A Kawartha Lakes man is one of 24 bakers from across Canada vying for a $50,000 prize in CTV’s new reality cake competition series Cross Country Cake Off, hosted and judged by chef and cookbook author Mary Berg and celebrated pastry chef Andrew Han.

In the four-episode series premiering on Thursday (December 15), Derek Welch of Pontypool will compete in a qualifying round in Toronto against seven other bakers from central Canada.

Another eight bakers from eastern Canada will compete in a qualifying round in Halifax, with another eight bakers from western Canada competing in Vancouver. Four bakers from each of the three regional qualifying rounds will then move on a festive cake challenge, with the top two from each region selected to compete in the finale.

For Welch, a truck driver by trade, baking is a weekend hobby he shares with his daughter Taylor. You can follow them at “Daddy Daughter Sweet Treats” on Facebook and Instagram. The cake Welch will present during his qualifying round, filmed at Toronto’s Casa Loma earlier this year, has a woodland theme.

“For me that’s the most relaxing spot to unwind and clear my head,” he says in a promotional video.

The first two episodes of Cross Country Cake Off will be broadcast at 9 p.m. on December 15 and 16 on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app.

VIDEO: “Cross Country Cake Off” trailer

Hamilton-based musician, artist, and author Tom Wilson believed he was of Irish heritage for the first 54 years of his life — and then he discovered he was actually Mohawk.

Students at Immaculate Conception Catholic Elementary School in Peterborough were entranced by Wilson’s story, which he shared with them during an event at the school on Thursday afternoon (December 8).

Wilson, who was in Peterborough to perform with his band Blackie and the Rodeo Kings at the Market Hall, is an artist ambassador for the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund in partnership with Sony Music Publishing. The Downie & Wenjack Fund’s artist ambassador program brings Indigenous and non-Indigenous musicians, artists, and knowledge keepers into legacy schools to inspire student leadership and forward the journey of reconciliation in communities.

In addition to making a donation to the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund as part of Sony’s “Season of Giving,” Sony bought Wilson to Immaculate Conception school to speak with 50 young students about his experience and about reconciliation.

Also speaking at the event were Lisa Prinn, manager of education and activation from the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund, and Rebecca Watts from the Lovesick Lake Native Women’s Association, along with representatives from Sony Music Canada.

“I’m 63 years old, so I’m probably the same age as most of your grandparents,” Wilson told the group of young students. “But only nine years ago, I found out from a complete stranger that I was adopted. Now that’s a long life to live in mystery and not knowing your origins, and always suspecting that your mom and dad aren’t your mom and dad. That’s the life I lived for 54 years.”

Wilson recounted how, two weeks after he found out he was adopted, he was driving his cousin Janie home after celebrating the birthday of one of Wilson’s grandsons. Janie, who is 18 years older than Wilson, has been around Wilson for his entire life and is the matriarch at family gatherings. When Wilson told Janie he had found out he was adopted, she revealed a secret that would change his life.

“My cousin Janie turned to me and said ‘Tom, I don’t know how to tell you this. I’m sorry and I hope you forgive me, but I’m your mother’,” Wilson told the students, adding that both she and his birth father were Mohawk from Kahnawake First Nation, located outside of Montreal.

“I grew up for 54 years thinking I was a big, puffy, sweaty Irish guy — I’m actually Mohawk from Kahnawake,” Wilson said. The couple that raised Wilson, Bunny and George, were actually his great aunt and uncle and “were completely loving.”

“Since I found out that I’m actually Indigenous and not Irish, it’s now my goal through my art to work every day to put the Mohawk culture into a bright light and to work for Indigenous issues, Indigenous problems, to go and try to fight for communities. It’s what I’m doing here today with you guys.”

Wilson — whose Mohawk name is Tehoh’ahake, which means “Two Roads” — also told the students about a project he’s spearheading to replace trees that were destroyed during the so-called “Oka Crisis” in 1990, when Mohawk warriors in the community of Kanesatake took a stand against the Quebec police, the RCMP, and the Canadian Army to prevent ancestral land from being developed. Related protests also took place in Kahnawake First Nation.

