Go West, Young Man (On GO)
So we can now get to London, but not Hamilton, Cambridge, Kitchener, Wa...
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.
Elections Canada says that the attendance at advanced polls was up nearly 20 per cent over the 2019 Federal Election, even in Guelph.
All seven of the local Federal Election candidates finally came face-to-face (through a screen) at the high school debate hosted by Bishop Macdonell students.
There was another local (not debate) town hall on Tuesday sponsored by the Guelph Coalition for Social Justice. The moderator allegedly went rogue.
Anti-lockdown protestors were spotted outside an advanced poll in Elora. They either moved of their own accord when asking by the poll manager, or they were only persuaded to move when the OPP arrived.
The Government of Ontario released the guidelines for their vaccine certificate program, but there’s still some general concern about what will happen when it goes into effect next week.
A particularly freaky incident in a Guelph home last weekend saw a man break into a family home, sneak upstairs, open the master bedroom door and stare down the couple before they chased the intruder from the house. Nothing was taken, but everyone is deeply weirded out.
University of Guelph president Charlotte Yates waved her finger in prose at her students on Tuesday in an open letter addressing a big, and very unofficial, party held on campus last weekend.
Guelph General Hospital has been struggling with full beds lately, but not because of COVID-19. Rather it was just a busy day in the emergency room.
Dare we look at the latest local COVID numbers after the last newsletter? We must! The bad news is that the 7-day moving rate of confirmed cases is now up to 39.1 per 100,000, and the test positivity rate is up to 3.8 per cent. The total number of active cases is back down to 107, including four new cases confirmed on Wednesday. There was new fatality from the virus, the first since late-June, to bring the number of local COVID deaths up to 127.
In terms of vaccine distribution, we are still adding more people to the ranks of the vaccinated with 85.8 per cent of eligible people in the region with one dose, and 80.6 per cent fully vaccinated. In Guelph alone, those numbers are 91.4 per cent with one shot, and 86.1 per cent with both.
After being down, and then up, new daily case counts in Ontario are down again. For the past two days, the number of new cases has been under 600 with 577 on Tuesday and 593 on Wednesday. Of the 593 on Wednesday, 66 per cent were in people who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated even though those people only make up 31 per cent of the general population. The total number of active cases in Ontario continues to hover around 6,200.
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The United Way launched their “Radical Recovery” campaign as their 2021 fundraiser on Wednesday.
It turns out that the extra infrastructure recently installed in front of a certain drive-thru is just as ineffective as having nothing there.
The University of Guelph will officially open it’s newly constructed Lang Plaza in front of old Macdonald Hall this coming Friday at 11 am.
It turns out that Long COVID is a problem for about 1 out of every 10 people that catch the virus.
Wellington OPP’s new Community Response Unit (CRU), which was proposed after the Upper Grand District School Board cancelled the Student Resource Officer program last fall, has begun operations.
Western students are planning a walkout on Friday to protest the sexual assault of as many as 30 students during the first week of school last week, and to protest, what they call, a culture of misogyny" on campus.
Guelph/Eramosa Township has announced that they will be implementing a vaccine mandate for staff.
That “Tax the Rich” dress worn by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Met Gala on Monday? Turns out there’s a Guelph connection!
This week on Open Sources Guelph, Scotty Hertz and I will once again be hosting back-to-back election candidate interviews. In the first half, we will have Liberal Party candidate Lloyd Longfield who will talk about why you should elect him for a third term, and then we will be joined by Conservative candidate Dr. Ashish Sachan, who will talk about why he might be a good replacement.
Tune in to Open Sources later today at a special time at 1 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.
REMINDER #1: You have until this Friday at 10 am to register with the clerks office as a delegate or send a correspondence for special meeting of city council on Wednesday September 22. See the Politico preview of the meeting here.
REMINDER #2: You can sign up for one of two more virtual workshops about Guelph’s new multiyear budget next week.
REMINDER #3: The City of Guelph is looking for people to join the about a dozen different advisory committees and local boards. Get the list and learn how to apply here. Deadline is September 23.
The Government of Ontario and Metrolinx have announced that the Kitchener line will experiment with expansion by running a train from and to London (as well as Stratford and St. Marys) every weekday starting on October 18.
Guelph City Council and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1189 have both ratified a new three-year contract that will give Guelph Transit workers a 1.5 per cent pay bump for 2022, and a 1.75 per cent bump for 2023 and 2024.
The Smart Cities Office, and their Re(Purpose) Incubator initiative, are giving support to six different businesses and helping them scale up to tackle food waste.
The Baker Street parking lot closes forever on October 1.
Applications for the 2022 Community Grant program are now open, but you’ve got to file by October 8.
Habitat for Humanity will be hosting a pop-up donation drop-off in the Salvation Army Citadel parking lot on Friday from 2-6 pm and Saturday from 1-5 pm.
The Wellington Catholic District School Board has brought back it’s Food & Friends initiative through to the end of the year.
Looking for a new side hustle? How about working a couple of hours a day as a crossing guard?
It sure is…
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!