The first thing I noticed about Jen Deck is her sense of humour. Faced with a criticism by one of her challengers in an early debate, she batted it away with a witty retort like a pro baseball player might hit a lob ball. “I’ve learned to be tough,” she would tell me during a wide-ranging discussion, “in order to have my voice heard.”

Jen Deck moved to Peterborough from Toronto to attend Trent University. She had children young and briefly lived on social assistance with her partner and newborn baby. Somehow, Deck self-deprecatingly tells me, she still managed to finish her three-year degree in biology and women’s studies, “on the eight-year plan.”

She went on to work as an occasional teacher before taking on a leadership role with the teachers’ union. Indeed, she’s been the occasional teacher president of the Kawartha Pine Ridge Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario for the past eight years.

When I talked to Deck mid-campaign, she was open, forthright, and like I said, very good-humoured. By her own admission, she’s not a politician; she’s simply a capable, concerned citizen who stepped up when the NDP came calling. I believe the human being you vote for — what interests them, how they see the world, who influenced them — is important. It was also crucial to me that I ask every candidate about the issues our readers told us are most pressing for them.

To that end, kawarthaNOW published a poll that asked readers to rank 11 issues of concern, as well as to tell us what we may have missed. What follows is a lightly edited conversation (for length and clarity) that includes Deck’s responses to some of those issues.

Justin Sutton: We know you’re a Trent University alumna, a trained teacher, and union leader. Aside from your area of expertise, what else interests or motivates you?

Jen Deck: I can tell you that all of my adult life I’ve been an avid canoe tripper and white-water paddler. I’m actually a white-water canoe instructor and I’ve had the opportunity to guide a number of really amazing canoe trips in Canada, which is one of the ways I’ve been able to grow to love the Canadian wilderness. I got to lead a trip on the Soper River on Baffin Island, I’ve been many times down the Dumoine River, I went down the Nahanni when I was 17.

I was privileged to send my kids to the same camp that I went to, so they had similar experiences. I’m also an avid blood donor and I’m set to my 50th donation before my 50th birthday and I’m also really proud that one of my kids followed in my footsteps and he’ll be making 30 donations before he turns 30.

I am an environmentalist, and both of my kids wore cloth diapers, and I ran a little business in town when they were little selling cloth diapers. I did that as a side gig while I was finishing my own degree in biology and women’s studies.

JS: Could you tell me about your influences? Who has had a profound impact on you and why? I’m thinking of writers, artists, politicians, thinkers, activists, educators, business people, and so on.

JD: I’m a big science fiction reader … I’m a bit of a geek. Margaret Atwood had a big influence on me as a very young person. I read all of her books but of course The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) was foundational for me as was The Edible Woman (1969).

I was really influenced by some of the amazing profs that I had at Trent University. Marg Hobbes was one of my woman’s studies profs and she really opened my eyes to feminism and how to bring intersectionality into feminism. Michael Berill was studying frogs and the impact that pollution was having on them and messing with their hormones way back 30 years ago so that was influential for me developing as an environmentalist. I followed David Suzuki very closely in those days and (the late former federal NDP leader) Jack Layton — of course, I think everyone fell in love with Jack Layton.

Books wise, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) is one of my favourite books that I read when I was 12 and keep reading it because I just loved (the late author Douglas Adams’) gentleness and his comedy, and he sneaks in some social commentary really subtly. I also know that he struggled with mental health and I was really sad when he died because that was a loss to us all. He also wrote a really great book about species extinction (Last Chance to See, 1990) with Mark Carwardine.

JS: Did any musicians impact the way you see the world?

JD: My kids have had a huge influence on my musical taste, so we have LPs of Run the Jewels. I love the Rheostatics, Ani DiFranco, Steely Dan, Tom Waits, Peter Gabriel, Mother Mother, and Spoon. I tend to put podcasts on or CBC Radio. I went to see Ani DiFranco quite a few times, she came to Peterborough and then I saw her in Victoria where I danced like an absolute maniac when I was like eight months pregnant. I think I alarmed people, because I was a massively pregnant person dancing like a whirling dervish.

JS: Can you tell me about something you’ve experienced along the way that influenced or changed the way you see the world?

JD: I had my kids really young and we didn’t have a lot of money. We were on social assistance for a period of time out in Victoria, I certainly got used to funny looks from people, and that was really an education for me because for most of my life I’ve lived a very privileged life. So it was a glimpse into an idea of what many people experience on a daily basis, and that’s always stuck with me and I try to remember that and have compassion.