“My active role is not just through the visual art that I create, and it’s not through the music that I write, and it’s not through the book that I’m writing right now — it’s by taking an active role,” Wilson said.

“Hopefully all of you feel inspired by what you’re learning through the Downie Wenjack people and hopefully will be able to stand up and take an active role in making this a better country, a better planet, a better community for all people to live in,” Wilson said.

“I don’t want to put it on you guys, but it’s actually your job, because my generation has failed miserably at trying to do this — but we’re working hard to try to make it better.”

Along with his art and his tree-planting project, Wilson told the students he has started the first Indigenous scholarship at Hamilton’s McMaster University for any Indigenous students in Ontario.

He also shared the story of his arrest for supporting “land defenders” from the Six Nations of the Grand River in Caledonia, before reading a passage from his best-selling memoir Beautiful Scars and performing an a capella version of his song “Grand River” from the latest Blackie and the Rodeo Kings record O Glory.

Wilson also answered a number of questions from the students about his music and his art, and was presented with a thank-you gift made by the students.

He then helped hand out “Every Child Matters” orange t-shirts to the students and autographed them.

Over our 30 years of operation, GreenUP has made an effort to measure and keep transparent the impact we are having in our community.

GreenUP educates and engages thousands of children and youth each year. We have planted hundreds of thousands of native plants throughout our DePave and neighborhood demonstration projects. We support hundreds homeowners and businesses to implement conservation strategies.

We know that our community impact is significant and, all the while, our potential impact continues to grow as climate action and climate change mitigation become a critical priority for our region.

However, in addition to thinking about our community impact, we are driven to ask ourselves how an organization like GreenUP begins to quantitatively measure our own impact on the environment.

One way is by looking directly at our own footprint.

You may be aware of the ‘carbon footprint’ standard of measuring an individual’s impact on the climate. Your carbon footprint is an approximate measurement of the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases produced your regular activities.

In 2020, GreenUP partnered with the City of Peterborough, County of Peterborough, and Green Economy Canada to launch a local business hub called Green Economy Peterborough.

To measure our own carbon footprint, GreenUP has made the commitment to join the local business hub and investigate.

As a member of the hub, GreenUP conducted a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory to understand the carbon emissions that are created through activities that are part of our operations.

The scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions created through GreenUP’s operation were measured to be 1.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per year.

As a result of completing this GHG inventory, we learned that GreenUP has many opportunities to reduce our emissions — through the electrification of our tools and vehicles, increasing our use of active modes for business travel, and by reducing our use of electricity through efficiency in our office.

In addition to looking at our footprint, GreenUP is also working to quantify how our programs are impacting the environment.

In 2020, GreenUP worked with Heather McDiarmid from McDiarmid Climate Consulting to evaluate the climate impact of our programs and develop tools to measure the impact of those programs on an ongoing basis.

One component of that climate impact evaluation tells us that “Between 2016 and 2020, GreenUP organized DePave events at five sites, replaced a total of 1,072 m2 (square metres) of pavement with plantings resulting in 1,505 m3 (cubic metres) of storm water diverted per year and 385 kg of reduced water pollution per year.”

Continuing to achieve such a measurable impact on stormwater diversion and reduced water pollution is something the GreenUP team is eager to continue.

In 2022, GreenUP supported five homeowners to complete the City of Peterborough’s Rain Garden Subsidy program. The program offers up to $1,000 to help with the cost of installing a rain garden. Gardens installed this year will divert an additional 272 cubic meters of rain from our storm water system.

Similarly, based on McDiarmid’s report, GreenUP knows that our impact on the next generation is quantifiable. The Grade 8 Transit Quest program saw students take a total of 4,424 trips with their bus passes.

Through this program, their parents saved an estimated 14,000 kilometres of driving and avoided the 2.9 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that driving would have generated.

By taking measure with McDiarmid, we now know how to better quantify the impact of some community programs that GreenUP offers. This allows us to continue delivering our many wonderful programs while making changes that will amplify their climate impact.

As GreenUP celebrates our 30th year, we know it has never been more urgent to ensure our efforts are working.

