Bold talk and an uncertain path forward

You’re reading the May 18, 2026 edition of the Peterborough Currents email newsletter. To receive our email newsletters straight to your inbox, sign up here.

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Greeting and happy long weekend! It’s your friendly neighbourhood co-editor Gabe Pollock here, with your weekly Peterborough Currents email newsletter.

It’s been a dramatic kickoff to municipal election season, with Peterborough’s city council pushing forward progress on a new multi-use arena, to replace Peterborough’s aging Memorial Centre. With a price tag of $170 million, it would be one of the largest capital projects in the city’s history, and council “pre-committing” $57 million towards it has raised some eyebrows.

However, a deeper look at what city council actually approved, and the reports that back it up, reveal significantly less bold action than might at first appear, and a quite unclear path forward for actually getting this thing funded.

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