The Firearm Safety Education Service of Ontario (FSESO), the group solely responsible for training those looking to get a legal gun licence in Ontario, has been accused of putting business interests ahead of public safety.
The organization is facing allegations of conflict of interest, nepotism and questionable spending by whistleblowers who contacted The Pointer.
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Residents of St. Catharines are asking who is behind the delays on the former General Motors property right next to downtown.
While the City has provided limited information and provincial ministries stall, residents want to know who exactly owns the property.
Municipal accountability systems are failing, leaving taxpayers more vulnerable to abuse than ever before. People like David Barrick, the former Brampton CAO, are a byproduct of a badly broken municipal governance system.
He has left a trail of scandal at each municipality where he has worked as the CAO, but keeps getting hired. When The Pointer tried to report on his latest hiring, reporter Ed Smith was blocked from entering a public town hall building by OPP officers who said if he returns, a trespass notice will be issued.
The facts uncovered since Dakota, a young German shepherd, died on a Niagara Falls sidewalk in July 2024 have left many asking why the Niagara Police never laid criminal animal cruelty charges—or even investigated the disturbing death.
Nearly two years after the dog’s death, and constant requests from animal rights advocates, the Niagara Police announced last week a criminal investigation is now underway.
For many families in Peel, some sustainability is woven into their routines, but the daily struggle to put food on the table and a roof over their heads often overshadows environmental concerns. One Brampton-based non-profit has been trying to change the narrative by giving residents, including newcomers, the information they need to navigate these challenging times.
Salt may keep roads clear in harsh winters but once it washes off, it becomes a triple threat: harming trees, fish and wildlife, polluting drinking water and damaging crops. Overuse of road salt in Ontario due to fears of liability is catalyzing that destruction. Two Peel municipalities are trying to come up with a plan to tackle high levels of chloride — it relies on a native plant that could be the answer to the salt problem.
Less than three months after being appointed by the Doug Ford PC government, Bob Gale has resigned as regional chair.
The news comes after allegations were made public Wednesday that he owns a copy of Adolf Hitler’s virulently racist, antisemitic Mein Kampf, and weeks after he ignited a firestorm of controversy, calling for the amalgamation of Niagara Region (which Ford has been pushing for years), without consulting elected officials.
The Doug Ford PC government has taken another step in the dismantling of Ontario’s critical conservation authority system.
The vital function these agencies have played for decades is being systematically co-opted: instead of safeguarding ecosystems, and helping ensure municipalities remain protected from the consequences of a rapidly changing climate, Ford is centralizing control over conservation authorities to make it easier for developers to push their projects through.
Canada’s battle against plastic pollution reached a pivotal moment with the Federal Court of Appeal upholding the listing of plastic-manufactured items as “toxic”, keeping single-use plastic bans in place despite years of lobbying from the oil and petrochemical industry.
As global plastics treaty negotiations crawl along, one Toronto-born “artivist” is reminding Ottawa: it’s time we turn off the tap on plastic pollution.
A coalition of Sikh organizations from across Canada has written a letter to Canadian MPs from the Liberal and Conservative parties, demanding accountability on Indian foreign interference and firm commitments to hold India accountable for its criminal actions in Canada targeting the country’s Sikh community.
St. Catharines councillors have ordered staff to work with the owner of the GM site to remove the catwalk structure over Ontario Street before the end of the year. While it's uncertain what will happen if the property owner refuses, the decision marks the first concrete step to clean up the crumbling site in years.
It was made following lengthy debate and questionable statements from councillors and Mayor Mat Siscoe.
The RCMP confirmed to The Pointer late Monday afternoon that ongoing investigations are being conducted into criminal cases in Canada that are tied to the activities of the Indian government.
A spokesperson for the Mounties said that no details could be provided “until charges have been laid and it is a matter of public record.”
In Ontario, the story of the Great Lakes is being told in two ways: by the quiet persistence of a Grand Bend woman filling bags with plastic to save Lake Huron; and by scientists in a new report mapping warming waters, shifting ice and stressed ecosystems across the basin. Together, they offer the same warning: our waters and the ecosystems in and around them are paying the price of climate change and human behaviour.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has begun his visit to India, an effort to mend fractured diplomatic relations and re-engage with an emerging economic superpower that is home to the largest consumer market in the world. From energy and uranium to wheat and lentils, the country’s more than 1.4 billion residents represent a huge opportunity for Canada, as Carney attempts to make good on his “middle power” mission to diversify trade away from the U.S..
