The Guardian (Charlottetown)
P.E.I. PROMENADE
Charlottetown’s two public high school held proms this week as the school year draws to a close. Due to ongoing renovation work at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, Colonel Gray and Charlottetown Rural proms took place at the Eastlink Centre for...
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SPECIAL INVITATIONS
As L.J. Gaudet stood on the podium, the smile on the 10-year-old’s face captured the moment perfectly. It had nothing to do with the colour of ribbons L.J. had won, but – more importantly – about opportunity. “He was some proud,” said L.J.’S mother,...
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JOY UNCONFINED
Children at Sherwood Elementary School in Charlottetown take turns plunging down the new slide on June 12. The school’s inclusive playground was a five-year project and cost $400,000, largely raised by a committee of volunteers. Bethany Robinson,...
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MEET THE VEIN TRAIN
Seeing first-hand how important blood transfusions can be for patients, a group of Queen Elizabeth Hospital employees has made blood donation a regular part of giving back to the community. The group is called the Vein Train. They visit the Canadian...
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Lax border policies fostered one of Canada’s most dangerous gangs
At the immigration hearing for an accused Indian gangster earlier this month, an Edmonton police officer attempted to illustrate the scale of the criminal operation that law enforcement was now dealing with. The hearing concerned Jashandeep Singh, an...
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100 REASONS TO SMILE
P.E.I. Little did two P.E.I. women know when they met 36 years ago the pair would grow to be best friends and celebrate a major milestone together. Helen MacPhail and Gwen Taylor have both just celebrated their 100th birthdays. Both women marked the...
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BECOMING UNPLUGGED
A P.E.I. mother noticed the negative changes in her young daughter immediately. Jennifer Gill’s daughter was 14 years old when she got her first smartphone. “She spent hours online scrolling, and she was influenced by everybody on Instagram and...
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MAJOR PET PROJECT
The P.E.I. Humane Society is in the process of doubling in size as staff carry out the move from the former shelter building into a new one on the same property. “It’s incredibly gratifying, if I’m being honest with you,” Ashley Travis, development...
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‘THE BEATING HEART OF THE CAMPUS’
“The space is out of date,” university librarian Svetlana Kochkina said as she toured The Guardian around UPEI’S Robertson Library recently. The 52-year-old building is in the beginning stages of a significant renovation project. The renovation will...
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HOUSING PRICES WOULD BE 10% LOWER IF CANADA HAD KEPT PACE WITH U.S.: CMHC
Canada’s housing stock would be about 30 per cent larger and prices 10 per cent lower if this country’s building industry had been as responsive to demand as its American counterpart over the last couple of decades, says a new report from the federal...
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PUCKS TO PICKLEBALL
Cody Hodgson said when he was picked 10th overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2008 NHL draft, he could never have guessed he would some day own a professional pickleball team. Hodgson, a co-owner of the York Yeti, will bring the first-ever...
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‘LARGER THAN LIFE’
Forbie Kennedy was remembered Tuesday as a man who had a passion for hockey and for his family. The Dorchester, N.B., born former NHL player was celebrated with a funeral at Eastlink Centre in Charlottetown. “How fitting is it that we celebrate...
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BRINGING THE WORLD CUP TO P.E.I.
Apiece of one of the world’s biggest sporting events is coming to Charlottetown. On June 15, Confederation Landing Park will be transformed as the City of Charlottetown works with soccer’s governing body FIFA on the event called Canada Celebrates,...
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TIME TO REFLECT
Dave Cheverie, an employee with the P.E.I. government’s Department of Transportation, Infrastructure and Energy, was part of a highway crew putting down magnetic markers on the Trans-canada Highway near Wood Islands in late May. Cheverie said the...
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FEDERAL MINISTER POURS MORE COLD WATER ON N.B.’S LNG IDEA
Canada has reached a landmark deal to export liquefied natural gas to Germany — but it’s from the Pacific coast. And federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson has poured more cold water on the possibility of an East Coast export terminal, even as New...
