It was a week of back-to-back meetings at Guelph City Council, and for scheduling reasons we’ve even squeezed in a third that was technically last week. First, we will catch up on a mostly in-camera meeting, and then get into the latest planning matters that came up for council consideration. Last, we catch-up on the report to council about the progress of the City’s Strategic Planning initiatives. Let’s recap…. Continue reading “This Week at Council: Planning and Strategic Planning Matters”
Future Ready? I guess we’re going to find out! You can click here for the amended agenda from City Hall, and you can click here for the Politico preview. For the complete blow-by-blow of today’s council meeting, you can follow along during the meeting on Blue Sky or recap the complete thread after the meeting below. You can also watch the City’s own live-stream of the meeting here. Continue reading “RECAP: City Council Meeting for July 16, 2025”
Remember the Strategic Plan? You should because every report that comes to council details how it aligns with the Strategic Plan, but since you sometimes can’t see the forest for the trees, council meets once a year to get an update about how well (or how poorly) the City is meeting its goals when it comes to the four pillars of the Strategic Plan. This is that meeting, the real State of the City if you will… Continue reading “City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the July 16, 2025 Meeting?”
One last ride before summer vacation for the local Board of Health! At the June meeting, there were a number of information reports concerning the inspection of food vendors and childhood health programs, and there was also some discussion about the impacts from the closure of the consumption and treatment site in April. So we heard about all that, plus there was some actual good news on the measles front if you want to check out the recap below. Continue reading “RECAP: Board of Health Talks Inspections and CTS Closure Impacts”
Data is key to guiding health policy, and health units collect a lot of it, but formatting it, organizing it, and looking for patterns in it can be time consuming, meaning that you’re doing a lot of labour that has nothing to do with creating the actual health policy or solving a public health issue. If you’re thinking to yourself that this sounds like an ideal solution for artificial intelligence, you’re right! Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #473 – Can A.I. Make Public Health Better? (feat. Michael Whyte and Justin Angevaare)”
It’s one last ride for the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health before they take their usual summer break, but despite the pending time off this is going to be an unusually laidback agenda. There are some pretty important updates though about the loss of harm reduction services downtown, and the annual community report about the overall work of the unit, but to learn more about the agenda, scroll through the preview below. Continue reading “MEETING PREVIEW: Board of Health Meeting for June 4, 2025”
There was a lot going on at the Board of Health for this month’s meeting, but the thing probably everyone came to hear about was this question: What the heck is going on with measles? Although there was a lot of discussion about various Public Health programs, what you probably heard about from this meeting is the news that the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph region is now an at-risk area for measles transmission. Let’s get into it! Continue reading “RECAP: Board of Health Hears Area is Now Risk Area for Measles”
This meeting of the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health will cover a lot of administrative ground. The board will get reports about the year-end financials, how their using new tech tools, and some quarterly and annual updates. Also, we will hear about the still relevant struggle to keep cigarettes and their modern equivalent out of the hands of youth, not to mention some of the other health issues youth are facing. Let’s preview! Continue reading “MEETING PREVIEW: Board of Health Meeting for May 7, 2025”
Maybe you don’t remember, or want to remember, but it was this time five years ago that the world closed down as COVID-19 became so virulent that it required us to be sequestered for months or else keep six feet apart while wearing a mask or other PPE. Many of us have memory-holed those events, some have re-written it as an overreaction or, even worse than that, a conspiracy, but perhaps the time has come to face our trauma about the pandemic. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #462 – Has It Really Been Five Years? (feat. Dr. Nicola Mercer)”
Given the news earlier this week that a measles cases was detetected in Guelph, it should come as no surprise that this month’s Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health meeting kicked off with a discussion about the dangers of… drinking! No, wait, that was later in the meeting. Yes, the Board heard about the dangers of measles in our community and being unvaccinated, and the dangers of increased access to alcohol. Continue reading “RECAP: Board of Health Talks About Measles and Drinking (Not Together)”
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