Many of our readers have reached out to us this week to express their concern for kawarthaNOW as a locally owned independent media company in the face of the decision by Meta — the parent company of both Facebook and Instagram — to block Canadians from accessing news on both social media platforms.

Our first assurance to you, our readers and our advertisers, is that kawarthaNOW will continue to thrive despite this decision. We have a talented team producing high-quality journalism every day and we will continue to do so regardless of what Meta does. We have enjoyed sharing content on Facebook and Instagram and connecting with our readers on these platforms; however, over 70 per cent of our audience visits our website directly and not through social media.

Meta made its decision to remove news from Facebook and Instagram in response to the federal government’s Bill C-18 (the Online News Act), which requires both Meta and Google to pay Canadian media companies for showing links to news content. Rather than paying, Meta is blocking all news content to Canadians on its platforms.

“In order to comply with the Online News Act, we have begun the process of ending news availability in Canada,” Meta writes in an August 1st statement. “These changes start today, and will be implemented for all people accessing Facebook and Instagram in Canada over the course of the next few weeks.”

“News links and content posted by news publishers and broadcasters in Canada will no longer be viewable by people in Canada,” the statement continues. “People in Canada will no longer be able to view or share news content on Facebook and Instagram, including news articles and audio-visual content posted by news outlets. ”

While we are disappointed in Meta’s decision to block news on its platforms, we will continue to connect with our valued readers in other ways. We currently have over 72,000 regular readers of our website (and higher on many days) and some very devoted fans (we appreciate your direct support and readership). For some time, we have been working strategically to prepare for Meta’s threat to block news content on its platforms and will continue to keep you apprised of our progress. Part of our strategy includes expanding our audience and the sharing of our content on other social media platforms that are not blocking news.

The best method to stay connected with us is to visit our website at kawarthanow.com every day. You can also subscribe to our enews at kawarthanow.com/subscribe to read about community news and events and to enter our weekly giveaway contests. We will also use our enews to communicate changes and updates to our readers.

We also encourage you to follow us on other social media platforms that aren’t blocking news, including Twitter (now called X), LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Threads. We regularly post content on these platforms and you can freely share and comment on our content on these platforms. We will also soon be regularly posting our content on TikTok as well.

The other shoe that has yet to drop as a result of the Online News Act is Google, which also falls under the provisions of the legislation. While Google has not yet removed links to news in its search engine, Google has stated it intends to do so.

“The Government has not given us reason to believe that the regulatory process will be able to resolve these structural issues with the legislation,” the statement reads. “As a result, we have informed them that we have made the difficult decision that, when the law takes effect, we will be removing links to Canadian news publications from our Search, News, and Discover products.”

Despite this statement, Google has also said it will work with the federal government throughout the regulatory process. While the Online News Act is now technically in effect, the federal government still needs to draft regulations to implement the legislation and has until December to do this. We are hopeful Google and the federal government will reach a compromise by then.

We would like to be clear that kawarthaNOW does not support the process that culminated in Bill C-18, which received Royal Assent on June 22 and became the Online News Act. We feel the federal government only developed the legislation in response to intense lobbying efforts by large corporations representing the newspaper industry that began in 2020, with large corporate broadcasters later supporting these lobbying efforts.

In passing Bill C-18, the Senate also pandered to legacy media, ignoring input and warnings from both local independent media similar to kawarthaNOW as well as longtime journalists and industry and legislative professionals. We believe the Online News Act is based on poor policy decisions and is deeply flawed legislation that will harm rather than help Canada’s media industry. It does not serve the interests of Canadians and should be repealed.

We cannot state it better than Michael Geist, a respected law professor at the University of Ottawa who holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law and is a member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society. In a recent post, Geist wrote:

“Canadian media is a loser, particularly the small and independent media outlets that are more reliant on social media to develop community and build their audience. The loss of Facebook links will take a serious toll and undermine innovative companies in Canada. The Internet platforms are losers as they comply with an unreasonable law by removing links and making their services objectively worse in order to do so. Individual Canadians who use the platforms to find links to news are losers since news links will be blocked from the platform. And the government is a loser, as having dismissed critics and ignored repeated warnings about the risks associated with its bill, it has now left Canada as the global example of digital policy disastrously gone wrong.”

