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STRATFORD VOLUME 4 • ISSUE 22
12
JUNE 13, 2025
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Family, friends, colleagues remember Dave Gaffney CONNOR LUCZKA
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Tom Clifford served on Stratford city council for 25 years. In that time, he had never met another councillor as dedicated as Dave Gaffney. “He was the most informed. He read every bit of material,” Clifford told the Times. “In my opinion, he was one of the best councillors, and I was on council 25 years and worked with, I can't tell you how many councillors.… If anyone was dedicated to the city of Stratford, it was Dave.” Gaffney, 63, passed away on June 3 after a brief illness. As Clifford said, he was earnestly committed to his home city and devoted his working life to it. He was a long-time volunteer at the YMCA of Stratford-Perth (now known as the YMCA of Three Rivers), the Stratford & District Agricultural Society, the Bard of Avon Housing Co-operative, Heritage Stratford, the City of Stratford’s board of park management, communities in bloom advisory committee, the energy and environment advisory committee and the Stratford Police Services board. Perhaps Gaffney’s biggest accomplishments come from the two terms he served as a city councillor. He was elected in 2006 and in 2018. Describing Gaffney as a “little brother,” Clifford was something of a mentor to him, sitting next to him around the horseshoe at city hall and sharing many discussions over the years, whether they were political or personal. Eventually, a working relationship evolved into a genuine friendship. Clifford recalled that when his own wife passed away this year, Gaffney was one of the first people to reach out to him. CONTINUED TO PAGE 2
Happy Pride! Huge crowds gathered in the Festival City on June 1 for the annual Pride parade, hosted by Stratford-Perth Pride. Read more about it on page 9.
FRED GONDER PHOTO)
Stratford citizens express concern over recently passed Bill 5
CONNOR LUCZKA
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Bill 5, the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, passed its third reading and received royal assent at the Ontario legislature this month. Although much of the discourse surrounding it has been focused on communities in northern Ontario, some in Stratford believe that it has far reaching consequences – and that Stratford citizens should be concerned. “There are elements of the act that dismantle environmental protection,” Bill James-Abra of Climate Momentum said. “That is part of it. The other part was the whole tone of the act is part of this process the government's doing of … dis-
mantling local decision-making power and dismantling the voice of local communities to have some say in how development happens. “If this law had been in place, I'm fairly confident when the Xinyi glass plant was proposed for Stratford, we wouldn't have had any say … it sounds over dramatic, but the law makes it possible for things like our Cooper site to be effectively taken over by the cabinet in Toronto for their hand picked developers to do what they please. It's offensive and it's wrong.” As James-Abra indicated, Bill 5 amends and replaces the Endangered Species Act (once touted as the gold standard of conservation legislation) with the Species Conservation CONTINUED TO PAGE 3