Travel: Poplar’s Resort

Poplars Resort will make you feel like a kid again

The rooms at Poplars Resort in Newboro feature keyless entry. In fact, they feature lockless entry; something that co-owner Becky Thompson delights in pointing out. Doors don’t need locks in a kid’s summertime memory. Becky and her husband Dave purchased the property from Becky's parents last year and are in the process of lovingly restoring this step-back-in-time gem of living nostalgia. Becky can’t hide her love of the place. Her sunny smile and an impressive knack for remembering names give it away, and with good reason. There’s plenty to love here.

Colonel By, whose crew built a lock station and canal connecting Newboro Lake with the Lower Rideau, founded Newboro in 1829. The village is home to antique houses on huge properties shaded by white pine and willow trees. A recipe of freshly cut grass, hay fields, and summer at the lake scents the air. Poplars Resort was built in the 1920s. Becky's parents, Rick and Joan White, purchased Poplars in 2004 and continued the conservation efforts of what had become a piece of Rideau heritage.

Poplars Resort provides rental boats fully equipped and gassed up for those who don’t trailer their own. The day begins at nautical twilight when the sun is just a hint below the horizon. Intrepid early risers tiptoe their way along the docks and motor off to their favourite spots somewhere in the cluster of five lakes adjoining Newboro by narrow channels. The waters are known for smallmouth and largemouth bass, splake and bluegill, and there’s a cleaning station at Poplars’ dock for the big ones that didn’t get away.

A movie art director could not have done a better job on the main lodge.

There are the requisite mounted fish, board games, comfy chairs on a screen porch, and wall plaques with funny sayings about old fishermen and their drooping rods. There are cabins and chalet rooms, and an American plan of three squares a day makes the whole experience even simpler. Dinner will remind you of your mum’s classic cottage meals that came with two choices: “Take it or leave it,” meaning a fixed menu with special accommodations possible. Evenings are tranquil and so quiet at dusk that you can relax in your room and listen to the kids from across the lawn enjoying the pool table in the lodge.

Places like Poplars are disappearing along the Rideau, making them all the more precious in a world of virtual experiences. Lucky for us, Becky and Dave are devoted to preserving the peace of a classic Canadian fishing lodge. It may be just what a noisy world with too many choices needs. You’ll find everything you need to book your stay at: poplarsresort.com

uOttawa support staff

bargain for a better deal

Support staff at the University of Ottawa has the unenviable task of keeping the institution up and running during the COVID-19 lockdown. Office and technology staffers are working to help students, faculty, and curriculum adapt to an online environment, while custodial crews are being exceptionally diligent in keeping physical facilities clean and disinfected. They are the frontline workers of the campus, and central to the university’s efforts to operate effectively in the new normal.

The 1,300 members of the support staff bargaining unit (PSUO/SSUO) voted to join The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF/FEESO) in 2007. OSSTF/FEESO was founded in 1919 and has the bargaining clout of over 60,000 members across a range of education-related professions. They count among their ranks 151 bargaining units representing public high school and other teachers and instructors, school psychologists, secretaries, speech-language pathologists, social workers, and support personnel.

PSUO/SSUO members are currently in negotiations with the university for a new contract deal. This past spring, uOttawa administration asked the Ontario Labour Relations Board to conduct a vote on its latest offer made to the Union in April. It is a legitimate but rarely used step in the bargaining process to request a one-time lastoffer vote. OSSTF/FEESO President Harvey Bischoff was not pleased.

“This is a grave miscalculation and an entirely unproductive move on the part

This is a grave miscalculation and an entirely unproductive move on the part of the University of Ottawa.

— Harvey Bischoff OSSTF/FEESO PRESIDENT

of the University of Ottawa,” Bischoff said, framing it as a paternalistic stalling tactic. PSUO/SSUO President Marcelle Desmornes concurs. “This is, after all, virtually the same offer to which our members responded with an overwhelming strike vote in October. Rather than pursuing meaningful discussion at the bargaining table, the university has demonstrated an appalling lack of respect for our members, for our bargaining team, and for the collective bargaining process.”

Looming over all of this is the Ford government’s Bill 124, which, when passed last November 8th, took aim at a provincial deficit that was a fraction of the now-skyrocketing COVID version. 124 was dubbed the “Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act.” Its imposition of wage caps and constricted bargaining has a coalition of labour unions up in arms, calling it unconstitutional. It came into effect in the middle of PSUO/SSUO negotiations, and prompted Ottawa U to reduce its offer to the union.

At issue are concessions and vacant positions. The last offer demanded a cut in prescription drugs reimbursement from 100 per cent to 80 per cent, with an out-of-pocket cap of $2,000 per year as of January 1, 2021, and $3,000 per year as of January 2022. Furthermore, University President Jacques Frémont has confirmed that the budget has been operating in a fiscal surplus for the past two years. PSUO/SSUO believes this is due to PSUO/SSUO jobs going unfilled, and amounts to an increase in workload.

“The employer had a strategy that included going after benefits, but they were looking at wage increases to compensate for that,” Bischoff says, “but Bill 124 was a massive interference and completely derailed that.” The lastoffer call to vote by the Labour Board is being portrayed as a circumvention of further negotiations. “This move will not resolve the outstanding issues, and will only continue to sour relations between our members and the university,” said Desmornes. “We have no doubt that our members will decisively reject the university’s offer.” They did just that on June 26th with 80 per cent support.

Patrick Charette is the Director of Institutional Communications for the university. “In a message we sent to our employees [on June 26th], the University thanked them for their participation in the last-offer vote process,” Charette wrote. “We respect their decision to reject the final offer the University presented to their union back in April.” It’s back to the drawing board for both parties, with an assurance from Charette that Ottawa U will, “work with the union to discuss the best way forward. As always, the University is committed to bargaining in good faith.” n