Peterborough Blogs
Peterborough Museum & Archives Tourism Named Award Finalist For Tourism
/The Peterborough Museum & Archives (PMA) is a finalist in the “Tourism” category for the 2023 Business Excellence Awards, organized annually through the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce announced on Friday.
File Photo.
The Business Excellence Awards promote the advancement of responsible business leadership and prosperity within the community in categories such as: Entrepreneurial Spirit, Local Focus, and Green Initiatives.
The Tourism category recognizes organizations with a demonstrated commitment to excellence in attracting tourists to the Peterborough and Kawarthas area according to The City of Peterborough. Considerations include guest services, marketing and unique promotions, quality of facilities, signage, and staff and volunteer knowledge.
“There are many reasons why the Peterborough Museum & Archives is worthy of this distinction,” says Dustin McIlwain, PMC visitor experience coordinator. “Naturally, tourists to the area might want to learn more about the place they are visiting, and the PMA is a great place to acquire those stories. However, the PMA takes it a step further by offering interesting programming and events, engaging exhibitions and gallery spaces that are welcoming to all.”
The PMA’s current exhibition, “To Honour and Respect: Gifts from the Michi Saagiig Women to the Prince of Wales, 1860” has been a significant attraction from a tourism perspective according to McIlwain.
“Extensive work went into creating this important exhibition, including contributions from the six Mississauga Nations, the Royal Collection Trust in England, and the Department of Canadian Heritage to name a few,” he said. “Together, we’re reconnecting a piece of tangible cultural heritage to the descendants of those who created them. It has produced multiple opportunities for learning and relationship-building which will have a positive impact on our community long after the exhibition comes to end. For now, we will continue to welcome visitors from near and far to see these gifts.”
The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony scheduled for Oct. 18 at The Venue.
Admission to the Peterborough Museum & Archives is by donation.
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Campbellford Memorial Hospital To Celebrate 70th Anniversary With Parking Lot BBQ Lunch
/Campbellford Memorial Hospital is celebrating its 70th-anniversary celebration with food, games, activities for children, special guests and more at their main parking lot on Aug. 26.
The hospital was established in 1953. They provide acute care services including a Special Care Unit, Endoscopy Surgical Suite, Diagnostic Imaging Department, Laboratory, numerous Out-Patient Clinics, 24/7 Emergency Department and numerous community programs including Mental Health, GAIN, and Supportive Housing. File photo.
The anniversary festivities run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the main parking lot at the hospital. All are invited to join the celebration.
Highlights of the event include:
BBQ lunch, cake, cotton candy and more.
Exciting games and activities for children.
Speeches reflecting on the hospital's history and the contributions of staff, volunteers and community members.
Sneak peek at some of future redevelopment plans.
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Peterborough Lakers Fall Behind In MSL Final Series With 11-6 Loss to Six Nations Chiefs At Home
/The Drive for Five gets a little harder to reach as the Peterborough Lakers find themselves in a 2-0 series deficit after losing to the Six Nations Chiefs 11-6 at the Peterborough Memorial Centre on Thursday night.
Photo courtesy of the Peterborough lakers.
Six Nations came into town and made a statement early. They scored the first three goals of the period in 3:01 thanks to Ben McIntosh, Liam Leclair, and Larson Sundown.
It took the powerplay to get Peterborough on the board as Eli McLaughlin scored his team-leading 13th goal of the playoffs to make it a 3-1 game.
The teams kept trading goals until the end of the period including Taite Cattoni’s fifth of the playoffs for the Lakers as Peterborough found themselves trailing 5-2 after the first.
The second period saw even scoring from both sides with Six Nations striking first with a pair of goals from Brendan Bomberry on the power play and Eric Fannell.
Peterborough scored a pair of goals as Kiel Matisz tried to turn the momentum with a shorthanded goal. Cattoni got his second goal of the game and the lead margin remained the same with three at the end of the period, 7-4.
The Lakers were first to strike in the third period as Thomas Hoggarth opened things up less than five minutes into the frame. Six Nations kept matching goals with Peterborough and easily kept up.
