Begun, These Tariff Wars, Have
Say goodbye to your fallback beer options!
Welcome to the Guelph Politico Tip Sheet, a thrice-a-week newsletter meant to “tip” you off about some of the important stuff going on in the Royal City. It arrives directly in your inbox now on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.
Justin Trudeau has announced 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs on American goods starting on Tuesday, while Doug Ford has announced that the LCBO will be pulling all American liquor from the shelves.
Ford has also pledged a $22 billion stimulus package for Ontario if the PCs get re-elected, which shouldn’t be too hard given the fact that the PCs have nearly twice the amount of support compared to the second-place Liberals in an election poll.
It appears that Guelph now has a Liberal candidate for the provincial election and it’s Mustafa Zuberi, former president of the U of G Young Liberals.
In responding to a lawsuit, the University of Guelph has said that allegations of psychological, physical and sexual maltreatment by a former member of the men’s volleyball are made up, or, if they’re not made up, then the U of G knew nothing about it.
Here4Hope, the suicide prevention program, will be supported financially by Wellington County, at least until June when its future becomes more uncertain.
Tuberculosis cases in Toronto reached their highest level in two decades last year.
The WDG Public Health COVID-19 dashboard says that there’s good news regarding the wastewater numbers for RSV strains A and B, which have crashed by going from 0.77 and 0.62 to 0.3 and 0.22 respectively. Still, Influenza A is now the top disease in the region with a signal of 0.64 followed by COVID-19 with 0.53 while Influenza B lags at 0.04. The rate of emergency room visits is steady at around 18 per cent, but in terms of overnight stays there are now 12 people in area hospitals with the flu and nearly half as many with COVID-19 and at least two with RSV.
OUTBREAKS: So there’s a laundry list of outbreaks now, including a COVID-19 outbreak at an area hospital. An outbreak began at Headwaters in Orangeville on Friday and joins Eden House, Village of Riverside Glen, and Avalon Retirement Lodge in Orangeville who are still suffering the slings and arrows of COVID. Enteric is also making a comeback across the region with new outbreaks at Heritage House and Wellington Park, plus the outbreak at Village of Arbour Trails, which has been in effect since Christmas Day. Respiratory? That’s still a problem, and while it’s over at Homewood and Caressant Care in Harriston, it’s still there at St. Joe’s, plus new outbreaks at Birmingham in Mount Forest and Caressant Care in Fergus.
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Here’s last week’s Police Notes entry.
Welp, it looks that Guelph trio got their @$$es kicked on Pop Culture Jeopardy!
Fixing four major bridges on Wellington Road #109 are going to cost over $22 million for the County to fix.
Wellington County’s RIDEWELL program has been approved to make the leap from pilot to permanent.
Another possible jewellery store smash and grab was averted at Conestoga Mall Saturday night by an alert security guard.
Coming up this week on the Guelph Politicast, we will talk to Jacquie Wells, who is an organizer with Waterloo Region ACORN, and one of the people leading the charge against Michael Klein, a notorious landlord who’s been renovicting tenants at buildings around Ontario, including Guelph. After finally getting Klein in front of the Landlord Tenant Board last week, Wells will talk about beating the renovictors in the court of public opinion and how they’re now trying to beat them in actual court.
Get the latest edition of the Guelph Politicast on Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, tune in to CFRU at 3 pm for another episode of End Credits. This week, Tim Phillips co-hosts as we catch up with another Oscar-nominated film that is now streaming on Disney+ an set out on a Polish vacation with cousins Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain. We will also mark the start of Black History Month by talking about two great examples of filmmaking from Black directors.
Listen to all these shows any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
There will be an open house for the Downtown Height Study in the Marg MacKinnon Room at City Hall on Tuesday February 4 from 6-8 pm.
The virtual next meeting of the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health is on Wednesday February 5 at 1 pm.
There will be an in-person open house for The Blueprint: Guelph’s One Water Plan on Wednesday February 5 from 4:30 to 6:30 pm in the Marg Mackinnon Room at City Hall.
The Tourism Advisory Committee will meet virtually on Wednesday February 5 at 4 pm.
The annual Mayor’s State of the City address is on Thursday February 6 from 7 to 10 am at the Delta Hotel and Conference Centre.
The Heritage Gulph meeting for take place online and in-person on a new day, now Thursdays, February 6 at 12 pm.
The monthly Repair Café will take place at the Guelph Tool Library in Old Quebec Street on Saturday February 8 from 11 m to 3 pm.
The For the Love of Books book fair and makers market will be held from 10:30 am to 4 pm on Sunday February 9 at the Royal Canadian Legion.
There will be an in-person open house to talk about the future design of St. George’s Square in the galleria at City Hall on Wednesday February 12 from 6 to 8 pm.
Committee of Adjustment will meet in-person in the council chambers and online on Thursday February 13 at 4 pm.
A panel discussion on human trafficking in the Guelph-Wellington region will take place at the Salvation Army citadel on Monday February 24.
Finally, feel free to reach out to me by email at adamadonaldson [at] gmail [dot] com, or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, GuelphPolitico.ca!