Jeannine Taylor, Founder, CEO & Publisher
Bruce Head, Managing Editor

Peterborough’s Fleming College has suspended 13 programs, its signature Culinary Skills, Culinary Management, and Food and Nutrition Management offerings among them.

In a memo sent to staff on June 15 and obtained by kawarthaNOW, college president Maureen Adamson says the decision to cut the programs comes “after several years of enrolment decline in some programs, a global pandemic, and the ever-evolving demographics of learners.”

“Upon examination of many factors such as enrolment demographics and financial sustainability of program delivery, several evidence-based decisions have been made,” wrote Adamson, noting those decisions were made with the support of the college’s board of governors.

Besides the Culinary Skills, Culinary Management, and Food and Nutrition Management programs, other programs suspended are:

• Business Administration (three-year advanced diploma)
• Computer Engineering Technology (three-year advanced diploma)
• Child and Youth Worker (three-year advanced diploma)
• Geological Technician (two-year diploma)
• Construction Engineering Technician (two-year diploma)
• Community Pharmacy (one-year certificate)
• Protection, Security and Investigations (two-year diploma)
• Digital Image Design (one-year certificate)
• Tourism and Travel (two-year diploma)
• Integrated Design (two-year diploma)

Adamson noted that students enrolled in the suspended programs “will be able complete their studies in the normal amount of time for completion, adding “A plan will be created to support students who are not following the usual timing for program completion.”

Moving forward, Adamson wrote, “The plan now includes a suite of new programs created to support labour market needs.”

Those 10 new programs, and their planned rollout dates, are:

• Marketing Management (fall 2023)
• Health Care Administration Management (winter 2024)
• Motive Power-Recreational/Sport Vehicle (winter 2024)
• Mental Health and Addictions (winter 2024)
• Project Management-Environmental (spring 2024)
• Human Resources Management (fall 2024)
• Spatial Data Analytics (fall 2024)
• Geological Information Systems for Analytics (fall 2024)
• Forestry Techniques (fall 2024)

kawarthaNOW reached out to President Adamson for an interview, subsequently receiving an emailed statement from her.

In that statement, she notes “Further research and analysis revealed decreased local and regional high school completions, increased opportunities for applicants not directly out of high school, and the increased opportunities for international enrolment.”

“These insights have informed and shaped a plan that has a stronger focus on graduate certificates, accelerated and hybrid options, and on one- and two-year programs.”

“We are also suspending programs that have consistently performed below the established threshold that was determined by the Program Efficacy Review Tool we developed several years ago to measure a program’s performance relative to established targets.”

While Fleming College’s highly regarded array of culinary program offerings hasn’t been entirely gutted — Cook Apprentice, basic and advanced, remains in place — the suspension of the Culinary Skills, Culinary Management, and Food and Nutrition Management programs arguably marks the end of an era for the college.

While the programs could be re-instated by the college at some point in the future, it’s anyone’s guess at this point if and when that could happen.

That does little to placate Mai Dong, the co-owner of Rare Restaurant and Bar in downtown Peterborough. A June 2022 graduate of Fleming’s Culinary Management program, the sous chef received the college’s Alumna of Distinction Award this past June in recognition of her significant contributions to her field and community.

“I was shocked — I feel like I’ve lost a family,” says Dong of her reaction to the program’s suspension.

“I was really confused as to why all of a sudden the program was suspended. It’s such a good program. I know that a lot of internationals, Vietnamese specifically, they would love that program.”

That said, Dong notes the pandemic held up the documentation required of international students. She says that may have been a factor in possible lower enrolment.

“I know last year there was supposed to be something like 80 students coming from different countries but couldn’t get their visas to come into the country.”

Speaking to her own experience in the program, Dong says it was, and, remains “everything to me.”

“I love cooking but my passion was ‘I’ve got to be a chef when I grow up.’ That program showed me what a professional kitchen looks like and how much I love to work in that environment.”

Of note, the Culinary Management program also produced the college’s 2022 Alumnus of Distinction Award recipient in Tyler Scott, who with his wife Kassy owns and operates Rare Escape, offering guided outdoor culinary experiences. The couple previously operated Rare Restaurant.