Continuing to measure and track our environmental impact both as a member of GEP and by using internal tracking tools will help GreenUP understand where to improve and adapt our operations, and how to better mitigate our impact on the environment.

We look forward to celebrating our continued positive impact over the next three decades.

GreenUP is here to help you meet your climate action goals with two programs that may be of interest.

If you are part of an organization that is ready to take climate action, starting by measuring your impact, visit Green Economy Peterborough at greeneconomypeterborough.ca to learn more.

If you are a homeowner and want to learn how to reduce the emissions from your home, GreenUP also offers home energy assessments at greenup.on.ca/climate-action-at-home/ to help you to identify actions that can both reduce emissions and save money.

A Peterborough woman will be “tenting up” and spending the night outside on Saturday (December 10) — International Human Rights Day — to raise awareness about homelessness and to raise funds for local homelessness initiatives.

Wilhelmina Don-Venus, an employee of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry on Water Street, has also challenged her work colleagues to join the cause and sleep outside for one night this week.

In a media release, Don-Venus says she met a woman and her dog last year — who she calls “Jessica” and “Hailey” — who have been homeless for more than five years and “and will likely face another winter outside.”

“Her love and commitment to faithful companion Hailey has precluded her from many temporary and more permanent housing options and, although some local shelters provide accommodation, she had had several bad experiences and no longer feels safe,” Don-Venus says.

“While I can’t change the circumstances in Jessica’s life, I feel that it is very important for us all to do what we can every day, to have empathy and compassion for all of our neighbours. We are all born equal in dignity and human rights. And given that, taking a moment to share a kind word or offer encouragement to those who are struggling is meaningful and may be the one thing that keeps them going for another day.”

As well as raising awareness, Don-Venus is raising funds for the United Way Peterborough & District to support services that local charitable organizations provide to those who are facing another winter outside.

According to a motion presented by councillor Alex Bierk at Monday’s city council meeting, there were 326 unhoused people in the city and county of Peterborough as of October. Bierk’s motion for the city to provide $100,000 for an emergency winter response to homelessness was defeated.

“There is a network of agencies who work to provide outreach, cold weather survival gear, counselling and so many integral supports to our neighbours experiencing homelessness and I want to help by raising funds to be invested in these services,” Don-Venus says.

Using the tag line “Tent-Up to make homelessness #UNIGNORABLE,” Don-Venus’s goal is to raise $2,500 by December 13. The United Way Peterborough & District has set up a giving page at weblink.donorperfect.com/TentUp to help to help Don-Venus reach her goal and ensure donors can receive a charitable tax receipt for their donations of $20 or more.

“On behalf of my homeless friend and her dog, and all those who aren’t sheltered, thank you for caring,” Don-Venus says.

The two cardiac catheterization laboratory suites at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) have now been replaced and upgraded, funded by $3.55 million in community donations.

On Tuesday (December 6), the PRHC Foundation announced the successful completion of both their multi-year fundraising campaign and construction on the state-of-the-art “cath lab” suites, which provide life-saving minimally invasive cardiac stenting and diagnosis for patients with heart disease.

Both suites began functioning at full capacity starting earlier this fall. In their first month of operation, there were 324 patient visits, with 279 angiograms and 117 cardiac stenting procedures performed — some while a heart attack was taking place.

“After 14 years of supporting life-saving treatment, we needed to reinvest in PRHC’s cath lab to ensure the future of cardiac care at our hospital,” said Lesley Heighway, PRHC Foundation president and CEO. “Otherwise, patients from across our region might have to be transferred to another hospital hours away at a time when every second counts.”

According to Dr. Warren Ball, interventional cardiologist and head of PRHC’s cardiology division, technology improvements are allowing him and his colleagues to perform minimally invasive cardiac procedures, better and more safely, using tools that did not exist when PRHC opened in 2008.

“The new suites have brought the latest in high-tech imaging right to our fingertips,” Dr. Ball said. “They provide the highest possible definition images to allow interventional cardiologists to accurately diagnose and treat coronary blockages and stop heart attacks, while delivering up to 75 per cent less radiation than the older generation systems.”

