When the Ontario Health Coalition warned last spring leading into the provincial election that the Ford government was planning to privatize surgeries and diagnostic services, Ford repeatedly denied that was his plan. Those claims are now shown to be totally false with Bill 60; the Ford government’s hospital privatization legislation passed into law on May 8th. This will create 2-tier health care in Ontario in which patients will be faced with an increasing array of user charges and extra-billing for care when they are sick, elderly, in need and least able to pay. This is w ..read more

Expressions of hate have been exploding over the past year.  Whether it’s on the news, on social media or in real life, now we hear almost daily accounts of antisemitism, anti-Black racism, anti-trans slurs, anti-LGBT+ attacks, poor bashing and anti-immigrant outbursts. Even in Peterborough. What is going on? And why now? And why these target groups? It would be naive to just blame the ripple effects of the Trump presidency. But the Trump effect, coupled with the pandemic, the outbreak of war in Europe, the worsening climate crisis, the bloated cost of living and the extreme income inequa ..read more

Peterborough City Councillor Stephen Wright has been knocking on doors since early May in his campaign to become the next mayor of Peterborough. In this interview, we find out what constituents have been telling him. Stephen also talks about his reasons for running and what he hopes to achieve if he wins. We look at Peterborough’s biggest challenges and key issues such as affordable housing, big property tax increases, downtown revitalization and the construction of the proposed twin-pad hockey arena at Morrow Park. Stephen also describes what he learned at the recent Federation of Canadian Mu ..read more

With this episode of the Pints & Politics podcast, we mark another step in our tradition of taking a critical look at what it means to live in this county every July 1st. There are many gaps between the polite and progressive social personas we like to display to the world and the frequently angry and vindicative expressions we flash at each other here at home. This year, 2022, has so far revealed even more divisions than in previous years. Canada is much more than an aggregate of lofty values and postcard scenery. It is a messy, divided country, steeped in unresolved conflicts.  Engl ..read more

The future is always a secret cache of promise and menace. But Spring 2022 finds us in Peterborough awash in a unique flood of unknowns.  We are facing two elections:  the Ontario provincial vote on June 2 & the municipal election on Oct 24.  The ongoing war in Ukraine is upsetting markets and adding to supply chain woes, thereby inflating the prices of everything.  Prices for real estate, rent, fuel and food were surging before the war, and now they are going through the roof. Salaries are not keeping up. Homelessness is on the rise. Inflation is climbing. We are done ..read more

BWXT’s nuclear manufacturing plant on Monaghan Road in Peterborough, Ontario On March 21, 2022, the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) was in Federal Court on behalf of Citizens Against Radioactive Neighbourhoods (CARN — https://www.nopellets.ca/).  CARN has asked the Federal Court to reconsider a decision by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). This Judicial Review has attempted to prevent nuclear fuel pellets from being made in a residential neighbourhood next to an elementary school. The original decision to approve this change in operations, which came down on Dec ..read more

As we look back at the recent pro-vax and anti-vax demonstrations, the trucker convoys, the blockades, the protests in Ottawa and elsewhere (including the slow-roll convoys in Peterborough) and the Emergencies Act invoked then revoked by Justin Trudeau, what do we see? What does our country look like?  The Ottawa Occupation started on January 28th and ended on February 20th. The slow-roll protests in Peterborough have been a disturbing feature of our Saturday afternoons. What will be the legacy of this winter of discontent? What is causing these rifts and injuries to our social fabric? Ho ..read more

While Pints & Politics usually sticks to its lane by commenting on contemporary politics in Peterborough, Ontario and Canada, we like to go exploring occasionally and leave the maps behind. Author Kate Story’s latest novel, Urchin, was published by Running the Goat Books and Broadsides of St. John’s in October of 2021. According to the Globe and Mail, Urchin is “A breathtaking mix of Newfoundland fairy lore and history as readers follow non-binary Dor – spy, adventurer, gender questioner – out into the snowy streets of St. John’s in December 1901, when Marconi has arrived in Newfoundland t ..read more

This podcast examines two issues: (1) How is Doug Ford’s government in Ontario doing in their management of the pandemic? (2) What level of instability might emerge in the US as a result of the mid-term elections and what might be the impacts of this putative instability on life in Canada? As the pandemic rolls on, the Ford government seems to lurch from indecision to indecision. Rapid Antigen Tests are being distributed, but not equitably. Schools are open, but the safety of students is questionable. Are we at the end of the beginning of this pandemic, or is this the beginning of the end? In ..read more

What has happened to Peterborough’s City Council over the past 4 years?  What narrative could explain how we went from the top-down approach of the Bennett years to the optimism of a new, “progressive” council in 2018 to the apparent dissolution of the current season?   Of course, there are many narratives that could take us from then to now.  This had to be a collective effort as the truth wears many masks to this dance.  What role did the pandemic play in this council’s effectiveness? What has been the role of social media and online communication in this council’s r ..read more