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HEART-FELT PLEA
After a 20-month wait at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, nine-year-old Maverick Bishop is back home in Stratford, P.E.I., with a transplanted heart. His parents, Marie-Eve Roy, left, and Woodrow Bishop, are appealing to the public to have...
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FINDING A FIX
David Macmillan, volunteer with Charlottetown’s Fix-it Fair, left, attempts to fix a microwave belonging to Ray Dong. While the microwave could not be fixed, Dong said he still left happy knowing what was wrong with it. The fair, which has been growing...
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REMEMBERING FORBIE
For Scott Mccabe – and many others – Forbie Kennedy was much more than just a hockey coach. Mccabe played five years with the Kennedy-coached Charlottetown Abbies junior A team from 1986 to 1991. "As a young kid in the ’80s starting out at 16 years...
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ONE LAST TRIP
WOOD ISLANDS, P.E.I. A Wood Islands woman’s dying wish is to see the icebergs in Newfoundland and Labrador. But time is of the essence. Bev Stewart has been diagnosed with a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), called primary lateral...
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CELEBRATING JOY
There’s a music festival happening in P.E.I. this week, but the setting is not a typical performance venue and some of the acts don’t have far to travel to take the stage. Whisperwood Villa, a Charlottetown seniors’ home, is being turned into a concert...
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POLITICIANS SEEK TO EASE FOOD COSTS, BUT ARE BATTLING MARKET FORCES
OTTAWA Call it the coriander conundrum. Like with parsley, carrots, dill and most other members of the apiaceae family of edible plants, the retail price of coriander has been growing like a weed. While the prices of many items on grocery store...
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How Mars gave a NASA spacecraft a gravitational boost
Launched on Oct. 13, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft got a boost on its way to the similarly-named asteroid 16 Psyche. The spacecraft recently used the planet Mars to get a gravitational boost on its three-year journey to the asteroid. Gravitational boosts...
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TASTES OF THE WORLD SETTLES IN NEW HOME
Awell-travelled man who has worked for some Michelin-star chefs says he was looking for years for a place to settle and cook before finding the perfect setting in P.E.I. Nishanth Dominic, who has just opened Island Chef on Queen Street in downtown...
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LEADING WOMEN OF THE WORLD
A P.E.I. woman had no idea when she was picking potatoes on the family farm as a youngster that she would eventually rise to become one of the most influential rural women’s voices in the world. Marie Kenny was elected the world president of the...
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LOOKING FOR A TEAM TO STEP UP
With the closure of the P.E.I. Alliance for Mental Well-being, several programs are in limbo. Health Minister Cory Deagle recently announced the closure of the organization during question period in the legislature, saying the alliance was top heavy...
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Finding relief from the pain
A 56-year-old Morell woman says the health-care team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown saved her life. Kathy Vail was an educational assistant prepping a student for transportation on a school bus more than seven years ago when she...
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BRANCHING OUT
Emily Bender sits inside a paper tree at The Chocolate Chicken in downtown Charlottetown, a bookstore and creative space she helps run with her mother, Melissa Bender, while sharing the legacy of her grandmother, children’s author and illustrator...
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UNIVERSITY PREP
Daisy Nguyen, from left, Gia Han Truong and Chieu Ngoc Trinh Bui touch up their makeup before heading out for UPEI’S convocation ceremony Wednesday for business and sustainable design engineering graduates. More than 1,300 students are graduating...
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Oyster supports get mixed reaction
For the second spring in a row, Islanders in the oyster industry are battling high oyster mortality rates, with many fearing financial losses and what the future holds. As of mid-may, both the provincial and federal governments have announced...
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‘It was not built with kids in mind’
Health P.E.I. is moving ahead with plans to relocate the province’s only unit dedicated to providing psychiatric care to children and youth to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital despite months of objections from clinicians. P.E.I.’S child and youth...
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EMERGENCY INTERVENTION
For many Islanders, pets are part of the family. But when a disaster happens, firefighters may not be equipped to take care of animals like cats or dogs. Charlottetown’s fire department is starting to change that, with a volunteer-led pilot program...
