As reported earlier by anonymous government sources, Peterborough-Kawartha MP Maryam Monsef announced on Tuesday (June 25) that the Canada Infrastructure Bank would be supporting the next phase of Via Rail’s proposed high-frequency rail project from Quebec City to Toronto, running through Peterborough.

Making the announcement on behalf of federal Minister of Transport Marc Garneau and Minister of Infrastructure and Communities François-Philippe Champagne, Monsef announced that the federal government and the Canada Infrastructure Bank are committing $71.1 million in new funding to complete additional planning activities over the next two years to advance the Via Rail proposal.

“This project would bring significant economic growth to our community and the affected regions along the corridor,” Monsef said during the announcement at the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce offices, located in a former Canadian Pacific Railway station in Peterborough.

“It also requires a significant investment,” Monsef added. “That’s why we have taken each step forward in a measured, thoughtful way. We are not interested in creating buzz that leads to no results. We began by working with Via Rail to determine their business case, which we have determined would be good for the middle class and those working hard to join it. The next step is making sure we move forward in the correct way. That requires meaningful indigenous consultations and environmental assessment.”

“Today’s announcement is a significant next step for the VIA Rail high-frequency rail proposal,” said Peterborough Chamber president and CEO Stuart Harrison, who was involved in the original Shining Rails Railway group that inspired the Via Rail plan in 2011.

“This is no longer about feasibility: it’s about the process to approval. There are a lot of people in Peterborough who have been working on this project, and we are very appreciative of the commitment from the Canadian Infrastructure Bank and Federal Government.”

The $71.1 million in new funding will be used to establish a joint project team between Canada Infrastructure Bank and VIA Rail, and will fund work to preserve the option of interoperability with regional transit providers in Montreal and Toronto.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank will provide $55 million for the joint project team. Activities to be completed over the next two years include finalizing legal and regulatory work related to safety and environmental assessments, consulting with stakeholders and indigenous communities, examining the required land and track acquisition, and completing the technical, financial, and commercial analysis required for a final investment decision.

Of the remaining funding, $16.1 million will be used for Transport Canada and VIA Rail to support VIA Rail’s contributions to the joint project team. It will also fund technical work to ensure the interoperability and integration of high-frequency rail with operating tracks used by local and regional transit providers in Montreal and Toronto.

Monsef pointed out that, while there is significant interest and enthusiasm in the marketplace about VIA Rail’s proposal for high-frequency rail, additional work must be completed to advance the project.

“This train has yet to leave the station, but this is the furthest we have ever come on the idea of a passenger train,” Monsef said. “Today’s announcement marks a significant milestone moving forward.”

For her part, City of Peterborough Mayor Diane Therrien is optimistic about the latest progress with the plan.

“I am excited to see the VIA Rail Canada project moving forward,” Therrien said. “The project has been in the works for a long time and will be of great benefit to the region.”

The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Liberal government will announce on Tuesday (June 25) that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is supporting VIA Rail’s plan to build a new high-frequency rail line from Quebec City to Toronto — including through Peterborough.

Peterborough-Kawartha MP Maryam Monsef will be in Peterborough on Tuesday to make an announcement at 11 a.m. on behalf of federal Minister of Transport Marc Garneau. At the same time, Garneau and Infrastructure Minister François-Philippe Champagne will be in Trois-Rivieres in Quebec, along with Canada Infrastructure Bank president and CEO Pierre Lavallée, to make an announcement.

Both announcements are described as “related to the advancement of VIA Rail Canada’s proposal for High Frequency Rail in the Quebec City-Toronto Corridor.”

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is an “arm’s length” Crown corporation that was created by the current Liberal government and is accountable to the Minister of Infrastructure. It has a budget of $35 billion to invest in infrastructure projects including public transit systems, trade and transportation corridors, and green infrastructure projects.

To date, the bank is investing $1.28 in Réseau express métropolitain to expand transit in Montréal and $2 billion to expand GO Transit’s rail network in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area.

The Globe and Mail story states that anonymous government sources have confirmed that the Canada Infrastructure Bank will be providing funding for further study on how to “de-risk” the project, but that the announcement “does not represent the final green light for the project to proceed.”

