Officials with the Metamorphosis Network, a collective of social service agencies in Peel, are hopeful that following the recent provincial election the PCs will address the longstanding funding shortfall that is harming vulnerable individuals and families across the region.
The Pointer contacted the Premier’s office and each of the provincial representatives in Brampton and Mississauga, but they have continued to remain silent on the issue.
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In late February, with threatened U.S. tariffs looming, automotive giant Stellantis announced an eight-week pause on its retooling plans to transform the Brampton assembly plant to manufacture electric vehicles.
Thousands of employees, including the head of the local union at the facility, are growing increasingly concerned, as the shutdown comes amid mounting uncertainty across the North American auto sector with the spectre of 25 percent tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump.
With the spring migration underway, health officials are concerned about their ability to limit the spread of a deadly strain of avian flu after Peel Public Health received several reports of dead birds in Caledon and Brampton over the past month.
The Region is now monitoring any suspected cases of Avian Influenza or ‘bird flu’ in response to the “large number” of dead birds being reported.
Residents across Peel and Niagara, like many across the country, are feeling anxious about the possible impacts of the ongoing trade tensions with the U.S..
The Pointer offers an explainer to show just how connected the two countries are, and the leverage Canada has (and does not have) as we take on an American administration committed to destabilizing our economy to benefit its own.
MiWay ridership increased 14 percent last year and estimates suggest the trend will continue in 2025. Mississauga recently received $112 million from the federal government to be allocated over the next decade to advance key improvements to the city’s transit system as the booming city’s transit service continues to see increased demand.
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Stellantis' abrupt pause on the $1.3 billion retooling of its Brampton Assembly Plant comes as U.S. President Donald Trump ramps up threats to impose 25 percent levies on the Canadian industry, sending shockwaves through the auto sector. With the turbulence surrounding North America’s automakers deepening, experts are now warning that Trump’s aggressive trade stance could dismantle Canada’s supply chains, drive up costs and lead to mass layoffs.
Across Canada, the fossil fuel industry has long influenced what children learn about the climate crisis, despite being some of the country’s largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. In Ontario, schools facing underfunding and shrinking resources become more susceptible to corporate-backed educational materials that downplay the industry’s impact and push false solutions. The recent passage of Bill C-59 aims to hold companies accountable for unproven environmental claims, but stronger action is needed to protect students from industry influence.
With Peel’s reception centre officially operational at Spectrum Way in Mississauga, staff are now working to redirect asylum claimants from the Region’s temporary facility at Leanne Boulevard. But with new revisions to Ottawa’s Interim Housing Assistance Program to support surges of refugees, staff warn the amendments could have “significant financial implications for Peel.”
In response to the changes to the federal government’s funding program and current asylum claimant numbers, the Region is now scaling back service levels and working to acquire a dedicated family site in an effort to reduce reliance on temporary accommodations.
Brampton’s downtown lacks a clear physical boundary, blurring its identity and fragmenting its representation.
A review of the political map of the city could change this, finally creating a true sense of what the city-centre is all about, and where it extends to.
A startling number of teenages of died by suicide after falling victim to sextortion scams. Tricked into sending sensitive images, the scammer threatens to spread it to their family and friends if they don’t send cash.
This crime is exploding across the globe, law enforcement and advocacy groups are clamouring for changes to social media security to put up roadblocks in front of these scammers who are often connected to organized crime groups. Why are government officials moving at a glacial pace as teens continue to die?
Almost a year into operations of its supervised consumption site, a staff report to regional council revealed Peel’s site must now close. The decision was made after Health Canada said it would not be extending the Region’s exemption to operate the site, aligning with the PCs’ recently passed legislation, which ordered the closure of several safe consumption facilities across the province.
The Ministry of Health says any funding or hosting of an SCS on municipal property is deemed “municipal support” under the legislation and that the Region must cease operations by the end of the month.
The crumbling of our long-standing tariff-free relationship with the U.S. is a reminder of the need to leave carbon behind, as much of the world rushes toward a new energy economy.
Donald Trump wants to plunge his country into the past but his leadership represents an opportunity for Canada to accelerate its shift to the energy economy that will shape the future.
Despite Donald Trump’s latest change of heart, claiming his tariffs on Canadian goods will be postponed till April, empty truckloads are becoming the new reality for thousands of Brampton truckers as cross-border trade is disrupted by the erratic behaviour of the U.S. President.
