CHEERS: To Canadian country music star Terri Clark who took the time to thank fans at the Cavendish Beach Music Festival who jammed the place for her performance Saturday evening. She tweeted a photo taken on stage looking outwards which showed a massive crowd on hand for her performance. Stars sometimes forget the people who made them famous – but not Clark. After some showers Friday, the weather co-operated beautifully the rest of the weekend to make the 10th anniversary of the festival a huge success.
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Sunday’s show, headlined by country superstar Luke Bryan, was an advance sellout which indicates that more than 25,000 fans were expected. An extended version of the CBMF continues this evening starting at 4 p.m., highlighted by pop singing star Shawn Mendes who hits the stage at 9:30 p.m. What a weekend – and it keeps going!
CHEERS: To the 2018 recipients of the Order of Prince Edward Island announced Friday – Paralympic star Mark Arendz of Hartsville; health care advocate Heather Cutcliffe of Augustine Cove; and community activist Irene Jewell of York. These three individuals were selected from 40 Islanders nominated to receive the award this year. Making the announcement were Chancellor of the Order, Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry, and Gerard Greenan, chair of the Order of Prince Edward Island Advisory Council. Insignia of the Order will be presented by the lieutenant governor at a special investiture ceremony in October at Government House.
JEERS: To Northern Pulp, a Pictou, N.S. pulp plant, which is continuing with plans to pump millions of litres of effluent a day into the Northumberland Strait. A boisterous demonstration Friday saw more than 1,000 protesters call on the mill's owners to scuttle the plan. After years of pumping 70 million litres of treated wastewater daily into lagoons on the edge of the nearby Pictou Landing First Nation reserve, Northern Pulp wants to dump it directly into the strait, via an underwater pipe. More than 200 fishermen’s boats from all three Maritime provinces were part of the flotilla that sailed into Pictou harbour as part of Friday’s protest. Though the pulp mill provides much-needed jobs for the town of about 3,000 residents, its pipeline plan has also raised widespread concerns about the impact on the lucrative lobster fishery in the strait.
CHEERS: To the proponents of the first three projects approved under the new $2.5 million Community Revitalization Program designed to support rural communities. The Cavendish Farms Wellness Centre in Montague collected two of the grants – one to support a new locally designed and built solar array that will help make the Wellness Centre an environmentally-efficient facility by reducing its energy bill; while the Wellness Centre’s current leaking boiler will be replaced with an energy efficient cold start boiler. The third grant went to the Kings County Farmers’ Market in Cardigan which will receive funding to replace the roof with a new steel roof.
CHEERS: To Lt.-Gov. Antoinette Perry who is again inviting the public, residents and visitors alike, to the annual Government House Garden Party. Her Honour will greet visitors from 2:00 until 4:00 pm on Tuesday, July 17. This popular annual tradition is held on the grounds of Fanningbank at the edge of Victoria Park. Light refreshments will be available and music will be provided by the Great George Street Brass Band under the direction of Ron Murphy.
CHEERS: To the Nature Conservancy of Canada and supportive landowners for the creation of a new conservation area in P.E.I. that features Acadian forest, freshwater wetland, salt marsh and dunes. The 52-hectare coastal area is next to Blooming Point Beach and borders Prince Edward Island National Park, about 30 kilometres north of Charlottetown. The conservancy says the property is in an “internationally recognized Important Bird Area,” as it provides coastal and wetland habitat for many bird species like the Canada warbler. Nearly half of the site is made up of Acadian forest. A portion of the land was donated by Steve and Eddy MacGillivray, a pair of brothers whose family has owned the land in Blooming Point for generations.
CHEERS: To spring lobster fishermen who earned praise from federal fisheries officers for the lobster industry's compliance in obeying rules aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales. During a news conference on Friday, officials with the federal Fisheries and Transport departments praised the lobster fishery for following strict new rules that came into force this year to reduce the threat of fishing gear entanglements and ship strikes. Darren Goetze, director of conservation and protection for Fisheries, said that even though there are normally “tens of thousands” of traps set in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, up until recently his officers have only had to remove about 30 to 40 traps placed in zones closed due to the presence of whales.
