Power Outage

A widespread power outage hit Kingston around 4:00 a.m. today.

Utilities Kingston reported the power was off in the general area of Montreal Street, Division Street, John Counter Boulevard and Concession Street.

The utility estimated power would be restored by around noon after isolating the problem to a substation serving the area.

Bus Cancellations

Poor road conditions in areas north of Kingston have led to school bus cancellations.

Tri-Board Student Transportation has cancelled all school transportation for Central Frontenac, Sharbot Lake, North Frontenac, North Lennox and Addington, North Hastings and Centre Hastings.

East of Kingston….Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario has cancelled all school transportation for the Upper Canada District School Board and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.

Pot Drinks

Picton, Belleville and Quinte West are on the short list of locations being looked at by a company that will be producing drinks containing THC…one of the active ingredients in marijuana.

Prince Edward County Council will hear a presentation from Nuecrop Growers Canada today and will be able to discuss locating the facility in Picton.

The company has also shortlisted Brighton, Parry Sound and Niagara as potential locations for the new facility to produce cannabis beverages.

Arson Spree – Charges

Two men from Napanee are facing charges after a series of suspicious fires that started in Napanee in September of last year.  Most of the fires in the Greater Napanee area and Prince Edward County destroyed vacant buildings…but the latest fire damaged a unit at a strip mall on Palace Road in Napanee last Tuesday.  33 year old Robert Pickstock and 40 year old Joseph Pickstock are facing charges including arson, break and enter and mischief.

Incest Charge

A 54 year old Kingston man is facing charges of incest and sexual assault.

Kingston Police say the man’s adult daughter was visiting her family in Kingston last November and say she was sexually assaulted in the bedroom where she was sleeping.

Police say the man turned himself in on Tuesday.

College – Part Time Union

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union says about 20-thousand part-time support staff at the province’s community colleges have voted to join the union.  The vote took place in June of 2016…but legal wrangling by the College Employer Council kept ballots from being counted until this week.

The union is also trying to organize 20 thousand part-time contract faculty.  They voted last October but that vote hasn’t been counted yet by the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

History File

From Tony’s Today in History file…

It was on this day, January 11, 1815 that Sir John A. Macdonald’s birth was registered in Glasgow, Scotland.

Macdonald was knighted as the founding father of Confederation.

He established a law practice in Kingston, was elected as a city alderman, went on to federal politics after one term and became the first Prime Minister of Canada.

Celebrations at his statue in Kingston were cancelled after the tires were slashed on the vehicles of Kingston Mayor Mark Gerretsen and historian Art Milnes and were defaced with red paint in 2016. Milnes also found a burnt Canadian flag under his vehicle. He had organized year-long celebrations of the 200th anniversary of Macdonald’s birth in 2015. The celebration in 2016 did take place in City Park. A group of about two dozen protesters were there to express their objections to Macdonald’s 19th century policies toward indigenous peoples.

There will be a toast raised today at The Public House on King Street. It has been at the center of a controversy after it changed its name from Sir John’s Public House this week.

Filed under: arson-spree, bus-cancellations, college, history-file, incest-charge, Napanee, part-time-union, pot-drinks, power-outage, tri-board-student-transportation