Both the City of Peterborough and the City of Kawartha Lakes are cleaning up following severe thunderstorms that swept across the region on Thursday (August 3), causing flooded roads in Peterborough and dumping large hail in Kawartha Lakes.

According to a media release from the City of Peterborough, the amount of rain that fell in a single location in Peterborough was what would be expected in a one-in-100-year storm. A monitoring station at Sherbrooke Street and Clonsilla Avenue recorded 66 millimetres of rain in an hour on Thursday evening.

While some streets and basements in some parts of the city were flooded, the city says much of the rainwater was diverted thanks to investments in storm water management infrastructure made over the past several years in response to the so-called “Great Flood” of Peterborough in July 2004 that saw more than 150 millimetres of rain fall in some parts of the city in a single hour.

Quite the storm. Reports of localized flooding throughout the City. Please stay clear of Lansdowne-Parkway intersection as there is substantial flooding – crews are responding. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/9Zn4nQ9CRb

— City of Peterborough (@CityPtbo) August 4, 2023

Also thanks to past upgrades, the city’s wastewater treatment plant was able to manage the greatly increased flow of water into its systems, protecting the Otonabee Rive as no system bypass was required.

While crews were dispatched throughout the city to assist with cleaning storm sewers and catch basins, the storm caused minimal damage to city roads, with mostly maintenance and cleanup required after the storm. There were 23 reports of road shoulder erosion and washouts, mostly in the city’s south and west ends.

The city says street sweeping to clean up following the storm will continue through the weekend, along with other cleanup and maintenance work in response to any new calls for serviceabout affected city infrastructure.

This is the scene on The Parkway at The Queensway in Peterborough. Avoid the area #ptbonews #ONstorm pic.twitter.com/JjGaGjEj5s

— Harrison Perkins (@HaPerkins) August 4, 2023

In the City of Kawarthas Lakes, public works staff have been working to clean up the debris from the aftermath of the storm according to a media release from the city.

While city staff worked through the night to clear and remove all hazardous trees that were safe to remove, there are a number of trees that require attention by either Hydro One or a qualified arborist.

Hydro One has been working throughout Lindsay to restore hydro to areas of the municipality that lost power due to the storm. Clean up of the downed trees will follow.

One Hell of a storm in Lindsay #ONStorm. Broken windshield, countless dents on the cars, and holes in the siding of my house the size of my fist. Will be calling the insurance in the morning ?? pic.twitter.com/Xy8uGUlAmZ

— Leigh (@Canadian_gurl14) August 4, 2023

As of noon on Friday (August 4), Wellington Street in Lindsay remains closed between Cambridge Street and William Street due to a downed tree over the power lines. That section of the road will remain closed until Hydro One removes the tree.

Residual clean-up efforts, including any necessary street sweeping and brush removal, will continue into early next week.

While there was nickel-size hail in some parts of the City of Peterborough, that hail that fell in Lindsay and other areas in Kawartha Lakes was considerably larger. People on social media posted photos of hail ranging in size from ping pong size to golf ball size and larger, with several people also posting photos of damaged cars and buildings.

Lindsay Ontario. Wife had this hail exploding on her car while trying to find her way out of town around downed trees and hydro poles that were snapped in half. The car is riddled and the town has a lot of damage. Pretty sure something touched down #ONStorm #hailstorm #kawarthas pic.twitter.com/0XEbrHM1Cu

— christian white (@rchristianwhite) August 4, 2023

Kawartha Lakes Food Source, a non-profit organization in Lindsay that procures and distributes food to 35 local agencies, has reported two recent break-ins at its Needham Street distribution centre.

According to a media release from the organization issued on Thursday (August 3), whoever broke into the distribution centre took around $500 of staple food items that included non-perishables, milk, and frozen meat.

While some office equipment was also taken, the thief or thieves left all other food items untouched and did not vandalize anything in the distribution centre.

“We believe the break-in at the distribution centre demonstrates the level of both need and desperation that many in our community are feeling,” Kawartha Lakes Food Source says. “Does this make it right to break-in to any establishment and steal? Absolutely not.”

According to Kawartha Lakes Food Source, 10.2 per cent of Kawartha Lakes residents are affected by poverty, and many rely on food banks because the high cost of rent doesn’t leave them with enough money for food.

“Each of us is feeling the increased cost of groceries, gas, and other household items — those who are in poverty feel it even more,” says the organization. “Many rely on charity programs, like food banks, and family or friends for help.”

To offset the loss of food and office equipment, Kawartha Lakes Food Source is aking people to consider donating food or money by visiting 164 Needham Street in Lindsay or online at www.kawarthalakesfoodsource.com.

Anyone with information about the break-ins can contact Kawartha Lakes police at 705-324-5252. If you prefer to remain anonymous, contact Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.khcrimestoppers.com.

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.