Standing in his way is the deeply disturbing behaviour of New Delhi, and evidence of government-sponsored violence launched against the large Sikh-Canadian community. Carney has been asked to explain claims made right before his departure, by an unnamed government source in Ottawa, that India’s transnational repression on Canadian soil has stopped. Experts, Liberal MPs and activists say the claim is a myth, and they want Carney to come clean.
On February 19th, recently appointed Regional Chair Bob Gale, without the support of his previous Council colleagues, decided that it is time for major structural governance changes in Niagara and that decisions need to be made locally by March 3rd.
A possible shift to just four cities across all of what is currently Niagara Region, or even creating just one giant geographic city, is apparently on the table, according to communication with the provincial government. Residents, meanwhile, are being shut out from a process that could profoundly change their lives.
A Welland courtroom recently heard that the death of Dakota, a German Shepherd, was the result of a muzzle cinched so tight around her mouth that she was barely able to breathe and unable to cool herself off, triggering a fatal heat stroke.
Her owner, Carly Young, faces four provincial offence charges. The courtroom antics of Young and her husband Chris led to the final hearing being delayed until March 2.
Nikhil Gupta pleaded guilty in a United States District Court to conspiring in a 2023 murder-for-hire plot that targeted Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual American-Canadian citizen and leader of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) based in New York. Gupta, who allegedly worked at the direction of an Indian government employee, is scheduled to be sentenced in May.
In a case that is directly linked, The World Sikh Organization is condemning the Canadian government following reports that it wants to withhold sensitive evidence in the upcoming trial of four men charged in the murder of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, to protect “international relations”.
The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual event that encourages people around the world to stop and observe the nature that surrounds them.
The data collected is used to preserve avian life. The Pointer sent two photographers to document the count across the GTA.
Following a visual inspection, engineers in St. Catharines said the 25-year-old metal catwalk spanning Ontario Street is in “good condition” and poses no danger to the commuters who pass beneath it on a daily basis.
The inspection has not alleviated the concerns of residents who see the aging structure as a symbol of council’s lack of action to clean up the contaminated site.
“Canada is an auto nation.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney made the declaration as he shared his government’s new plan for an automotive future that is “electric”. Ottawa’s strategy brings back rebates for electric vehicles and creates tougher emissions standards.
But with renewed trade tensions, regulatory uncertainty and the repeal of the EV sales mandate for manufacturers, experts and environmentalists say the road to a truly green transportation landscape will be bumpy.
Premier Doug Ford, you’ve got mail.
One dedicated environmental advocate from Guelph has been flooding his mailbox ever since his government rammed Bill 5 through Queen’s Park.
Sarah Christie has written the Premier over 700 postcards on behalf of endangered species and with growing attention to her efforts, she doesn’t plan on stopping until the environmentally destructive law is repealed.
Residents of Niagara Falls trying to complain about the questionable behaviour of their local elected officials will now be forced to come up with $1,000 to do so.
On Tuesday, Councillor Vince Kerrio admitted that doubling the fee was an intentional effort to block complaints against councillors ahead of the October municipal election.
The executive director of a major construction industry advocacy group in Ontario offers her views about the future of the province’s transportation infrastructure. A combination of smart public transit where it will work best, and roadways where they are needed, is the proper approach for an area as vast as Ontario, she writes.
A recent report from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario highlighted the disturbing reality that since 2021, homelessness in Ontario has increased by nearly 50 percent, fuelled by rising rates of mental health and addiction issues.
Niagara Region residents are calling on the upper-tier municipality to raise its collective voice to the PC government to finally take action.
With global temperature rising and extreme weather becoming the new normal, ballooning insurance premiums and shrinking coverage are hitting Canadians hard. Basement floods and severe winter storms have brought the financial fallout of climate change home—it is no longer a hypothetical.
While insurers quietly adjust the rules of risk, households are left footing the bill as safety nets shrink. A new report says Canadians might have a say as legal avenues open up to hold major corporate emitters accountable for the damages their emissions cause.
One of the largest police corruption investigations in Canadian history just got bigger.
Sources have provided the names of three officers with Peel Regional Police who have been suspended in connection to the organized crime probe dubbed Project South. At least three home shootings in Brampton this past summer are connected with the sweeping police corruption case.
York Police officials revealed shocking evidence Thursday morning after arresting seven Toronto Police officers, and one retired member, alleging they fed confidential information to an organized criminal network that used it to carry out shootings across the GTA, with at least one corrections officer targeted for murder by the vast organized crime ring.
