COVID-19 RAPID TEST KITS: NOW AVAILABLE FROM THE CANADIAN SHIELD TO IMPROVE PUBLIC ACCESS TO TESTING

The test kits, which are significantly more affordable than other options on the market, take 15 minutes to use and are an effective screening tool for COVID-19 in our communities.
 

WATERLOO, ON | OCTOBER 14, 2021 — In an effort to make rapid testing accessible to all Canadians, The Canadian Shield will begin offering rapid COVID-19 antigen test kits for sale on their website in packs of 5, at $9.99/test. These rapid tests are an effective tool for the public to easily detect and help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“With the rising number of COVID-19 outbreaks in schools and workplaces across the country, we recognized the need for more accessible and widespread testing,” says The Canadian Shield CEO Jeremy Hedges. “Due to regulatory issues, everyday Canadians are paying some of the highest prices in the world for rapid testing – we strongly believe that we can play a role in making that no longer the case.”
 

Following provincial guidance, rapid antigen tests are currently only available for purchase from The Canadian Shield’s website in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. It is expected that rapid testing devices will become more widely available as provincial ministries issue interim orders and change the regulatory landscape.

For Ontario businesses, the provincial government, with the help of key stakeholders like Communitech, have rolled out free rapid testing programs in workplaces to limit outbreaks and keep businesses open. While these programs are important, they aren’t accessible to everyone and it’s important that other options are available to Canadians.

For those interested in purchasing Rapid COVID-19 Antigen Test kits from The Canadian Shield, customers must confirm they have reviewed the training resources to validate their skillset and abilities to conduct the test.

Rapid COVID-19 Test Kits are available in 5-packs on The Canadian Shield’s website for $49.95, which works out to $9.99 per test – up to 40 per cent less than other online retailers. Test Kits purchased online are currently only available for shipment in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, or pick-up at The Canadian Shield’s head office, 640 Bridge St.W., Unit 1, Waterloo, ON.

Niagara-on-the Lake “Taste the Season”

October 14, 2021

Wineries of Niagara-on-the-Lake

Celebrate the season’s bounty with exceptional VQA wines and Holiday-inspired food pairings experiences at each of our member wineries during ‘Taste the Season’

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, ON- Wineries of Niagara on-the-Lake is ready to welcome back VQA wine lovers to safely taste exceptional wines paired with seasonal culinary offerings. During the month of November on any Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, guests will be able to discover what makes this place and our wines so special through exclusive, pre-reserved and safe winery experiences.

As our sweaters get thicker, fallen leaves adorn our sidewalks, and we swap salads for soups and stews, we inevitably start thinking about the holiday season and all its festive cheer. This year the Wineries of Niagara-on-the-Lake are especially excited to announce the return of their signature pre-holiday wine and food pairing event to help you get you into a festive mood.

“It is with great excitement that the Wineries of Niagara-on-the-Lake get ready to welcome back visitors for our annual holiday inspired tasting celebration,” says chairperson, Andrea Kaiser. “This will be the first group event since the pandemic began and we are so pleased to be able to resume our signature event in some fashion. We also think the new format will be even more enjoyable as each participating winery is offering a more intimate experience and we continue to offer one-of-a-kind holiday wine packages for sale online for those who are not able to visit,” she explains.

TASTE THE SEASON PREMIUM TASTING TICKETS

Guests will be able to purchase a ONE DAY PASS ($75 plus tax and service fees) for a Friday, Saturday or Sunday in November and will have access to reserve FOUR WINERY TASTINGS on selected day to visit from over 20 partner wineries who will offer exclusive on-site winery experiences. Individual winery tasting experiences must be booked in advance at set times of 11:00am, 1:30pm, 2:30pm and 3:30pm each day based on availability. COVID-19 precautions and proof of vaccination are required all locations.

Taste the Season exclusive one day passports are available on our website, October 15, 2021.

HOLIDAY INSPIRED THEMED PACKAGES

Starting in November, our winery members have also created a one-of-a-kind Taste the Season themed packages to enjoy at home. Shop our wineries today and start stocking up for the Holiday Season. Stay safe and shop online – https://wineriesofniagaraonthelake.com/shop

“My Life as a Golf Marshall” : A Nasty Push and Swing then a Fist Rebound

Last year at my course I hear about another violent incident which did not bode well for the Marshall. The Marshall made some comment to a group of golfers which enraged a dickhead who rushed at the Marshall in a rage and pushed him back in his golf cart. The Marshall got up and started swinging. It is not known if he landed a punch but he broke the rule of no engagement with dickheads and was fired.  Dickhead 1…..Marshall 0. Do you understand what powerless Lord Chamberlin characters Marshalls are?

