Good morning. Speaker, I want to share about the legacy of local news reporting in Hastings–Lennox and Addington. Founded in the back of a Newburgh, Ontario, store in January of 1870 by Cephas Beeman, the Addington Beaver newspaper shared local news on a four-page, six-column weekly paper. Shortly after creating the paper, he then sold it to his brother George Beeman and his partner William Templeton, moving it to Napanee, calling it the Ontario Beaver, and then shortly thereafter the Napanee Beaver, and it has remained a family-owned business.

In 1892, George Beeman sold his portion of the paper to Templeton who remained the sole owner of that newspaper until his death in 1908, when his wife took over that paper. For several generations, the family ran the paper until 1953 when they sold the paper to a local family: Earl and Jean Morrison. Then, after Earl’s death in 1978, Jean continued that tradition of the Napanee Beaver. The Morrison family led that paper for more than 30 years.

But just recently, the Napanee Beaver has been sold to Adam Prudhomme. Adam has actually been a resident of Napanee and an employee since 2008 and has been the managing editor since 2019.

Throughout its existence, the Napanee Beaver has won numerous awards, both from the Ontario and Canadian newspaper associations, and I’m delighted to see the tradition of community-owned local news still alive here in Ontario.

In my new role as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Transportation, I’d like to welcome the Ontario Road Builders’ Association and the Ontario Asphalt Pavement Council to Queen’s Park today. Specifically, I’d like to welcome Walid Abou-Hamde, Andrew Weltz, Malcolm Croskery, Mark Mallett and Graziela Girardi.