Sources have told The Pointer that along with the 27 people arrested as a result of Project South, other police forces including Peel’s could be part of the investigation into the involvement of officers.
After Canada’s hottest year on record, the country’s environmental scientists are struggling with unprecedented job cuts under the Mark Carney Liberal government. The job losses come at a time when pipelines are dominating headlines and climate-damage is costing billions.
There is more need for trusted studies than ever, not less, and experts warn without fully staffed government departments, Canada can’t effectively respond to climate crises with science-based decision-making.
Claiming he has no jurisdiction to investigate the behaviour of councillors during meetings, Niagara Falls Integrity Commissioner Michael Maynard has dismissed another complaint against Councillor Mike Strange after he quietly directed male supporters to block women’s rights advocates from using council chambers to push for protections.
Mayor Jim Diodati was apparently behind the scheme to give Strange, who is facing a criminal charge of intimate partner assault, a platform to defend himself, after he told the women that council chambers could not be used to address the case.
Instead of spending $80 billion on mega-highways, Ontario could build 400 kilometres of transit to serve the GTHA and actually solve gridlock. Brand new numbers from Environmental Defence provide residents across the region with a clear road map to best plan for our transportation future.
While Doug Ford’s PC government continues its land-gobbling policies to plow forward with sprawl inducing highways that will make emission reduction targets impossible to achieve, the numbers show a much better way to reduce crippling congestion, and keep our air safe.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s call to “boycott Chinese EVs”—a stance he later softened—has reignited debate over Canada’s sudden reversal on electric vehicle policy, following Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new trade deal with China which opens the door to tens of thousands of lower-cost, Chinese-made EVs. Critics fear the agreement could undermine the province’s auto sector but some experts argue it could boost affordability and may help reverse Canada’s recent slide in EV adoption at a time when global markets, led by China, are rapidly electrifying.
A motion slated for the January 26th St. Catharines Council meeting was deferred to a future meeting at the last minute. Mayor Mat Siscoe has assured the public that a structural analysis of the overhead structure will be done in the coming days.
The catwalk bridge, spanning 282 to 285 Ontario Street, previously used to connect the two portions of the General Motors operation, has become a visible sign of the City’s unwillingness to enforce its own bylaws around property standards.
With a municipal election looming in October and armed with a petition with more than 1,000 signatures, A Coalition for A Better St. Catharines has renewed its effort to get the municipality to take immediate action on what the organization describes as a “public health, environmental and safety catastrophe.”
The details are hard to read, the images even harder to look at.
Dakota died on the side of a Niagara Falls street in the summer of 2024. While animal welfare, bylaw and police officials were all well aware of the barbaric conditions the young German shepherd was living in before she fled down a hot July street, where she eventually collapsed, they did nothing.
The case has come to represent the long list of problems with Ontario’s flawed animal welfare system.
In a decision that appears to have been made without any legal advice, policy guidance or precedent, Niagara Falls council members voted last week to bill a resident $4,000, arguing his single complaint should be treated as multiple individual complaints against each member, with a separate fee for each one.
It has sparked a backlash for blatantly trying to muzzle the resident and send a heavy-handed message to anyone else who might dare to file a complaint. Legal experts question whether such a decision is even allowed under the Municipal Act and criticize Niagara Falls for continuing to put up barriers to hold elected officials accountable.
Nine months after Canada entered the Mark Carney era, observers have debated whether the Prime Minister’s push for carbon capture and new oil pipelines is strategic politicking. A former federal climate advisor says the reality is simpler and more concerning. Drawing from her time on the Net-Zero Advisory Body, her sudden resignation, just after former environment minister Steven Guilbeault stepped down, was driven by frustration with a government that repeatedly ignored expert advice on meeting Canada’s legally mandated climate targets.
What do you do when you’re settling in for the holiday season, only to have Queen’s Park drop a 1,700-page report that could reshape your community and your future? That’s what happened last month to two Caledon residents who found themselves racing against the clock to review the draft version of a report meant to detail the well-known risks to the environment posed by Highway 413.
Riddled with technical language, complex data and with minimal guidance from the Province, leaving even environmental experts concerned, the pair has been left wondering if the report simply checks a box on the to-do list that leads to construction; or will the troubling information be enough for the PCs to rethink the project?
After attempting to book a trip to Cuba through TD Bank’s rewards program, one family was shocked to learn they were barred from doing so. The family unwittingly found itself in the centre of an international embargo that has been ongoing for 60 years. Cuban officials and advocates say what TD is doing is a violation of Canadian law.