VIDEO: New $3.55 million donor-funded Cardiac Cath Lab is keeping all our hearts here

Coronary artery disease is caused by a buildup of fatty deposits (called plaque) on the walls of the artery that can block the flow of blood to the heart. Many people only find out they have the disease when they have a heart attack, which happens to somebody in Canada every seven minutes. Almost 16,000 Canadians die each year as a result of a heart attack — many before they even get to a hospital.

Interventional cardiologists open a blocked artery using percutaneous coronary intervention, commonly called angioplasty, which involves temporarily inserting and inflating a tiny balloon where the artery is clogged to help widen the artery. Angioplasty is often combined with a cardiac stenting procedure, where a small wire mesh tube called a stent is permanently placed in the artery to keep it open and decrease its chance of narrowing again.

PRHC’s cath lab serves patients from the entire region, including Durham, North Hastings, Northumberland, Peterborough, and Peterborough County, and the City of Kawartha Lakes. In 2012, PRHC began offering angioplasty procedures, preventing the need for patients in the region to travel to other hospitals for the treatment.

“The new suites also contain technology to seamlessly integrate multiple complementary imaging tools with bedside controls, dramatically shortening the time required to complete our most complex procedures,” Dr. Ball said. “Access to cardiac care close to home not only saves lives, it saves our patients the time, cost, and stress of travelling to a bigger city centre for cardiac services.”

Heighway said the PRHC Foundation’s fundraising initiative asked supporters to help “keep our hearts here” and that the response was “phenomenal.”

“Donors from across the region stepped forward with gifts of all sizes, making individual donations, corporate gifts, and holding fundraising events in support of this effort,” she noted.

Many people are surprised to learn that, while government funds most of a hospital’s operating costs, it doesn’t fund either upgrades or purchases of new technology or equipment. It’s the support of donors that allows a hospital to acquire state-of-the-art tools and technology — which also attracts the best healthcare professionals to the hospital.

“As our program grows and we build our Cardiac Centre of Excellence, part of that is recruiting new physician experts,” Dr. Ball explained. “The best technology allows us to recruit and keep the brightest new minds that will be the leaders of tomorrow.”

PRHC president and CEO Dr. Peter McLaughlin is thankful for the generosity and support of donors.

“It’s so clear to me as a cardiologist and CEO here at PRHC that it really is the power of philanthropy that makes a vision come to life — in this case a vision of advanced cardiac care at PRHC, serving the patients of this community and this region,” he said.

“We’re immensely grateful for the support of the community,” Dr. Ball added. “The cath lab at PRHC would not exist without you. Whenever PRHC has had a need, the community has been incredibly generous and has stepped up to help.”

Heighway also shared her thanks on behalf of the PRHC Foundation, adding that the hospital’s mission to provide world-class care close to home and the foundation’s mission to support it have never been more important.

“Our world is changing, and health technologies and the needs of our region are evolving,” she said. “Thank you so much to our incredible donors for funding this leading-edge, life-saving reinvestment. Together we’re paving the way for the future of patient care at your hospital and keeping all our hearts here, close to home.”

Two motions to address Peterborough’s homelessness crisis over the winter were defeated at the inaugural general committee meeting of Peterborough’s new city council on Monday night (December 5) — although a motion by Mayor Jeff Leal at the end of the meeting to move forward on one of the proposals was approved.

The two defeated motions were put forward sequentially by first-time councillor Alex Bierk, who had said in March when he announced his run for council that he was doing so as “a response to what I see as a lack of action where it’s most desperately needed.”

When introducing his first motion on homelessness, Bierk noted the recent death of a person who was homeless.

“I heard from our community that an unhoused member of our community who was in his 50s passed away sleeping outside last night,” Bierk said.

Bierk’s first motion called for the city to support a proposal for an emergency winter response from a partnership of community organizations — including the Peterborough Police Service, Canadian Mental Health Association – Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge (CMHA), FourCAST, the Housing Resource Centre, the United Way, and One City Peterborough — and for the city to provide a grant of $100,000 funded from the social services reserve for the period January 5 to April 30.

