Editor’s Note: Reporter Ed Smith is a former member of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority board who joined in 2019, and as a private citizen participated in public efforts to hold David Barrick accountable, before Smith joined The Pointer as an investigative reporter covering Niagara Region.  How does David Barrick continue to find work? Among […]

This year, Ottawa parents Crystal Mask and Garrett Hansen had to have an unsettling conversation with their two kids as they went back to school: “do not drink from the water fountains”. “It was hard,” Mask told The Pointer. “They’re four and five, they see their friends doing it, they think it’s okay.”  In March, […]

For years, St. Catharines firefighters have answered call after call about the former General Motors property on Ontario Street, responding to fires, signs of smoke and medical emergencies at the deteriorating industrial site in the heart of the city.  Numerous reports detail a high level of risk to firefighters entering the crumbling buildings, confirming what […]

When the federal and provincial governments promote themselves as friends of the environment, while pushing legislation and projects that will devastate landscapes and impact our well being, who holds them accountable for the blatant greenwashing? Perhaps no one. “There’s little greenwashing specific laws in Canada overall, and there are no laws that prohibit the government […]

A week after Mississauga became the first Ontario municipality to pause new data centre developments for one year, Green Party leader Mike Schreiner called for a province-wide moratorium until proper studies could be completed on the technology’s impact on the environment, energy and human health. AI data centres sprouting across Canada may have ignited a […]

A second Peel municipality has awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to the same Ontario-based on-demand transit provider with a limited operating history, just days before The Pointer entered an adjudication process with Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner to obtain the City of Brampton’s agreement with the company. On June 25, Argo Transit announced a 15-month micro-transit […]

For residents who have spent years demanding action on the abandoned former General Motors property in St. Catharines, the latest chapter will sound all too familiar. Just weeks after the City’s Property Standards Appeal Committee upheld sweeping compliance orders requiring the owners to repair or demolish dozens of deteriorating structures, the controversial numbered company that […]

In 2022, the federal government created an independent science advisory committee under Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), rebranded to the Pesticides Regulatory Directorate (PRD) this year, after environmental groups spent years pointing out that the agency was relying on outdated science and was too closely aligned with the interests of pesticide manufacturers and […]

A large, dark wound protrudes from the side of the deer’s head, stretching from the base of its antler toward its ear. The animal’s big, dark eyes reflect a weary helplessness.  That’s the hauntingly “heartbreaking” image that stared back at animal rights lawyer Kaitlyn Mitchell from her computer screen after a Marineland employee reached out […]

This week the Doug Ford government announced it was heading into an almost five-month summer recess after a 30-day legislative session; the same day a coalition requested the province’s financial watchdog to launch an independent investigation into the costs associated with building the controversial Highway 413. Government House Leader Steve Clark said the Legislature will […]

— When Brampton resident Steve Papagiannis urged fellow residents to put the environment on the ballot this election, the response was often the same: the city has bigger problems to worry about. Brampton has been grappling with a worsening housing crisis, relentless urban sprawl, the highest mortgage delinquency rate in Canada, stalled infrastructure projects tied […]

When Belfountain resident Ann Seymour was a child, her “lovely parents” would pile the entire family in the car for weekend adventures along the green canopies of Niagara Escarpment following a giddy anticipation that lingered all week long. It was a time for the family to be one, happy and carefree. Their favourite destination?  The […]