Strategic Plan, Strategic Vote
Can you dissent over the strat plan you helped create? Bob Bell says you can!
Welcome to the Guelph Politico Tip Sheet, a twice-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 Tuesdays and Fridays.
Hundreds of young people hit Market Square on Friday afternoon as part of the Global Climate Strike to demand action on climate change. Although the event was non-partisan, it did occasionally dip into politics like when organizer Ruth Szaefer said, “I can’t speak for everyone here, but I will tell you that I will not vote for a party that does not have a plan to meet the 2030 and 2050 agreements. Get a plan, or lose my vote!” You can see full coverage and watch a ton of videos here.
There are still a lot of climate events going on around the region until the end of the week, and you can find those details here.
One event that was scheduled for Friday and didn’t happen, was the Project Awareness event at the campaign headquarters of Conservative candidate Ashish Sachan, which was cancelled at nearly the last minute. A notice was posted on the Eventbrite page saying, “Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control the Project Awareness event that was to be held tonight has to be postponed and hopefully will be rescheduled at a later date. We are sorry for any inconvenience that this has caused.” Project Awareness was supposed to be a discussion about homelessness, drug use and other issues.
Communist Party candidate Juanita Burnett was the first of the 2019 Federal Election candidates to come on Open Sources Guelph, and you can now listen to her interview. Find out who’s coming up this week below.
Communist Party of Canada leader Elizabeth Rowley stopped by Guelph last Friday to support Burnett. Fun Fact: The Communist Party of Guelph was founded in Guelph in 1921 in a barn at the outskirts of town, which is presently known as Metcalfe Street. Rumour says the barn is still there, but who knows for sure. Anyway, you can watch the video of Rowley’s talk here.
Remember, there’s an election coming. For all the latest coverage of the 2019 Federal Election from the Guelph angle, you can go directly to that Politico page by clicking here.
Also in the News…
Or rather what *will* be in the news?
The Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation’s ride and meet with the Federal Candidates is on Wednesday beginning at the River Run Centre at 5:45, and wrap up at the Red Brick Café at 7pm, but if you want to take part, you do have to pre-register. (A previous newsletter said that this was Tuesday, but that was a mistake.)
Then, on Thursday, candidates will meet at the Italian Canadian Club for the perennial favourite Social Justice Debate. The debate starts at 7 pm, but get there early because this will fill up fast!
Meanwhile, in a preview of the budget struggles coming this fall, GuelphToday.com covered the Guelph Police Services Board meeting on Thursday where it was revealed that the service will be seeking a boost of $3.9 million for next year.
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In what must have been a slow news day, local media was all a twitter about the Guelph shout out in a Skip the Dishes ad featuring Mad Men actor Jon Hamm. As Hamm correctly points out, the Yukon Gold potato was invented at the U of G in the 1960s by Gary Johnston and Geoff Rowberry. The U of G celebrated 50 years of Yukon Gold in 2016.
Somebody ripped carbon tax stickers off local gas pumps and mailed them to the Guelph Mercury Tribune’s Graeme McNaughton. Why? We may never know.
Construction alert! A portion of the Hanlon north of Speedvale will be closed off to traffic on the week of October 14 to upgrade four rail crossings. The work is expected to take a week.
September 23 – Regular Council Meeting.
It was a straightforward meeting where a couple of key items were discussed.
Procedural Bylaw – Councillor Mark MacKinnon brought forward an amendment to the recommendation coming out of Committee of the Whole to bar electronic devices for closed meetings. MacKinnon’s amendment undid that directive so that electronic devices will be allowed because of the implementation of the electronic agenda management system that council and staff will be using in the new year. Councillor Phil Allt voiced security concerns, because while the City’s encryption might be tight, there’s no way that the same can be said for all the personal devices of councillors and staff. Eventually, the MacKinnon amendment passed 8-4.
Councillor Cathy Downer then brought forth an amendment to go back to the current version of the board appointment process where the agenda leaves the names blank in advance of the meeting where appointments were made. That one was passed 11-1.
Another motion from Councillor Mark Salisbury then directed the Clerk’s Office to make looking at the Notice of Motion policy a priority for the midterm review of the Procedural Bylaw. Salisbury, as well as Mayor Cam Guthrie, noted that the current process is long, and cumbersome, and that it stops councillors from being as responsive as they need to be to constituent concerns, like in the case of restoring service to route #3 on Guelph Transit last year, which took six months to reach council for a vote. Salisbury’s motion passed 11-1.