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SUPREME COURT SET TO WEIGH IN ON HUGE INDIGENOUS TITLE CLAIM
The clock began ticking April 7 on what could be one of the most important Supreme Court of Canada cases in New Brunswick’s history. That’s the date the country’s top court told several law firms involved in the Wolastoqey Nation’s landmark title...
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THANKS TO MOM
There’s an old saying in sports that mothers are the real MVPs. There is something special about the relationship between athletes and mothers. No one can relate and understand that more than Summerside D. Alex MacDonald Ford Western Capitals forward...
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CELEBRATING HERITAGE
Hundreds of people gathered at UPEI to celebrate the start of Asian Heritage Month. The celebration, now in its fourth year, brought together people living in P.E.I. who are from communities from across Asia, with performances, music, traditional...
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DOCTORS LOSING TRUST IN ISLAND GOVERNMENT
The former president of the Canadian Medical Association says P.E.I. physicians have lost trust in the government. Dr. Alika Lafontaine was the keynote speaker Monday at the Canadian Society of Physician Recruiters conference in...
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EQUAL PARTNERSHIP
There’s a new partner at the disaster response planning table in P.E.I. Abegweit First Nation is taking on a formal role in the province’s emergency measures system. Abegweit, the province and federal government signed a new 10-year joint EMO...
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ACCESSIBLE TAXI READY TO ROLL
A new on-demand accessible taxi pilot project is being launched in parts of P.E.I. The project is supported by a joint investment of $216,670 from the provincial government, the City of Charlottetown, the Town of Stratford and Cornwall. It will fund a...
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WHY IS WASHINGTON STILL SO ANGRY OVER BANS ON U.S. ALCOHOL?
It has been more than a year since most provinces banned U.S. alcohol from liquor store shelves, but the United States government is still feeling the hangover. Late last month, the issue of U.S. alcohol bans by every province except Alberta and...
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INTO THE WEEDS
P.E.I. A P.E.I. researcher and a biologist have developed a machine that crushes weeds at the Harrington research farm with the ultimate goal to reduce herbicide use on potatoes. Research scientist Andrew McKenzie-Gopsill and his partner, Nicolle...
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MLA PULLS CONFLICT OF INTEREST BILL
A Progressive Conservative backbencher has walked away from a bill he introduced that would have allowed Sidney Macewen, a lobster fisherman and MLA, to serve in cabinet. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Georgetown-pownal MLA Brendan Curran said he...
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P.E.I. FACING MOUNTING FINANCIAL PRESSURES
P.E.I. Across the Island, municipalities of all sizes are experiencing growing populations, rising costs and aging infrastructure. But while they all face similar difficulties, not all have the same resources needed to face them with ease,...
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READY FOR THE SEASON
A couple of well prepared and comfortable onlookers watch as a trap-laden boat heads for the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the lobster grounds along P.E.I.’S north shore on Tuesday. The season got underway a few days late on the north shore because of...
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FEDERAL FUNDING IS CLAWED BACK
Charlottetown is losing $1.26 million in federal funding after it failed to meet part of its commitments. The city signed a deal with the federal government in early 2024 for more than $10 million in funding to improve its housing development...
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MILITARY RECRUITMENT SOARS AFTER PAY RAISES, SOVEREIGNTY THREATS
The Canadian Armed Forces has recorded its highest recruitment levels in over three decades, enrolling 7,310 personnel in the last fiscal year. That’s up 600 new members year-over-year. Officials said the new numbers show strong or stable recruitment...
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DELAYED SEASON
Vessels are lined up at the wharf at Malpeque Harbour where the lobster fishing season, originally set to open today, has been delayed by weather and dredging concerns. Fishing in LFA 24 is now tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, with a conference call...
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FIRST-NAME PHARMACY
The first drugstore at Royalty Crossing in more than 20 years, Pike’s Pharmacy, began operations on April 7 with a grand opening set for later in May. Dan Pike, from Nackawic, N.B., but based in Fredericton, owns three other pharmacies in New...