Niagara Falls staff are recommending the appointment of former councillor Barb Greenwood to the vacant seat on regional council following the appointment of Bob Gale as Regional Chair by the PC government. The recommendation will be voted on by Niagara Falls council on Tuesday.
After five years of bylaw notices and multiple forced mowings, Mississauga resident Wolf Ruck finally got a legal reprieve this month when the Ontario Superior Court ruled key parts of the City’s lawn bylaw are unconstitutional.
Maintaining a naturalized, pollinator-friendly garden is a form of protected expression, the court ruled. Ruck, who has spent much of his retirement navigating the courts, representing himself, sees the ruling as a victory not just for him but for urban biodiversity advocates everywhere. But he fears the fight might not be over.
As Prime Minister Mark Carney pours billions into carbon capture and markets it as a climate lifeline, a critical question lingers: is this a genuine solution or a delay tactic dressed up as innovation?
Part I of The Pointer’s two-part series traces the roots of carbon capture from oilfields to pulp mills, following the scientists who first imagined the concept of negative emissions technologies and the politicians now staking climate promises on that unproven idea.
A stormwater pond constructed to capture runoff on the northern portion of the former General Motors property next to downtown St. Catharines is free of PCBs and other contaminants, updated testing has found. Yet questions remain about the ongoing monitoring efforts for the entire site, including the most contaminated portion directly adjacent to Twelve Mile Creek.
Despite the misgivings of many councillors, $900,000 worth of development fees were waived by Niagara Region for a luxury hotel project in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
It has left many questioning the legalities of the move and whether more developers will now be seeking relief of their own, at the expense of taxpayers.
Premier Doug Ford and his fellow PCs are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public, telling us Ontario has one of the strongest animal welfare protection systems in Canada.
This could not be further from the truth, writes Donna Power, a prominent animal welfare advocate.
The Niagara Regional Police Service Board rejected a request to cut $2.7 million from their budget, leaving the proposed Regional operating budget increase at 6.98 percent. The budget is set for a final vote on Thursday.
Niagara Falls Integrity Commissioner Michael Maynard has dismissed a complaint against Councillor Mike Strange after his scheme to block Women of Ontario Say No advocates from sitting in the council chambers. Strange is facing a criminal charge of intimate partner assault.
The report ignores key pieces of evidence and normalizes disturbing behaviour as politics “in its most basic form”.
To close out the year, The Pointer is republishing its most-read stories of 2025.
Throughout his career the city’s mayor has been skewered for openly lying. Since Patrick Brown arrived in Brampton in 2018, he has tried to convince residents billions of dollars are flowing to his city.
A tunnelled LRT, third hospital (it still doesn’t have a second), world class cricket stadium, cutting edge innovation district and standalone university are just some of the major projects he has promised and claimed to have secured funding for. His misleading press releases and election-style announcements with little to show for them, are starting to wear thin.
To close out the year, The Pointer is republishing its most-read stories of 2025.
As wildlife populations crash globally, Ontario’s new Bill 17 legalizes what conservationists call ‘bird death traps’ by stripping away vital bird-friendly building protections. Marketed as a way to speed up residential development, the law removes municipal authority to enforce standards that save millions of migratory birds each year from deadly window collisions.
Advocates warn these changes prioritize developer profits over nature, undoing decades of progress and threatening Ontario’s climate goals.
To close out the year, The Pointer is republishing its most-read stories of 2025.
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.
To close out the year, The Pointer is republishing its most-read stories of 2025.
In a move that has sparked outrage among Brampton residents and environmental groups, Doug Ford’s PC government has approved the expansion of a controversial waste-to-energy facility in the city, despite widespread concerns over public health and environmental impacts.
While the facility owners claim it offers a clean energy solution, critics point out the lack of meaningful public consultation, the looming health risks posed by toxic emissions and the long-term environmental consequences of turning Brampton into a waste-burning hub.
As the curtains draw on 2025, Ontarians can look back on a year marked by challenges to the province’s environmental framework, from omnibus bills that reshaped protections for species, parks, and water, to controversies over resource development and conservation authority mergers.
Yet amid these pressures, nature and public advocacy persisted: endangered species were rediscovered, communities rallied to defend their lands and climate-positive projects gained momentum. In the words of the late Dr. Jane Goodall: “There is hope”.
Niagara police officers investigating human trafficking often keep themselves, and their work, under wraps to maintain the required anonymity to conduct these complex investigations.
At the end of November, officers pulled back the curtain to educate residents about a crime that is increasing in the region, and let survivors know they are here to help.