The period’s first four goals were alternated between teams. However, after Six Nations scored their second goal of the period, they ran away with the game, scoring another pair of goals including a power play goal from league MVP Lyle Thompson.
The Chiefs walked out of Peterborough with an 11-6 win and extend their series lead 2-0 in a best-of-seven. This is a familiar position the Lakers have found themselves in at the 2019 MSL finals and last year’s Mann Cup championship.
“Nobody wants to see us win a fifth Mann Cup,” said Cattoni. “This is a veteran group. We’ve won four Mann Cups. We were down 2-0 in the Mann Cup last year. We have complete belief that we can get back again.”
The Lakers are going to try and avoid a three-game series deficit as they head to the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena for Game Three on Monday.
Voice of Business: What do Low Housing Starts Mean?
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This week’s Voice is Business is a guest column from the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Home Builders Association (PKHBA)
Housing starts are an indicator of growth and prosperity in a community. A housing start is a foundation poured at the beginning of the construction period. Starts are measured per dwelling unit, so a 3-floor apartment building with 12 units would be recorded as 12 starts and a single-family home is one start. A house or apartment building could take six to 18 months to build. Once it is move-in ready, it is recorded as a New Home Completion.
Starts were low in 2022, with only 198 starts in the City of Peterborough and 155 starts in the County of Peterborough. However, from January to June 2023, the City and County of Peterborough had 70 starts. This number is alarmingly low for our population of over 130,000. Furthermore, the Ontario Provincial government has set a target of 9,300 new homes to be built from 2021-2031 in the City & County of Peterborough. So far, there have been 423 of those homes built.
While these numbers are cyclical and the causal factors behind what makes starts in any one year, or series of years, higher or lower are complex and multi-faceted, PKHBA sees two key factors responsible for the unusually low starts.
The first is economic circumstances. These include the current high-interest rates and subsequently low affordability, as well as a poor economic outlook, which are influencing buyers’ behaviours and developers' decisions about future projects.
The second is extremely prolonged delays within the development approval process portion of a housing project’s life span.
In regards to the macro-economic environment, Canada has just undergone an unprecedented interest rate hiking cycle which saw the cost of borrowing money go from nearly 1%, all the way up to around 6 per cent. This has had a massive effect on not only new home buyers’ purchasing power but also the sentiment for the economic forecast.
Such an environment bakes a mentality of uncertainty into the market, where buyers are scared to purchase a home not only because they are uncertain what their monthly cost of ownership will be on a go-forward basis, but also for fear that prices may see a further decline.
Subsequently, developers lose confidence in starting new projects. Whether such projects are as small as a single speculative residential home, or a 30+ unit condo development, not only are their costs of completing and holding this project uncertain, but also the timeline they may have to hold it for, and the price they may ultimately receive for the product is uncertain as the pricing trend over the last 12 months has been negative.
In concert, there is a situation where buyers are hesitant to buy, and builders can become hesitant to build.
And yet, most other mid-sized cities in the province are subjected to the same economic circumstances and are outperforming Peterborough in terms of new housing starts by a great margin.
Comparing the City & County of Peterborough (CMA) to neighbouring communities of similar size, the housing starts are low. The City of Kawartha Lakes outperformed Peterborough in 2022 with 563 starts compared to Peterborough CMA’s 353 starts. In 2023 Kawartha Lakes continues this strong trend with 312 starts in the first half of the year compared to Peterborough CMA’s 70.
More examples would be from Belleville which has a population of just over 110,000 and had 192 starts so far in 2023, Kingston has a population of 172,500 and had 318 starts, and Guelph has a population of 165,500 and had 774 starts so far in 2023.
Why are these other cities building while the Peterborough area is not?
We believe the answer lies in the compounding effect of many years of development application review and approval delays. Builders have little incentive to lower their prices in our current environment to sell off products on their remaining available lots; not only because there is little competition forcing them to do so, but also because they will have nowhere to go next, no next development to put their construction machine to work on.
