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 […]

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 […]

Frustration and unease are mounting in Caledon, where locals say their voices are being drowned out by a municipal process that lacks transparency, overrides its own rules and puts the environment, particularly groundwater, at serious risk. Residents were already reeling from a May decision put forward by Mayor Annette Groves’ motion to approve a fill […]

The number of Niagara Falls properties in tax jeopardy has risen dramatically during the current term of council, according to data recently shared by City staff.  On May 21, through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, The Pointer sought six years of data on the number of properties in tax arrears. City officials declined the […]