To close out the year, The Pointer is republishing its most-read stories of 2025.
The number of Brampton home owners unable to cover their tax bill exploded under the current term of council, according to a report by City staff. While Bramptonians grapple with a cost-of-living crisis, the recent numbers show the financial strategy forced by Mayor Patrick Brown has not worked. Despite freezing the budget—which has gutted City accounts and delayed major infrastructure projects—it appears his politically motivated plan (Brown styles himself as a cost-cutting politician) has not had the intended effect of easing the financial burden on ratepayers.
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With the help of her two young daughters, Cassandra Harvey, a survivor of human trafficking, is fundraising money for Safe Hope Home, a social service agency that lost its critical shelter building for survivors in a fire earlier this year.
The What Were You Wearing? event brings together art and advocacy to debunk the harmful myth that what a victim of sexual assault is wearing during an attack somehow provokes the violence.
Pushback against the Ford government’s plan to merge Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities into seven mega-regional bodies is intensifying as municipalities including those in Peel and advocacy groups rush to express their opposition before the December 22 submission deadline.
Conservation authorities stress they are already fulfilling their critical role effectively despite minimal funding currently provided by the PCs. Critics warn the proposed changes could threaten local decision-making, undermine watershed protection and curtail critical work to mitigate the increasing impacts of climate change.
At its final meeting of the year Thursday, the Niagara Police Services Board will consider reductions to the 2026 budget which proposes an 11.5 percent increase over 2025.
The Board Chair has argued any further reductions could come at a significant risk. While regional councillors are looking for a $2.7 million reduction in police spending, options outlined by Niagara Police finance staff in a report going to the board Thursday, fall short.
For weeks, The Pointer’s attempts to get information about the state of a filtration system on the former St. Catharines GM property have been ignored by the Ministry of the Environment Conservation and Parks.
A Freedom of Information request reveals that the silence was a direct order handed down from a political staff member in the minister’s office.
This is a story of two Indigenous youth who could be living the ordinary chaos of their early twenties, but instead have inherited the burden of protecting their land, their waters and their communities from a “model of prosperity” built at the expense of the natural world.
Rather than look away, they stepped forward, and said—‘Here We Stand’, picking up the torch passed down by exhausted elders.
Relying on misleading information and bolstering the stigma that haunts those who use drugs, the PC government made the decision earlier this year to shutter safe consumption sites across Ontario—one in Peel.
Since its closure at the end of March, the regional municipality has increased its harm reduction efforts to assist those who use drugs. It will hopefully lessen any spike of deadly overdoses, which many experts say is inevitable due to the closure of these life-saving facilities across the province.
A development on Park Street in Niagara Falls could provide needed affordable rental units and spur growth in the downtown, but efforts to secure a private developer had been previously unsuccessful. A November 24th ground breaking revealed Elite Developments as the City’s partner. No information has been provided on how this came to be.
After a lack of public consultation around a proposed parking lot that threatened green space adjacent to Thorold’s prized Memorial Park, will a revised design satisfy residents?
The Auditor General of Ontario kicked off the Holiday season by delivering a stocking stuffed with hard truths about the Environmental Bill of Rights, revealing a government more eager to silence its citizens than safeguard their environment.
What should be the province’s democratic guardrails now seem like fragile ice, thinning under the weight of rushed laws, buried consultations and decisions made in the dark. With trust eroding and accountability slipping, some Ontarians are now calling on the province to strengthen the compliance requirements tied to AGO reports.
A freedom of information request by The Pointer has revealed a disturbing lack of transparency by officials with the provincial environment ministry and inside St. Catharines City Hall.
They knew for weeks that the filtration system set up on the former GM site next to downtown, to protect the public from cancer-causing chemicals and other toxic substances previously detected at levels as much as 1,000 times above allowable limits, has not been in operation. They failed to inform the public or take any action to protect residents from potential harm.
According to Diodati and University of Niagara Falls President David Gray, there are thousands of students studying in the city’s downtown. If they are, business owners aren’t seeing them.
Restrictions placed on international study permits by the federal government raised doubts about the in-person enrolment figures claimed by the institution since it opened in 2024.
A piece of paper uncovered at the 11th hour has saved portions of Thorold’s Memorial Park from being paved over for a parking lot.
Prior to the discovery, residents were concerned about the lack of consultation for a project with the potential to impact such a prized piece of city history. While the proposal has been scaled back “considerably”, questions about how the process unfolded remain.