The economic fallout across the city has begun, as many drivers, mechanics and others who support the commercial trucking industry wonder how they will stay afloat while Trump tries to destabilize the Canadian economy.
At Wednesday’s council meeting, the city’s local elected officials adopted policies to provide a measure of support for the local economy while pushing back in a small but symbolic way against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods.
One councillor had some pointed words for the American leader.
With 25 percent U.S. tariffs hitting Canadian goods, Brampton’s massive trucking industry braces for mass layoffs and financial turmoil. Industry leaders warn that rising costs and declining demand could push businesses to the brink.
With U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods and 10 percent on energy, businesses across Canada are fearing what is to come. As an economic hub for several industries, manufacturing top among them, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce says Mississauga could see labour disruptions, increased costs and potential downsizing of businesses across the city.
In January, two men were put behind bars for accessing, viewing or sharing child sexual abuse material in Peel. The two cases are a victory for Peel’s Internet Child Exploitation unit which is dealing with an influx of reports. This increasingly common crime is difficult to prosecute with offenders often escaping justice.
In the peaceful village of Cataract in northwest Caledon, Tony Sevelka and his wife, Eileen Markell, imagined spending their retirement years in the serene haven where they chose to settle down in 1999. But their dreams took an unexpected turn in 2019 when they learned of a proposed blasting quarry just down the road proposed by one of the world’s largest aggregate consortium’s.
The couple has since taken up a fight against the disruptive impacts of the powerful gravel industry in a community known as one of the "greenest towns in Ontario”.
In Peel Region, a quiet green revolution is unfolding, driven by the efforts of students, educators, and administrators committed to sustainability. Amid growing environmental concerns and the reality of climate change, the Peel District School Board (PDSB) is charting a course toward a more sustainable future through a climate action plan in development, a shift to innovative solutions and preparing students for flooding events.
And one Brampton teacher—who doesn’t identify as a "green thumb"—is proving that environmental sustainability doesn’t have to be a chore.
Despite a return to Party status for the Ontario Liberal Party, leader Bonnie Crombie fell short of securing a seat at Queen’s Park. PC candidate Silvia Gualtieri, the mother-in-law of Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, triumphed in the Mississauga East—Cooksville race, besting the former mayor by just over 1,200 votes.
Gualtieri will join the five incumbent PCs who all were successful in holding onto their Mississauga seats, securing the city for the PCs over the upcoming term.
Voters in Brampton have helped Doug Ford on his way to another majority government at Queen’s Park, returning all five PC incumbents to the Legislature.
The early election saw abysmal voter turnout in the city with not a single Brampton riding recording more than 39 percent of voters casting a ballot.
Niagara voters were happy to keep things the same Thursday as all four incumbent MPPs were returned to the Legislature.
With repeated visits to the region during the campaign, it was clear Doug Ford was hoping for a breakthrough in Niagara, but the NDP maintained a grip on three of the region's four ridings.
On Friday, the City of Brampton plans to evict Friends of Historic Bovaird House, locking the beloved local volunteer group out from the agricultural museum that its members have cared for over the years.
What appears to be nothing more than a political vendetta by the mayor and one of his closest council allies against a former progressive councillor, has led to the likely end of a deeply respected community organization.
Prior to 2018 Ontario’s electricity grid was 96 percent non-emitting. Under the leadership of Doug Ford, with natural gas now supplying a significant portion of the province’s electricity, the grid has become far dirtier.
As more companies and individuals move to reduce their carbon footprint, Ford is creating more of the required electricity from the worst possible source.
Aura Freedom International hosted its “Disrupting the Tides” symposium on February 20th to raise awareness about human sex trafficking.
A theme of the event was the disturbing lack of interest among governments to confront this rapidly increasing crime.
Since 2018, the PCs under the leadership of Doug Ford have cut billions of dollars from Ontario’s education system.
With infrastructure crumbling, test scores falling and more students struggling, the province’s big teachers’ unions are demanding change.
Days away from the provincial election Thursday, Ontario’s opposition leaders are criticizing Doug Ford for his encroachment on municipal authority, and they would consider taking back the provincial responsibilities that have been downloaded onto towns and cities.
Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie and Green Party leader Mike Schreiner also said they would take a serious look at doing away with strong mayor powers.
