Taking care of children is hard work and local parents feel isolated and overwhelmed, according to a recent study conducted by the Research for Social Change Lab (RSCL) at Trent University in Peterborough in partnership with Lakelands Public Health.

Last Tuesday (October 21), RSCL released Parenting Matters in Peterborough, the final report of the group’s “In Their Own Words: Parenting Work in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough” research study.

The report highlights the challenges that area parents face while raising children and provides evidence-based recommendations aimed at improving family wellbeing.

The report’s lead author, Trent University researcher Dr. Mary Anne Martin, shared her thoughts with kawarthaNOW about the most telling discovery findings of the report.

“We heard that parents are working really hard, but without adequate incomes, affordable child care, and accessible primary health care, they remain overwhelmed in trying to provide the safe, stable and nurturing environments that children need,” Dr. Martin said.

Drawing on more than 560 survey responses and the insights of 57 focus group participants, the research study set out to capture the realities of parenting in Peterborough. The vast majority of participants identified as women, despite targeted attempts by the researchers to encourage the participation of men in the focus groups.

The researchers gained insights into what families need, and the report offers an extensive set of recommendations for how the community can help support parents.

According to the report, while parenting is essential work that shapes children, families, and communities, it is often undervalued and unsupported. Parents in the community are working hard to keep themselves and their families well, but that not be enough to ensure the wellbeing of children.

Dr. Martin highlighted some of the systemic challenges parents face, including the high cost of living, issues with access to child care, and barriers to services such as primary health care.

Ultimately, parents are constantly stressed.

“In the survey, 51 per cent of parents reported they always or often felt stressed over the last six months,” said RSCL director Dr. Naomi Nichols in a media release announcing the report. “But parents also told us what they need to thrive. Their voices reveal the real conditions of parenting work in our city and the opportunities for positive change.”

Dr. Thomas Piggott, medical officer of health and CEO of Lakelands Public Health, said the findings illustrate the need for a collaborative community response to the issue of overwhelmed parents.

“Helping parents effectively requires cross-sector collaboration and upstream solutions,” Dr. Piggott said in a statement. “When communities, schools, health and social services, and government work together, we can reduce stress, build stronger families, and help children grow up healthy and safe.”

The report includes voices from parents in the City of Peterborough, Peterborough County, Curve Lake First Nation, and Hiawatha First Nation. A parent is defined as anyone who is a primary caregiver for a child, and a family “includes the breadth and diversity of household compositions that form structures of caregiving for a child.”

According to the report, the events, environments, and relationships that people experience, especially early in life when their brains and bodies are developing, can have a profound impact on their health and wellbeing over their lifetime.

“Both episodic and ongoing adverse experiences can cause chronic stress that keeps children’s nervous systems activated and unable to recover, potentially having serious impacts on how their bodies and brains develop,” the report states.

“As important people in children’s lives, parents and caregivers have the opportunity to interrupt the effects of adversity on children and promote resilience in their lives. To do this well, parents themselves need to be supported. While much is known about the impacts that children’s homes, communities, and society generally can have on their experiences of adversity and resilience, little empirical knowledge has been available regarding the experiences of parents, and more specifically, those in Peterborough.”

The study set out to change that, and researchers collected information aimed at understanding who is parenting children, what everyday parenting work entails, the factors that make parenting work harder, the conditions that make parenting easier, and more.

The purpose of the report is “to encourage decision-makers to use our findings to develop policies and invest in interventions that support safe, stable, and nurturing developmental contexts for children” and “inform a more equitable system of supports for children and families,” the researchers noted.

Along with Dr. Martin, the report’s co-authors are Trent University professor Dr. Naomi Nichols and public health nurses Kate Dunford and Kara Koteles, with contributions from others. The full report is available at www.socialchangelab.ca/in-their-own-words-final-report.

Founded at Trent University by Dr. Nichols in 2021, RSCL is a community-engaged research collective that aims to mobilize university resources for social change. With community partners, RSCL designs and executes research projects to generate actionable knowledge and creative problem-solving around issues such as homelessness, social exclusion, and poverty.

The Ontario Land Tribunal has dismissed an appeal by Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes (PATH) of Peterborough city council’s decision to deny the grassroots organization’s application for a temporary use by-law to build 24 sleeping cabins on Lansdowne Street for people experiencing homelessness.