You know, you’ll hear of people who will disparage people on social assistance for like having a great stroller or a car seat. I’ve worked with young mums and I’ve been one myself and I know that their lives are really tough, and I don’t begrudge them those little nice things in their life because I know they have a tough go.

JS: I’d like to confront something head on. You only just joined the campaign in the last few weeks and, because of that, there may be concern that you have not had enough time to really dig in and get to know the brief as well as make in-roads with Peterborough-Kawartha voters. It could be said that you’re not well known enough to win at the moment, so I’d like to give you the chance to make your pitch — why should voters take a chance on you?

JD: I did definitely come in late in the game and that is because we needed an NDP candidate. There wasn’t one and I was approached. I wanted to vote NDP and there wasn’t a candidate, so I stepped up. I’m new to politics; this is not something that I sought out but the job that I’ve been doing for eight years is very similar. I’ve been representing my occasional teacher members for eight years and fighting for them, so labour activism and equity activism is not new to me.

I’m not a flash in the pan — I’m rising to a challenge and accepting a responsibility that somebody needed to take and I’m a quick learner. I’m not new to the values and the issues that the NDP is trying to address in their platform. I’m new to the platform (so) it’s been an accelerated learning curve for sure, but I’m not new to that either. I’m used to getting announcements from the ministry of education and we have to jump and respond and put things into place quickly.

I think it’s fair to say that some people may not know me, but I actually have a surprising number of contacts with really important organizations and community members that even I hadn’t really thought about — until they started reaching out to me to remind me about the impacts I’ve had in this community over the last 30 years.

JS: In addition to wanting to know more about who you are, it was important to me to centre this interview on the concerns of our readers. So we put 11 issues to them, asked them to rank them and also asked them to tell us if we missed anything. They immediately told us it’s nearly impossible to rank interconnected issues, which I completely understand. So, looking at the broad strokes of what we learned, healthcare ranked head and shoulders above every other issue. Readers connected their concern to Bill 124, which limits wage increases for nurses, nurse practitioners, and other health-care professionals. Others suggested mental healthcare should be much more of a priority for the next provincial government.

My observation, and I put this to the other candidates, is that the pandemic has revealed multiple intersecting cracks in the public healthcare system to Ontarians who may not have paid close attention before the pandemic. Do you see it the same way?

JD: Oh, absolutely. It’s no surprise to me to see healthcare at the top of the list. Just as you said, the pandemic shone a light on an already broken system. We in education and healthcare have been screaming for years and it feels like we’ve been screaming into the void. Bill 124 is emblematic of the Doug Ford government: complete disregard for workers, predominantly women and disproportionately women of colour and other equity seeking groups.

I think most people have a deep sense of fairness and justice and to see healthcare workers so disrespected at a time when they have been put on the line — their lives have been put at risk — and they have been working themselves to the bone and to absolute exhaustion and to have them to have a wage freeze that’s effectively a pay cut because it doesn’t even come close to keeping up with inflation, that is insulting to most people on a really deep and fundamental level. We’re for sure talking about nurses but we can’t forget PSWs and technicians and custodians. All of these people deserve a fair wage, and they deserve to bargain fairly.

JS: Climate change/environment was chosen by 20 per cent of respondents as their second ranked issue of concern. We’ve discussed the NDP’s plan in our coverage of the environmental debate at Trent University, so I would ask you to speak to this issue more personally, if you would. Perhaps you could tell us what you’ve observed in your work and how it’s impacted your view of environmental issues.

JD: I think it’s notable that climate ranks as high as it does. I was just at a debate the other day and a comment was made that young people don’t want the climate to be prioritized over their ability to buy a house and my response was, I think you’re mistaken. I think young people, more than anyone, are aware of how critical the climate is to their well-being and it’s just fundamentally important.

We’ve known for decades. I remember (it) from high school. At the time we called it global warming, but the term that makes more sense to me is global weirding where we’re getting these extreme weather events that upset the balance. How can farmers possibly plant when they’re having massive droughts and massive floods that are happening at critical times of the planting season and destroying their crops? Our bee population that we depend on … we largely depend on wild bees to do most of our pollination, and yet we’re managing to kill them off with such disregard.

I know, because I’ve been a teacher, that we are motivated by optimism not pessimism, so you don’t change people’s behaviour by telling them how bad things are. I just think it’s incumbent upon all of us to do our best, like the camp site rule, you should leave the camp site better than you found it. We should be leaving the planet in better shape for our kids than it was when we arrived.

