A foundation established by late Tim Hortons co-founder Ron Joyce has donated $2.5 million for Trent University to help students who face socio-economic barriers to post-secondary education,

Trent University announced the Joyce Family Foundation Bursary Endowment Fund on Friday (October 14).

The university’s largest-ever endowed bursary will be available to any undergraduate student in any field of study, with preference given to students who come from the City or County of Peterborough, Durham Region, and Haliburton County.

“This gift, which creates our largest fund for student aid, greatly enhances Trent University’s ability to support students who might not otherwise have the opportunity to pursue post-secondary education,” said Trent University president and vice-chancellor Dr. Leo Groarke.

“We thank the Joyce Family Foundation for changing lives and believing in local students who need a helping hand to pursue their dreams.”

The Joyce Family Foundation Bursary Endowment Fund fund will provide annual bursaries of up to $5,000 for four students per year, renewable up to a maximum of four years, to be applied against the cost of tuition and fees and educational expenses. Each successful applicant will be required to work with a mentor in an extracurricular activity throughout their program.

Formerly known as the Joyce Foundation, the Joyce Family Foundation is a private foundation created by Ron Joyce, best known as the legendary Canadian entrepreneur who, in 1964, invested in the first Tim Hortons donut shop in Hamilton, Ontario and then grew the business into one of the most successful food service chains in the world.

A high-school dropout who became a billionaire, Joyce’s philanthropic efforts were motivated by the own adversity he faced in his own childhood and youth. He founded the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation, which sends underprivileged kids to camp each year, before establishing his own foundation whose primary focus is to provide access to education for children and youth with significant financial need or facing other socio-economic barriers to success.

“Ron Joyce believed in hard work and the power of education to open doors and help meet potential,” said Maureen O’Neill, executive director of the Joyce Family Foundation. “This gift is part of the Board’s commitment to Ron Joyce’s legacy and genuine belief in youth to bring their talents and contributions into Canadian society.”

It was huge news for local music fans when Canadian icon Neil Young announced in late 2017 he would be returning to his childhood hometown of Omemee, Ontario to perform a solo acoustic concert.

Taking place at Omemee’s Coronation Hall, Young’s by-invitation-only “Home Town” concert was livestreamed to fans both in Canada and around the world on December 1, 2017.

Now you can own an authentic memento of that memorable concert, thanks to Creating Space Community Arts Studio in Peterborough.

The non-profit organization will be auctioning off four fully lined, hand-crafted bags that have been expertly stitched and embroidered by Creating Space volunteers using recycled burlap from the concert stage and decorated with the image from the stage backdrop.

The silent auction takes place from noon to 6 p.m. on Friday, November 4th and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, November 5th in the space that Creating Space shares with the Artisan Centre Peterborough in the lower level of Peterborough Square in downtown Peterborough. Work from other artists will also be available in the silent auction.

According to Creating Space, Young himself has endorsed the auction of the bags in support of the organization’s local arts initiative.

Omemee is the “town in north Ontario” in Neil Young’s 1967 song “Helpless” and it’s where he spent the formative years of his childhood. The Young family moved to Omemee at the end of August 1949, when Neil was almost four years old. He lived in Omemee for four years (it was where he contracted polio, during the 1951 epidemic) until 1953, when his family moved to Winnipeg.

In late 2020, Young and his wife Darryl Hannah moved from Colorado to a 116-year-old cottage on a lake near Omemee, which they renovated and winterized and where they stayed for six months during the pandemic.

It’s unknown if Young and Hannah are still living there but, on the Thanksgiving long weekend, the couple was spotted at the Norwood Fair and then later in Peterborough.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has named Peterborough-Kawartha MP Michelle Ferreri as the opposition critic for the federal minister of families, children, and social development.

Poilievre released the list of his “shadow cabinet” on Wednesday (October 12), naming 52 ministerial critics and 37 associate critics.

“I am very honoured to be appointed as Shadow Minister of Families, Children and Social Development under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre,” Ferreri said in a statement. “This is a very significant file for Canadians at all stages in their life, from early childhood to Canadians collecting EI, to seniors collecting OAS, CPP and GIS.”

Under former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, Ferreri was the shadow minister for tourism and focused her efforts on criticizing wait times for passports as well as the federal government’s ArriveCAN app.

Ferreri said in her statement she “will work to hold the Minister to account to ensure essential services like getting a passport in a timely manner are met.”

