Last week Oxford county council passed a motion that will boost funding to the shelter from around $90,000 to $150,000, allowing the shelter to operate on a year-round basis.

“I feel it is something that is really needed,” said Watson, co-ordinator of the shelter that has been renamed The INN of Woodstock. “We will continue to help people all year round.

“Homelessness is not a seasonal issue.”

With about 12 people per night, numbers have steadily gone up at the shelter and Watson attributes the rise to a lack of affordable housing in the region.

Much has been made of the so-called Ford Nation and its potential to storm Ontario’s legislature in the upcoming provincial election. But the coalition that could deliver victory to Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in June looks less like a new political movement — and more like a Common Sense Revolution 2.0.

The “Common Sense Revolution” platform that helped vault the PCs from opposition to the premier’s office in 1995, with its focus on lower taxes and smaller government, has a lot in common with Ford’s pitch in 2018.

Some of Ford’s rhetoric echoes what Ontario heard from his predecessor Mike Harris 23 years ago. Polls suggest his supporters look much the same as well — as does the electoral map that would make Ford the province’s next premier.

The Ontario Taxpayers Federation states that taxpayers would save by cutting the Ontario basic income experiment…

The basic income pilot is being watched by experts and governments around the world because they know that, with increasing automation and new technology, larger proportions of our populations will require income support. Not only would cutting the basic income experiment waste the money already spent to implement it, it would squander this opportunity to test whether advocates’ claims are supported when put to the test in Ontario.

The Nipissing Area Food Roundtable hosted a breakfast this morning to hear the provincial candidates stance on food insecurity in the province and locally.

Unfortunately, those hungry for information were left disappointed as only NDP candidate Henri Giroux and Liberal Stephen Glass attended. Nipissing MPP and PC candidate Vic Fedeli had a conflict and had a letter read to the crowd by organizer Kathleen Jodouin.

Giroux and Glass gave general information about their party’s platforms but neither spent a lot of time speaking about the topic in question.