We need to tackle this in many ways and the Green New Democratic Deal will tackle our climate crisis but in doing that it will create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs. We also want to create a climate youth corps, which will give kids good-paying jobs and give them a post-secondary credit for free and give them experience in the world of restoration or environmental management, which will hopefully spark a love for them of our planet and maybe those kids will go into conservation-themed employment.

JS: Could you discuss the differences between the NDP and the Ford Conservatives? Why should Peterborians take a chance on the NDP? How would you govern differently?

JD: The biggest difference that I see is that throughout all NDP policies, the focus is on equity and on the environment. So whether it’s talking about solutions for healthcare or education, or housing, or even pandemic preparedness, we need to always need to remember that different demographics experience these issues in different ways and to properly plan and respond to needs, we have to bear that in mind.

Equity and the environment are through lines in all of our platforms and that is exactly the opposite of the Ford Government. They come up with quick fixes and they don’t consider, in my opinion, the unintended consequences, or they disregard them. Saving money, for example, by freezing the wages of healthcare workers, education workers, and other predominantly female job classes in the public sector was a quick way to save some money, but it hobbled those workforces in a way that was unfair.

It’s been demoralizing to see how little the Ford government places value on us. It means they don’t really care about (all) kids — they only care about kids who are at private school whose parents can afford to pay for private school and don’t mind that public school kindergarten classes can be packed with 32 kids in them. Or that people are in hallways receiving their healthcare because they can access private healthcare.

JS: What would the NDP do to alleviate the housing crisis even in the short term?

JD: Housing is fundamental, it’s about dignity, it ties up all the cost-of-living bits because for most people their housing costs are one of their biggest expenses.

In the medium to long term, the plan is to build a ton of houses over the next decade. The numbers are in the platform, a quarter of a million of them will be below market rates. That’s going to take a decade. In the meanwhile, there are a wide number of initiatives that the NDP wants to put in place that will take the burden of housing and alleviate it by tackling other huge cost of living items.

Covering dental care, for example, is huge in freeing up people’s resources. Pharmacare — people are forgoing their medicines because of the expense. Insulin and needles will be covered. This is stuff that could have been fixed during the 15 years of Liberal government.

We’re also looking at bringing back rent control. We want to hold bad landlords accountable. We know that many landlords and landowners are ethical, but everybody deserves guardrails in rental and in real estate to bring the cost of housing down.

JS: Education also rated highly with our readers; what would the NDP do differently than the Ford government?

JD: Bill 124 has to go. It’s such a sexist act, it has to go so teachers can bargain fairly. The violent incidents that our education staff are encountering every day is shocking and the reason for that is kids are not getting the mental health supports and just the regulation supports and that early intervention.

If kids have experienced trauma or poverty, or neglect, they’re not developing the kind of social skills that will help them be happy and productive citizens. If we don’t address those needs early on, it gets harder and harder with each passing year because behaviour gets entrenched.

It’s heartbreaking to see that the vast majority of violent incidents that I’m seeing as a union president are coming from kids in kindergarten (and) grade 1 and 2. I’m talking about throwing desks and hitting and punching teachers. These are kids that are in crisis and we do not have the resources to properly help them.

JS: Stephen Lecce [Ontario minister of education] often touts a 420 per cent increase in school mental health investments. Are you saying you’re not seeing the evidence of that investment?

JD: So one of the things the Ford government loves to do is to talk about injections of funding, but they don’t talk about the cuts they’ve already made, and they don’t talk about how that impacts on a per pupil level. The government has really been advertising that they’re putting more money into education. What they fail to say is that it doesn’t even come close to keeping up with the number of pupils that are entering the system.

We are in a moment of expansion. Kids are flooding into the education system, our population dips and rises, and we’re in a period of growth right now, so the funding they say they’re increasing is not keeping up with that. On average the Kawartha Pineridge District School Board is receiving $800 less per student per year than it was a few years ago.

JS: You make a strong point about violence in the classroom and I wonder if there’s a link between that and what our readers told us is one of their biggest concerns, which is the rise of political polarization and increasing levels of violent rhetoric. You were right in the middle of a violent experience when Jagmeet Singh met with you on May 10. Have you had time to reflect on that day and think about what you might do to help confront this issue?

JD: I spent a long time thinking about the day Jagmeet came to visit and I’ve shed my fair share tears about it. I believe that one of the reasons people are mistrusting their government is that their government hasn’t been trustworthy. They make promises and they don’t fulfill them. I also believe people see our government officials speaking about people in a way that disregards and disrespects them.