Karina Gould is the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. Although Gould is responsible for Service Canada, which provides passports to Canadians, her primary mandate is to deliver a national early learning and child care system (including for Indigenous families). Ferreri did not mention child care in her statement.

Gould is also responsible for implementing the Community Services Recovery Fund to help charities and non-profit organizations adapt and modernize as they recover from the pandemic and implementing the Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative to enhance the capacity and effectiveness of Black-led and Black-serving organizations,

“We need a government that is not just talking and virtue signalling but acting and delivering on their mandates,” Ferreri said in her statement.

Ferreri’s appointment as shadow minister for families and children will likely raise eyebrows among her critics. In March, Ferreri came under fire after she called herself “a single mom with six children” in the House of Commons. Ferreri is mother to three teenage children from a relationship with her former spouse, and is currently in a relationship with Ryan Moore, who is father to three children from a relationship with his former spouse.

Other MPs in the greater Kawarthas region are also included in Poilievre’s shadow cabinet, although two have lesser roles than they did under former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole.

Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MP Jamie Schmale retains his previous role as shadow minister for Indigenous services.

Northumberland-Peterborough South MP Philip Lawrence, previously shadow minister for the Federal Economic Development Agency for southern Ontario, is now associate shadow minister for finance and middle-class prosperity (tax reform).

Hastings-Lennox and Addington MP Shelby Kramp-Neuman, previously shadow minister for seniors, is now associate shadow minister for national defence (recruitment and retention).

A full list of all the opposition critics is available on the Conservative Party website.

There’s now a rain garden at Beavermead Campground’s new gatehouse, thanks to Otonabee Conservation and students in the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board’s Youth Leadership in Sustainability Program.

Installed on Wednesday (October 12), the rain garden includes over 100 native trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers, including native species of purple coneflower, big bluestem, red osier dogwood, and black-eyed Susan which will provide habitat for pollinators. They are also drought tolerant and will therefore require minimal maintenance and watering.

Otonabee Conservation owns and operates Beavermead Campground, located at 2011 Ashburnham Drive, which provides camping services from May to October.

“This project will create a welcoming entrance to Beavermead Campground and highlight best practices for habitat enhancement and water conservation,” says Otonabee Conservation CAO and secretary-treasurer Janette Loveys Smith in a media release. “Working together with City of Peterborough and our community partners demonstrates our collective commitment to climate change adaptation and watershed health.”

With support from local community partners at GreenUP, the rain garden was designed to capture runoff from the roof of the new gatehouse. Rain will then be temporarily stored in the garden during a storm event and will slowly drain away reducing flooding, filtering pollutants, and channelling runoff into the ground.

The demonstration rain garden will provide opportunities for visitors to the park and campground “to see how beautiful native species are” and to learn more about the benefits of water conservation, according to the media release.

“In the face of the climate and biodiversity crisis, it’s so important that students have opportunities for hands-on activities like this where they are engaged in constructive, restorative, solutions-based work and can connect this positive experience with classroom learning,” says Cam Douglas, teacher and Youth Leadership in Sustainability Program coordinator.

Dane Record is frustrated, bordering on angry.

Following a recent debate of Peterborough mayoral candidates hosted by the United Way of Peterborough & District at All Saints’ Anglican Church, the executive director of PARN – Your Community AIDS Resource Network took to the organization’s Facebook page to urge municipal election candidates to “listen to the people” leading up to the October 24th vote.

The October 5th debate that focused on homelessness and issues connected to that challenge was “a fine display of candidate dodgeball,” according to Record’s Facebook post.

“The discussion on homelessness exposed an ongoing sampling of drug-related and HIV-related stigma that 30-plus years later, we are still confronting,” wrote Record, noting PARN’s mission to provide support and health promotion for people HIV-infected and HIV-affected as well as harm reduction. “Not all homeless people use drugs. Not all people who use drugs are homeless. Listen to the people and influence the changes necessary from the seats you hope to occupy for the next four years.”

kawarthaNOW spoke to Record about the reasons behind his Facebook post.

“When candidates are faced with these questions (around homelessness and substance use) and are really put on the spot to give a response, unless they’ve done their homework, they don’t know how to respond,” Record explains. “I can understand that to a point. Candidates may or may not have their own lived experience, if they wish to share it, but for those that don’t, it becomes evident in the conversations and what comes out of their mouths. It’s maddening. It’s upsetting really.”

