Latest news with #UniversityOfGuelph
New York Times
30-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
Quote of the Day: The Toilet That Won the Heart of Japan
'Now it's very much the case that anywhere we go it's like, 'Ugh it's not even heated, what are we doing here?'' RYAN GREGORY, a biology professor at the University of Guelph in Canada, who after a recent visit to Japan changed his views on bidets.
CTV News
20-05-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Grocery price increases outpace overall inflation for third straight month: StatCan
Despite the annual pace of inflation cooling last month, Statistics Canada says consumers continue to pay higher costs for groceries as food prices rose faster in April than they did the previous month. A sign advising that products from the U.S. affected by a tariff will be marked with a symbol at the shelf is seen beside a display of Canadian products in a grocery store in Ottawa, on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang Despite the annual pace of inflation cooling last month, Statistics Canada says shoppers continue to see the cost of groceries rise at a faster rate. The agency reported Tuesday that prices for food purchased from stores increased 3.8 per cent on a year-over-year basis in April, up from a 3.2 per cent year-over-year increase in March. It marked the third straight month that grocery price increases have outpaced the overall inflation rate, which was 1.7 per cent in April. Statistics Canada said items that contributed most to the year-over-year price acceleration included fresh vegetables, for which prices rose 3.7 per cent, fresh or frozen beef at 16.2 per cent growth, and coffee and tea at 13.4 per cent. Prices for food purchased from restaurants also rose at a faster rate in April, increasing 3.6 per cent year-over-year after a 3.2 per cent hike in March. Shoppers feeling the weight of their growing grocery bills have likely noticed it most at the meat counter, said University of Guelph professor and food economist Mike von Massow, noting that beef, in particular, was noticeably more expensive. That's partly because demand for beef is higher at this time of year, as families dust off their barbecues for the summer grilling season, but von Massow said it's mostly the result of recent supply disruptions. 'We had some dry weather in the last few years and lower profitability, so in that case cow herds decrease in size and it takes awhile for those numbers to come back,' von Massow said. 'Cow herds are the factory of beef production. So if you have fewer cows, you have fewer calves. If you have fewer calves, you have less mature beef that is being harvested and processed into beef.' Meanwhile, coffee prices are rising as some producers experience lower yields due to extreme weather or changes in temperature, he said, noting 'coffee is kind of the canary in the coal mine relative to climate change.' 'Coffee is very temperature dependent,' von Massow said. He added that a weak Canadian dollar doesn't make matters better. Coffee is produced elsewhere, meaning a weak loonie make it more expensive to import. It's also a product subject to Canada's retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. While the U.S. doesn't produce a lot of coffee, he said some of the brokers that Canada relies on to buy coffee from are based in that country. 'I expect that Canadians will start buying coffee from other places rather than from the U.S. in order to avoid those tariffs, but that adjustment takes some time,' he said. Von Massow said the effect of the ongoing trade war has been quite limited on Canada's grocery inflation overall so far, but that could start to change in the coming months. Some of Canada's large grocers have warned of looming price hikes due to added costs from U.S.-Canada tariffs. Loblaw Cos. Ltd. chief executive Per Bank said last week that the number of tariff-hit products at the grocery store could soon spike as pre-tariff inventory runs out. Loblaw has been aggressive in marking products on display affected by tariffs, a tally that last week reached over 1,000 items. But Bank said the total will rise to more than 3,000 by next week and could peak at double that number within the next two months. While he said he was pleased that Ottawa has adjusted its counter-tariff policies to limit the charges to finished food products coming from the U.S., Bank said pressures from the trade war still linger. 'While the tariff situation might be improving between the U.S. and other countries, that's not yet the case here in Canada,' he said in a May 14 LinkedIn post. 'In fact, we'll be facing a large wave of tariff-related increases in the weeks ahead.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 20, 2025. Companies in this story: (TSX:L) Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press
CTV News
09-05-2025
- CTV News
Knife used to allegedly threaten University of Guelph employee
A Guelph man was arrested after police said he allegedly pulled a knife on a University of Guelph employee Thursday afternoon. Guelph Police said they were called to an unspecified spot on the university's campus for reports of a suspicious man at around 1:30 p.m. An employee told police she asked a man about the ownership of a bicycle, before he allegedly took out a knife and waved it at her while threatening her. Police said Campus Safety Office members went to the scene and detained the man before police arrived. Staff told police they took a yellow box-cutter and an ice maker away from the man that they believe were stolen recently from a business nearby. Police said after they arrived they arrested the man and took him to a police station, where they said he was not cooperative and was threatening to hurt an officer. A 41-year-old man from Guelph was charged with assault with a weapon, possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose, two counts of uttering threats, theft under $5,000, possessing stolen property and two counts of breaching a probation order.
National Post
08-05-2025
- Health
- National Post
Only 7 in 10 Ontario kids vaccinated against measles, rates falling elsewhere. Here's why
Public confidence in vaccines has dipped since COVID's first surges, the proportion of parents 'really against' routine childhood immunizations has grown and one third of Canadians believe the discredited claim that the measles vaccine causes autism, surveys show. Article content That percolating pushback is contributing to gaps in immunization coverage: only seven out of 10 kids aged seven in Ontario were reported to be fully immunized against measles in the 2023-24 school year. Rates plummeted below 50 per cent in some health units, despite catch-up programs to deal with a backlog of children who missed shots during COVID disruptions. Article content The gaps threaten to widen and feed a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases like the ongoing outbreak of measles, say those who study the phenomenon. Article content Article content But vaccine hesitancy goes beyond autism. The motives of parents opting out are 'often far more complex and nuanced than the pro-side would like to admit,' according to the authors of a recently-published paper on English-speaking Canada's growing anti-vaccine movement. Article content It may make for a quicker and easier narrative to say it's all about misinformation and a notoriously flawed study that was eventually withdrawn, 'and convince people that it was a mistake and that there is nothing to be concerned about,' said co-author and University of Guelph historian Catherine Carstairs. Article content However, 'it's become much grittier and more complicated, and maybe requires different kinds of interventions,' she said. Article content Growing vaccine hesitancy, and outright refusal, is also symbolic of a broader issue, said the University of Alberta's Timothy Caulfield — 'the rise of an anti-science ethos that is impacting society.' Article content The controversies and polarizations surrounding the COVID vaccines also had an ideological spillover effect on vaccines more generally, Caulfield said. In the U.S., political liberals became more positive towards non-COVID shots like MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), influenza and chickenpox while conservatives became more negative. Article content Ontario has now claimed more measles cases since last fall than all of the United States. So far, the majority have been concentrated in specific health units, but measles is so highly infectious it can easily leak out to vulnerable pockets with less-than-optimal vaccination rates. Article content Article content As criticism of Ontario's handling of the outbreak intensifies, Premier Doug Ford Wednesday said getting children vaccinated against measles is a 'no-brainer' and that the province has sufficient supplies of vaccines available. 'I encourage anyone and everyone,' Ford told reporters. 'You need to get your kids vaccinated, because if not it just starts spreading.' Article content 'I'm happy that (local public health units) are able to keep the numbers to 100 to 150 Ontarians that are getting infected on a weekly basis. To me that's tremendous, hard and difficult work,' he told Radio-Canada.