The previous council had considered an earlier version of the proposal for a drop-in program at the former Trinity United Church on Reid Street, which had originally requested a $200,000 grant from the city. At that time, city staff advised the “lame duck” provision of the Municipal Act prevented city council or staff from making any expenditure over $50,000 during a municipal election campaign.

Bierk’s motion noted there were around 326 unhoused people in the city and county of Peterborough as of October.

“These numbers point to the fact that we have more unhoused people than we have shelter for them,” Bierk said. “So what does that look like? That means people are sleeping outside tonight. Someone died last night.”

“What we have here is a response to the system that’s not working. It’s not a forever response. It’s an emergency response and what it’s going to offer is a barrier-free place for people to access overnight where they can come and get out of the elements and be safe and not die.”

“This is being done by a collaboration by community groups that is actually a symptom of what’s happening in our community. We’re seeing community groups collaborating like never before. They’re not in their silos anymore, they’re working together.”

“By not dealing with stuff like this, the problem just doesn’t go away. By not dealing with this, you know what happens is people find other places to sleep.”

First-time councillor Matt Crowley indicated his support for the motion, while first-time councillor Kevin Duguay raised the issue of negative behaviour of some people using the Wolfe Street shelter and expressed concern about approving the program “without any meaningful neighbourhood consultation.”

Mayor Jeff Leal expressed his support for the proposal.

“What I thought was particularly important in this proposal was the fact there will be three staff booked for each shift, with a minimum of two needed to operate this on an ongoing basis,” Leal said. “In my own mind, that provides a level of operational confidence that this is a project that needs to go forward. I’ve said often that Canada is a G7 country. We can’t afford nor should we ever have individuals that freeze to death for the lack of getting shelter for their needs.”

“This is a reasonable approach, it’s a short-term approach, and I think it folds in nicely to an earlier discussion that we had in terms of looking at homelessness and a housing first strategy as we move forward.”

Bierk’s first motion was defeated 6-5, with councillors Don Vassiliadis, Kevin Duguay, Lesley Parnell, Keith Riel, Andrew Beamer, and Dave Haacke voting against it and Mayor Leal and councillors Bierk, Matt Crowley, Gary Baldwin, and Joy Lachica voting in favour.

Bierk’s second motion was for the city to support the Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes (PATH) pilot project to provide 15 sleeping cabins for chronically unhoused individuals in the community over the winter.

The motion called for a temporary use by-law and potential site plan exemption application to allow for property at 834 Park Street to be used as a location for the sleeping cabins along with supportive buildings, including sanitary and food services, and support services provided by Elizabeth Fry Society of Peterborough.

The motion also called for the city to waive application and development fees for the processing of the applications, for city staff to expedite the review of the applications, and to allocate $100,000 for start-up funding for this winter.

“I’d be really willing to make any amendments necessary to make a version of it happen,” Bierk said when introducing the motion. “What PATH has done which is remarkable is this is this community-led thing where they are reacting to a gap in the system, and they’re doing it in the most beautiful, compassionate, organized, thoughtful way. They have rallied to the need to keep people alive this winter, and they have built 10 portable sleeping cabins.”

“It’s so easy for us tonight to figure out a way how to make this work for them, with all the knowledge and expertise of city staff here to help enable it. We have to do this. This will have a huge impact in our community and this will be the start of us addressing this problem in a compassionate, caring way that’s going to actual impact people.”

In speaking against the motion, Duguay — who was a land use planner for the City of Peterborough for more than 15 years — was insistent the PATH group must follow the required planning process for land use approval.

“These are statutory requirements,” Duguay said. “We just simply can’t skip the process.”

As with his objection to Bierk’s first motion, Duguay said there would have to be “meaningful neighbourhood consultation” beyond PATH’s past efforts to obtain broad community support for the idea.

“The idea has been started, but for the idea to become a reality must follow the rigours of the planning approval process — and that has not yet started — whether it’s a temporary use by-law, whether it’s a zoning by-law amendment,” Duguay said, adding that the city would need to look at building code and fire safety requirements.

First-time councillor Joy Lachica, who like Bierk represents Town Ward, spoke in favour of the motion.

