While there remains more than enough room for love and compassion at 385 Lansdowne Street East, the 6,200-square-foot building is hard pressed to serve the ever-increasing demand for the services offered by the Peterborough Humane Society.

Clearly a solution is needed and — as revealed at an event on Wednesday afternoon (December 20) at the society’s shelter — a solution is indeed on the horizon, in the form of a state-of-the-art animal care centre to be built on a 20-acre site at 1999 Technology Drive.

“This building has served the community very, very well but unfortunately it can’t continue to keep up with the trends of the advancements in animal welfare,” says former society executive director Andrew Fraser.

“This building is very compact in its design and is lacking in terms of what it allows us to do. We do good work with the resources that are available to us, but it’s about health and wellness. Not just for our animals, who are so vulnerable and in need, but also for our staff and our volunteers, and their being comfortable and happy and engaged on a day-to-day basis — in an environment that’s very green with a lot of beautiful architecture and a lot of beautiful natural light.”

Simply put, the current facility (built in 1956 as a dog pound) can’t continue to support the demands of caring for the some 2,000 lost, injured, abandoned, and abused animals that come through the doors annually.

A quick tour of the Lansdowne Street building for the benefit of Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal provided clear evidence of that, with virtually every available space occupied.

“When it was constructed, it was to serve certain functions,” Leal says. “They do a remarkable job with the space they have, but they’re dealing with a very confined space while fulfilling so many functions.”

Leal says he will investigate what opportunities there are for the Ontario government to help with the estimated $10 million cost of the new facility.

Designed by Peterborough-based Lett Architects, the planned 24,360-square-foot facility — four times the size of the current building — will feature a number of innovative features including, but not limited to: an aqua therapy pool and underwater treadmill for dog rehabilitation; a family living room to help dogs acclimatize to living in a home environment; and both indoor and outdoor off-leash areas.

The facility will actually be home to three separate animal welfare programs: the Peterborough Humane Society Shelter, Adoption, and Education Centre; a high-volume and low-cost spay-and-neuter clinic; and the first-ever Ontario SPCA Dog Rehabilitation Centre.

“The new centre is going to represent the best in animal welfare in terms of education and programming and essentially opening our doors to the community, be it rescue groups or like-minded affiliates like Trent University or Fleming College,” Fraser explains. “All of these folks are going to be able to utilize the state of the art facility for education-based animal-oriented programming.

“As well, the dog rehabilitation centre addresses a major gap in animal welfare in Ontario and beyond our borders. We’ve gotten really good at helping with the physical ailments and challenges that dogs come into our centre with; what this centre represents is a specific focus on mental and emotional behaviour rehabilitation. Animals are coming in abused and neglected.

“It really represents the pendulum swinging in a positive direction; a recognition that these animals deserve more. It’s very unique. It would be 100 percent fair to say this centre represents a beacon of hope for animal welfare in the province, within Canada and certainly beyond our borders.”

But that “beacon of hope” doesn’t come cheap. To that end, the society will launch a public fundraising campaign in early 2018 with the goal of raising close to $4 million.

While that will present a challenge, a good portion of the remainder of the total cost has already been secured: the Ontario SPCA has committed $2 million to the project while the City of Peterborough is in for $1.83 million.

As well, the society estimates the sale of the current building will bring in another $1.3 million, with close to $1.5 million alos coming in the form of grants, bequests, and gifts in kind.

“We’ve sort of been in the quiet phase,” says Chris White, a member of the society’s board and fundraising campaign chair. “It’s really about getting out there and telling community we need its support to make this happen. We’ve been very diligent in our planning to bring it to where it is to date. We expect to make some announcements at the Furball Gala in February.

“Animal welfare is starting to attract a lot of different people, not just people who got into it at an early age. People are really in it now for the cause, so we know there’s an interest.”

VIDEO: Because Animals Deserve More

While there isn’t a firm opening date for the new facility, Fraser hopes and expects ground will be broken this coming spring or early summer. With a time frame of 12 to 18 months for construction, that would bring the opening to summer of 2019, or fall of that same year at the latest.

The increased services that will be offered at the new facility will also create additional jobs. Fraser says the current full-time staff complement will grow to about 45.

“This is a team of passionate and compassionate animal welfare individuals who love and care and tend to this population of animals as much as they would their own animals at home,” Fraser notes. “To see what’s on the near horizon is buoying our spirits and giving us hope, in terms of what will evolve and grow when the new centre becomes fully operational.”

For updates and to make a donation, visit peterboroughhumanesociety.ca/new-animal-care-centre/.

Loblaw is offering a $25 gift card to customers after revealing on Tuesday (December 19) that it and Weston Bakeries, a subsidiary of Weston Foods, participated in a price-fixing arrangement for bread for more than 14 years.

