Welcome to the new, more punchier 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.
The number of active COVID-19 cases in our are is 16 according to Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, which is the same number of cases there were before the start of the long weekend. The current number of total cases is up to 561 including 259 in Guelph, 93 in Wellington County, and 202 in Dufferin County. There was one new case in the last 24 hours, and the number of fatalities remains at 37.
In Ontario, there are 1,390 active cases of COVID-19 to bring the provincial total up to 43,161. Last week showed a dramatic uptick in the number of new cases week-over-week with 858 new cases between August 23 and 29 compared to 726 new cases during the week before. There were 169 new cases on Sunday alone, which is the single biggest daily increase in the last six weeks.
The total number of active cases in Canada is now 6,393, which brings the nation-wide total of infections up to 131,895.
One of the young people lost in the shocking killing of a family in Oshawa last Friday was a third-year University of Guelph student named Bradley Traynor. A GoFundMe was started to raise money for the surviving family members, and you can find it here.
Two people from Guelph were among the latest arrests at a disputed land development in Caledonia, where land defenders and the OPP have been facing off for over a month now. An Indigenous journalist and a university researcher have also been caught up in the dragnet.
Further concerns about Guelph drug users have been raised by the Consumption Treatment Site downtown. About half the number of people have been using the facility since COVID shut almost everything down in March, while at the same time there have been twice the number of overdose deaths this year when compared to the entirety of 2019.
Some people are raising concerns about the limited time to offer feedback to the first phase of the council composition and ward boundary review, and have asked that further engagement be held now that summer vacation is over.
An Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled that the “carbon tax” stickers that the Ontario government ordered gas stations to place on the pumps was unconstitutional, and a gross overreach of authority.
Like so many other events, the annual Terry Fox run will be going digital this year on September 20.
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If you thought we were getting back to normal in 2021, the Guelph Organic Conference is already thinking ahead of you, and they have cancelled the in-person, physical conference typically held in January.
The Bookshelf’s physical store is re-opening today at 11 am, and it will now be open daily from 11 am to 6 pm for your reading pleasure.
Two University of Guelph economics professors have published a study that shows people fluent in Canada’s two official languages earn nearly four per cent more (seven per cent in Quebec) than people who are monolingual.
Also at the U of G, two other professors have revealed findings in their research that locally-based and directed reactions to a COVID outbreak works better than province-wide lockdowns. The findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences are based on studies of COVID numbers across the various provincial health units, and which ones saw the highest number of cases.
The Guelph Gryphons football team raised $5,000 over the summer for various local charities including Alzheimer Society, Guelph Arts Council, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Guelph.
Co-create is collaboration between musicians and visual artists of Guelph to produce and promote new art that can be shared physically distant online, and the 18 artists that took part are revealing the results.
GO Transit is getting back to semi-normal with a new schedule starting this week.
Committee of the Whole Meeting – September 8, 2 pm.
Getting back to a regular council schedule, Committee of the Whole returns after a five-month break with two items from the Infrastructure, Development and Enterprise Services, and one from Public Services. In IDE, committee will hear about the latest phase in building the long-awaited Emma-Earl pedestrian bridge, and the planning for the electrification of Guelph Transit’s fleet, and then in Public Services there will be a discussion about the urban forest management plan implementation, and the future funding requirements for it.
You can read the Politico preview of the meeting by clicking here, and then follow the live blog on Twitter @adamadonaldson starting at 2 pm.
For more information on Guelph City Council meetings, from agendas to live-tweets to recaps, you can visit that page on Guelph Politico here.
Coming up this week on the Guelph Politicast, we will talk to Professor Maya Goldenberg, who is an expert in the philosophy of medicine, bioethics, and vaccine hesitancy, or what’s more commonly known as anti-vaxxers. Prof. Goldenberg will talk about the origins of medical skepticism, the effects in the COVID era, and what we can do to make people more well-informed.
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, Tim Phillips will co-host as we review the supposed horror-comedy about your last day on Earth, She Dies Tomorrow. We will also talk about some of the recent movie news, including, finally, some box office numbers!
Listen to all these shows any time by subscribing to the Guelph Politicast channel on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.
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!