My fix is to do what I’ve always done, which is I try to model the type of behaviour that I’d like to see. So I give people the benefit of the doubt and I try to engage with them in a respectful way. We need to dig down deep and try to figure out why people do what they do. I think misinformation is on all of us. We rubber neck when people crash but we don’t notice that most people are driving carefully. By spending so much attention on the really tiny proportion of people who are behaving inappropriately, I worry that it creates a permission structure for others.

It makes me uncomfortable, but obviously we just can’t live in a world where our mayor is receiving death threats and where people are afraid to go into politics because it’s going to be dangerous. It’s a concern that I have now.

We need more NDP in government so we can see the supports that people need that right now they’re getting angry about not having. Their anger is misinformed and against their best interests, but it comes from a place of deep hurt and feeling left behind.

Arts and culture was the topic of the night on Thursday (May 26) at the Nexicom Studio at Showplace Performance Centre, as three Peterborough-Kawartha candidates in the June 2nd provincial election took part in Artsvote Ontario 2022, a debate organized by an “ad hoc coalition” of Peterborough arts groups including the Electric City Culture Council (EC3).

There was one candidate notably absent from the arts debate: Conservative incumbent Dave Smith. The coalition had asked Smith to participate in the arts debate, send a proxy, or submit a video message, but he did not respond to any of these offers.

The three candidates who did attend — Jen Deck (NDP), Greg Dempsey (Liberal), and Robert Gibson (Green Party) — dug into how their respective parties would support the arts and culture industry as well as individual artists.

Following a new format, the discussion focused on four questions developed by coalition members, with all three candidates having submitted written responses to each question in advance.

EC3 executive director Sue Ditta kicked off the night with a passionate defence of arts and culture and its value to Peterborough-Kawartha.

“When we look at what arts organizations invest in the community through their budgets, it’s $10 million,” Ditta said. “We use a multiplier established by Statistics Canada, so it’s about $100 million in spin-off investments.”

Moderators Nadine Changfoot (Trent University), Steve Guthrie (formerly of CHEX News), Sarah Lewis (Peterborough’s poet laureate), and Ziysah von Bieberstein (poet) each took to the podium to ask one of the questions for the benefit of viewers (along with follow-up questions).

Asked about how a Liberal government would support the ongoing COVID-19 recovery efforts of arts organizations, Greg Dempsey began his first answer by confronting the absence in the room.

“I do want to say that I am disappointed that our MPP (Dave Smith) is not here to talk to us tonight,” Dempsey said. “I have seen reports in the media that his party has deliberately told candidates not to show up to local community debates like this one. This is the job interview, and I think it does a disservice to our democracy to not show up and to tell you about his plans for the arts community in Peterborough-Kawartha.”

With Smith’s absence noted, each candidate ran through his or her platform.

On COVID-19 recovery, Deck said the NDP “will help get artists, performers, and arts and culture workers onto more solid ground, so they can build their best life.”

“We will enact a COVID-19 arts and culture recovery strategy, including operating and marketing stabilization funds, emergency grants, and tax credits to cover PPE and retrofitting costs. We will direct support to artists, live entertainment workers, and cultural workers to keep them afloat.”

Dempsey said the Liberals will “invest $50 million to build, purchase or refurbish performing arts studios, visual arts galleries, and event spaces,” adding the Liberals will ensure “more spaces to feature work from Black, Indigenous, and other artists of colour.”

“We will also introduce a living wage, a universal basic income demonstration, and portable benefits that will cover the cost of prescription medicines, mental healthcare, dental care and vision care,” Dempsey added.

The Green Party, according to Gibson, will “develop a program of portable extended health benefits for workers in the gig economy that is tied to the employee even if they were to change employment. As well, the Greens will develop a universal basic income starting with doubling ODSP and Ontario Works.”

As for his party’s commitment to fund artists and arts organizations in Ontario after the cuts of the Conservative government, Dempsey said he is “committed to reversing all of those cuts to all of those organizations.”

“The previous Liberal government spent a considerable amount of time and effort to develop a comprehensive Ontario culture strategy back in 2016,” Dempsey added. “While they made some progress to advance its full implementation, progress stalled over the last four years. A new Ontario Liberal government will ensure that we finish its full implementation.”

Deck said the NDP is committed to stable funding for the arts.

“The NDP will create a provincial arts strategy that centres artists and supports arts, culture, and heritage community-based institutions committed to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusions, and assessing needs through measurable outcomes and we will increase funding to the Ontario Arts Council.”

Gibson said, “The Green Party will restore investments in the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Trillium Foundation worth $25 million. There is also funding to protect the natural environment that is Indigenous led. The Green party is also committed to all recommendations under the Murdered and Missing Women and Girls Inquiry and other calls to action.”