“Mutantism on The March” :Chapter 104 The Montreal Hexpos a CIA Espionage Unit!

The past few months had been relatively calm for the panarchists in Montreal. The Vietnam War had ended. René Hecklevesque (aka Jiber) had surprisingly shrivelled from the popular eye. The 1970’s looked like a period of calmness. Most of the wild eyed SDS members had cut their hair and joined the Democrat Party. They drove BMW’s and snorted cocaine. That had been one of the weaknesses of the protest movement….it had been so middle class. On occasion Reseudo’s sources in Washington would give him a call and leak interesting information to him concerning U.S. policies throughout the globe. As a matter of fact just a few hours ago someone from Washington had given him a call and what a conversation it had been. It bordered on the fantastic and took some time to digest.

Incredible as it sounded the Montreal Hexpos professional baseball team was a secret CIA intelligence unit assigned with the task of infiltrating anti-American groups in Montreal and destroying their organization. They also specialized in kidnapping raft dodgers and smuggled them back to the USA through Lacolle Quebec on the Vermont border. This only proved the folly of organizations of political intent thought Reseudo. They could be too easily infiltrated. His informant was a minor White House staffer whose cousin was working as a cleaner in the White House and while emptying the garbage in Affliction’s office he had found a tape. Being a curious lad, he brought the tape to Reseudo’s contact and the tape was the voice of President Affliction. The next day the tape was in Reseudo’s possession. Squid was called over to listen to the tape he was near tears of joy and wrote an article for the United Mutations International Herald, a chronicle of the international mutant struggle published out of Bogota in fifty different languages. The article shocked the world When they read the headline American pride was shattered. The headline was “U.S. Espionage Unit Caught Red Handed in Montreal with their Pants Down”.

“My Life as a Golf Marshall” : Tales From the Edge : A Near Crippling Assault

One of our Marshalls noticed a suspiciously slow golfer. Upon further investigation it was one of those pre wedding celebrations with the guys. Well this golfer was pickled and when it was suggested he leave the course he came swinging at the Marshall with his golf club narrowly missing him. The Toronto police were called but never showed up. This was undoubtedly a very dangerous attempted assault coupled with a drunk and disorderly charge. Who is there to protect the Marshalls? The golfer stumbled off the course. May I not have the pleasure of meeting that dickhead.

” My Life as a Golf Marshall” : Racism on the Golf Course?

I am certain to some golfers I am perceived as a privileged white man settling into a cushy retirement job as a golf Marshall.

I can’t deny the fact I am white but that hardly makes me privileged. I suppose I have been a potential victim of golf course racism. Is it not the virulent kind and deadly kind you are more likely to see in the United States where we are led to believe by the media is solely suffered by minority groups like blacks, Asians and Latinos. I can’t say, except for one incident, that I have been subject to golf course racism. And a Marshall’s job is anything but a cushy retirement job. The working conditions are less than what a privileged white man endures such as washing down golf carts, filling up golf carts with gas, getting an earful from rude golfers and fellow employees and clearing branches from cart paths and the fairway not to mention working in sweltering heat or in snowsuits in the late autumn to attempt being warm! I took the job as a learning experience and as a challenge plus with COVID there were really very little travel options.

I will relate one story where I was victim of racism. I encountered three young black men who are twenty minutes behind schedule on starting the 15th hole. I politely ask them if they can be so kind and do me a favour by picking up their pace as a nasty jam up is accumulating behind them. Pretty please! One lashes out at me and says “Fuck Off. We paid our fucking money and we want to play fucking golf. Leave us alone and stick your retirement job up your fucking white ass.” They are met as they leave the course and ream into the Pro-Shop manager complaining of harassment by two Marshalls (one of which was me) and the starter all laced with many “fucks” and “fucking”. Someone got out of bed on the wrong side blasting me with blatant racist slurs. I thought of how to reply in a sarcastic and non offensive manner but are dickheads like that worth the effort? No.

The next day I am playing golf in a foursome with a black man half my age and we are neck and neck playing similar golf, enjoying ourselves and having a great time. We get to the 10th hole and the Korean couple we are golfing with gets hostile and launches into my companion saying he has no manners, is rude, does not understand golf and they have better scores than he does! The viciousness of the attack causes my companion to shout back and say, “ Get off the fucking course!” A small crowd is looking and I feel caught in the middle trying to calm everyone down. Eventually the Marshall comes and breaks up the foursome but the couple is behind us now and at the next hole I hear them ripping into each other. Hmm I say. They could have equally launched into me but why my fellow golfer?. It smelt of racism.