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CHILLY START TO SEASON
Visiting P.E.I. for their first time, Beth Best, left, and her husband, Brad, from Ukiah, Calif., head back to Victory Cruise Line’s Victory 1, the first cruise ship of the year at Port Charlottetown on a cool morning on April 20. As part of a weeklong...
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FREE BOOK PROGRAM CUT
ATignish mother cannot understand why the P.E.I. government cut funding to a program that provides children with free books. Brenna Cowan said both of her daughters loved the Imagination Library program which sent them a book every month and was an...
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READY TO PLAY
STRATFORD, P.E.I. - Lisa Murphy said her world literally blew up when she started playing pickleball eight years ago. Murphy was on hand April 13 as the Atlantic Pickleball Club in Stratford threw open its doors and gave its members a sneak peek at...
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‘SCENARIOS ARE ALL EITHER BAD OR VERY, VERY BAD’
D.C. Grocery prices are elevated, gas prices are high, job markets are cooling, and U.S. President Donald Trump is sticking to his tariff plans while the world eyes a shaky ceasefire with Iran. The truce between the U.S. and Iran has raised hopes and...
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PAINFUL WAITS
Kali Dawson has a family doctor, unlike tens of thousands of Islanders. But the mother of three says she has still been forced to spend hours in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital emergency department just to access potentially vital care for her...
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A SENSE OF STEWARDSHIP
P.E.I. The principal of Mount Stewart Consolidated School is helping her students understand how they fit in the environment around them. For the past 10 years, Mary Kendrick has invited the nearby Abegweit First Nation to run its Salmon Are Our...
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P.E.I. FORECASTS $410M DEFICIT IN 2026-27 BUDGET
The P.E.I. government has tabled a spring budget that projects a $410-million deficit for the year ahead as Finance Minister Jill Burridge pledged to protect spending on health and education. The expected deficit was smaller than the projected deficit...
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VICTORIA ROW WILL BE READY FOR SUMMER
Victoria Row in Charlottetown will be cleared of construction and open for pedestrians in May. The block on Richmond Street, between Queen and Great George streets, with original architecture from the 1800s, is home to local restaurants, artisan gift...
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P.E.I.’S ANALOGUE SHIFT
Every word you’re about to read was originally typed on an Olivetti Underwood Lettera 3I typewriter. Every interview was taped on a Genexxa Micro-84 micro cassette recorder. And every photograph, taken on a Canon EOS Rebel 2000 with Flic-film Ultrapan...
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FEWER CANADIANS CROSSING BORDER — AND DUTY-FREE SHOPS ARE PAYING
Canadians still have their elbows up when it comes to travelling south of the border, and those fewer trips are having a disastrous effect on a key business: duty-free shopping. Tariff spats, Donald Trump’s “51st state” rhetoric and encouragement by...
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STACKING UP CHEVY’S 2026 CORVETTE ZR1X TO ITS RIVALS
I have an existential question for everyone who loves Corvettes — owners, engineers, hell, Chevrolet itself: what is Corvette’s purpose? I’m not being rhetorical. Who is its intended clientele, and what exactly do they want from their super(-ish) car?...
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PASSPORT PRINTER COMING
Passport requests will no longer have to be sent off P.E.I. after new equipment arrives in the province this fall. Employment and Social Development Canada told The Guardian that it will be installing a passport printer inside the Charlottetown...
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NEW COLLEGE CREATED
The P.E.I. College of Nursing and Midwifery officially launched on April 1, bringing multiple nursing and midwifery professions under one regulatory body. The new college is now responsible for overseeing licensed practical nurses, registered nurses,...
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A NATURAL CAUSE
Anon-profit organization in P.E.I. has just purchased one of its biggest ever acreages of land near Souris. The Island Nature Trust reached an agreement with the landowner to see it protect 219 acres after developers started showing interest on the...
