News

In local news, the County of Prince Edward has provided an update on yesterday’s Marsh Creek contamination incident. A crew has completed its clean-up of the road and catch basins on Picton Main Street where the fuel spill occurred. Containment measures continue to be in place in the Marsh Creek area and the mouth of Picton Harbour.

The Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) remains on site and is currently investigating the cause of the spill. Anyone with information is asked to contact MECP online or calling 1.866.663.8477. You can remain anonymous.
Drinking water supplied by the Picton Water Treatment Plant remains safe for consumption. Monitoring of the water supply will continue throughout the incident response.

The municipality recommends that residents keep their pets away from this area of Marsh Creek in Delhi Park through to the south side of Picton Harbour to just east of the County boat launch.

ELECTIONS

Still on the local scene and just a week into the opening of nominations for next fall’s municipal elections, we already have two candidates seeking election as Mayor. Ernie Margetson and Brad Neiman have put their names forward for consideration. Current Mayor Steve Ferguson had previously decided not to seek a third term in office.

Nominations for Mayor, Counsellors and School Board Trustees is open until August 21st.

JOBS

On the national front, Canada’s unemployment rate rose to a six-month high in April to 6.9 per cent as the economy lost a net of 17,700 jobs in March. Statistics Canada data released today, indicate a continued weakness in the labour market, which has struggled in the face of U.S tariffs and trade uncertainty.

The Stats Can report for April means that Canada has lost jobs in three out of the four months so far this year, showing a rocky start for the labour market in 2026.
The losses were completely concentrated in full-time jobs, which lost a net of 46,700 people, offset only by a gain of 29,000 jobs in the part-time sector.

Average hourly wages of permanent employees, a metric closely tracked by the Bank of Canada to gauge rise in inflation expectations, grew 4.8 per cent ⁠from a year earlier, versus 5.1 per cent in March.

DEFENCE

The Liberal government is signalling its plans to give the newly created Defence Investment Agency (DIA) broad powers to ditch the routine process for the procurement of military equipment, and new authority that will extend into other areas of the economy.

The details are contained in a ways and means motion tabled before the House of Commons last week. The motion is a precursor to the tabling of the actual legislation, which will come at some point in the future.

Some of the changes involve tweaking existing laws such as the Defence Production Act, which has governed military procurement for decades. The new legislation will increase the number of exceptions from 4 to 14, giving the government greater flexibility to bypass a system that has long been criticized as too cumbersome.

The list of allowable exceptions could conceivably help speed along or justify the purchase of Gripen fighters and GlobalEye surveillance planes from Swedish defence giant Saab, which has promised to bring thousands of manufacturing jobs to Canada.
The rules could also potentially be a boost for Canadian defence tech startups, which have long complained it’s easier to sell their products and services to U.S. and allied countries than it is at home.

And finally, if you are a fan of the annual apple blossoms in the County, you may have to wait a little longer this year. We have it on good authority that due to the colder and wetter weather of late, the blossoms are at least a week behind schedule.

Sports

NHL

In the NHL playoffs, the Montreal is the last Canadian team still with a chance to win Lord Stanley’s Cup. Montreal will be looking to even up their Round 2 series in Buffalo against the Sabers. Montreal lost game 1 on Wednesday. The puck drops at 7:00 Game 2.

Montreal will need some better production from their top goal getter. Cole Caufield scored 51 goals in the regular season, but the star sniper remains stuck on just one so far through eight playoff games.

In the other series playing tonight, the Anaheim Ducks return home tied in their round 2 battle with the Vegas Golden Knight. Game 3 in that series starts at 9:30 local time.

Tomorrow night, Minnesota will see if they can turn around their fortunes against Colorado as they head home down 2-0 in that series.

With that oddity that is the NHL playoffs, Carolina can sweep Philadelphia Saturday night if they win game 4 over the Flyers in their own arena. Montreal and Buffalo will play their Game 4 on Tuesday. If that series goes 7 games, The Hurricanes could have a 12 day break before heading to the Eastern Conference finals. The Montreal-Buffalo winner would likely get two days to prepare for that final.

MLB

Over on the ball diamond, the Toronto Blue Jays start a six game- six day home stand with the LA Angeles tonight. On Monday it is the Tampa Bay Rays that come to town for three games.
After a travel day on Thursday, the Blue Jays have a seven game – seven day road trip. After 3 games in Motor City against the Detroit Tigers, the Jays head to the Big Apple for four games again