Meanwhile, the fate of Fleming’s on-campus bistro, Fulford’s, remains unknown.

Overseen by faculty of the Culinary Skills and Culinary Management programs, Fulford’s has long provided students of both programs with invaluable practical experience in a working restaurant/kitchen setting.

Also not addressed in President Adamson’s memo to staff or her emailed statement is what the program suspensions will mean, both short-term and long-term, for faculty affiliated with those programs.

The Peterborough District Masonic Association and the Masonic Foundation of Ontario have donated $20,500 to the Building Abilities For Life campaign of Five Counties Children’s Centre.

Serving children in the counties of Haliburton, Northumberland, Peterborough, and the City of Kawartha Lakes, Five Counties Children’s Centre provides therapy services that assist children who are delayed in their development to build the skills they need in everyday life such as walking, talking, and activities of daily living.

The donated funds will go directly to reduce wait times for children and youth by getting them access to high-demand treatment like speech and occupational therapies.

“Our donation to Five Counties’ Building Abilities For Life campaign is a natural fit,” says Drew Wilson of the Peterborough District Masonic Association in a media release. “We are a fraternity of builders. We build better men who strive to make a better world. It only makes sense then to support Five Counties programs that build better lives for children and families in our district.”

Freemasonry is the oldest and largest fraternal organization in the world. Historians identify its origins in English medieval stonemason guilds, which formed among the skilled craftsmen who built cathedrals, castles, and other stone structures. The term “Masonic lodge” refers to the working quarters that masons built next to construction sites. Today, members include politicians, businessmen, physicians, construction workers, farmers, and more.

Wilson says many local Masons, including himself, know or have had their own children benefit from treatment at Five Counties. The funds being given to Five Counties will also assist children and families in all of the communities within the Peterborough Masonic District, including Peterborough and Northumberland County.

Local Masons have been raising money for Five Counties through various events and personal donations, from both Masons and non-Masons. The latest donation from Peterborough District Masonic Association follows one made by the Norwood Masonic Lodge last year.

“We greatly appreciate the generosity of Masons of Peterborough District and the Masonic Foundation of Ontario,” says Lyn Giles, director of fund development with Five Counties. “Building compassion, kindness and charitable giving are all hallmarks of the Masonic Order, and now they can add building abilities for life to that list. These funds will go directly to helping more kids and youth get the speech and occupational therapies they need to succeed.”

In 2022-23, Five Counties Children’s Centre served more than 6,200 children and youth in its region — the highest number of clients in its nearly 50-year history. For more information, visit www.fivecounties.on.ca.

If you’ve recently travelled along the trail network in Kawartha Lakes, you may have noticed patches of ground vegetation have been left untouched.

According to a media release from the City of Kawartha Lakes, city staff have been doing this intentionally — especially patches around milkweed plants — to sustain and support monarch butterfly and caterpillar habitat.

While milkweed was often considered an unwelcome weed in the past, it is critical for the survival of the threatened pollinator. Without milkweed, monarch butterflies cannot complete their life cycle and their populations will continue to decline.

While monarch butterflies consume nectar from a variety of flowering plants, the milkweed plant is the only host plant that supports a monarch’s full life cycle from egg to caterpillar to butterfly. Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on the leaves of milkweed, which also provide them with shelter.

Four to eight days after the female monarch lays its eggs on milkweed leaves, the eggs hatch and the distinctively striped monarch caterpillars emerge. The caterpillars are eating machines, feeding on the leaves almost constantly, pausing only five times to shed their skin as they grow almost 3,000 times their birth weight in about two weeks.

The caterpillars then enter the pupa state and, about 10 days later, emerge as fully grown adult monarch butterflies.

The City of Kawartha Lakes’ monarch-friendly initiative along the trail system will continue for the rest of the summer.

Once the adult butterflies have migrated south in the fall, city staff will re-visit the untouched patches to complete mowing.

Kawartha Lakes is officially recognized as a Bee City by Bee City Canada because the city supports healthy pollinator populations and ongoing efforts to preserve and create pollinator habitat.