Additionally, the unnecessarily lengthy and complicated process of getting approvals for large development projects has reduced competitiveness in our area, as developers and builders opt to focus their efforts elsewhere. The City of Kawartha Lakes has seen many new developers begin large projects over the past few years, resulting in increased housing starts in 2022 & 2023. Kawartha Lakes Council made economic development a priority in 2016 as part of its new Strategic Plan.
These low housing start numbers in Peterborough all lead to lower numbers of housing units available, feeding the housing crisis and housing affordability crisis.
However, PKHBA feels a strong resolve in working towards solving these issues because as the statistics make clear, the need for change is urgent.
Content provided by the Peterborough and the Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce.
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Stabbing Incident Results In Man Taken Into Custody; Victim Suffered Non-Life-Threatening Injuries
/One man is in custody after an alleged stabbing incident at a residence on Thursday morning.
At roughly 8:07 a.m., officers were called to the Sherbrooke Street and Park Place area. They learned upon arrival that one man suffered a non-life-threatening stab wound. He was taken to Peterborough Regional Health Centre, was treated and released.
A member of the K9 unit was called in and successfully tracked a man in the area of Park Street and Parnell Street and took him into custody.
The investigation is ongoing and the police have no further details at this time according to a press release.
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Lang Pioneer Village to Hold Corn Roast On Aug. 27.
/Join the harvest season as the Corn Roast at Lang Pioneer Village Museum is happening on Aug. 27 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Lang Pioneer Village.
The family-friendly day has historic demonstrations, live music, and plenty of fire-cooked corn. Tour with a free horse-drawn wagon ride and tour the historic village.
The village will teach visitors how corn was used back then with examples such as corn bread, popcorn, dried corn, corn soups, and corn relish in the Fitzpatrick House, and sample some Johnny cake with maple syrup in the Milburn House.
The village will have demonstrations including threshing, bagging, fanning mill and corn grinding.
Traditional music is being performed by Lotus and Luke from the Weaver Shop porch.
A corn-on-the-cob eating contest taking place on the Village Green. Corn crafts and corn hole by the Ayotte Cabin are some activities that will be run.
Admission is $15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors (60+), $7 for youths (ages 5-14) and free for children under five. Family admission is also available for $40 and includes two adults and up to four youths (ages 5-14). Visitors may purchase admission in advance via the Museum’s online shop but advance purchase is not required.
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Heritage Park Officially Opens to the Public In Peterborough's North End
/The City of Peterborough and its families rejoiced as they celebrated the official opening of Heritage Park on Thursday at 560 Settlers Ridge on Thursday afternoon.
One-year-old Cooper Adams (left) is enjoying the swings with his father James (right) the opening day of Heritage Park at 560 Settlers Ridge. Photo by David Tuan Bui.
The park is located at 560 Settlers Ridge and includes a playground with swings, a basketball half-court, seating areas, a walking trail and asphalt walkways.
“Neighbourhood parks contribute to healthy, thriving neighbourhoods. The opening of this park will help meet the recreational and wellbeing needs of the people in the community,” said Councillor Dave Haacke.
The project was supported through the City’s Parkland Development Assistance Program, Tollington Fund and Accessibility Fund according to the City of Peterborough.
“The new playground equipment, basketball half court and accessible features throughout the park will ensure that families will continue to enjoy the park for years to come,” said Councillor Andrew Beamer."
“Park by park, we are working to improve outdoor spaces for Peterborough residents of all ages,” said Councillor Lesley Parnell. “Having good park amenities enhances the quality of life for everyone from babies in strollers, to school-aged kids, right through to seniors.”
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Junior Achievement Receives $172,500 As Skills Development Fund From the Provincial Government
/The Ontario government has invested $172,500.00 in Junior Achievement of Northern and Eastern Ontario (JA NEO) to help students engage with information and pilot programs to cultivate interest and education in skilled trades at the Peterborough Truss & Floor on Thursday morning.
Youth under the JA Neo program developed their own business ‘Fresh Picked Feats’ that sells locally-grown vegetables and had their products showcased during the press conference. Photo by David Tuan Bui.