For almost all golfers, at least publicly, other golfers are simply other golfers. The incidents above are the only public displays of racism I have seen in months on my golf course.

Is there some sort of inherent racism amongst staff at golf courses? I am sure there is. I have been to some private courses if you said “global inclusion and diversity” they would look at you with a blank face having no idea what you are talking about. Amongst the Marshalls and Pro-Shop staff at my course just about are all white males over 65 and there are less than a handful of women. There are some Asians and one black. Does this match with the patron’s ethnicity and sex? Yes the majority are white men with a small percentage of women.35% of the golfers are Korean and maybe 5% are black. So there is no parity of gender and ethnicity amongst the Marshalls and Pro-Shop staff but is this some conscious choice or simply the fact that the majority of golfers at my course are white men many of whom then gravitate to Marshalling and working the Pro-Shop as they know the course so well? Many Marshall as they love the sport and talking to and helping fellow golfers. Marshalling applications are open to all with golfing experience particularly those who have played the course for years. It may take the non-Caucasians to age into golf Marshalling and Pro-Shop employment but that may take a couple of decades. In the meantime if you have a chip on your shoulder don’t take it out on the Marshalls and Pro-Shop employees but look at management hiring practices and the tool of suitable candidates on the market. If there is any kinship amongst golf course Marshalls and Pro-Shop employees it is based on a commonality of playing golf and a love of golf

“My Life as a Golf Marshall” :The Blame Game

After playing golf for some 60 years if there is a hold up on the course most often it is the group ahead of the complaining golfers that get the blame for the delay. In a perfect world given that start times are spaced at 10 minutes apart the flow should be seamless but this is where inexperience and lack of consideration by golfers come into play. Inevitably it would seem the flow is disrupted and there is always someone to blame and that is a truism. Quite frankly someone is disrupting the flow but while some golfers are astute enough to figure out the problem is not simply the group ahead of them most blame the group ahead of them. But as a Marshall you zip ahead and see who the culprit is. You ask that they move more quickly and in almost all circumstances they move more quickly. The laggards can be many holes ahead causing that painful jam up and the laggards are so self absorbed they fail to understand what an empty hole or two ahead of them means!

And if the jam up continues who takes the shit….the Marshall. The whipping boy of frustration despite the fact the Marshall is always ahead of the game seeing who the culprit of delay is. If that culprit is detected the Marshall can only ask politely to speed it up or in the worst situation ask that best ball policy be followed. You go to the best hit ball and all shoot from that point. Rarely one must ask the laggards to pick up their balls and move to the next hole if there is an empty hole(s) ahead of these golfers.

Who gets the blame for a slow game? Most often the powerless Marshall. And the folks in the Pro Shop will get complaints few of which have flowed my way. Is it because I have established a relationship with golfers by treating them as human beings instead of commodities to be hustled along. Yes establish a human connection as a fellow golfer who has been through tough wait times and you have made an ally.

Then of course there are the dickheads that give you shit like today where a semihysterical old bird gave me shit for not chasing cyclists off the course. I felt like saying “You **** piece of **** there is only one Marshall and I can’t be everywhere at the same time. Yes you have to swallow your pride and silently say under your breath “F*** off Dickhead”. However after many zips around the course you learn to avoid the dickheads.

Again my style is not to frantically zip around 18 holes each hour but to take an hour for each nine and establish a relationship. Golfers are my friends and not my enemies. We are on the same team. Old style Marshalling  interactions are rarely positive but negative. Speed it up to an ally resonates more than if you say it to an enemy.

“My Life as a Golf Marshall” :COVID and Golf

While this is my first stint as Marshall at this club this is its second season operating within COVID.

Business has always been booming at this club but it has hit maximum booming during COVID as venues for team sports have been mostly closed this outdoor individual sport is drawing out ex-golfers out of their confinement and boredom. The result is there are many less than proficient golfers on the links slowing the pace for more experienced golfers. In fact they are referred to as “COVID Golfers” with less than glowing acceptance by the slim cadre of good golfers. I suppose “good golfers” in a recreational sense are those that routinely break 90 over 18 holes.

