Kingston news

• Gord Downie's enduring legacy continues to inspire Canadians

  20-08-2026 20:55 via thewhig.com
  
  For many Canadians, Gord Downie was more than the lead singer of The Tragically Hip — he was a storyteller whose music captured the people, places and experiences that helped define the country’s identity.As a musician who helped shape Canadian rock for more than three decades, his music celebrated the country’s landscapes, history and everyday life.Songs like Bobcaygeon, Ahead by a Century, Courage (for Hugh MacLennan), and Wheat Kings have become woven into Canada’s cu
  
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• Financial pressures in Ontario health-care system continue to rise: CUPE report

  20-08-2026 19:51 via thewhig.com
  
  A new report shows Ontario hospitals are facing growing financial pressures as rising costs place additional strain on a system already operating near or above capacity.The report, created by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), is calling on the province to increase annual hospital funding by about six per cent to maintain existing service levels. CUPE has outlined issues with both the provincial system at large and in Kingston, as Ki
  
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• WSIB cuts hundreds of jobs across Ontario, including in Kingston

  20-08-2026 19:34 via thewhig.com
  
  The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board has announced that it will be losing its employees at its Kingston location, along with nine others across Ontario as it consolidates its operations.“ The WSIB is modernizing how we deliver service and we have made the difficult business decision to consolidate some claim and account management functions. We recognize this is difficult news for affected team members and their families,” said a spokesperson. “We will treat everyone fairl
  
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• New mobile app seeks to make logging wildlife fun

  20-08-2026 19:24 via thewhig.com
  
  A new game based in nature is aiming to encourage players to get outside while collecting data that could help researchers track wildlife.Denis Allaire, an independent software designer and environmental technician student at St. Lawrence College in Cornwall, created the game WildQuest with co-founder Kimberley Mattis. Allaire handles the software, while Mattis deals with other areas including government compliance in different countries and assists with the game’s design.“My goal i
  
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• Music@work: Inside the making of the Hip's historic final performance

  20-08-2026 18:07 via thewhig.com
  
  Long before The Tragically Hip took to the stage on Aug. 20, 2016, the people responsible for the band’s final concert already understood they were preparing for something unlike any event Kingston had ever seen.The sold-out hometown performance at the then Rogers K-Rock Centre was the final stop on the band’s Man Machine Poem 14-date tour — launched after enigmatic frontman Gord Downie revealed he had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.What unfolded that night became a
  
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• Weekend spotlight, Aug. 21 to 23: Things to do in Kingston area this weekend

  20-08-2026 14:27 via thewhig.com
  
  1. Forever Hip in the Square Friday, noon to 8 p.m. in Springer Market Square, 1 Market St. : Visit Springer Market Square for a heartfelt celebration of The Tragically Hip’s enduring legacy in Kingston, featuring archival videos and clips on the big screen, Music Walking Tours, and a local Merch Market supporting Kingston musicians and makers. At 8 p.m., settle in under the evening sky for a free screening of Long Time Running (2017), the documentary film chronicling The Tragically Hip&rs
  
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• Lightfoot Band carries Gordon Lightfoot’s legacy forward as milestone anniversary renews focus on Edmund Fitzgerald

  20-08-2026 14:18 via thewhig.com
  
  More than three years after the death of Gordon Lightfoot, the musicians who spent decades at his side are finding that audiences still want to hear the songs, the stories and share the memories of one of Canada’s most celebrated songwriters.That demand is bringing The Lightfoot Band to Kingston’s Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts on Sunday, Aug. 30, where the group will present what drummer Barry Keane describes as a three-part experience: the music, the stories behind it
  
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• A decade after final conversation, Peter Mansbridge still awed by his friend Gord Downie's courage and resolve

  20-08-2026 13:48 via thewhig.com
  
  For Peter Mansbridge, his interview with Gord Downie in the fall of 2016 was a professional test unlike any other. Its conclusion, the interview subject insisting on a kiss on camera, is an enduring image and a unique experience for the iconic newsman, yet perhaps the least remarkable aspect of day that remains fresh in his memory.The emotional gravity of the session with Downie and The Tragically Hip landed with Mansbridge when the production crew was setting up the lights and the cameras hadn
  
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• Paul Langlois: 'That night couldn't have gone any better'

  20-08-2026 13:47 via thewhig.com
  
  “They were quite the setlists,” Paul Langlois said as he stared at a white wall filled with reprints of the songs The Tragically Hip played during their final tour a decade ago. “Like Kingston. Look at it — there’s three encores.”Langlois explained that he’d written out all the setlists for the band’s final 15 concerts in one night, and with one rule: to include at least one “obscure” song each night. For a band as beloved as The Tragi
  
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• 'He never let the disease hold him back': Doctor reflects on Downie's legacy, built during brain cancer battle

  20-08-2026 13:46 via thewhig.com
  
  When Dr. James Perry and Gord Downie first met, the path forward was unclear, but the destination was known.Perry, a neuro-oncologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, and the chair of the Canadian Brain Tumour Consortium, knew that Downie would be facing the end of his life while in his care. It’s a scenario that he has played out with hundreds of patients over the years — the harsh reality of an incurable glioblastoma brain tumour diagnosis.What Perry didn’t a
  
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