All three parties agreed to re-establish the Indigenous Culture Fund, cut by the Ford government. The Greens would fund it to $5 million, and the Liberals and NDP would restore its previous $10 million budget.

Asked about advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion for marginalized and racialized artists, including BIPOC — particularly Indigenous artists — and 2SLGBTQ+ artists, each candidate spoke movingly about their commitments.

“I cannot wait to make sure that their voice is my voice,” Dempsey said. “I’ve made my career in social justice and human rights works and we know that arts can be an incredible force for good and acceptance and positivity. We have a plan to set aside $5 million for organizations that represent black voices and $20 million for 2SLGBTQ+ organizations.”

Gibson noted that “this land has been stolen from Indigenous peoples, so it’s important to empower Indigenous-led efforts and to strengthen relationships with Indigenous nations.”

“Representation matters,” Deck said. “To properly address this, we need to start from the ground up. Education is underfunded and school is where children first explore art. They first interact with educators with artistic skills and talents. We know that when we cut education one of the first things that gets cut is arts education.”

“Putting commitment into arts and culture is of course valid,” Deck added. “It’s a moneymaker. It’s a job generator. It has all of these tangible benefits, but I really truly believe that we will not find our peace until we give children the ability to live and grow in a place that’s safe, and in a place that’s welcoming and affirming. We need to have different lived experiences in our decision-making capacities.”

When asked if they would actively advocate for programs and funding that increase appropriate capital funding and support expansion of digital capacities and other rural specific infrastructure needs, Dempsey reiterated his commitment to being a partner with the Peterborough-Kawartha arts community and Gibson reiterated cost of living mitigation strategies.

Deck spoke specifically about investing in rural infrastructure: transportation, healthcare, and schools.

“We want to double the northern and rural community fund,” she said. “We still have insufficient broadband, so if we want our artists to work in small communities, we need to provide them with stable and reliable broadband. We’ve had 20 years of promises about bringing rural broadband and we still don’t have it. The NDP is very much committed to doing that — that is an equity item and we really discovered that two years ago during the first (pandemic) shutdown.”

The night ended with powerful performances by Peterborough’s first poet laureate Sarah Lewis and poet Ziysah von Bieberstein.

Lewis started by saying, “art saved my life, as a marginalized person, as an Indigenous women, our voices have been silenced historically, and continue to be silenced. When we’re offered a stage, it not only empowers us but it speaks our truth and potentially changes behaviour.”

She then offered a moving rendition of her poem called “More than a Poem,” about the legacy of colonialism and turning the pain of addiction and identity loss into the power of activism, cultural resurrection, and decolonization.

Von Bierberstein followed by first speaking about how “the role of art is to look at things differently, to create the space for transformation.”

They then performed their poem “Stop the Cuts,” that asks us all to dream bigger than simply asking that governments stop cutting services and actually set about the hard, imaginative work of creating the world we want.

“Let’s do better”, they urged. “We will do better.”

The City of Peterborough is opening a temporary drop-off site for residents who need to dispose of green waste resulting from the Victoria Day weekend storm.

The drop-off site at 425 Kennedy Road will open Saturday (May 28) and remain open from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily until further notice.

Residents can bring trees, branches, leaves, and brush and dispose of them with no fees.

Regular green waste, including grass clippings and garden waste such as weeds, will not be accepted at the temporary drop-off site. Residents can dispose of regular green waste, as well as branches and brush, during the weekly curbside green waste collection. All brush and branches must be tied in bundles up to one metre (three feet) in length and 30 centimetres (12 inches) in diameter, weighing no more than 23 kilograms (50 pounds).

The city also accepts green waste at the Bensfort landfill at a fee of $7 for 100 kilograms or less of material, or for $95 per tonne for the entire load.

To access the temporary green waste drop-off site at 425 Kennedy Road, residents are asked to enter from River Road South as Highway 115 is reduced to one lane in the area next to the location.

There may be wait times at the temporary green waste drop-off site depending on traffic volume.

Donna Rogers received some very good news just before a media event on Thursday (May 26) to announce the pending opening of Peterborough’s new Consumption and Treatment Services site (CTS), located at the Opioid Response Hub at 220 Simcoe Street in downtown Peterborough.

The executive director of Four Counties Addiction Services Team (Fourcast), the lead agency for the CTS, received a message from Health Canada giving the green light for the CTS to open in mid-June as planned.

“Your request for an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to operate a supervised consumption site at the Peterborough CTS safe consumption site has been granted pursuant to section 51.1 of the CDSA and is valid for a period of up to three years,” Rogers said, reading the message from Health Canada to local media, who had been invited to tour the CTS prior to its public opening.