In Ontario a government shutdown closed golf courses from April 17 to May 22 of 2021 despite the recommendation of the Ontario Heath Table medico-elite to keep courses opened. More Ontario Conservative government mishandling of COVID. Well they did reopen before staged re-opening of the economy due to public pressure. Golf is a passion of thousands of Ontarians and mess with passion you are in trouble in both love and politics. One must admit there was political pressure to open golf courses two weeks early on April 1st then closing them on April 17! People are in the open, tee offs are spaced further apart to create less jam-ups, only 4 people are allowed in the pro-shop at anytime , masking is mandatory in enclosed spaces, food concessions were closed to name a few COVID “safety measures”.

In short COVID has increased demand for golf and golfers are so happy to be back after the April 17th closure they seem more patient as so many are happy to be out in the fresh air and lest we forget the cart girl s out selling beer and food. A travelling restaurant not restricted to take out.

Now as the economy opened the miserable excuse for a restaurant opened at my club. Golfers became more impatient, carts continued to remain improperly sanitized, flags could not be lifted on the greens and ball washers remained covered up. The competition remained intense for the 84 foursomes with 500 people daily vying for them.

In short COVID brought the bedbugs out of the mattress. It could be the beginning the revitalization of golf in Canada. Could there be a very long hesitancy for the jam packed crowds of spectators at sporting events, movie theatres, restaurants and airplanes? Give it a year or two fear of the Contagion will be but a memory to rear its head for the next generation?

“Mutantism on The March” :Chapter 104 Garth Reseudo the Panarchist

Garth Reseudo, the well liked Zorollian panarchist, was rather enjoying Montreal. The Canadians were a friendly lot and much more reserved and cautious than the Americans. They were slow to lose their temper and that made them the true fibre of panarchism.

Gandhi had appealed to Reseudo who read his books during his Washington stay. He agreed that one had to alter the heart and soul of one’s enemies before any true victory could be claimed. If you changed the heart of your oppressor, you changed their system. Gandhi failed in that he directed protest against the symbols of British imperialism and not the actual workings of the colonial system. The structures of class rule should have been altered not simply its symbols. Gandhi had laboured to construct an organization of passive resistance but the fault of that is that once one has created a strict organization with a myriad of rules there was bound to be a power structure even if Babu himself was against it. There would always be a director telling the masses to be at point A or point B at a certain time. There was no general and sincere spirit of the masses. That spirit was manufactured for them. Reseudo believed the individual to be the centre of any movement and not the masses as a directed entity. Masses should rise organically and spontaneously. In that fashion there would be no need for lawyers and leaders and repression control. Each individual should find contentment and reward in his or her space of anarchism, not anarchism of the violent Spanish Civil War kind but an anarchism born of the soul’s search for freedom. What else but anarchism could bring about freedom? Socialism led to an inevitable deterioration of freedom to the dictates of the dictatorship of the party. Fascism with its idiotic incorrect interpretation of history and brutality was designed to create a collective iron will and trample the individual. Liberalism was a thinly veiled excuse for economic exploitation hiding under the falsehood of the free individual will.

For his political views Reseudo had been exiled from his native Zorollia. Redbeard could not tolerate any resistance even if it was weak and weird. And what a surprise to learn from Montenez Eno Ergot, Redbeard’s nephew, was in Montreal and totally liberated from his corrupt ways and eager to topple Uncle Redbeard! In fact Ergot asked Reseudo to join him and help topple Redbeard but Reseudo made it clear his role was to be that of a panarchist leader. It was high time both Ergot and Reseudo return to their native Zorollia and take care of business.

RKS Wines: Peller Estates 2018 Meritage

While in Niagara-on-the-Lake last week I tried a Peller Estates 2019 Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.

Ontario Cabernet Sauvignon limps rather badly except perhaps those from Lake Erie North Shore. The Peller Cabernet Sauvignon was virtually lifeless and lacking character. I suppose you can say this proves my point.

Now how about the Peller Estates 2018 Private Reserve Meritage. The label disappoints by not giving the varietals (nor their percentage) in the red blend but they are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Ontario excels in Cabernet Franc.

On the nose there is vibrant black cherry, rhubarb, cactus pear and a slight infusion of milk chocolate. On the palate I do not receive a vibrant and cheery cherry nod but rather a serious and stiff meeting with gentle tannins. On the palate it is cherry in a straitjacket, Santa Rosa Plums, white pepper and dates. But all of the palate is wound up tightly like a job candidate in a third and final interview. It has a short finish. While the Cabernet Franc and Merlot do their job that laggard Cabernet Sauvignon makes a wine that could be great simply decent.

Drink by the end of 2022. Pair with a lamb burger or Manchego cheese.

(Peller Estates Private Reserve Meritage 2018, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Peller Estates, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, $26.95 (Available at the Winery only at this point), 750 mL, 12.8%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 88/100).