The City of Peterborough is advising transit riders to be prepared for a possible labour disruption as soon as Saturday (November 18) as the city and the transit union local continue negotiating a new contract.

Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1320 will be in a legal strike position and the city will also be in a legal lockout position as of 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, although neither side has yet indicated there will be a labour disruption.

The city and the union have began bargaining since May, including meetings with a provincially appointed conciliation officer. On November 1, the city received an official notice from the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development, known as a no board report, that starts a countdown toward a legal strike or lockout date.

ATU Local 1320 represents 103 full-time and around 20 part-time city employees. According to a media release from the city, it is not intending to lockout employees at this time. The city also says the union local has indicated it will provide notice before a strike.

The two sides have scheduled two days of bargaining meetings this week. The city says it is advising residents now of a possible labour disruption as transit riders would need time to find alternative arrangements for transportation if there is a strike or lockout.

“We are committed to achieving an agreement that is fair and reasonable for our employees and Peterborough residents,” states the city’s chief administrative officer Jasbir Raina in the media release. “We remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached to avoid a work stoppage and its impact on transit customers.”

The city will share any updates at peterborough.ca/transit and on its social media accounts.

The Township of Selwyn is one of four municipalities that have been newly certified as “bird friendly” under Nature Canada’s Bird Friendly City program.

Along with Selwyn Township, Richmond Hill in Ontario, Devon in Alberta, and Hudson in Quebec are the new municipalities that have received the certification. Selwyn Township joins Peterborough in the Kawarthas region as two of the 24 municipalities across Canada that are certified as being bird friendly.

Nature Canada grants the certification to municipalities that have met or exceeded a minimum standard in three categories: reducing threats to birds in their municipality, protecting and restoring natural habitat and increasing climate resiliency, and actively engaging their community in these actions through education and outreach. Each municipality received a certification level of entry, intermediate, or high depending on their lowest score in any of the three categories.

“The communities that make up the Township of Selwyn are proud to receive a Bird Friendly City Certificate through Nature Canada’s certification program,” says Selwyn Township Mayor Sherry Senis in a media release. “The township has increasingly made strong efforts towards becoming more sustainable by introducing new programs to our residents and taking on various corporate projects that will make positive leeway towards fighting climate change.”

“From the introduction of countertop composters to the installation of EV chargers and becoming a certified Bee Friendly Community, this Bird Friendly City Certification is another step towards becoming a greener community. As a township, we would like to express our appreciation to Nature Canada for supporting communities like ours to become a more
welcoming, safe haven for birds.”

To become certified, nature groups, municipal officials, and other community groups work with Nature Canada, one of the oldest national nature conservation charities in Canada that represents a network of over 130,000 members and supporters and more than 1,000 nature organizations.

Like many of the 24 municipalities that have received the Nature Canada certification, Selwyn Township has been certified at the entry level.

“Our work is not over by any means now that we have achieved this first goal — we have lots more we want to accomplish,” writes Carly Davenport on the Bird Friendly Selwyn website. “Priorities like increasing tree canopy in our parks, creating connected greenspaces, reducing plastic pollution from our waterways and wetlands, promoting accessible birding locations, promoting community science, educating on the threats that birds face in our community, and ultimately ensuring that as we continue to grow as a community we do so in ways that do not have a negative impact on our local biodiversity.”

The City of Kawartha Lakes may soon be the third bird friendly city in the Kawarthas. At its October 24th meeting, city council supported a resolution for the Bird Friendly Kawartha Lakes team to submit a certification application to Nature Canada. The Bird Friendly City of Kawartha Lakes group — consisting of representatives from the Kawartha Lakes Environmental Advisory Committee, Kawartha Conservation, Kawartha Land Trust, Fleming College, Kawartha Field Naturalists, Kawartha Wildlife Centre, and Kawartha Bird Control — will be preparing and submitting an application on behalf of the municipality in February 2024.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary year, the CPKC Holiday Train will be making a stop in Northumberland County on November 28 featuring a live musical performance by Canadian alt-rockers Anyway Gang.