VIDEO: Donna Rogers reads Health Canada exemption approval for Peterborough’s CTS

Fourcast and the other agencies involved in the CTS — Peterborough City-County Paramedics, Peterborough 360 Degree Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic, Peterborough Public Health, and PARN – Your Community AIDS Resource Network — weren’t expecting to hear from Health Canada until next week, following a site inspection on May 16 that was the final stage of the approval process.

While the Opioid Response Hub at 220 Simcoe has already been already offering supports to people who use drugs, Health Canada’s approval permits the supervised use of illegal substances in the CTS.

“From the day of the CTS funding announcement to the Health Canada final inspection, we actually had 55 working days to get us to this point,” Rogers said. “It took an army of enthusiastic and compassionate people to arrive at this outcome. Fourcast staff, community partners and others combined to procure everything from steel tables (for the CTS’s three consumption booths) — that had to have their legs cut in order to fit the size — to soap dispensers. We also had to hire a staff team who will work at the CTS.”

Rogers thanked the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough (CFGP) for their support of last year’s ‘Light The Way To $160K’ campaign that raised funds to renovate the former Greyhound bus terminal at 220 Simcoe Street so it could be used as an Opioid Response Hub, including the CTS.

“If not for the generosity of donors, we would not have been optimally prepared to move forward immediately following the funding decision,” Rogers said, referring to the province’s decision in February to approve $1.3 million in funding for the CTS — a decision the partner agencies in the CTS had been waiting for since late 2020. “The CFGP leadership and support allowed us to move forward and transform a bus station into a usable CTS site.”

Rogers also acknowledged the work of Kevin Mooney Construction — “an incredibly valuable partner” — for their efforts in accommodating “our very ambitious renovation timeline” during a time of supply and labour shortages caused by the pandemic.

Rogers had special praise for Kevin MacDonald, the owner of 220 Simcoe Street.

“Kevin said yes to being a landlord to a CTS — he bought this building and leased it to us for this purpose,” Rogers said. “He has stayed quietly in the background, applauding our progress. Today, I applaud Kevin for giving our community the opportunity to reach this milestone.”

The CTS will have a “soft opening” on Monday, June 13th. During the first week, it will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Hours will then expand to 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., with further expansion as the service is established and the demand for the service and needs of users is evaluated.

“The CTS will be part of a broader system response to the opioid crisis in our community,” Rogers said. “The CTS will afford service users another option where they can reduce the harms from using the toxic street drug supply.”

Rogers added the CTS will complement other harm reduction services offered in the community, including the Safer Supply Program offered by the Peterborough 360 Degree Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic and PARN’s Harm Reduction Works program that helps distribute sterile drug-using equipment and provides overdose prevention training and Naloxone distribution.

Kerri Kightley, program manager of the CTS, took media on a tour of the Opioid Response Hub including the CTS. The public is also invited to tour the site and ask questions from 5 to 7 p.m. on Monday, May 30th and Tuesday, May 31st (as the Opioid Response Hub is already offering support to people who use drugs, drop-in visits are not possible to respect their privacy).

“An individual would come through the door and indicate that want to see somebody from the Mobile Support Overdose Resource Team or wanted to engage with Harm Reduction Works services or wanted to use the CTS,” Kightley explained. “Based on that, we would funnel them to the right service.”

The Opioid Response Hub includes an assessment room where staff from partner agencies can have discussions with clients and connect them with appropriate services.

“The assessment room is the shared space that we will continue to leave open for our community partners,” Kightley said.

Located beside the assessment room is the office of the Mobile Support Overdose Resource Team (MSORT), a team of eight people including one paramedic, addictions specialists, and harm reduction specialists who connect with people who have had a recent overdose or are at risk of an overdose.

Next to the MSORT office is the workspace for PARN’s Harm Reduction Works, a long-standing program that helps to distribute harm reduction equipment to the community.

“People can come here of every walk of life and meet with PARN and be able to access drug-use equipment, personal care supplies, condoms, snacks and water, (and) Naloxone,” Kightley said.

The CTS includes an intake space where people can meet with a harm reduction specialist, indicate what substance they are at the CTS to use, and get the equipment they need to prepare and use their drugs.

“You don’t need to provide any identification,” Kightley explained. “You don’t need to provide your first and last name, your date of birth, and a whole bunch of information. It’s very anonymous. We’re using a unique identifier for each person who comes through the door. There’s a lot of anonymity that’s built into this space and there’s a lot of safety about being able to come here and not be identified.”

