Dark clouds hovered over Queen’s Park. Thunder cracked and the sky wept as Caledon grandmother Betty de Groot and Stouffville grandmother Victoria Creese waited anxiously for what this year’s budget might bring. On March 26, they stood alongside fellow members of Grand(m)others Act To Save The Planet (GASP) with a single, urgent plea for the […]

Demonstrators gathered on Saturday, March 28, to protest a long list of grievances with the provincial government. Protestors critical of decisions made by Premier Doug Ford began assembling outside local MPP Sylvia Jones’ office, near the Broadway and First Street intersection, just before noon. United by a common desire for accountability and transparency from the […]

A new infusion of cash for the Ontario Autism Program in the recent provincial budget will bring annual spending to nearly $1 billion, money advocates hope will go directly toward core therapy for children. The Ontario Autism Coalition says it welcomes the new $189 million, but worries it will not make enough of a dent […]

What do conservation authorities, a downtown Toronto parking lot and freedom-of-information requests have in common? On the face of it, nothing — but provincial legislative changes are coming to all three, and they are jammed into an omnibus budget bill tabled Thursday by Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy. The province’s plan for doling out taxpayer […]

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday he believes the information and privacy commissioner, who is speaking out about changes he is making to freedom-of-information laws, is “politically driven.” The government announced this month that records of the premier, cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and their offices will no longer be subject to public disclosure. Ford said […]

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s cellphone records took centre stage as the provincial legislature resumed sitting Monday for the first time since December, with the opposition accusing the premier of having something to hide. One of the many pieces of legislation the government has signalled it will introduce during the spring sitting is a bill to […]

Ontario’s provincial members of parliament are heading back to Queen’s Park today, as the legislature sits for the first time since December. The governing Progressive Conservatives recessed the legislature on Dec. 11 for an unusually long winter break, which the opposition has called undemocratic. The spring session should be a busy one, with the budget […]

Ontario will declare Toronto’s island airport the province’s first special economic zone as it takes over land owned by the city, Premier Doug Ford said Monday in a move opposed by the mayor. This is the latest development in the Ford government’s push for an expansion of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport to include jets. […]

Ontario’s legislature is set to resume sitting Monday after a 14-week break that ended in a veritable deluge of news, partial proposals and headline-grabbing musings from Premier Doug Ford and his government. It is a flood-the-zone strategy, opposition parties say, in an attempt to drown out criticism over a government plan to keep records of […]

Ontario is planning to create a provincewide electronic medical record system for primary care, more than two decades after the government first embarked on what became a scandal-plagued eHealth project. Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced Thursday that the province is starting by talking to potential vendors about what is possible. “(It’s asking) do you have […]

Ontario drivers may soon be able to use high-occupancy vehicle lanes at times, even if they are all by themselves. Premier Doug Ford’s government is proposing to amend the Highway Traffic Act to allow single-occupant vehicles to use the HOV lanes during off-peak hours, saying it would reduce travel times and ease gridlock. “It’s pretty […]

Ontario is set to make Premier Doug Ford and cabinet members’ records secret as it “modernizes” freedom-of-information laws, a change the province’s privacy watchdog warns will eviscerate public accountability. Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement Minister Stephen Crawford, however, said his government is still “one of the most transparent governments in the history of […]