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HILLSBOROUGH BRIDGE WORK WILL MEAN CLOSURES
Drivers can expect delays on the Hillsborough Bridge in May and June as the P.E.I. government carries out repairs on the structure. Tenders are out now and will close on April 8 when a contractor is chosen. Darrell Evans, manager of design and bridge...
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FARMERS MARKET STALLS
The restoration of the Charlottetown Farmers’ Market building on Belvedere Avenue is on hold. The market building, which was significantly damaged by fire on Christmas Day, is on Crown land. Any work to the structure, therefore, is subject to federal...
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COLLECT YOUR EMPTIES
Islanders will begin receiving full refunds on beverage containers starting April 1, as P.E.I. rolls out major changes to its bottle deposit program. The change is part of a shift to a new system known as extended producer responsibility (EPR), which...
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WEIGHING POLICE OFFICER DUTY
Closing arguments in the Tyler Knockwood hearing offered conflicting accounts of the day leading up to Knockwood’s death. Knockwood, a 34-year-old Charlottetown man, was found dead by suicide inside of Province House in January 2023. He had repeated...
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‘POOR JUDGMENT’ SHOWN
Former P.E.I. trade minister Gilles Arsenault has been removed from the Progressive Conservative caucus, pending an investigation by the province’s conflict of interest commissioner, Premier Rob Lantz told reporters on Monday. The move comes after...
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JEWISH LEADERS WARN OF IRAN-INSPIRED TERROR THREAT
The Jewish community throughout North America has faced a shocking 900 per cent rise in antisemitic incidents since 2014, according to the Anti-defamation League data. Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel, synagogues, community centres,...
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LEGISLATURE IN MOURNING
A memorial to Mark McLane, the former minister of health, sits atop his desk in the P.E.I. legislature on Thursday. Each MLA, regardless of party, took a turn sharing stories about McLane, reflecting on his work ethic and his ever-present sense of...
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‘INVESTING IN ISLANDERS’
The Rob Lantz-led government appeared to downplay concerns about largescale public service cuts in its speech from the throne on Wednesday, despite expectations that the province’s deficit will continue to grow. A speech from the throne often outlines...
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‘AWESOME COLLEAGUE, AND AWESOME FRIEND’
Friends, family and colleagues gathered in Charlottetown to honour the life and legacy of Mark Mclane. A funeral was held Tuesday at Belvedere Funeral Home for the late cabinet minister, followed by a public celebration of life at the Delta Hotels...
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P.E.I. SEEKS BATTERY STORAGE OPERATOR
The province is seeking to hire a private operator to establish one or more battery energy storage facilities to help address the capacity shortages of P.E.I.'S electricity grid, according to Premier Rob Lantz. Lantz revealed his government has issued...
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MOVING ON
CORNWALL, P.E.I. — After more than 11 years, a Cornwall councillor has resigned. Elaine Barnes announced her decision on Facebook on March 17, saying she was grateful to her fellow councillors and the town’s dedicated staff. “It has been a pleasure...
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CANADA’S LANGUAGE WATCHDOG TRIPPED OVER A DOG’S TAIL ...
It was not Ai-generated, computer-translated from English or the work of anglophones. The Valentine’s Day message was written by real, live francophones — and, yes, they knew some would read it as a reference to part of the male anatomy. Internal...
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READY FOR RETIREMENT
Freddy Doiron, owner of the By the Bay Family Restaurant in North Rustico, has sold the operation after almost 30 years of feeding customers. “Did I make a million? No, but I made a pretty good decent living and provided a service to the community,”...
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TAKING IN THE TRASH
A unique energy facility is getting a major overhaul in Charlottetown. P.E.I. Energy Systems sits on the Charlottetown shoreline southwest of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Since the 1980s it has provided heating and cooling to buildings throughout...
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GREETINGS ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
Mike Scott has found numerous items washed up along the coast of his home in Scotland, but one from Prince Edward Island stood out. Two weeks ago, Scott was walking his dogs in St. Cyrus, just south of Aberdeen, when he noticed a wine bottle bobbing...
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