“It is with sadness, heartbreak and disappointment that we received the decision of the Ontario Land Tribunal yesterday,” PATH stated in a media release issued on Thursday night (October 23). “The ruling denied our final appeal for temporary rezoning, determining that we will not be able to create a sleeping cabin community at our 385 Lansdowne Street East site.”

In March 2023, PATH entered into a three-year lease agreement with Habitat for Humanity Peterborough and Kawartha Region for the purpose of providing transitional shelter support at the Lansdowne Street site, the former Peterborough Humane Society property located east of Ashburnham Drive, which Habitat had purchased with the intention of later developing multi-unit affordable residential housing.

PATH then began the land use planning process that would eventually result in an application for a temporary use by-law for the site, which is currently zoned as commercial. That process culminated with a report from city staff that recommended the temporary use by-law be approved. The staff report was presented to Peterborough city council meeting as general committee on August 26, 2024.

That meeting became a referendum on the viability of PATH’s proposal itself, as well as the suitability of the proposed site, with council hearing from 10 delegations that included neighbouring businesses and residents who objected to the location of the proposed sleeping cabin community.

One of the delegations was Toromont Industries, a heavy machinery company that operates Toromont Cat and Battlefield Equipment Rentals to the south of 385 Lansdowne Street, which objected to the proposed location of the sleeping cabin community because it would be in close proximity to their operations in an industrial zone.

“That heavy machinery makes a lot of noise (and) spits out a lot of dust and emissions,” said Garnet Peirson, the company’s vice president of real estate and development, during the delegation. “If there are complaints to Ministry of the Environment about noise, Ministry of the Environment can come in and shut down our operations or they can severely alter our operations.”

Peirson said this is something the company has faced in Kanata when a residential development was located near their business as well as in Concord. Peirson also noted that Toromont is planning to expand directly behind 385 Lansdowne Street.

At the end of the meeting, city council voted 8-2 against accepting the application for the proposed use by-law, with only councillors Alex Bierk and Joy Lachica voting in favour.

In response to city council’s decision, PATH announced on October 3, 2024 that it had submitted an appeal to OLT, and subsequently began raising money to cover some of the legal costs for the appeal process.

After a case management conference in March 2025, during which Toromont Industries was added as an appellant, OLT held a video hearing from June 12 to 26 to review the appeal against the City of Peterborough’s decision.

While the city monitored the hearing, it did not take an active role and did not call any witnesses. Instead, representatives from Toromont Industries argued against PATH’s appeal, cross-examining the city’s director of planning, development and urban design Brad Appleby at one point during the hearing about the city staff recommendation.

On October 22, OLT issued its ruling to dismiss PATH’s appeal, concluding that the proposed use of the site would conflict with provincial land use compatibility policies because of its proximity to Toromont. The 19-page decision was written by Carolyn Molinari, who was reappointed to the tribunal in September 2024 for a three-year term. The Ajax resident is a member of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute with over 30 years experience as an urban planner.

The tribunal found that the proposed cabin community is a residential use and not an institutional or shelter-type use as PATH had argued, and is therefore considered a “dwelling” under provincial noise and land use compatibility rules. Because of this classification, the project would be located too close to an active industrial operation, creating land use compatibility conflicts that provincial policy seeks to avoid.

OLT determined the site is within the restricted 70-metre separation zone for sensitive land uses near industry, creating a risk of noise complaints and could limit Toromont’s operations or expansion. Even if mitigation such as fencing, air conditioning, or noise walls were added, the tribunal concluded, the risk to Toromont’s lawful operations and expansion could not be acceptably eliminated.

The tribunal’s decision heavily leaned on provincial land-use rules that prohibit new residential uses near industrial facilities without separation or transition zones, that protect employment lands from being constrained by neighbouring complaints, and that require avoidance first rather than mitigation — suggesting that PATH needs to find a more suitable site.

In its findings, OLT states four times that it “prefers the evidence” given during the hearing by Toromont experts over PATH’s experts.

OLT also gave “limited weight” to the city staff report supporting the application, noting that the staff recommendation presumed the sleeping cabins were classified as “noise sensitive institutional purpose buildings” rather than residential dwellings.

