Ah, city life. Guelph’s municipal leaders recently announced they want to double the city’s so-called tree canopy, or the amount of land covered by trees when viewed from above, to up to 40 per cent of our total space. Right now, we’re at 20 per cent, about on par with most Canadian cities. Mayor...
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The middle-aged lady sitting next to me on the plane leaned over and confessed. “I don’t think women should be boxing. It doesn’t seem right to me,” she said. This was after I’d just told her I had spent the week in Sydney, N. S., covering the Canadian amateur boxing championships for my newspaper,...
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If we could see into the future, how our lives would be different. I would probably never have grown that mullet in Grade 3, for starters. But enough about that. On this day, as another December prepares to fade from view, we’re looking forward, not back. Without further delay, here at my predictions for...
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It’s the kind of story that seems too far-fetched, too ridiculous to be true. Two top executives from the biggest company in the land get so stinko on an overnight flight to Beijing that the pilot has to make an emergency detour hours out of the way just to have them arrested. When the...
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We try to lead good lives. We help old ladies cross the street. We donate to charity and always call our mother on her birthday. So, doesn’t it just seem so terribly unfair when an assassin is hired to kill you, all for a measly $80,000? The Ontario Provincial Police in Wellington County recently...
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Shhhh, use your inside voice. That’s better. Our fair city, it turns out, has a problem with noise. And city hall, like an angry father banging on the bedroom door, looks like it’s finally had it with all the racket. Just this week, two residents told city councillors they need to crack down on...
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At the very least, give them an award for creativity. Guelph residents wrote impassioned letters and made pleas to city council this week voicing their opposition to a proposed condo building at 180 Gordon St., near the Speed River. One man summed it all up by saying the whole project is “downright disrespectful to…...
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Behind all the screaming and shouting over tax breaks for “foreigners” and rising hydro bills, there’s a quiet little proposal that has barely gotten any notice in this election. It’s the Liberal plan to expand the Greenbelt, and if you live in or around Guelph you might want to take a look at it....
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I don’t need to tell you the news from the south has not been good. After a steady stream of stories about the double-dip recession looming in the United States, my friend, Eric, and I decided to do some deep research and go straight into the heart of the beast ourselves. We would travel...
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At least now I know my blood is too thick for the South Pacific. I shouldn’t be surprised – I’m from a part of the world where overcast and 18 C is cause for a day at the beach. Still, it was a shock to my pasty, Maritime-raised body to step off the plane...
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