At that point, the person would be assigned one of the three consumption booths in the CTS, including an accessible booth for people with mobility issues, to use their substances — supervised by a paramedic.

The Health Canada exemption for the Peterborough CTS allows users to consume drugs through injection, orally, or intranasally. Inhalation of drugs through smoking or vaping is currently not permitted due to provincial health regulations.

“We’ve very specifically designed these booths so there is a really great line of sight for our paramedic who will be on site,” Kightley explained. Each booth has a mirror so the paramedic can observe people as they prepare and consume their substances, as well as biohazard bin where the person can discard used equipment.

A key feature of the CTS is a medical room staffed with a registered nurse from the 360 Degree Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic.

“It isn’t common for the provincial government to fund a full-time registered nurse for a CTS, so we’re super pleased that was included in our funding,” Kightley said. “For 35 hours per week, we have a trained medical professional on site who can look at some of the primary care pieces that individuals who are service users are bringing forward.”

“In our community we see a lot of wound care issues — a lot of untreated physical health and mental health issues — and we know that RN will be pivotal in being able to navigate some of the health services and being to connect people to the primary care services they need.”

The medical room contains a treatment bed, a mobile workstation, medical supplies, and a handwashing sink.

“Really this is a mini clinic where we’re able to offer some supports,” Kightley said.

After people at the CTS consume their drugs, they are welcome (but not required) to stay in a small and open waiting area to see what the affect is on their body.

“Folks can sit down, have a coffee, connect with our staff, be monitored by the paramedic or the nurse on site, and our harm reduction specialists,” Kightley said.

Kightley noted the CTS is a relatively small space with the Opioid Response Hub.

“We will pretty respectful of the privacy of the individuals that are here, and try and create the CTS as a warm bubble within this larger hub of services,” Kightley said.

The Canadian Canoe Museum on Monaghan Road in Peterborough remains temporarily closed due to damage sustained during the May 21, 2022 derecho storm.

The museum was original expecting to reopen on Saturday (June 4), but repairs to one section of the museum’s roof still need to be completed.

“Out of an abundance of caution and to ensure a positive visitor experience, sadly, the museum will remain closed until this work is complete,” writes Carolyn Hyslop, the museum’s executive director, in an email.

On May 27, the museum announced it was temporarily closed due to significant damage from the storm.

“If you’ve driven or wandered by the museum these past few days, you may have witnessed some of the damage we sustained during the severe thunderstorm that affected Peterborough and the surrounding areas last Saturday,” Hyslop wrote in an email at the time. “The large spruce trees on our front lawn, uprooted and leaning; our colourful, welcome signage ripped clear off the building or left dangling; and roof and fascia debris strewn all over the parking lot.”

While there were no injuries to staff, volunteers, or visitors, Hyslop addded the severe winds caused significant damage to the museum’s roof and collections centre. The winds tore large swaths of the protective membrane from the roof, some of which landed in the parking lot. The loss of parts of the membrane led to rain and moisture entering the museum’s galleries, soaking and affecting a few different areas.

Many windows in the collection centre, which houses most of the museum’s collection of watercraft, were either damaged or blown out, resulting in glass and debris in the collection centre.

“We are happy to report that the watercraft collection is safe and has suffered no damage,” Hyslop writes.

The museum does not yet have a reopening date, but will share an update on its website and social media accounts when the museum can reopen with summer hours (10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday).

This is the final summer for the museum at its Monaghan Road location, as construction proceeds on the new museum on Ashburnham Drive beside Beavermead Park. The construction site did not suffer any severe damage during the storm, aside from a downed construction fence that has since been restored.

However, the storm did damage many trees on the property and along the Trans Canada Trail.

“Our team has done a preliminary sweep to take care of the trees that will impact the public’s use of the trail, and once more of the higher priority areas of the city and county are dealt with by our arborists, we will have our trees safely removed,” Hyslop wrote on May 27.

This story has been updated with the most recent information from the museum.

Sustainable Peterborough — a community-based regional partnership comprised of community groups, businesses, educational institutions, local governments, and First Nations — evolved out of an informal group of individuals and organizations who started meeting at the dawn of the new millennium under the name of Sustainability Network.

Their work led to the creation of the Sustainable Peterborough Plan. In the spring of 2012 the City of Peterborough, Peterborough County and its eight townships, and the two local First Nations adopted the Greater Peterborough Area Community Sustainability Plan.

Sustainable Peterborough is overseen by the Sustainable Peterborough Coordinating Committee. Components of the original plan have been incorporated into official plans, and influenced transportation plans, energy plans, cultural plans, economic development and tourism strategies, age-friendly plans, strategic plans, and the City of Peterborough’s Community Wellbeing Plan.

