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 […]

Ontario Liberal legislator aclough has entered the party’s leadership race. The rookie member of provincial parliament pried away one of three seats from the Progressive Conservatives in Etobicoke, where Premier Doug Ford lives, in the 2025 snap election. Fairclough said she would focus on affordability, improving health care and education. “Doug Ford has stopped listening,” […]

How much should the public be able to see inside the government? Ontario’s latest budget bill, passed last week, is putting that question front and centre. The spring budget, Bill 97, changes freedom of information laws so that citizens can no longer use freedom of information requests to get records from the premier’s or cabinet […]

Results of a math test teacher candidates in Ontario must pass in order to be certified show striking disparities across language, age and racial groups, the province’s teachers’ federation says. The Ontario Teachers’ Federation, which advocates for more than 160,000 teachers in the province, requested roughly a year’s worth of success rates for the test […]