“We talked at length just a short time ago about housing first and that our city espouses housing first as an approach to dealing with the unhoused and the homeless in Peterborough,” Lachica said, referring to her earlier motion that city staff provide a report to council on the potential of the housing first model, a recovery-oriented approach to ending homelessness, as a long-term solution to eradicating homelessness in Peterborough. That motion, with an amendment for when staff would report back to council, was unanimously supported by council.

“I’m devastated that the last motion didn’t pass because to me that would align with the idea of housing first — shelter first — and this particular motion as well aligns with housing first, that lives are more important than administration. If there’s an emergency, we can achieve it. We can rush the paperwork. We can plow through the red tape. We can get it done to save lives. That’s what functioning in an emergency is about — that lives are first.”

“How can we in good conscience say that we’re espousing housing first, and that’s the approach our city is taking, and we can’t even allot a hundred thousand dollars for a warming room when it’s 40 below? And we can’t allot a gift of land and put those 15 shelters on that piece of land where it’s said we can do everything to hide it so it doesn’t look distasteful? We need to not carry on pretending that this doesn’t exist. The reason we are in this situation is because we don’t have the housing built, or we haven’t repurposed the buildings for the housing and the shelter that we need for our homeless.”

“I urge you to consider councillor Bierk’s motion and the community that has come together to construct these wonderful cabins. I toured one. It’s happening in Kitchener, it’s happening in Hamilton, it’s happening throughout Ontario. There are PATH community groups that have assembled and they’re creating housing in our housing emergency in this province. I urge you to support this motion.”

Otonabee Ward councillor Lesley Parnell, who had already voiced her objections on Twitter to the PATH proposal to use the Park Street property, spoke against Bierk’s motion.

“I think you already know how I’ll be voting on this one,” Parnell said. “There was quite a bit of activity over the weekend, and I was actually called quite a number of very inappropriate names, but I would encourage you to call me mama bear, because I will defend the families and seniors in my den, my ward.”

As her fellow ward councillor Duguay did in speaking against Bierk’s first motion, Parnell referred to the situation with the Wolfe Street shelter and the negative impact on the surrounding neighbourhood.

“They have all kind of unspeakable things happening around their home(s), on their front porches, in the backyards. They cannot let their children into their own backyards. We spent $250,000 of your taxpayers’ money to erect an eight-foot wooden fence to try and provide some security, cameras, lights and they still do not feel safe.”

“And one thing they didn’t tell us at the time is an awful lot of mature trees were lost in that transaction. I did not know that was going to happen, and that’s a long-term impact to those families. So I cannot in good conscience do that to another neighbourhood in my ward or any of your neighbourhoods.”

“People want less crime, less needles on their trails and parks and beaches, less people going through their cars and homes and sheds. This is a serious problem, and we cannot fix it by just adding more and more and more, because we are inviting (homeless people to come to Peterborough). Three people just this week moved to Peterborough from New Brunswick because of our reputation.”

“Yes, we do look after our people. It’s not like we have nothing. We have a significant budget of what we invest in looking our folks who are vulnerable — our lost souls. We do, but we cannot sustain so many more coming to our community, it’s just not sustainable.”

Earlier, when speaking to his first motion, Bierk had refuted the notion that Peterborough “is a haven for the unhoused.” He pointed out that data from the United Way Peterborough & District’s Point in Time count has shown that eight per cent of unhoused people are coming from outside of Peterborough, “and of that eight per cent, a high number of them have pre-existing ties to Peterborough.”

Parnell also claimed there would be campfires on the property proposed for use by PATH, and that a “dear friend” of hers with a respiratory disease who lives on the street “would suffer so much from these regular fires, and that is not fair to that man. He has lived in that house for decades.”

“I do commend PATH — your hearts are in the right place — but we cannot just plunk this anywhere and very negatively impact any neighbourhood that it may be beside,” Parnell said.

“That’s not to say all homeless people are criminals, but it certainly invites a lot of that criminal activity and that is what we have to be very careful of. And there’s no such thing as temporary. We were told Wolfe Street is temporary, and now it’s until March. And we do by the way have those services until March, so it’s not like we don’t have alternatives. There are places for people to go, if they will go to them.”

