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.
Committee of the Whole – April 4
April’s Committee of the Whole meeting was a long one, and even started an hour earlier than usually scheduled. Perhaps someone at city hall was anticipating the complexity of the issues that were being presented.
After dispatching the monthly staff recognitions and a couple of consent items, committee dug into the first big issue, the Solid Waste Management Master Plan Recommendations. Of particular interest was the planned elimination of single-use plastic items. The initiative proposed by staff was to ban shopping bags, straws, and polystyrene take out containers and cups in March 2023 and then introduce a $1 fee for reusable bags and a 25-cent fee for disposably cups by March 2024.
Some questions from council asked why the ban on those specific items, and GM of Environmental Services Jennifer Rose said it was because they were the most problematic. Others were concerned about the long-time horizon for initiating the plan, and Rose said that was because businesses are going to need time to adapt by buying new equipment and materials, which is also why they get to keep the fees. And what about waiting till the Federal government releases the details of their single-use plastic ban? Well, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what that will involve.
At one point, Councillor Mark MacKinnon moved a motion to charge a $1 fee for plastic cups and remove the fee for reusable bags. His rationale was that 25 cents are not going to be the disincentive the City hopes it will, while not having a fee on the bags will be more likely to encourage their use. The motion on the bags was ultimately removed, and the motion on cups ended up failing as the majority on council felt there wasn’t enough data to back the direction.
Mayor Cam Guthrie was able to get support for a couple of motions, one to direct staff to get more feedback before the initiation of phase two of the single use ban, and an adjustment to the timeline for the start of phase one, which is now January 1, 2023. Councillor Bob Bell though was unable to change minds about alterations to industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) collection, which means his Wike operation in the Ward will be one of 200 businesses no longer getting residential waste service.
Most of the recommendations were passed unanimously, but three members of council voted against the changes to ICI collection, and a list of other recommendations.
Next, committee talked about the inflationary pressures on the capital budget. GM of Finance Tara Baker said her message was “Don’t panic” and that things are moving too quickly to set any long-term direction about changing the plan. That’s why she and staff were recommending a short-term delegation of authority to work within the approved capital budget to deal with those pressures.
Four delegates expressed concern about delegating that authority, and the tenor of those comments was not always as conciliatory as committee might have liked. Accusations that staff were unaccountable to the public and that city council were giving up their oversight role were met with great offense, and the perceived slights were as much a topic of conversation as the main motion.
Many on council tried to find a way to have a bit more oversight beyond a quarterly information report, but timing was again the issue; circumstances move too quickly and by the time an emergency council meeting can be called, an opportunity could be lost. Guthrie summed up the comments best when he said that the community gives council their trust, and council gives staff *their* trust.
The recommendation was accepted in a vote of 11-2, with Bell as one of the no votes. The Ward 1 councillor said committee should have removed the South End Community Centre entirely from the capital budget and then committed to further cuts.
The late item was the Park Plan, which noted the difficulty going forward in securing the same amount of parkland access per person in the future that Guelph enjoys right now. The three delegates were concerned about that too, but advanced discussions about funding had to reserved for next week’s meeting about the Parkland Dedication Bylaw update. Council approved the Park Plan and passed an additional motion from Councillor Leanne Caron directing staff to look at wide-range of finding options for parkland.
Click here to see the complete recap of the meeting.
The next meeting of city council is Monday’s planning meeting. You can see the Politico preview here, and you have until this Friday morning 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.
There’s a new COVID-19 outbreak at Guelph General Hospital, which was announced on the same day that many public health officials tried to remind everyone that there’s still a pandemic going on out there.
Meanwhile, people 60 years and older need to be ready to receive their fourth dose of a COVID vaccine, according to Ontario’s Minister of Health.
The Ontario government announced another minimum wage hike to $15.50 starting in October, while the Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives announced (again) that increases in the minimum wage do not result in increases of the unemployment rate.
Let’s preface these updates with a general word that the official numbers released do not represent the true number of COVID-19 cases, which are likely higher due to limited testing.
The new case count in our region on Tuesday was 41, which is on top of the 165 new cases we had over the weekend. After hitting 558 on Monday, the number of active cases fell back to 543 on Tuesday. The 7-day moving rate continues to go up and it’s now 133.3 per 100,000 while the test positivity is also going up to 21.9 per cent. There was one new fatality over the weekend bring that total number to 159.
The current vaccination rates for eligible populations:
Region-wide: 90.3 per cent have one shot, 87.6 per cent have two shots, and 57.5 per cent have a booster.
Guelph: 92.7 per cent have one shot, 90 per cent have two shots, and 60.9 per cent have a booster.
Across Ontario the number of new cases seemed to have backed off in the last few days with 2,248 new cases on Monday and 1,991 on Tuesday. On the other hand, things don’t look as good in hospitals where the total number of COVID-19 patients province-wide is now back over 1,000 with 1,091 patients, an increase from 778 one week ago. It’s the first time the total number of COVID patients in hospitals have been greater than 1,000 since February 26.
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Mayor Cam Guthrie will spend his Thursday breakfast giving a State of the City for the second week in a row, this one at the Breezy Breakfast meeting.
Dr. Sidney Brodovsky wins as the medical professional in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph who gave out the most COVID-19 vaccine shots, 5,689 to be precise.
The chimney swift, the black-capped chickadee, and the green heron are the top 3 finalists for Guelph’s official bird. You have until April 22 to vote.
Guelph Police Service has launched a campaign to cut back on the 14,000 accidental calls to 9-1-1 they received last year.
Guelph-Eramosa Township’s deputy mayor went full anti-vaxx at a council meeting Monday after he contracted COVID-19 himself last week.
The Government of Canada is partnering with 14 internet service providers (ISPs) to give low-income families and seniors $20 per month internet.
The City of Branford is showing its support for Ukraine by becoming the twin city of Kamianets-Podilskyi in the western part of the county.
The latest IPPC report is a “file of shame” according to the UN Secretary-General who added that without action, we’re “firmly on track towards an unlivable world."
This week on Open Sources Guelph, Scotty Hertz and I will talk about the latest news from Ukraine including the discovery of potential war crimes done by the retreating Russians. We will also talk about this likely sixth wave of COVID-19, the election in Hungary, and we will look at some of the leaders of the Freedom Convoy and ask, “Where are they now?” Sorry folks, just the news this week.
Tune in to Open Sources Guelph later today at 5 pm on CFRU 93.3 fm!
Listen to Open Sources Guelph, as well as the Guelph Politicast and End Credits, any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at Apple, Stitcher, Google, 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!