A private laboratory report has confirmed the presence of asbestos in soil at the former General Motors site on Ontario Street, right next to downtown St. Catharines. The alarming data confirming the presence of a highly dangerous cancer causing compound significantly escalates long-standing concerns about one of the city’s most controversial industrial properties.  Received just […]

Ottawa has endorsed a plan to move Canada’s last remaining captive whales to aquariums in the U.S. and Spain. There are 30 belugas and four dolphins at Marineland, the shuttered theme park in Niagara Falls, Ont., that still face mass euthanasia should the deal fall through. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has issued the […]

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government is in secrecy-by-default mode, opposition critics say after reviewing the content of blue licence plate documents the province had been prepared to fight the release of in the courts. The province’s information and privacy commissioner ordered the release of documents earlier this year on the government’s plan to get the […]

The City of Toronto has a $2-million annual grant program to help Rockcliffe-Smythe residents recover from basement flooding. So far, it’s distributed just under $60,000 — less than 3% of the annual budget. The Rockcliffe No Fault Grant for Basement Flooding Damages Program provides “owners of certain residential properties within the Rockcliffe Special Policy Area” […]

Ontario’s newly passed ban on invasive medical research involving dogs and cats appears poised to directly affect Queen’s University’s controversial hemophilia dog colony, despite the university saying it remains unclear how the legislation will impact existing research programs. The amendments to Ontario’s Animals for Research Act were included in Bill 75 and passed final reading […]

As the Doug Ford government prepared to replace the Endangered Species Act with new legislation, the province’s natural resources staff warned of weakened habitat protections, reduced oversight and new gaps in enforcement, according to documents obtained by The Narwhal.   In March 2026, the Endangered Species Act was officially replaced with the Species Conservation Act, which […]

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government is reversing its decision to go to court to prevent the release of documents about its ill-fated blue licence plates. Lawyers for the government applied for a judicial review of decisions by Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner ordering the province to release documents in response to a freedom-of-information request by […]

Ontario will expand its vastly overcrowded jails by 2,500 beds over the next 10 years at a cost of $3 billion to the taxpayers, the province’s solicitor general said Thursday. Michael Kerzner said the province will build new jails, expand current ones and reopen a few that have closed in Walkerton, Ont., and Brampton, Ont. […]

Ontario’s new and more restrictive freedom-of-information laws have quashed another request, this time for documents that may have given a glimpse into potential hospital cuts. More than 70 per cent of Ontario hospitals are forecasting deficits, and Health Minister Sylvia Jones has told them to come up with three-year plans to balance their budgets. Any […]

On Friday, May 1, Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy sent a letter to all conservation authority heads directing them to halt any “significant financial, asset or employment decisions” as the government begins consolidating the agencies tasked with protecting watersheds.  The letter signals that the work to amalgamate authorities from 36 to nine, and shift oversight […]

New artificial intelligence transcription services for doctors are at risk of providing inaccurate information and outright hallucinations, the province’s auditor general concluded in a special report released Tuesday. Shelley Spence said the so-called “AI scribe” software was not evaluated adequately before implementation. “We found gaps in how AI scribe systems used to generate medical notes […]

Weston Miller says Niagara-on-the-Lake is at a turning point. “If we’re not thoughtful about the decisions that we make today, tomorrow, we might not recognize the town we all love,” he said in an interview. Miller, a NOTL realtor who serves as president of the Chautauqua Residents Association, treasurer of the Niagara Foundation, a board […]