Three local parents have launched Our Future Peterborough, a grassroots advocacy group to “protect the public services and community infrastructure of Peterborough.”
“We’re seeing a climate where things, particularly things around kids and families, are getting underfunded and cut,” says co-founder Laurel Harris. “We realized that as we build up this infrastructure, we build up these connections, and we bring it all together, this could be a really useful response to not only one issue, but any future threats to public service and to resources for family and kids that we might see happening in our community.”
Harris, along with Hilary Evans and Sheetal Rawal, formed Our Future Peterborough after learning about the staffing reorganization at the Peterborough Public Library that was approved by Peterborough city council as part of the city’s 2025 budget.
During budget deliberations, councillors approved the elimination of two positions at the library and the reclassification of some positions to lower-rated positions, saving the city $120,000.
Library management subsequently determined it would lay off three of the library’s four full-time unionized librarians, including the children’s librarian. Two new positions (an outreach coordinator and a programming assistant position) would be created, resulting in a net reduction of one position.
Harris explains that while the parents have been “paying attention” to various concerns and threats to public service, the restructuring of the library — and in particular, the elimination of the children’s librarian — was the “spark” that led to the founding of Our Future Peterborough.
“Of course they’re going to have reduced programming,” Harris says. “You can’t expect to cut the number of people who are offering and designing these programs, particularly with these levels of expertise, without that.”
For Harris, the potential cuts to the programs are personal as that’s where she and her home-schooled six-year-old son connect with other families. The Homeschool Hangout monthly program connects children through games, arts and crafts, activities, and special guest speakers, and, according to Harris, the last one she attended had about 35 participants.
“It’s such a vital social space — it’s a space where we’ve been able to connect with other kids, and with other families,” she says. “I certainly have so many deeply valued memories of being in the library as a kid and being in this magical creative space where I discovered all these new ideas and these new things in my mind felt expanded. The idea of closing in on that or taking that away from kids feels outrageous. It feels too far.”
Before officially establishing Our Future Peterborough, the founders launched an online petition calling to stop the cuts, which, at the time of this writing, has just over 2,200 signatures.
Launched on April 16, the petition demands “that City Council, the Peterborough Public Library CEO, and the Peterborough Public Library Board reverse the planned layoffs and stop the elimination of the Children’s Librarian role.”
“We really strongly believe that a city that is invested in and cares about its future and thinks about its future is one that is going to be cognizant of investing in and prioritizing programs for children,” says Harris.
“More and more, we just see that’s not happening and that these things are getting cut — and they’re getting cut quietly and without public consultation, which is certainly the case here. We also see that in the context of a broader political moment where we have to ask, especially as parents, how collectively do we care about our future?”
Expanding on the “broader political moment,” Harris points south of the border where the Trump administration is cutting funding to libraries and museums, which she says symbolizes the “intentional dumbing down of the public.”
“Putting books into the hands of kids is such an important thing, especially in this moment where the digital stuff takes over so much,” she says. “Not that that’s a bad thing, but we need to have it balanced with books where they can see their identity reflected back at them, where they can have access to these stories, or they can learn things like critical thinking.”
“It sounds maybe a bit overstated, but it feels like a revolutionary act sometimes to put books in the hand of kids. It feels like pushing back. It feels like we’re resisting.”
Our Future Peterborough was at the May 15 rally outside of the library and, Harris says, will support more protests and events with rally organizer Marjorie McDonald and with CUPE 1833, which represents the librarians.
Harris says the aim is to collect a group of children’s authors and people who support open libraries to “see if that can put a little extra pressure on council.”
“There’s such a real, immediate effect, and this is not a nebulous political issue,” she says. “This is going to affect so many people day-to-day in a very real way. I get the sense sometimes that people who don’t really access the library or use these programs don’t understand how important they are to a lot of people, and so we’re sending that message home — particularly to the decision makers.”
During the city’s draft 2025 budget process, all city departments were asked to provide options to reduce operating expenses to lower a potential property tax increase. Management at the Peterborough Public Library provided the options of reducing operating hours by four hours per week for $70,000 in savings (noting that this option would likely result in layoffs of unionized staff and fewer shifts for part-time staff) or eliminating two positions for $120,000 in savings.
Though council’s public deliberations on reducing library staffing were made from November to February, when council approved the 2025 budget, other proposed reductions — including a proposed 25 per cent cut to all city-funded arts and community organizations — received all the attention.
Harris notes there was no public outreach or consultation about the proposed cuts to the library and their impact before city council made its decision.
“The public are stakeholders in this,” she says. “We’re the ones going to feel the effects of it, so that’s really what we’re demanding now: a formal public consultation on this, some kind of public meeting so the public’s stake in this can be expressed and heard by council.”
While fighting the library staff restructuring is the first battle, Harris says this is only the beginning of Our Future Peterborough, as the organization will be working towards the betterment of the future for families and children in other areas like childcare.
“We also just want to have this infrastructure ready and available to just launch,” she says. “As part of our mandate, families and children are our main focus and families and children rely on lots of different public services in our city.”
For more information about Our Future Peterborough, visit ourfutureptbo.org.
