Breathe Again
No more smoke, but lots of news.
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.
Air quality in the region is now back to normal… but for how long?
Corey McArthur has until the end of the week to decided if he should resign from the Guelph Police Service or be fired after the sentence from his original disciplinary hearing was upheld Friday.
Stan Cho is resigned from cabinet, but not from his seat, as a casualty of the hotel expense scandal at Queen’s Park. Meanwhile, further investigation shows that the government changed the expense rules just as members started to expense more hotel stays.
Premier Doug Ford, under fire (pun intended) over the budget, said that “We’d never underfund our firefighters. Never, ever, ever,” despite evidence to the contrary.
Perhaps the savings from $1 million in staffing in the premier’s office can be passed to firefighting after the chief of staff slimmed things down by 10 people.
The Ontario Court of Appeal says that “Freedom Convoy” co-organizer Pat King is guilty of intimidation after all and will face a new sentencing hearing.
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Here’s last week’s Police Notes entry.
A new program out of Royal City Mission lets clients get some job training skills while helping to keep downtown streets clean.
Smoke in the air cancelled another day of horse racing at Grand River Raceway on Friday.
St. David Street in Fergus was supposed to reopen on Friday, but now it may not open again for another month.
An OPP police training facility is coming to Wellington North after council agreed to update the zoning.
A portion of Fountain Street North adjacent to the Region of Waterloo International Airport’s front entrance will be closed until October to replace a watermain.
Organizers in the area are putting out an emergency call to get more volunteers as festivals and events are facing difficulty due to a lack of help.
Sport Minister Neil Lumsden, who sits as the MPP for Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, has announced that he’s retiring from politics next month, a little over four years after he was first elected.
Parkland MP Dane Lloyd has been appointed by Pierre Poilievre to the Conservatives’ point person on the remain side of Alberta referendum.
Canada has temporarily barred foreign nationals who visited Congo from entering the country due to concerns about the risks of Ebola exposure.
An update from the WDG Public Health website was unavailable for the season.
OUTBREAKS: As of Thursday, there is presently only one outbreak in the region, and it’s an unknown respiratory virus in the East Luther Grand Valley unit of the Dufferin Oaks long term care home.
Transit Detours/Notices:
REMINDER #1: Routes #3 Westmount, #10 Paisley, #11 Silvercreek, #12 Delhi, #13 Eastview, and #20 Northwest Industrial will be detoured away from their stops in St. George’s Square due to construction for the foreseeable future.
REMINDER #2: Routes #4 York, #8 Janefield, #9 Waterloo are all being detoured from stops along Wyndam Street South from until sometime in July.
REMINDER #3: Routes #1 Edinburgh College, #2 College Edinburgh and #15 College will be detoured from some stops on College and McGilvray starting until sometime in October.
REMINDER #4: The stop at Edinburgh at Floral along the #8 Janefield route will be unavailable until July 27.
The Route #10 Imperial will be around a section of Paisley Road between Glengarry Street and Goldie Avenue that will be closed from now until August 13.
Routes #3 Westmount, #4 York, #8 Janefield, #9 Waterloo, #10 Paisley, #11 Silvercreek, #12 Delhi, #20 Northwest Industrial and #99 Mainline are all being re-routed downtown while the intersection of Wyndham and Macdonell is closed between now and August 16.
Upcoming Construction:
The Wyndham Street North and Macdonell Street intersection is now closed for infrastructure upgrades. It’s expected to re-open sometime in mid-August.
Coming up this week on the Guelph Politicast, we will talk to Mirko Petricevic of the local news advocacy group Ink-Stained Wretches, which is made up of former journalists and staff of the Waterloo Region Record. With the recent and sudden announcement that 570 News in Kitchener was shutting its doors we see again how precariously local news and local voices exist, but in an important local election year is there anything left we can do to encourage local journalism and local journalists?
Get the latest edition of the Guelph Politicast on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, tune in to CFRU at 3 pm for another episode of End Credits. This week, Tim Phillips co-hosts as we don’t just undertake any odyssey, but The Odyssey, the new epic fantasy from Christopher Nolan that is now in a theatre near you. And speaking of Nolan movies, we will talk about the director’s forgotten 2020 action flick Tenet, and what it says about Nolan, his themes, and his filmmaking style.
Listen to all these shows any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The July meeting of the Accessibility Advisory Committee will take place on Tuesday July 21 at 3 pm both in the committee rooms at city hall and online.
There will be afternoon and evening sessions for the City of Guelph’s Traffic Calming Open House, which will be in the Marg MacKinnon Room at City Hall on Wednesday July 22.
The Property Standards Committee will have their meeting on Thursday July 23 at 4 pm in the committee rooms at city hall and online.
The next meeting of the Arts and Culture Advisory Committee is on Thursday July 23 at 5 pm both online and in the committee rooms at city hall.
Tea ‘n’ Tales with the Guelph Guild of Storytellers happens again on Friday July 24 from 10 to 11:30 am at Riverside Park.
Hot Summer Nights continues on Thursday July 30 at 6:30 pm in Orin Reid Park.
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!