Sustainable Peterborough has assisted in securing over $1 million in external funding for projects such as the Healthy Kids Community Challenge and the Climate Change Action Plan for the Greater Peterborough Area, whose overall objective is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and the use of fossil fuels, lower our energy consumption, and adapt to our changing climate.

Sustainable Peterborough is proud to have worked with over 170 partner organizations, institutions, businesses, local governments, and First Nations to advance local sustainability. To showcase our collective successes, our annual report card was developed and from 2012 to 2018 highlighted some of the countless sustainable accomplishments of our community partners. This report card was cherished in the greater Peterborough area. Each spring from 2016 to 2019 we also celebrated our partners’ commitment to sustainability by hosting the popular Sustainable Peterborough Partnership Recognition Awards.

Since 2012 our community has changed and evolved, as have the definitions of sustainability and related local programs and initiatives. This led to a much-needed review and refresh of Sustainable Peterborough, which has spent the last couple of years conducting an extensive organizational review, including a governance and plan review. This comprehensive work facilitated many insightful conversations and led to the decision that the new Sustainable Peterborough Plan should focus on helping the community implement and track progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The SDG framework has become a recognized tool for advancing sustainability in the greater Peterborough area. Communities in Ontario and across Canada are working on localizing the SDGs. The SDGs have become a globally recognized framework for measuring progress towards sustainability. Benefits of using the SDG framework include the use of shared language and goal setting for sustainability across many communities globally and locally and access to tools to track and visualize progress towards the goals.

Using the SDG framework provides an opportunity for Sustainable Peterborough to continue the vital SDG work conducted through the 2019-2021 Community Forum led by Kawartha World Issues Centre and GreenUP. It also provides an opportunity to use long-standing community connections and partnerships to build on the significant local interest in sustainability, raise awareness of the SDGs, and incorporate best practices from other communities.

Our newly launched Strategic Plan 2021-2031 was recently approved by the Sustainable Peterborough Coordinating Committee and the Peterborough & the Kawarthas Economic Development (PKED) Board of Directors. It provides a glimpse into our history and accomplishments, our governance structure, and the vision and mission for our path forward as we focus on starting to accomplish the objectives listed therein.

PDF: Sustainable Peterborough Strategic Plan 2021-2031
Sustainable Peterborough Strategic Plan 2021-2031

The SDG framework also aligns Sustainable Peterborough’s new strategic plan and PKED’s Future Ready Regional Economic Development Strategy. The Future Ready strategy identifies five SDGs as priorities for the region to achieve the vision of seeing Peterborough & the Kawarthas become the most sustainable and innovative community and economy in Ontario.

Sustainable Peterborough has been operating under the auspices of PKED since its inception in 2012, and the recent governance review has led to the mutually supported decision that this relationship continue. The partners are looking forward to further solidifying the relationship and having improved alignment through the mutual vision of advancing priority SDGs in Peterborough & the Kawarthas.

“On behalf of the Sustainable Peterborough Coordinating Committee, we are excited to work towards Sustainable Peterborough’s new mission of supporting, measuring, celebrating, and facilitating collective action among local governments, businesses, institutions, and organizations to annually track and measure progress towards achieving targets related to priority Sustainable Development Goals,” stated Karen Jopling (representing Peterborough County) and Michael Papadacos (representing the City of Peterborough), who are co-chairs of the Sustainable Peterborough Coordinating Committee.

For more information and to follow Sustainable Peterborough as we embark on this new and exciting SDG tracking and advancing journey, please visit our website at sustainablepeterborough.ca, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath visited Peterborough early Wednesday afternoon (May 23) to survey some of the damage caused by Saturday’s devastating wind storm.

Mayor Diane Therrien and Peterborough-Kawartha NDP candidate Jen Deck joined Horwath for a walk around a neighbourhood in East City, surrounded by local media.

Horwath called on the province to provide urgent support and relief to Peterborough and other communities that have been hit particularly hard by the storm.

Hours before Horwath’s visit, Therrien announced the City of Peterborough was declaring a state of emergency as a result of the storm. The declaration makes the municipality eligible for any provincial financial assistance with extraordinary costs associated with emergency response and repairs to essential property and infrastructure following a natural disaster.

Before coming to Peterborough, Horwath was in Etobicoke to announce her plan to ensure young people and students get access to the mental health care they need, when they need it.

After her Peterborough visit, she headed to Belleville where she will meet with local volunteers and supporters.