$245 for 1,799 pages: 1,622 completely redacted—words covered by large blocks of black to hide them from the public. The Pointer is trying to uncover the details behind a $4-billion deal, the largest of its kind in the municipality’s history, between the City of Brampton and a foreign company that not many in Ontario have […]

On December 10, Brampton Councillor Pat Fortini walked into the apartment building at 507 Balmoral Drive. He was disgusted by what he saw. He shared his experience with his fellow councillors during a meeting the next day, and confronted the representative of the building owner standing before him in the council chamber. “I was there […]

Caledon resident Tony Sevelka’s days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and now years since he started digging into the details of a proposed blasting mega-quarry steps away from his home.  His quest led him to file a freedom of information request this summer, seeking access to all public objections to the contentious project.  […]

Travel documents, including receipts and itineraries, obtained by The Pointer under freedom of information requests have exposed a troubling pattern at the City of Brampton under Mayor Patrick Brown. Expensive flights and hotels, questionable spending on food, drinks and transportation, all in the name of so-called economic development, have become the norm in Brampton.  The […]

On October 28, officials at the City of St. Catharines knew the filtration system designed to prevent highly toxic chemicals from leaching into the former GM property on Ontario Street and the surrounding area was no longer functional, but for weeks they have failed to tell the public. A freedom of information request by The […]

On November 20, fire erupted inside a home on Banas Way in the northwest part of Brampton. Some residents of the house were able to make a dramatic escape by climbing onto the roof, but when the smoke cleared, five people were dead, and four more were in the hospital. Since the tragedy, Mayor Patrick […]

“I can’t see why we have to destroy the Greenbelt when there are thousands of acres within [the] metropolitan area of Toronto, which are empty or brownfields,” Assunta Marcolongo, a long-time member of the grassroots group STOP the 413 NOW, says. On a freezing, rainy morning last week, November 21, 79-year-old Marcolongo travelled an hour-and-a-half […]

In April, with the threat of a transit strike looming over City Hall, Mayor Patrick Brown and his fellow members of council had other priorities.  Just as the head of the transit union was accusing the City and Brown of bargaining in bad faith, the mayor and his supporters on council, secretly approved a $10.9 […]

Just as the ground thawed from winter this past March, politicians, including Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, Premier Doug Ford and local MPPs, joined officials from the William Osler Health System to mark the beginning of construction for the long-awaited expansion of the Peel Memorial Centre for Integrated Wellness. The only problem: there was no construction. […]

About 75 residents filled the Grantham Optimist Club on Wednesday evening for a two-hour open-mic town hall hosted by St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe and Port Dalhousie councillors Bruce Williamson and Marty Mako.  The meeting, open to residents from across the city, was intended as an informal chance to raise questions and share concerns directly […]

When the Town of Caledon’s integrity commissioner, David G. Boghosian, referred to public delegations as a “political circus” following criticism of his most recent decision, it struck a nerve with residents and Charter experts. “Delegations simply add an unnecessary and quite frankly harmful political element to the Code of Conduct process when the decision-making that […]

“I resigned from the government in 2017 because the Ford administration was coming to power, and I knew I couldn’t work for them.” Victor Doyle’s worst fears have come true. Over the past twenty years since Ontario created the Greenbelt, the world’s largest protected landscape of its kind, the man known as one of its […]