for me ,but to get myself involved especially if it involves the health and well being of my community.
Please make an effort to be community involved.
Take care
Christopher Cameron
It is such a shame that citizens are so apathetic in all public matters that directly either affect them now or in the their future.Politicians & the families that own Cornwall can easily mold & shape Cornwall to line their pockets as nobody opposes or stands together in large groups to speak out,oh they may shake their heads,grumble a little but do not have the gonads to really say, I,m not going to take this anymore & mean it enough to do something about it!!! Until that happens our politicians can totally destroy our city by bullying even corruption.Why do you think our mayor has had to hire high priced Toronto lawyers to defend his conflict of interest charges & more to come…really..think about it!!!
I need to add that more people need to support independant news sources like CFN or their heads will be kept in the sand if all they hear & read is censored like SF & Seaway news
Public’s physical participation has become less and less as social media has become more and more.
Social media is physically safe and can be anonymous if one so chooses.
Anonymity gives everyone a more fluid way of expressing themselves, thus no fear of humiliation, condemnation and exposure.
Look at it like this…..VOTING…is free of peering eyes. If ever this form of social media become required exposure of the writers, truth would not be fully expressed if and when it needs to be a condemnation.
Jim Marshall is putting it out front for a just and a must cause. He needs our full support………in whatever way you can provide it, just as all others driving this project forward require you and I to be on board.
Even if you remain anonymous in social media you and I have an obligation to be beagle’s about it. You never know who the monitors are.
Nice write up Jim.
My main question is… who will be financing this facility? Is it expected that the citizens of Cornwall are to finance the ongoing costs of this facility through increased taxation?
Sure, it seems like a good idea to have a place where our elderly can go, but wouldn’t it be more advantageous to focus on creating an economic environment where people and businesses can flourish… allowing people to earn an above average income, thus being able to save and invest that income in order to support themselves as they grow older?
This building would better serve as a private enterprise. Where do we draw the line on the role local government plays in providing services to its citizens…and more importantly where do citizen starts to accept responsibility for themselves and their family and stop depending on government to babysit them and their family because of their own lack of planning and irresponsibility.
@ Jasonh. What better use of the taxpayers dollars than to provide a service to the taxpayers, past, present and future. That’s what municipal government is supposed to do, collect tax dollars and provide services to the taxpayers. Do you donate your taxes to pay off lawsuits to the tune of $1.4 million dollars and counting and provide nice comfortable salaries for civil servants?
If the well paid economic development employees of the city were to actually develop good paying jobs then maybe citizens could afford to “stop depending on government to babysit them”. Currently the only jobs that have been developed are either minimum wage distribution center jobs or transient call center jobs.
Jason. You are a r{MODERATED}.
It’s normal to be suspicious of something so good. But let’s not jump to the conclusions, that many do, when projects like these are floated.
The Ontario government has pretty much been responsible for covering the costs of our health, education and welfare, since the British North America Act, and that’s OK, because who else will.
Sure it’s nice to think that we’re self sufficient and will save enough for our old age, but frankly, health issues come along all through life. And don’t forget how much of our lives are spent “old enough to know better, but too young to care.” A lot of people realize too late what’s good for them.
Let’s just accept that this is the something the government does for us through the Ministry of Health, and that they should keep on doing it… no one is asking for anything extra here, we simply don’t want the government giving away something that’s ours, something we can rejuvenate, and can serve the needs of our neighbours — our elders amongst them.
The immediate plan is simply to rechannel money (that’s already being spent), toward a facility that will be built to suit our community.
Surely the City of Cornwall can help out too, by facilitating the project, maybe helping out with approvals, providing planning help, vouching for us in front of lenders. The city has done it before …for the curling centre, and the Kinsmen centre conversion to condos, and other projects. Those projects are at both ends of the public private spectrum and they work fine. Nobody had to raise taxes. In fact they generate taxes for the city.
This projected facility is meant to be a self funding operation. There will be businesses and offices, and a commercial return on the facility.
It’s just going to make bigger and better than our current (non-hospital) community health and care services. And there is plenty of room for private enterprise.
And for anyone that thinks they’re going to make it to the end without the hand of a stranger… consider why we even need facilities like these.
And for those that fancy themselves financially secure, look around, read the news… can anyone rely on the stock market, is money safe even in a bank?
The only investment that really pays off is to build a future …By building a community and taking care of our greater family as well as our own.
If I were a tax payer of Cornwall I wouldn’t mind paying for the former General Hospital to be a place for the seniors and maybe clinics. Af for that cursed “tax mahal – albatros” that you all call a Benson Centre I would literally bulldoze that building down to dust. I am against stollen money and from one of Cornwall’s citizens who have shamed the town so much that I cannot put my mind to focus on how much evil that this man did.
It is about time that the people stop putting their heads in the sand and go out and vote and also take part in your community doing various things to help out. You cannot leave things up to a certain few.
One other thing Bare Ass and his crooks DO NOT OWN CORNWALL they only think they do and it is about time that they all left and sent out so far away and never to be heard ever again.
Get out there people and just like Chris Cameron said you have to take an active part and not sit down and just grumble about what government is doing. You are the government and you can’t leave things to McGuinty, Harpo or any of them – you are the government. If you do not stand up for things then tyranny sets in.
STOP. STOP. STOP.
Tax payers in Cornwall will NOT see ANY rate increase for the re-vitalised hospital.
HOLD your horse.
Tell me something, did you see an increase because the CCH spent $100,000,000 (that’s 100 million folks) on their expanded administration offices with almost 1/3rd of that for new drapes?
NO, NO, NO YOU DID NOT.
NOR WILL WE WITH THE CGH PROJECT.
THANK YOU.
Maybe it’s time for people stop and think about more efficient ways to provide services than through the wasteful and inefficient system we call Government. It will happen eventually.
I am visiting the Victoria Village site on Saturday and I will report on how successful the project has been.
If our project is half as good as theirs, we will no longer see marginalized seniors living on crumbs, and no more seniors warehoused because of lack of interest from government bureaucrats.
I am counting on my Cornwall community to get behind our project.
By the way, is there anything about our Cornwall General Hospital project that you would like me to address while I am speaking to the Barrie Victoria Village project people?
Only items we never brought up James, that they have instituted, which be a hot item for us too.
Thanks for all you do James. You obviously have a high interest in this area as well as Mark, Ian, Josh and Dave among many others.