VIA Rail’s initial plan was to build an exclusive high-frequency rail line from Montreal to Toronto through Quebec City and Peterborough at a cost of at least $4 billion, with an additional $2 billion for electric trains.

According to the Globe and Mail report, the route from Ottawa to Peterborough would mean converting a previously abandoned rail line which is currently a recreational trail and, for the stretch from Peterborough to Toronto, purchasing and upgrading an existing Canadian Pacific Railway line.

Monsef’s Tuesday announcement will take place at the office of the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce. Chamber president and CEO Stuart Harrison has been a long-time advocate of bringing passenger rail service back to Peterborough. He was involved in the non-profit Shining Waters Railway corporation, which produced a 2011 study that inspired VIA Rail’s plan.

Environment Canada has just issued a special weather statement for most of the Kawarthas — including Peterborough, Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton, and Northumberland — for heavy rain on Monday night (June 24).

Showers and thunderstorms are forecast to develop this evening and then sweep across the area late this evening and tonight.

Locally heavy rainfall accumulations of 35 to 45 mm will be possible with these thunderstorms before they move out of the area late tonight.

Localized flooding in low-lying areas will be possible as a result of the rain.

With the increase in opiod-related overdoses in Peterborough, the Peterborough Downtown Business Improvement Area (DBIA) has partnered with Peterborough Public Health and Harm Reduction Works @ PARN to provide naloxone kits, at no cost, to a number of strategically located downtown businesses.

Naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan among others, is a medication used to temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, buying time for a person to get the necessary medical attention they may need. Naloxone has been successfully used to save lives in Peterborough and around the world.

Naloxone kits come in two versions: administered by injection or by nasal spray; the kits to be provided to downtown Peterborough businesses will be the nasal spray versions.

Staff at the downtown businesses that have naloxone kits on site will be trained on how to identify and respond to an opioid poisoning or overdose. As well as DBIA members, the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce is inviting its members to be trained and equipped with naloxone kits.

“We’re in the midst of an opioid crisis in Peterborough,” says DBIA executive director Terry Guiel. “We see first-hand people struggling with addiction and sadly, we’ve already lost too many members of our community. If helping local businesses know what to do when they see an opioid poisoning saves one life, it’s worth it.”

Peterborough Public Health and PARN will be providing brief training sessions along with the free kits in the front lobby of VentureNorth (270 George St. N., Peterborough) from 8 to 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 27th and Friday, June 28th, and from 8 to 10 a.m., 12 to 2 p.m, and 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 4th and Friday, July 5th.

“Having been in business for 43 years downtown, we see a crisis at the moment with overdoses and addiction and we feel we need to help the community and those in need of help anyway we can,” says Andrew Damiany, manager of Gentry Apparel.

Stickers will be available for any business that would like to display one in their window, to let people know they are trained on how to respond to an opioid poisoning.

“We know that people working downtown are experiencing the impact of the opioid crisis on a daily basis and want to do what they can to help,” says PARN executive director Kim Dolan. “This initiative increases our collective response to opioid poisonings in our community and sends a strong message that people in Peterborough are prepared to step up and save lives.”

“This program reflects the caring attitude of the local business community towards people with addictions and the growing awareness that this issue affects us all,” adds Dr. Rosana Salvaterra, Medical Officer of Health at Peterborough Public Health.

“In some ways, this demonstration of compassion is just as effective as the naloxone itself because it reduces the terrible stigma faced by people who struggle with addictions. Stigma remains one of the biggest barriers preventing people from seeking treatment. Kindness, as well as clinical interventions, are the key ingredients to solving this issue.”

The kits are being provided by the DBIA, PARN, Peterborough Public Health, and the City of Peterborough.

VIDEO: Saving people from opioid overdoses with naloxone

“The litmus test of a caring and compassionate community is how we treat our most vulnerable,” says Peterborough Police Service deputy chief Tim Farquharson.

“Addiction is not a moral failure; it is a medical disorder. We are all in this dilemma together and it will take us all, as a community, working collaboratively to reverse this tragic tide of needless death. Thanks very much to our Downtown Business Improvement Area group for taking a leadership role in this epic challenge.”

For interested in receiving thorough and no-cost overdose response training, Question of Care Peterborough offers training sessions throughout the year. Visit questionofcare.com for information on upcoming sessions.