“Had the cabins been classified as dwellings, it remains uncertain whether the staff report would have reached the same conclusion,” the ruling states.

The tribunal also found that the proposed temporary use by-law application “does not meet the intent and policies” of the city’s official plan, adding that it “does not represent good land use planning and is not in the public interest.”

As for PATH, the organization expressed its dismay at the OLT decision and outlined the group’s activities while the appeal was underway.

“We believed in our community of sleeping cabins as a creative and meaningful part of the solution to the housing crisis in Peterborough,” PATH states. “We believed strongly in our appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal. We fought hard, engaged experts, presented strong evidence, and did our due diligence.”

“While we waited for the OLT decision, we forged ahead. We looked at our community’s need and asked where we could help. We continued to develop strong partnerships with community agencies and we collaborated, shared capacity and resources, slowly moving the dial forward to support people through the local housing crisis. Over this time, we are proud to say that more of our unhoused neighbours had access to warm, sturdy winter clothing and survival essentials through our program and outreach partnerships.”

“Our Community Clothing Hub continues to hum as we receive, launder, sort and distribute hundreds of bags of clothing, blankets, sleeping bags and survival items to partner agencies in an effort to help our unhoused neighbours have some comfort and safety in extreme temperatures.”

“We continue to open our doors on Wednesdays through our PATHWay to Home initiative, that provides shelter from the elements, a warm shower and meal, snacks to take away and a fresh haircut and clothing-while at the same time helping folks feel the comfort of a caring community.”

“We work closely with our partner One City Peterborough to create much needed Additional Rental Units (ARUs) that provide permanent shelter and add to our city’s depleted transitional housing pool.”

As for its next steps given the OLT decision, PATH says “Our purpose is to help relieve poverty, and we will continue to work toward this goal,” noting that governments at all levels (federal, provincial, and municipal), social service organizations, and grassroots movements must come together to provide “meaningful solutions for our unhoused neighbours that involve a full range of pathways that honour a person’s choice and right to dignity.”

“We will take time to reflect on this by consulting with our partner agencies,” PATH states. “We will process this setback and ask ourselves what steps we will take going forward.”

PDF: Ontario Land Tribunal – Case number OLT-24-001038
Ontario Land Tribunal - Case number OLT-24-001038

This story has been updated to include a copy of the OLT’s ruling.

You can cheer on the Toronto Blue Jays in their World Series run at free outdoor community watch parties in downtown Peterborough, starting with game two at 8 p.m. on Saturday night (October 25).

A mega screen at Quaker Foods City Square at 215 Charlotte Street will be livestreaming the second game in the best-of-seven series as the Jays take on the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

This is the first time that Canada’s only Major League Baseball team has made it to the World Series in 32 years, since winning the championship back to back in 1992 and 1993. The Dodgers won the World Series last year after defeating the New York Yankees in five games.

“We’re looking forward to joining communities across Canada in cheering on the Toronto Blue Jays in a proudly Peterborough way, surrounded by community in downtown’s Quaker Foods City Square,” says Peterborough mayor Jeff Leal in a media release. “I encourage community members and visitors to don their blue and white and mark this historic sports moment as we watch the Jays compete to become World Series Champions.”

The community watch parties are being organized by the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA), with the City of Peterborough providing financial support for the mega screen, sound, and servicing at the park. Saturday’s watch party will follow the Peterborough DBIA’s “Halloween in the Booro” festivities in the downtown core running from 4 to 6 p.m.

The watch party will take place rain or shine, and attendees are asked to dress for the weather and to bring their own chairs and blankets. Snacks, vendors, and a booth for The Boro merchandise will be available on-site. Free parking is available after 6 p.m. along the street and at the adjacent King Street Parkade.

“Downtown Peterborough is at its best when people come together to celebrate and connect,” says Peterborough DBIA executive director Nour Mazloum. “We’re thrilled to partner with the City of Peterborough to host these community watch parties for the Toronto Blue Jays as they advance to the World Series. This is a wonderful example of how downtown can serve as a place where people come together to share in special moments of excitement, pride and celebration.”

Watch parties are also planned for the third and fourth games in the series on Monday and Tuesday night (October 27 and 28), when the Jays will be playing at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles. Additional watch parties will be planned for each of the remaining three games as necessary.

For details on the watch parties and other updates, visit theboro.ca/events/