Parent company George Weston Limited owns both Loblaw Companies Limited and Weston Foods. According to Galen G. Weston, CEO of both companies, senior management become aware in March 2015 of an industry-wide arrangement to coordinate the wholesale and retail prices of some packaged breads, dating back to late 2001.

They notified Canada’s Competition Bureau and were granted immunity in exchange for their cooperation in an investigation under the Competition Act. Loblaw claims the bread-fixing scheme was industry wide and involved other grocery chains.

Court documents show the Competition Bureau’s investigation, which began in August, has included at least seven other companies. In October, the Competition Bureau raided the offices of Loblaw, Sobeys, and Metro, although no charges have yet been laid.

Metro and Sobeys — two of Loblaw’s biggest competitors — have stated they have found no evidence of wrongdoing and are cooperating in the investigation, as is Wal-mart Canada and bakery company Canada Bread.

Loblaw is offering eligible customers, who register online before May 2018 at loblawcard.ca, a $25 gift card that can be used at its grocery stores across Canada.

“Loblaw discovered that Canadians were overcharged for the cost of some packaged bread products in our stores and other grocery stores across Canada,” the website states. “In response, we’re offering eligible customers a $25 Loblaw Card, which can be used to purchase items sold in our grocery stores across Canada.”

Registration will open January 8, 2018, but customers can submit their email address now to be notified when registration is open.

To be eligible for the card, customers will have to declare they are at or above the age of majority and purchased certain packaged bread products at an eligible banner store prior to March 1, 2015.

Loblaw says that customers who redeem the $25 gift card will not have to refrain from seeking settlements in class action lawsuits which have been launched in Quebec and Ontario. The Ontario class action is seeking $1 billion in damages and $100 million in punitive damages.

Some people on social media are suggesting those who can afford it should obtain a gift card and donate it to a local food bank.

Loblaw Companies Limited operates Loblaw stores, Real Canadian Superstore, Independent Grocer, and No Frills. Weston Foods produces several brands of bread, including Wonder, D’Italiano, Country Harvest, ACE Bakery, and more.

Mary and Baby Jesus are back after having been stolen from the front lawn of St. Paul’s United Church in Bancroft.

The Bancroft OPP report the stolen figure was returned earlier today (December 20) to the church, which is located at 1 Hasting St. South.

The figure was stolen from the front lawn of the church overnight on the evening of Saturday, December 9th.

The church now has two figures of Mary and Baby Jesus, as an anonymous donor supplied a new figure to the church on Saturday, December 16th.

While the OPP says it will not be laying any charges in the original theft of the figure, police still wish to speak with the persons involved. Anyone with information about this theft is asked to contact them at 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Earlier today (December 19), Ontario Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca announced this year’s gas tax funding for 105 municipalities across the province.

The gas tax funding is provided to municipalities so they can make major infrastructure upgrades for public transit, buy additional transit vehicles, add more routes, extend hours of service, implement fare strategies, and improve accessibility.

Seven municipalities in the Kawarthas will receive almost $3 million of the $357.2 million in gas tax funding, with the largest amount ($1.7 million) going to the City of Peterborough.

Toronto is receiving the bulk of the gas tax funding at $182 million, followed by Ottawa with $37 million, Mississauga with $18 million, and York Region with $16 million. Brampton, Hamilton, and Waterloo Region, will each receive around $11 million.

Ontario’s gas tax program currently provides municipalities with two cents per litre of provincial gas tax revenues. This will increase to 2.5 cents per litre in 2019-20, three cents in 2020-21, and four cents in 2021-22.

The gas tax increase does not come from an increase in the price paid at the pump by drivers.

Here is the gas tax funding municipalities in the Kawarthas are receiving in 2017-18:

• Bancroft (Hastings Highlands, Highlands East, Wollaston) receives $93,595
• Cobourg receives $200,264
• Kawartha Lakes receives $675,904
• City of Peterborough receives $1,725,994
• County of Peterborough receives $69,303
• Port Hope receives $163,886
• Trent Hills receives $69,321.

More public transit makes it easier for people to travel to and from work, school and appointments, reduces congestion, and lowers air pollution. One bus takes up to 40 vehicles off the road, and keeps 25 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere each year.

For close to 130 years, Peterborough’s Market Hall has been home to a number of tenants, each bringing a wide variety of events and activities to the space below the majestic downtown clock tower.

More recently, however, the historic building has been home to something else; something vital to its continued existence as a premier performance space: stability.

Market Hall Performing Arts Centre Inc. was born in early 1998, the result of a determined effort to prevent the building at George and Charlotte streets from being converted into a bingo hall.

On January 12, 2018, Lights Up! will celebrate the 20th anniversary of that new birth, bringing together key players, past and present, to share memories and toast the possibilities of the future. Tickets to the 8 p.m. event cost $20 — $25 for cabaret table seating — at the Market Hall box office, online at wmarkethall.org, or by phone 705-749-1146 to reserve.