A recent report by Niagara regional staff highlighted the gaps between the housing reality across the area and the types of homes Doug Ford’s aggressive policies aim to create.
Shortly after the last provincial election, St. Catharines released a stinging criticism of the PC plan, which places unsustainable financial burden on municipal taxpayers now expected to pay for infrastructure to support thousands of new homes, while failing to provide the type of housing local residents need.
Staffing shortages, hospitals running deficits, ER wait times that can be measured in days instead of hours–this has become the norm of Ontario’s healthcare system under Doug Ford and the PC government.
Despite two visits to the region to stump for local candidates, Ford did not address how underfunding is currently putting immense pressure on Niagara’s healthcare infrastructure.
Ahead of the provincial election on Thursday, Peel’s Metamorphosis Network is urging local candidates and their party leaders to commit to a pledge that, if elected, they will finally provide fair-share funding for social services across the region.
As of Monday a majority of Liberal, NDP and Green candidates have committed to the pledge. Doug Ford and his PC candidates have failed to respond to the request or acknowledge the funding shortfall.
Ontario's Conservation Authorities have watched Doug Ford drastically curtail their powers in the name of building new homes.
Critics say weakening this critical oversight leaves Ontario vulnerable to the very risks—such as flooding and environmental degradation—that the authorities were created to mitigate.
Since Mississauga City Council rejected a request to fund $450 million as part of a local share contribution required of Trillium Health Partners for the transformation of Mississauga Hospital, the health network has been left on the hook to cover the shortfall. The PCs have maintained they will not allocate funding to cover the gap, despite a recent audit revealing the project is more than $4 billion over budget.
Now, opposition parties are stepping up ahead of the provincial election, pledging to help with the local share contribution and revisit the expectation of municipalities to help fund hospital expansions.
The provincial NDP leader says she understands the burden placed on Ontario municipalities over seven years under Doug Ford. The PC leader has slashed local authority over environmental protection, seized control of local planning decisions and dictated policies that govern where bike lanes can be built and how addiction issues are managed in communities. Stiles says under her leadership Ontario would move to a collaborative approach with municipal leaders who best understand the issues in their communities.
For two months, Callie Love experienced horrific treatment at the hands of her trafficker and the men who paid to have sex with her while she was underage.
Now, she’s using her trauma as a force for good, launching a nonprofit organization she hopes will finally close gaps in Canada’s broken social support system for survivors like her.
Survivors know best. The knowledge of those with first hand traumatic experiences of human trafficking is widely accepted as the best pathway to understand how trafficking operates, how to disrupt it and how to help survivors escape and rebuild their life.
On Human Trafficking Awareness Day, The Pointer is providing a platform for three survivors of human sex trafficking to share what they believe needs to change in Canada, and what candidates in the provincial election and the upcoming federal election should prioritize if elected.
The Metamorphosis Network in Peel has launched its ‘Cut in Half’ campaign, asking candidates in the provincial election to sign a pledge, vowing to dramatically reduce the almost $870 million annual gap in social services funding across the region, created by inequitable allocation of taxpayer dollars by the provincial government.
A young German shepherd is found running down a suburban roadway in Niagara Falls. Her mouth is muzzled shut, she’s bleeding, dragging a rope and metal pipes.
She collapses and dies.
It took months of sustained advocacy by witnesses and animal rights defenders to force the provincial Animal Welfare Service into action.
The case reveals the disturbing reality of a system that is under-resourced, disjointed, hidden from public view and mostly unaccountable to the taxpayer.
Early in the week, Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie strongly condemned the now-former Liberal candidate, after his social media posts published 18 months ago were unearthed, revealing shocking comments by Bansal.
He condoned the 2023 assassination of a Sikh-Canadian advocate, which the Indian government was allegedly behind. He also used a homophobic reference against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Crombie has now dumped him from the Party.
The Green Party leader is pledging to provide Ontario’s municipalities with a new deal that would upload shelter and housing back to the province while also covering 50 percent of the operating cost for transit.
Mike Schreiner spoke with The Pointer about his plan to make life more affordable for Ontarians.
Able-bodied Ontarians might not think twice about walking into their local polling station on February 27. The ability to mark their X with ease, something often taken for granted, is not the same for many living with disabilities across Ontario.