The Ontario government was set to “face the music” at the province’s Superior Court of Justice on December 2 over its lagging climate record. In the eleventh hour, the Doug Ford government quietly rewrote the rules with the passage of its Fall Economic Statement, stalling the Mathur case once again after a historic six-year legal battle.
Ecojustice lawyers representing the seven young Ontarians say the move reveals a government more committed to avoiding accountability than confronting a crisis.
Marking a year since Bill 212 was pushed through, November 25 serves as a stark reminder of how the legislation simultaneously weakened Ontario’s environmental safeguards and cleared political space for Highway 413.
One expert says it was only the beginning: the first in a wave of laws that left species, watersheds and entire communities more vulnerable than ever.
Despite growing calls from a group of advocates and regional councillors demanding Peel’s fair share of funding from Queen’s Park, the PC government continues to ignore the issue. The crisis has left social service organizations struggling to meet increased demand for housing, mental health and other critical supports, while many vulnerable residents have few places to turn as services become overburdened.
On November 25, the Niagara Police are hosting an information session to educate parents, teens and community members about human trafficking.
The rapidly increasing crime is happening in the Niagara Region at a rate nearly twice the provincial average.
In Doug Ford’s Ontario, sustainability never stood a chance. Years of stripping away environmental safeguards led to an inevitable conclusion. On November 6, his PC government unveiled its Fall Economic Statement, completely abandoning its legally binding emissions targets and shelving its climate plan. Mark Carney might have had a role in it.
Experts warn this mix of fiscal recklessness and environmental backsliding risks pushing Ontario residents into ecological and economic crises.
So far in 2025, Peel Police laid two or more charges for impaired driving, every single day. On Monday, the force launched its annual Festive RIDE campaign which increases patrols and roadside stopping points in an attempt to counteract the increase in impaired driving over the holiday season. Labeled an “epidemic”, police officials and advocates are urging drivers to think of those killed when getting behind the wheel drunk.
Can a “generational” budget truly protect Canada’s future when political maneuvering and corporate lobbying dictate the pace of climate action? As federal politicians zero in on economic competitiveness and market-driven solutions, the science of a rapidly warming planet was an afterthought in Carney's first financial blueprint for the country which was narrowly approved Monday evening.
The contaminated former General Motors property next to downtown continues to pose potential risks to residents. It was recently learned that a system meant to contain toxins is now offline. Local elected officials, meanwhile, have been paralyzed by inaction.
The hazards created by these types of brownfields are well documented in research, but council members have still refused to use their powers to safeguard St. Catharines residents.
In the Municipality of Huron Shores, the Dean Lake Bridge remains closed. Now, after a vote cast by Council on November 12, it is set to never again reopen.
This is no longer just a story about infrastructure; it is a story about governance, responsibility and public trust.
As Hurricane Melissa devastated parts of the Caribbean, the G7 Energy and Environment Ministers’ meeting in Toronto wrapped with ambitious plans on AI, critical minerals and energy security. Environmental experts criticized Ottawa for its continued backing of fossil fuels, and overhyped carbon capture claims, highlighting how far Canada and the world still are from meaningful climate action ahead of COP30.
A motion approved by St. Catharines councillors last week regarding the former General Motors property on Ontario Street has once again left residents and advocates shaking their heads. While requesting information from the provincial government, local elected officials made no mention of the legal powers they have to force a clean-up of the contaminated industrial site.
Just days before five of Ontario’s top conservation leaders were honoured for decades of work to protect the one element that sustains all life, the PC government announced plans to merge the province’s 36 conservation authorities into seven mega-agencies.
The move, pitched as a way to speed up housing and infrastructure approvals, has sparked alarm among municipal leaders, environmental and legal experts who warn it could dismantle the system that protects Ontario’s water.
What if the heat wasted from our water, sewers, and even nuclear plants could warm our homes, power our offices, and shrink our carbon footprint? That’s the vision unfolding at Mississauga’s Lakeview Village, where lessons from Sweden’s pioneering district energy systems are turning ambient heat into a community-wide resource.
Could district energy power Ontario in the years ahead? A longtime advocate and expert weighs in on the opportunities, and the obstacles.
Two area NDP MPPs are calling for transparency after a filtration system meant to remove toxic chemicals appears to have been disconnected on the former GM site due to non-payment, and a demolition permit was cancelled.
