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 on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings.
Regular Meeting of City Council – September 27
The last meeting of the month was a relatively brief affair. It started with a closed session that commenced at 5 pm, but 90 minutes later there was still some work to do, and it was time to begin the open session.
One of closed meeting items was the formation of the Council Renumeration and Support Advisory Committee, this is the group that will approve the new salary and benefit conditions for members of city council and the mayor. The five-person panel was approved unanimously, and so was the consent agenda from September’s Committee of the Whole meeting.
Before the territorial acknowledgement, Mayor Cam Guthrie talked about the importance of this week, and some of the community events that are happening around Orange Shirt Day, and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This fit nicely into a resolution Guthrie brought forward at the end of the meeting to officially recognize the first ever National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, and the important work to make amends and improve relations between settler and the Indigenous community. The motion passed unanimously.
Council then returned in-camera to finish the closed session and did not emerge until nearly 8:30… And that’s when the real fun began.
The remaining matter in closed session had to do with the old stone farmhouse at 797 Victoria Road North, and its potential demolition under the Fire Protection and Prevention Act. The exact issue is unknown because that was outlined in the closed meeting materials, but the recommended motion that came out of in-camera suggested that the farmhouse be carefully demolished while efforts are made to hold on to key historically relevant features.
Guelph’s Minister of Heritage, Councillor Leanne Caron, made a last-minute case to try and preserve some majority portion of the farmhouse, but it’s apparently too far gone and is a clear and present danger to the public. Caron had some support to try and take some further action to preserve the farmhouse, but the motion was adopted by a vote of 8-5 by council, some of whom noted that they voted in favour reluctantly.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
The next meeting of city council is next Monday’s Committee of the Whole. You can see the Politico preview here, and you have until this Friday at 10 am to register with the clerks office as a delegate or to send a correspondence.
For more information on Guelph City Council meetings, from agendas to live-tweets to recaps, you can visit that page on Guelph Politico here.
While things were mostly quiet at the typically party-centric Ezra Avenue in Waterloo, Chancellors Way was hopping like there’s no pandemic, and showing behaviour that the University of Guelph’s interim vice-provost of student affairs called “upsetting.”
Further up the road at Western University in London neither the pandemic or recent allegations of widespread sexual violence on campus stopped some very rowdy parties from happening once night had fallen.
Dalhousie University though made national news by telling people who attended a large street party on the weekend not to show up on campus this week.
The City of Guelph said that this will be an important week for “Reflection and Commemoration” with the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. (Also, see the attached list of local activities.)
An 18-year-old Conestoga College student was found murdered on a Kitchener trail behind a townhouse complex early on Friday morning.
Before we get to the likely post-Homecoming bump in new cases, things seem a bit calmer in terms of the long-term trends in the region. Both the 7-day moving rate of confirmed cases and the test positivity rate were back in the orange with 35.3 per 100,000 and 2.3 per cent respectively. There were 43 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend, but the total number of active cases continues to trend lower and now sits at 128… For now.
If you’re wondering why the vaccination numbers are lower than where they were on Friday, it’s because now all people born in 2009 and after are included in the eligible population numbers. So, now 81.9 per cent of that pop. is fully vaccinated and 86. 4 per cent have had one shot, while in Guelph alone those numbers are 87.4 per cent and 91.9 per cent respectively.
In the rest of Ontario, things seem to be holding steady. On Sunday, there were 653 new cases in Ontario, and on Monday there were 613. Once again, around three-quarters of those cases are in people who are not fully vaccinated, unvaccinated, or whose vaccine status is unknown. There are presently 184 people in provincial ICUs, which is a slight increase in the last week, but the number of active cases is down to 5,626, a decrease of more than 700 from the total amount a week ago.
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In case you hadn’t heard, the Guelph Gryphons won their Homecoming game against the Western Mustangs.
Alums from the University of Guelph Track and Field team published an open letter to the U of G demanding further action to address the fallout from the Dave Scott-Thomas termination, and the systemic concerns that have not been addressed yet.
Edward Pickersgill’s Bench to assist to Guelph people in poverty will be forced to move when the Wyndham Street lot closes on October 1, and now there’s a Go Fund Me to help out.
Controversial vaccine skeptic and U of G prof Byram Bridle is back in the news for sending a letter to President Charlotte Yates demanding an end to all vaccine mandates on campus that have, among other things, resulted in him being banned from campus for a year.
Annamie Paul announced her resignation from the leadership of the Green Party of Canada, and Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner announced that he was sad to see her go.
Two people have been charged by Toronto Police in connection to a group of vaccine hesitant protestors who tried to force their way into the Eaton Centre on the weekend. Meanwhile, a Leger survey said that three-in-four of the people that took their poll have a negative view of people who aren’t vaccinated.
Coming up this week on the Guelph Politicast, we will be joined by Bruce Weaver, who is a Mohawk elder and valued member of the Guelph community who’s always helping to guide the local discussion about Truth and Reconciliation. Weaver will take part in a very personal conversation on what those words mean, and how we can make them a reality on a personal basis every day.
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, Candice Lepage cohosts as we take a dive into the home movies of Punky Brewster and her famous friends in the new documentary Kid 90. And since a new James Bond movie opens next month, we have the first of two parts with our ultimate ranking of all 24 James Bond movies (so far).
Listen to all these shows any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
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And 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!