“Are they (candidates) listening to the people who they can count on for votes, or are they just saying ‘Well, we’ve gone and spoken to everybody but they’re not going to vote for us, so who cares?’ Candidates need to take the time to hear everybody. Take the time to read the (City of Peterborough’s) Community Safety and Well-Being Plan. A number of organizations took time to put that together over the last year and a bit, providing detailed notes and examples, videos, and such. I know that wasn’t read by folks that really should have read it.”

From what he’s hearing, Record adds, voters are asking “the right questions.” The problem, he says, is candidates “aren’t hearing all of the questions or suggestions.”

“People are offering some really good opportunities to do things differently and, ultimately, do things right, but does it get distilled at the end? Is somebody who’s looking for the votes of the affluent really going to listen to somebody who can’t even keep a phone? If we’re being real about it, that’s what it boils down to.”

Before any serious progress can be made by city and county governments on the provision of affordable housing, Record says “they’ve got to look at housing in general. There’s none. When we look at who has purchasing power, it’s not the folks that candidates get on the spot about. It’s the voters. The folks who don’t have a strong voice at the table, the strong advocates, are being continually missed. It’s not cool.”

As for his Facebook rebuke, Record’s hope is that “not only elected officials but also voters and folks that don’t vote” read it, or hear of it, and “take some action.” Further, he hopes people with living or lived experience are provided a seat at “decision-making tables.”

“Spend municipal money on repurposing unused and underused stock and turn it into housing, or hand that off to organizations and agencies that can do the housing bit. We’ve got the CMHA. We’ve got Fourcast. We’ve got One City. We have a number of buildings that, if they were re-sourced, we would see those numbers decrease in the next Point In Time Homelessness Count. That would be some positive change.”

Record noted in his Facebook post that Peterborough’s Consumption and Treatment Site — which provides a safe environment for people to use their own substances — came to fruition not only as a result of the advocacy efforts of various agencies, but also because people with lived and living substance use experience greatly contributed to the conversation.

Asked if his executive director colleagues with other local agencies have an obligation to speak out more regularly and forcefully on pressing social issues such as homelessness, Record has a guarded response.

“There are some folks in lead positions who have to protect their funding, us included, but I’m also young and dumb, so what do I know?” he says, adding “PARN isn’t a housing agency but we know our place in the discussion about housing security.”

Of note is the United Way Peterborough & District’s release on October 11 (World Homeless Day) of its 17th annual Housing is Fundamental report, whose author Paul Armstrong had some strong words about the state of the housing market, including the statement that “There is both an injustice and immorality when the well-being of so many people is left to the manipulation of the private marketplace.”

“In playing the game, there are different ways to do so,” Record says. “As one executive director, if I can support another executive director or folks doing the work on the ground, whether it be by blasting out their message, or supporting some of the bids they’re doing, or ditch dig or bulldoze so folks get a path to the right answer or at least to the door that has the right answer, that’s my contribution. That’s something that other leaders, if they’re not already doing that, have the ability to do so. You’ve just got to have the will.”

The cloud that hangs over the homelessness challenge, and remains a serious roadblock to any sustainable progress, remains stigma, says Record.

“Go for a walk. Peterborough has one of the largest urban Indigenous populations in Ontario. We have an over-representation of Indigenous folks who are living rough, sleeping rough, and in conflict with the law. Stigma continues to perpetuate by continuing to go after the same people who do not look like me.”

Politicians who make decisions about issues affecting people who aren’t represented in the decision-making process will not result in meaningful progress, according to Record.

“Until everybody has an opportunity to provide their voices and everybody has the opportunity to be heard, we’re going to have this same conversation in a year when the federal (election) comes, in two years if the federal (election) goes again, and definitely in four years when provincial and municipal (elections) go.”

Kawartha Lakes police are seeking a suspect in a break-and-enter at a Lindsay business early Sunday morning (October 9).

At 5:09 a.m., a lone male suspect arrived at the William Street North business riding an electronic bike.

He then entered the business through a window and left minutes later with a cash box.

The suspect was captured on video surveillance and is described as white, wearing a black helmet, dark-coloured work pants, a dark long-sleeved sweater with an insulated vest over top, brown work gloves, and boots.

Anyone who may have information about the incident is asked to call the Kawartha Lakes Police Service at 705-324-5252.

If you prefer to renmain anonymous, you can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or submit a tip online at khcrimestoppers.com.