The provincial environment ministry has indicated an investigation might be launched to find out what needs to be done to finally address potential public health and safety risks at the sprawling dormant industrial property near downtown St. Catharines.
Ontario’s push to accelerate road and mining development in the Ring of Fire has been framed through a series of negotiations with First Nations, including the recent Community Partnership Agreement with Webequie First Nation.
The Doug Ford government portrays these deals as pathways to economic growth and jobs; Indigenous leaders warn that consultation remains incomplete, and critical environmental and cultural concerns have been sidelined.
Residents asked questions and St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe did his best to sidestep them. They demanded to know what the City is doing to protect community members and their surrounding environment from possible contamination at the former GM site near downtown.
A town hall this week was the latest attempt by residents to get answers about a potential public health risk that has worried some for more than a decade. The Pointer recently reported that the filtration system meant to prevent dangerous chemicals from entering surrounding waterways and subsurface areas, was disconnected because the contractor had not been paid by the property owner.
In a landmark legal challenge, Ecojustice is supporting four young Canadians in a lawsuit against the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), alleging the fund is failing to protect contributors’ pensions from climate-related financial risks.
The case argues that CPPIB’s continued investments in fossil fuels breach its legal duty of impartiality, exposing younger generations to “undue risk of loss” and seeks a court declaration requiring the fund to properly assess, manage and disclose climate risks.
As the planet edges into a “danger zone” of cascading climate tipping points from collapsing warm-water coral reefs to dying kelp forests and melting polar ice sheets, the 2025 Global Tipping Points report shows that hope isn’t lost.
Canada is home to only two known live coral reefs. Though they are far from Ontarians, their health directly affects the air we breathe, the food we eat and the climate we live in.
Disconnected pipes, open hatches and a blank control panel; the system designed to keep toxic PCBs from leaking off the former GM site in St. Catharines appears to be offline.
Despite the potential risk to public health, municipal and provincial officials have refused to answer questions about who is responsible for monitoring the equipment after a contractor walked away from the job due to nonpayment.
The provincial Legislature is back in session this week.
After an extended summer recess, MPPs inside Queen’s Park face an ongoing housing crisis, rising unemployment and inflation, a dangerous shortage of doctors, transportation infrastructure that has become an international embarrassment and universities, colleges and schools that are woefully underfunded. Despite Doug Ford’s frequent promises to turbocharge Ontario’s economy, the province is foundering badly while residents continue to sink financially.
Premier Doug Ford claims his government cares about protecting animals. The evidence suggests otherwise as Ontario grapples with mounting cases of cruelty and neglect.
Many look to animals for support in their darkest times, but too many of these companions are being abandoned by a system Queen’s Park is supposed to hold accountable.
In the latest episode of humans vs. the wild in Ontario, one of the planet’s most iconic and imperilled species, polar bears, is teetering on the edge of extinction in the province’s far north.
Far from the melting ice of Hudson Bay, at Queen’s Park the Doug Ford PC government has accelerated the decline of Canada’s once mighty polar bears. Bill 5, a sweeping rollback of environmental protections, has stripped away critical safeguards that have never been needed more.
After a contractor appears to have walked away from the job due to lack of payment, questions are being raised about who is monitoring a system meant to prevent contamination from leaking off the former GM lands in the heart of St. Catharines.
Municipal officials have taken a potentially harmful hands-off approach for years, and now admit they have no idea who is monitoring the system, or if it’s even functioning.
Hidden behind a gas station in St. Catharines, illegal work has pushed gravel and concrete slabs down into a protected ravine. Disturbed residents immediately reported the work to the conservation authority, which has ignored their follow-up queries about what is being done.
The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority says this lack of communication is the typical process, but residents are demanding the policy be changed to restore public trust in a critical complaint system.
Earlier this year, local councillors raised their elbows and pushed a letter onto the national stage, urging Ottawa to back climate-focused nation-building projects. By October, nearly 300 municipal officials had signed on, warning that Canada’s future depends on investing in clean energy, housing, and resilience.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has come under fire for prioritizing “nation-building projects” that do not align with sustainable initiatives Canadians have been promised for a decade under Liberal rule.
Questionable contracts. Hirings and firings with zero accountability. Strong mayor powers that shut the public out. Disturbing deal making behind the scenes. And skyrocketing budgets that have left property taxpayers in shock.