Barriers still exist for some who want to exercise their democratic right. Despite a complaint filed more than six years ago to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal attempting to force improvements, the backlogged system will not be able to hear arguments in the case until September, months after the snap winter election.
A multi-billion dollar highway, a government selling the dream of congestion-free commutes and the reality that so much about Doug Ford’s plan for transportation, has nothing to do with effectively moving Ontarians around.
For opponents, Highway 413 has become a political symbol of everything that’s wrong with today’s politics of smoke and mirrors, as the PCs sell a plan with no benefits, other than the billions of dollars in profits powerful developers playing Ford like a marionette stand to make.
The Freedom of Information process to obtain documents related to the decision to remove 15 parcels of land from the Greenbelt has been rife with delays and questionable denials that possibly violate provincial legislation.
As residents get ready to vote on February 27, party leaders are calling for complete transparency around the Greenbelt scandal after Ontario’s auditor general found some of the province's most wealthy developers, who also happen to be significant PC donors, were favoured.
As the February 27 provincial election fast approaches, Brampton voters are looking for concrete solutions to fix the city’s woefully underfunded healthcare system. While Doug Ford committed to ending hallway healthcare when he was first elected in 2018, Brampton’s situation has only worsened since.
The PCs have left the community to face long wait times in emergency rooms, delayed critical mental health support and have failed to match explosive population growth (pushed by Ford) with desperately needed hospital beds.
Local NDP candidates are ringing alarm bells that a PC government would push through a four-city Niagara amalgamation, which may account for the endorsement of the region’s big city mayors.
It wouldn’t be the first time that Doug Ford remained silent on municipal reform during a campaign only to take action after the election.
Since Doug Ford’s 2018 campaign, when he promised to tackle Ontario's housing crisis, his governments have systematically weakened planning laws and stripped conservation authorities of their power in favour of builders.
A scandal involving backroom dealing with powerful developers, including Greenbelt land swaps and questionable approval processes, exposed Ford’s secretive plans to do what he promised: open up Ontario’s protected greenspace for sprawl development that makes housing even less affordable.
The Ontario NDP and World Sikh Organization are calling for the resignation of Oshawa Liberal candidate Viresh Bansal. In September of 2023 he wrote an outrageous post on his X account, condoning the assassination of Sikh advocate Hardeep Singh Nijjar while simultaneously using a homophobic remark against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
He also threatened Conservative MP Tim Uppal. Bansal’s posts, supporting disturbing actions by the Indian government while attacking Canadian politicians who criticized them, raise more concerns about ongoing foreign interference in our politics.
The former buildings that housed the industrial operations of GM on Ontario Street in St. Catharines are crumbling. The site is pockmarked with industrial hatches and holes that threaten to swallow anyone who is unaware and wanders into the easily accessible site.
Why is the City refusing to take action as the “active demolition” has not seen significant progress for a number of years?
The Liberal leader is vowing to fix a broken healthcare system, restore confidence in public education and make Canada’s largest province affordable once again.
The former Mississauga mayor, who helped transform her city from a sleepy suburb into an economic engine, sat down with The Pointer to talk about her plan to defeat Doug Ford and lead Ontario back to prosperity.
Pietrangelo has taken part in several discussions and votes surrounding the South Niagara Falls hospital project, despite owning land with his family directly across the street. The land’s value certainly increased with the launch of the hospital project, raising questions about why the councillor has not routinely declared a conflict and steered clear of decision making that could possibly benefit him personally.
The councillor’s situation shines a light on a widespread issue in Ontario about the ineffectiveness of laws meant to protect against conflicts of interest, and the ability of residents to hold elected officials accountable for transgressions.
In Peel, where the largest South Asian-Canadian community in the country thrives, the unique cultural and demographic landscape has created a perfect storm of conditions for human traffickers. Canada is currently without a national strategy to guide anti-human trafficking efforts. A review of the previous five-year plan showed mixed results, and a significant lack of investment.
Advocates are urging Ottawa to prioritize the approval of a new strategy that addresses the rapidly changing dynamics of human trafficking.
Mayors in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland have all publicly endorsed Doug Ford to be Ontario’s next premier. The boldly partisan move is being questioned by opposition politicians and local residents who wonder if ethics rules around how a mayor uses the influence of their office are being ignored.
It also raises concerns about the loyalty of municipal leaders to the provincial premier, rather than their constituents.