A combination of Canadian Pacific (CP) and Kansas City Southern (KCS) railways, CPKC is the first and only transnational rail network in North America. For the past 25 years, the CPKC Holiday Train has been touring Canada and the United States to raise money, food, and awareness for the important work that food banks do in their communities.

Professional musicians play free concerts from the brightly decorated train’s stage, with CPKC making a donation to the local food bank at each stop while encouraging attendees to do the same. Since 1999, the CPKC Holiday Train has raised more than $22.5 million and more than five million pounds of food for community food banks across North America.

The 2023 CPKC Holiday Train runs from November 20 to December 19, with the Canadian route going across the country.

From 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, November 28th, the train will stop in Brighton, after earlier stops in Belleville and Trenton and before proceeding on to Bowmanville, Oshawa, and Toronto.

In Brighton, the train will stop east of the CPKC railway crossing on Prince Edward Street and will feature a live musical performance by Canadian alt-rockers Anyway Gang, with CPKC making a donation to the Brighton Fare Share Food Bank. Members of the Northumberland Ontario Provincial Police will be on hand for traffic control.

VIDEO: “Big Night” – Anyway Gang

Formed in 2018, the Anyway Gang consists of four friends from four of Canada’s most notable bands: Dave Monks from Tokyo Police Club, Sam Roberts from Sam Roberts Band, Menno Versteeg from Hollerado, and Chris Murphy from Sloan.

The group released their debut single “Big Night” in September 2019 followed by their self-titled debut album in November of that year, with their second album Still Anyways released in May 2022.

For more information about the CPKC Holiday Train, visit www.cpkcr.com/en/community/HolidayTrain.

A 38-year-old motorcyclist is dead following a collision with a tractor trailer east of Warkworth late Monday afternoon (November 13).

At around 3:50 p.m., officers with the Northumberland Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and fire and emergency medical services responded to the scene of a collision between a motorcycle and a tractor trailer on County Road 30 between County Road 29 and 1st Line West.

As a result of the collision, a 38-year-old Trent Hills man was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

County Road 30 was closed between County Road 29 and 1st Line West until around 10:15 p.m. Monday night while police completed a preliminary investigation.

The investigation is ongoing and police will provide an update when available.

Anyone with information related to this incident is asked to contact the OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or stopcrimehere.ca.

This story has been updated with additional informatin about the victim provided by police.

When Peterborough’s Carol Love lands in Paris next summer to lead Team Canada at the 2024 Olympic Games, it will mark 48 years since she was a competitor herself, representing the nation in Montréal in 1976 when women’s rowing made its Olympics debut.

While her home remains in Peterborough, Love is currently based in Cowichan Bay, British Columbia, where she is the coach of the national women’s team. In recognition of her dedication to the sport of rowing, Love was in Calgary earlier this month to receive the Rowing Canada Aviron’s 2023 Petro-Canada Coaching Excellence Award for leading the women’s coxed eight to the bronze medal at the 2022 World Rowing Championships in the Czech Republic.

That achievement capped off a season that saw the nine-woman crew — eight rowers and the coxswain who coordinates the rowers — reach the podium at the two World Rowing Cup regattas leading into the World Rowing Championships. In September, Love also led the women’s eight to a fifth-place finish at the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, qualifying the team for the Paris 2024 Olympics, where the crew will be the defending Olympic champions having won gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

“It was really special to get out of my little bubble here (in B.C.) and see what’s going on elsewhere,” says Love of the coaching award. “It helps you come back with lots of good energy to keep going, so it was really special.”

In her decades of coaching, Love has seen the sport of rowing change for the better, and she has had no small role in that both locally and nationally.

“I got in just right at the beginning, when rowing was just really starting to grow, and more and more women were getting into it,” says Love. “Now we’re at the point where there’s more women than men registered for Rowing Canada.”

Love herself hadn’t been introduced to the sport until just a few years before those Olympic Games in 1976. Though she was born and raised in Toronto as a multi-sport athlete, alpine skiing was what Love (then named Eastmure) gravitated to most. But, just a few weeks into studying physical education at McMaster University in 1971, she was invited to try out for the varsity rowing team. Though she admits she was hesitant at first, after attending a party with other rowers, she was convinced and in a boat the next day.