Centennial Pool Closure – Councillor Leanne Piper wanted to express her disappointment about the situation, and how this was the closure of a pool in a centralized location, without an updated Parks and Recreation Master Plan, and leaving Guelph with one less public pool. Guthrie asked council to go in-camera for some legal advice on the lease agreement with the Upper Grand District School Board, and afterward council voted 7-5 to close the pool in the new year. Downer made a motion to direct the Parks and Rec staff to look at the equitable distribution of assets as part of the master plan, which passed unanimously.
Strategic Plan – Staff laid out the final version of the plan, which aside from some wordsmithing, hadn’t changed too much from Committee of the Whole. They also laid out the next phase of the project, which is to come up with action plans on how to achieve the objectives in the strat plan, which will be coming back to council sometime later next year. Councillor Bob Bell was the only wet blanket on the reveal saying that he was going to vote against the strat plan because there was too much input from staff and not enough from council, plus the plan wasn’t as focused as he would have liked. Council endorsed the plan 11-1.
Note: There’s no council meeting next week as it’s a rare fifth Monday of the month.
Also coming up at City Council:
October 7 – Committee of the Whole. Items from the Infrastructure, Development and Enterprise agenda will be discussed. That agenda will be released this Thursday.
October 16 – Planning Meeting. Special Wednesday meeting because of Thanksgiving.
October 23 – The first meeting for the 2020 Budget. Presentation and Public Delegations for the Capital Budget and Forecast.
October 28 – Regular Council Meeting.
As I said, it’s a busy week….
The next Clair-Maltby workshop is on Wednesday at the Harcourt United Church at 87 Dean Ave. There one at 1:30 pm and another at 6:30 pm. Learn more here.
HOPE House celebrates its seventh birthday at 11 am on Thursday.
Also on Thursday, the 32nd annual Take Back the Night March and Rally will begin at Marianne’s Park at 6 pm.
The Stop the Stigma Rally hosted by Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy will take place next Friday at City Hall at 11:30 am.
And finally, at the Bookshelf next Saturday, there will be a premiere screening of Election Day In Canada: When Voter Suppression Came Calling. Director Peter Smoczynski will be in attendance. The screening starts at 2 pm.
Keep in mind too that this Saturday is Homecoming at the U of G. There will be a lot of extra activity around campus and in the surrounding neighbourhoods. Expect some delays on transit too. The game, which is against the McMaster Marauders, begins at 1 pm at Alumni Stadium.
Coming up this week on the GuelphPoliticast, we talk to Maude! Maude Barlow that is. One of Canada’s fiercest water warriors, Barlow’s got a new book coming up called Whose Water Is It, Anyway?: Taking Water Protection into Public Hands, and she’s coming to Guelph next week to promote it. Before that though, you’ll be able to hear from Barlow on this week’s pod!
Get the latest edition of the GuelphPoliticast on Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, tune in to CFRU at 2 pm for another episode of End Credits. This week we’re reviewing the sci-fi drama Ad Astra with the assistance and insight of Vince Masson. Aside from Brad Pitt in space were also going to talk about Saturday Night Live’s casting controversy, pay inequity for the writers of the Crazy Rich Asians sequel, a flurry of remakes, and how Apple and Disney almost merged (?).
Then, Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU, it’s another all-new edition of Open Sources Guelph. Scotty Hertz and I will talk to NDP candidate Aisha Jahangir, and then we’ll talk about the national campaign, and the latest Trump follies.
Also, listen for a special bonus episode on the podcast channel this weekend. Come back on Friday, and I’ll tell you about it.
Listen to all these shows any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.
Remember, advanced polling begins soon so you should make sure you’re registered to vote, and you can find out how at Elections Canada’s website. Candidates have until Wednesday October 2 to file their nomination papers, and so far six of Guelph’s candidates have been confirmed.
A monthly recap of the city council meetings will be posted later this week on Politico, as will an oral history about the efforts to interview at least one of the Federal candidates.
Meanwhile, Friends of the Guelph Public Library are teasing you about this year’s bounty:
And finally, feel free to reach out to be by email at adamadonaldson [at] gmail [dot] com, or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, GuelphPolitico.ca!