Marineland says it is “profoundly” disappointed by the federal government’s decision to deny its request to ship 30 belugas to China and the park has “no ability to pay” for their care — with sources adding that means euthanasia is a real possibility. Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson announced Wednesday morning the federal government would not […]

When St. Catharines residents pay their municipal taxes, they expect those dollars to finance services, infrastructure and council supported programs that are deemed to be in the interest of the community. What they do not expect is for those funds to be spent in ways that are difficult to trace or buried in broad budget […]

Any mention of Highway 413, first proposed almost a quarter-century ago as a massive transportation corridor immediately below and through parts of Ontario’s protected Greenbelt, has always been accompanied by a giant question mark. Claimed by supporters to be a solution to congestion in the Greater Toronto Area, the project has been mired in political […]

Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner has ordered a Windsor doctor and his private clinic to pay thousands of dollars in fines for privacy breaches in a case she calls a “cautionary tale” for other health startups. Commissioner Patricia Kosseim wrote in a recent decision that a doctor with privileges at Windsor Regional Hospital used his […]

Ontario will ban research testing on dogs and cats, Premier Doug Ford said Monday as he called the practice “cruel.” “You aren’t going to use pets — dogs or cats — to experiment on any longer,” Ford said at an unrelated news conference in London, Ont.  “Simple as that. We just don’t do that, it’s […]

A national advocacy group for Jewish educators and families has, after a 21-month-long investigation, concluded that antisemitism is being “tolerated by our schools and even seeded by our schools” and is urging the Ontario government to overhaul the education system. Released Aug. 11, the End the Crisis in Education: A Plan for Equal Rights and […]

As the Ontario legislature considers a bill that would give municipal councils the power to remove misbehaving and unethical members, some critics say the proposed legislation has serious flaws that must be addressed to ensure accountability. The Progressive Conservative government’s bill seeks to standardize municipal codes of conduct and give councils the power to vote […]

As far as Norfolk County’s top civil servant is aware, town hall is not a hotbed of corruption. But chief administrative officer Al Meneses still recommended the municipality set up a “waste and fraud hotline”  to allow county employees — and eventually the general public — to  anonymously report “inefficiencies and incidents of wrongdoing involving  […]

In early October 2023, a senior bureaucrat in the Ontario Energy Ministry emailed an Enbridge official with a “sort of urgent” request.  Newly released internal documents show that Premier Doug Ford had called the natural gas giant that month to discuss delays in obtaining a natural gas connection for a facility whose name is redacted […]

A student elopes from school. A meltdown grows violent. Toileting has become completely out of control. These are the type of incidents that could cause a kid to be excluded from school while a safety plan is put into place, Kate Dudley-Logue told The Spectator. As operations vice-president of the Ontario Autism Coalition (OAC), Dudley-Logue […]

Ontario is investigating an alleged breach of 200,000 home care patients’ personal health data, Health Minister Sylvia Jones said Friday. Ontario Health atHome, the provincial agency co-ordinating home and community care, said late Friday afternoon that one of its vendors informed the agency that it had experienced a cybersecurity attack and a breach of its […]

More than 300 civil society organizations are calling on the Liberal government to withdraw its new border bill, saying the legislation threatens liberties, refugee and migrant rights and the privacy of all Canadians. Representatives of four major coalitions held a news conference today to ramp up pressure on Ottawa to scrap the proposed Strong Borders […]