“At first, rowing was really about the people for me,” she recalls. “It was a really great group of people, but then when I got in the boat, I thought, ‘This is really beautiful. This is a beautiful sport.’ I really got into it and I just kept rowing and rowing from there.”

Although she had never tried rowing until then, she was added to McMaster’s varsity team and, just a few weeks later, competed in her first race at the Head of the Trent, Trent University’s annual rowing regatta.

“It was incredible,” Love says. “It was a beautiful university and an incredibly fun time.”

Following her graduation from McMaster, Love was recruited to train with the national team in Burnaby, British Columbia, in preparation for the Olympic Games.

“Going to the Olympics was a childhood dream,” Love says. “As a young athlete growing up, it was the epitome, so the dream was always there.”

Narrowly missing the podium, the Canadian women’s eight finished in fourth in Montréal. While Love didn’t bring home a medal, she did bring home a future husband after meeting fellow rower Brian Love.

“It was one of those events and opportunities where you meet somebody or you try something and it opens up your world and the trajectory,” she says, speaking to both her personal life and her career.

The year after the Olympics, Love became aware Trent University was building an athletics facility. As soon as she finished at the World Championship in 1977 (where the team won bronze), she joined Trent’s athletic staff and helped with the new facility’s administration.

“That was my first job in sport and athletics and had a huge impact on me as a young person,” she notes.

Now settled in Peterborough, she kicked off her career in coaching, helping the men’s team challenge the national team before proceeding to initiate women’s rowing through several high schools, beginning with Peterborough Collegiate in 1978. She continued coaching at the national and international levels, including for the Canada Games (2005), Junior World Championships (2013, 2015, 2018), Youth Olympics (2018), and Pan American Games (2019).

Love was also raising her five children — including triplets — with her husband Brian, while continuing to develop rowing at both Trent University and the Peterborough Rowing Club.

“I’ve always said in Peterborough, we have a river that runs through our community,” she says. “Everybody should try a sport on the water. It’s just such a beautiful stretch of water. We’re so lucky to have that and to have the sport of rowing.”

Love was inducted into the Peterborough and District Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 in recognition of her key role in the development and success of rowing at both Trent University and the Peterborough Rowing Club, initiating high school women’s rowing at Peterborough Collegiate, and her many provincial, national, and international coaching accomplishments.

Love says she’s seen a huge growth in the sport of rowing, and not just with more women participating. She in part credits the recent growth to the 2013 book The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown about the journey of the University of Washington’s rowing team to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. She says the film version, co-produced and directed by George Clooney and scheduled to be released on Christmas Day, will only add to the sport’s popularity.

“So many people read Boys in the Boat, including a lot of people who aren’t fans of sport,” Carol explains. “A lot of people picked it up, so we know that this film is going to be huge and it’s going to have an impact right across country. Everybody’s going to want the kids rowing, and it will interest older people in rowing. The publicity around the sport is going to really build in the next year, so it’s going to be super interesting for our local clubs.”

The growth in the rowing community is the main reason Love relocated across the country by herself in spring of 2022 to coach Team Canada, while Brian — now retired from his government career — remained in Peterborough in his role as president of the Peterborough Rowing Club.

“When I was offered the job, I was hesitant because I had been thinking about what retirement would look like,” she admits, adding that it was at her family’s insistence that she decided to take the offer.

Though the period between Olympic Games was shorter than the usual four-year gap because pandemic restrictions postponed the 2020 Games to 2021, she’s already sure she’ll be returning home to Peterborough after Paris, rather than sticking around for the next Olympic cycle.

“I’ll find something else to do, but it’ll be time to rejoin my family,” Love says.

As for now, she is putting everything she has into training women from across the country (including Peterborough athlete Grace Vandenbroek) as they vie to represent Canada in 2024.

“It’s a really exciting opportunity to be part of their lives and getting them ready for the Olympics — it’s pretty special,” she says. “At this point in my life, I can throw everything I’ve got — all my years of coaching, everything I’ve learned as a parent and as an athlete — to do the best I can do to get them to the start line so they can have the best race they can deliver on that day.”