Efforts to bring accountability back to City Hall through the passage of bill 9 seem doomed to fail, according to those who are trying to restore trust in the province’s badly broken municipal sector.
Two days in April have been set for the trial.
Strange denies the allegation which has created significant tension inside City Hall and triggered a complaint to the municipality’s integrity commissioner after he attempted to block women’s rights advocates from sitting in the council chamber.
The future of Ontario’s environment could be shaped by the unchecked "opinion" of the provincial cabinet. The draft regulations for Bill 5’s Special Economic Zones show just how much power ministers might have over project approvals, shutting out traditional oversight that has protected the province’s water, farmland, greenspaces and most sensitive ecosystems for decades.
Two decades after Ontario drew a line around its farmland and forests with the creation of the Greenbelt, The Pointer spoke with Victor Doyle, the plan’s chief architect, about how the landmark policy first came together to protect the province’s most fertile farmland and fragile watersheds.
Why is it still one of the province’s most important safeguards? Doyle fears the Ford government’s stalling on the Greenbelt’s long-overdue second review might be part of a plan to weaken Ontario’s most critical piece of environmental legislation.
Data show Automated Speed Enforcement cameras significantly reduce speeding in school and community safety zones across Brampton. The effort by officials to curb the city’s infamous dangerous driving is now at risk as Premier Doug Ford is determined to scrap the cameras, calling them a “cash grab”.
Brampton drivers already struggle with the highest auto insurance rates in Ontario, which could get even worse if the calming effect of speed cameras is removed.
Property records and court documents reveal troubling new information in the saga of the former General Motors site in downtown St. Catharines. More than $2 million in liens could pause development of the contaminated site indefinitely; but the City’s revocation of demolition permits presents an opportunity for the municipality to finally clean up the dangerous industrial lands in the heart of the city.
Canadians rallied across the country earlier this month in an effort to ‘draw the line’ against government policies that are harming marginalized groups and the environment.
In Niagara, improving the temporary foreign worker system for thousands of critical employees across the region was a main priority.
Leaving the final decision to remove a councillor found guilty of harassment or other bad behaviour in the hands of their fellow elected officials was widely criticized during a set of roundtables hosted by the provincial government this summer.
For experts, it represents a critical flaw in the proposed bill 9, which aims to tighten accountability of municipal officials, ensuring any new legislation will rarely be used. So far, the Ford PCs have refused to make any changes.
Thousands gathered last weekend at Queen’s Park, uniting their voices against government moves that threaten the environment, Indigenous rights and democratic values.
Why, they ask, are the country’s two most powerful politicians sabotaging the future of younger Canadians?
Several months ago, the City of St. Catharines promised to release details about the expenses of Mayor Mat Siscoe. What has been shared in recent weeks offers taxpayers a vague look at how the mayor uses their money, and falls well short of what is disclosed in the name of transparency by other Ontario municipalities. The opacity allows violations of the expense policy to go unchecked, The Pointer has found.
The Carden Alvar is recognized as a globally rare ecosystem. One of the last remaining strongholds for many threatened and endangered bird and plant species, naturalists and advocates have worked for decades to preserve it.
Now, a Quebec company wants to construct a massive renewable energy project on the alvar.
After men preyed on Cassandra Harvey, trapping her in their criminal sex trafficking ring, they piled thousands of dollars of debt onto the young woman, forcibly taking control of her assets. Despite clear evidence, testimony and the recognition of financial institutions that confirmed the debts were fraudulent, subsequently erasing them, the Canada Revenue Agency has failed to follow suit, causing ongoing trauma to Harvey and preventing her from moving on with her life.
When Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled his bold new Major Projects Office on September 11, he promised to make Canada “the strongest economy in the G7” and shield Canada from escalating trade wars and tariffs with plans to double LNG exports and build a carbon capture project, moves critics say risk locking in more emissions, not less.
Canada’s housing crisis has reached a breaking point, and the federal government is finally stepping in. On September 14, Prime Minister Mark Carney launched Build Canada Homes, a new federal agency aiming to deliver 500,000 new homes annually and restore affordability to a housing market increasingly out of reach for Canadians.
Climate leaders, builders and advocates are urging the government to build smarter and greener by prioritizing factory-built, all-electric homes powered by technologies like heat pumps and designed to last a century without major retrofits.
