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Directorate (PRD) this year, after environmental groups spent years pointing out that the agency was relying on outdated science and was too closely aligned with the interests of pesticide manufacturers and […]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 […]

British Columbia conservation biologist Chris Shepherd has spent more than three decades, oftentimes undercover, inside wildlife markets across the globe.  The gruesome sights he has witnessed make it hard to believe that “outbreaks like COVID don’t happen far more often”. In the early 90s, Shepherd had just completed high school, unaware of the world he […]

Aly Livingston stood outside the Mayor’s Gala hosted by Caledon’s Annette Groves in bright yellow stockings and black boots, “like a bumblebee” in the cold, holding a “STOP THE 413, DON’T PAVE THE GREENBELT” sign as she spoke out for the natural world.  The protest was the latest action taken by Caledon residents against Mayor […]

Despite direction by the Ontario Ombudsman to reopen forensic investigations into alleged financial wrongdoing by Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, his closest councillor ally Rowena Santos—after they cancelled the probes—and City staff, no one on council has taken action on behalf of taxpayers demanding accountability.  “There is no accountability at City Hall,” Azad Goyat, a Brampton […]

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 […]

Children are sent to school every day without any thought of systemic and prolonged harm to their long-term well being.  But in more than half of Ontario schools, it’s not just bullying or the increasingly worrying fear of an active shooter in the hallways that students have to be wary of—the safety of the water […]