At first glance, the announcement of several major residential construction projects in the City of Peterborough’s east end is bound to be greeted with some sense of excitement.

After all, housing is among the City’s most pressing issues, and it has become more and more obvious that we need to address the current occupancy and rent price crisis that is making housing in Peterborough so difficult for renters.

With nearly zero percent vacancy and entry-level price points for rental units being unaffordable for many residents, things have, indeed, become dire for much of our population when it comes to securing a place to live.

A closer look, though, reveals both a lack a foresight and a lack of units targeted for existing renters.

As it grows, a municipality has to plan for and supply sustainable and affordable housing. And I am most concerned that the City of Peterborough is not making this a priority as construction projects are green-lit. I also fear that, with the announcement of yet more development along the Lift Lock, the “village” of East City will be a major casualty in this lack of planning.

Should we move forward with the announced development, East City, as a community, is done. It will become an area stretched past capacity in both infrastructure and services for existing and new residents. Parts of it will be unrecognizable to how current residents currently experience and use it. In short, it will be an absolute urban planning failure.

As it currently stands, there are three major apartment/condo complexes and a subdivision all planned to straddle the Lift Lock and reach down Armour Hill on Hunter Street East. That’s something like 1,200 houses and condominium/apartment units on an already overstretched (and severely limited) transportation corridor.

With our current and expected occupancy rate per unit, that translates into more than 3,000 additional people — which, I’m willing to estimate, is roughly the population of East City’s traditional boundary of Parkhill Road/the Canal/Maria Street/the River.

No community can handle that kind of immediate densification. Particularly one the size of East City.

We can throw the new Canadian Canoe Museum into this area of growth for good measure. And a 600-student elementary school.

We’re looking at way more people and vehicles than can be accommodated.

What’s worse, the builds don’t even meet community needs.

Neither the Ashborough Village subdivision nor the TVM Group condos will be priced anywhere near affordably for renters or first-time home buyers — at least not in the Peterborough job market. The Skyline Group apartment complex, representing only a small part of this overall growth, will be charging “market rate,” which will push the prices beyond what many students, young workers, and lower-income people can afford.

Just listen to renters now: the Peterborough job market and cost of living do not allow for the prices being charged for rent.

The Ashburnham Realty units planned for along the Rotary Trail certainly don’t look like they’re going to be affordable to many existing Peterborough renters either.

An affordable housing strategy needs to be part of an overall effective master plan. And not just “affordable housing” in a subsidized manner, but housing that is affordable to those struggling to survive on lower wages.

That plan also has to include complete streets transportation planning and health/lifestyle/social infrastructure.

Planning needs to happen before builds are announced. But, so far, there’s been no word on how the City will accommodate this pace of growth, the needs of the existing community, the needs of new residents, or the strain it will put on an infrastructure that is already stressed.

In short, we’re building a city on a village footprint with village infrastructure.

Which just won’t work.

For anyone.

Moving traffic in/out/through East City is going to be a major, major challenge. Your access points are the Lift Lock, the Maria Street swing bridge, and the single lane McFarlane bridge. Two of those are residential. Two of those are one way. And your main intersection will be the hilltop Armour Road and Hunter Street East.

Just imagine.

Traffic will spill into side streets, affecting lifestyle, quality of life, and pedestrian safety. As it is, the Nicholls Oval park and Armour Hill areas are dangerous pedestrian zones. Expect more traffic/traffic safety/pedestrian safety hotspots to develop. The Maria Street area in particular.

It will become common for cars to race through narrow residential streets to avoid the non-arterial routes that will now be major traffic corridors.

In fact, it’s already happening, with vehicles avoiding the McFarlane Street/Armour Road and Parkhill Road/Armour Road intersections and using Swanston Avenue, Euclid Avenue, and Caddy Street. Similarly, Douro, Mark, and Rogers Streets are already busy with much of the relief traffic from Armour Road and Hunter Street.

This is going to get dramatically worse. And it’s going to spread.

As the former chair of Active and Efficient Community Routes Peterborough and Active and Safe Routes to School Peterborough, I remain alarmed at some of the pedestrian dangers in the current East City neighbourhood. As the former Air Quality/Transportation manager for GreenUP, I’m concerned about our already existing inability to deal with infrastructure needs around some of our most frequently used pedestrian areas.