“We’re going to have different performances, everything from circus arts to theatre to music and dance,” says Market Hall general manager Chad Hogan, adding, “It’ll be fun and informal. There will be cake and champagne, but it’s certainly not a black tie event.”

Mary Kate Edwards, Carried Away, Kate Story and Ryan Kerr, Mysterious Entity, Peterborough Academy Of Circus Arts, and Dr. Tom Phillips are some of the musicians, theatre performers, and speakers who will be joining the celebration.

Among those front-and-centre will be Charlie Werger, not only in his capacity as a current Market Hall board member but as a leading figure with Friends of Market Hall, a small but determined group that formed in 1997 to save the building from a bingo fate and that laid down the foundation for an incorporated non-profit entity to oversee and manage the space.

“Artspace had left (Market Hall) in the mid 1990s and then Arbor Theatre took over but it left in 1997,” recalls Werger.

“The owners of Peterborough Square proposed to make it a downtown bingo hall. That’s when my wife (Jane) and I jumped in along with (Public Energy founder) Bill Kimball.

“We had seen it over the years as a performance space. It was getting run down but it was still a beautiful space. I felt they were going to fill it in with a bingo hall, let it deteriorate and then say ‘Well, it’s too expensive to fix, so let’s demolish it.'”

After Friends of Market Hall secured the go-ahead from the downtown mall’s owner to proceed with its plan to assume the space and make a go of it, events were staged beginning in the fall of 1997. In addition, a board was formed to oversee the venture and, in early 1998, incorporation was secured.

“I remember some city councillors saying ‘We really think you’re not going to last more than a year … arts people don’t know how to run a business but go ahead, give it a shot.’ Here we are, 20 years later, doing really well.”

At the same time Friends of Market Hall formed, Professor Tom Symons — inaugural Trent University president and past chair of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada — founded and headed the Save The Market Hall Campaign. That effort raised money for the City to acquire the building and restore the structure’s exterior façade.

In the fall of 2015, Werger, then board chair, reached out to Hogan, offering him the Market Hall general manager position, unfilled since Karen August’s 2012 departure.

“Anybody who asks me if I like my job, I say ‘No, I don’t … I love it,” says Hogan.

“I get to be around some of the best live music in the country on a daily basis. What’s not to love? And in one of the most beautiful venues of its size. It’s virtually unheard of for touring acts not to comment on how amazing the room is. That’s something I don’t take for granted.”

Both Hogan and Werger agree the timing of the anniversary celebration couldn’t be better in light of the past year, which saw two longtime downtown live music venues — The Pig’s Ear and The Spill — close their doors.

“I hope that people see this (milestone) as good news,” says Hogan.

“We had our largest growth rate in our organization’s history over the last year, so we are definitely growing and offering more programming. We’re not slowing down. If anything, we’re taking more on. We’re trying all the time to make ourselves more visible. That’s always a challenge on a shoestring marketing budget. We’ve ramped our efforts over the last couple of years. From street level, we were quite hidden in place for a couple of years.

“The organization started with people coming together to protect it from becoming a bingo hall. Thank goodness they were successful. Look at what it has become. We have an absolutely insane amount of talent scheduled — some announced, some not announced. It’s going to easily be our busiest spring in the organization’s history.”

And soon, adds Hogan, the clock tower which crowns Market Hall will be illuminated, much the same as Peterborough City Hall is.

Looking ahead, Werger says challenges remain — operating costs aren’t going down, for example — and that makes for “a tough go” but adds there is reason for optimism.

“For so many years, we were in the red and then in the black and then in the red. It feels really good now that it seems we’ve leveled off. We’re not going up and down. We’ve been working so hard. People have to realize that and keep supporting us. It’s a tenuous thing.”

“This (Market Hall) has been a big part of my life for the last 20 years. I want to see all those people that have been part of it. I really hope they have the opportunity to stop by (on January 12).”

Those who can’t make it, adds Werger, are urged to share their favourite Market Hall memory from the last 20 years, in 100 words or less, and email it to markethallmemories@gmail.com for inclusion at the anniversary celebration.

Those who do attend will gather in a building that was designed by architect John Belcher and cost $11,000 to construct. When it opened in 1890, managed by the City, the second floor housed an indoor market while the ground floor was comprised of retail stores.

Come 1950, the market was gone, a gymnasium in its place. Some 25 years later, the City sold the building to the owners of Peterborough Square.

In 1984, a major capital project saw the gymnasium converted into a performing space operated initially by Artspace and later Arbor Theatre.

There things sat until 1997 when the bingo hall “threat” spurred the small but determined group to take action and preserve the hall as performing arts space.

Thanks both to them and to Chad Hogan and his team at the Market Hall, the community of Peterborough has a chance to celebrate 20 years of Market Hall Performing Arts Centre on January 12, 2018.

All photos courtesy of Market Hall Performing Arts Centre.