In responding to Parnell’s comments, Bierk noted he is an artist who didn’t graduate high school.

“So you ask yourself why is a guy like me sitting at this table, and why am I not wearing a blue suit? It’s because people wanted a different approach to this (issue of homelessness). The reason that we are in the situation that we are in is because we look at this through the bureaucratic lens and our solution is to criminalize poverty, our solution is to go in with force, and police, and security cameras, and punishment. Do you know what it’s like to go to prison? We’re going to send people to prison because that’s the alternative to this.”

“We have an emergency shelter system built on twigs that has become the norm, that is not working for anyone. Why has there been more work done to do something more sustainable? It’s sad to me that solutions like this have to come (from) the community when there’s people of great capability and capacity and get paid high salaries to make this their daily work. Why are we talking about sleeping cabins? This is the immediate need, that PATH has a solution to deal with the acuteness of the problem that is not going away. And if we continue to not do ideas like this, mark my words, (it) will only get worse.”

Leal said he supported the concept of sleeping cabins as part of the solution to homelessness, and referred to similar projects in Fredericton, Kingston, and Kitchener that include “24/7 wraparound services” including addiction services, mental health services, and employment services. However, he expressed concern about proceeding without sufficient planning.

“One of the things that we have to avoid in public policy is moving in a direction where there may be a failure,” Leal said. “We should take the time. I’m told in these other communities it was eight or nine months of detailed planning before they established their sleeping cabins in these respective communities … It really behooves us to take the time to get this right so it will be a successful initiative down the road.”

Speaking for a final time to his motion, Bierk pleaded for “someone on council to throw me a bone to expedite this process, to change this motion, to amend this motion on the spot, so we can get the PATH group to come up and tell you way better than how I can tell you how they’ve been planning this for multiple years.”

“We need to do more than just put them into the system, because what that looks like is that everyone’s going to go on Christmas break, and then we’re going to come back and deal with (the budget), and we’re not going to make use of these sleeping cabins when could benefit from sleeping in these cabins over the winter. There’s got to be an out. Someone help me.”

In response to Bierk’s plea, Leal said he had a “long conversation” with the city’s community services commissioner Sheldon Laidman, who indicated city staff are prepared to review possible sites within the city “to make sure we put together a full, detailed, and comprehensive plan for supports for the site” including operational supports and services including food and washrooms, and that staff could report back to council by February.

Councillor Gary Baldwin raised questions about the city’s potential liability in being involved in the PATH project, and also suggested as an interim measure it would be possible for willing property owners to put individual sleeping cabins on their own property, registering it with the city and having it inspected by the city’s building department.

For his part, councillor Matt Crowley — who began his comments by saying “That last vote broke my heart” — supported Baldwin’s suggestion.

“We have 10 units ready to go now, to have people sleep in tonight, and it would be a real tragedy to not use them,” Crowley said, while acknowledging the concerns of those who oppose the idea.

“Maybe there’s something we can do as council, or to work with the planning department — I’m just throwing an idea out (there) — to expedite a permit for that in order to get it done quickly so when the weather turns obscenely cold we have something in place, at least temporarily, and then we can maybe move forward with a proper plan to look for land, look for a lot, look for a property that would be great for a tiny home community.”

Bierk’s second motion was defeated 8-3, with Leal, Baldwin, Vassiliadis, Duguay, Parnell, Riel, Beamer, and Haacke all voting against the motion and Bierk, Crowley, and Lachica voting in favour.

At the end of the meeting during other business, Mayor Leal put forward his own motion for the PATH project. The final motion, with modifications suggested by council, is shown below.

“I think this is amazing,” Bierk said in response to Leal’s motion. “I would just like to caution other councillors in viewing this as an overarching solution for the situation that we’re in. This is definitely just like treating the top-level acuteness of the most drastic situations of people that are sleeping outside.”

“There is still so much work that needs to be done to build a better shelter system than the one we have. Maybe alongside this conversation to do something like this, we could hear more about other solutions that we could support as a council.”

Council approved Leal’s modified motion, with the sole exception of Parnell, who voted against it.