During recent Curtis Creek neighbourhood environmental focus groups with community members and stakeholders, traffic reduction and traffic calming were both cited at primary needs of the community. In short, areas such as Armour Road are already failing us as mixed-use transportation zones. And we’re planning on adding thousands of more residents — and their vehicles — into this already overburdened residential neighbourhood.

As for services, the new East City school is being planned for the middle of this already-stressed area — and directly across the street from 500 new housing units. An already very large school, its capacity does not allow for this unplanned growth; these builds will push the school past its capability to meet enrollment numbers, and ground hasn’t even been broken in constructing it yet.

It is also going to be surrounded by extremely high volumes of traffic. This is definitely a situation where the kids attending the school are in tough.

Where, I wonder, will all of these residents go for a doctor? And how the heck will they get there?

And, again, what’s worse is that these builds are doing little to address the current housing crisis. With the existing development master plan looking at an increase of population of 31,000, and with the access price for all of these units being as high as they are, it is very apparent that developers are not looking to produce dwellings that will reduce the housing crisis in Peterborough. The bulk of these properties just aren’t meant to attract the existing population of people living here.

In short, we’re adding all of the problems of unplanned densification while doing little to address the glaring needs of our existing housing crisis.

And it is definitely unplanned. After all, this area is not classified as one of the “intensification nodes” listed in our current master plan, nor is it in one of the established “intensification corridors.” That in itself speaks volumes. The area was just never meant to house thousands of potential residents.

I always hoped that Peterborough would be different than other Ontario communities that put growth before planning. We aren’t. We haven’t.

And we’ll feel the consequences. Sooner rather than later.

Right now, the future of Peterborough — including the fate of East City — rests with our current council. We have passionate progressive leaders. We need planning policies that reflect that.

But they need to act. And they need to act now.

Before it is just East City that is lost.

On Saturday morning (June 22), Kawartha Land Trust (KLT) officially opened the Cation Wildlife Preserve near Coboconk to the public — and received $215,000 in funding from the federal government to support its work in protecting the preserve.

Peterborough-Kawartha MP Maryam Monsef, who attended the grand opening celebration along with Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MP Jamie Schmale, made the funding announcement on behalf of Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna.

“The protection of the Cation Wildlife Preserve is part of our government’s plan to double the amount of nature protected in our lands and oceans,” Monsef said.

The funding comes from the federal government’s Canada Nature Fund, a $500-million investment to support the protection and conservation of Canada’s ecosystems, landscapes, and biodiversity, including species at risk. Federal contributions are matched by philanthropic foundations, corporations, not-for-profits, provinces, territories, and other partners, raising up to $1 billion for conservation initiatives.

The 669-acre Cation Wildlife Preserve is located on French Settlement Road north of Indian Point Provincial Park on Balsam Lake, around 45 kilometres north of Lindsay. The property wsa donated to KLT by David and Sharon Cation, who wanted to ensure the property remains protected in perpetuity.

The preserve includes marked trails for passive recreational use by the public, including hiking, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing. The official opening included guided walks of the trails on the property.

“We are grateful for the federal government’s contribution to support the protection of the Cation Wildlife Preserve,” said KLT development manager Tara King. “And also Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Ecological Gift program that provides tax incentives to land owners to protect private lands in perpetuity.”

King went on to describe some of the features of the protected property.

“This landscape is vibrant and so full of life. A trail system passes through the grasslands and meadows that are filled with different butterflies and moths. The air is filled with the songs of different grassland bird species including eastern towhees, American goldfinches, and field sparrows that are foraging through the shrubs and trees.”

The Cation Wildlife Preserve is in a natural conservation corridor that sits right in the middle of several important protected areas, including Balsam Lake, Indian Point, and Queen Elizabeth Wildlands Provincial Parks, as well as the Altberg Wildlife Sanctuary Nature Reserve and the Carl Sedore Wildlife Management Area.

KLT currently protects 17 properties totalling 4,101 acres, and assists in the management of five additional properties.

“Canadians like the leaders at Kawartha Land Trust asked our government to introduce a program to incentivize more conservation,” Monsef said. “We listened. Working together, we will ensure the wealth of our region is protected for our kids and grandkids.”