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March-April 2022

Keep on truckin’

Long-haul drivers fight for safety

Nicholas Sokic

For years, Ontario’s long-haul truck drivers have decried their unsafe labour conditions, among them the inadequate number of rest stops off of Southern Ontario highways. A petition for more truck parking in Ontario created by private policy group SPR Associates of Toronto aims to improve working environments and safety for the long-haul drivers on the […] More »

The cancellation of Ontario’s basic income project is a tragedy

Some 4,000 recipients of benefits in the pilot are now without the financial support that was promised to them

James Mulvale

The cancellation of Ontario’s basic income project not only violates our obligation as a society to ensure economic security for all. It also breaches the ethical obligations we have to those participating in research, and underscores the need for a multi-faceted research methodology in designing better income security programs. The new Conservative government in Ontario […] More »
July-August 2018

Inside the battle to modernize 1960s-era mental health housing in Ontario

They're home to Canada's most vulnerable. They want change, but many decision makers are fighting it

Megan Marrelli

On a rainy Thursday in April, I arrive at a yellow brick, split-level house in London, Ont. People are doing word searches at a large dining table. Some help themselves to a container of freshly baked peanut butter cookies, and CBC News is playing on a television in the living room. This house, tucked away in […] More »
July-August 2018

Inside Ontario’s Cedar Centre, a space to care for those who have experienced childhood trauma

Executive director Alison Peck on the programs once considered one of Ontario's best-kept secrets for mental health care

Sohini Bhattacharya

As a child, Tim Johnson was sexually abused by multiple adults. Brief therapy sessions then didn’t help him. “I wasn’t ready for it,” says Johnson, who’s now a paramedic in York Region, Ont. As an adult, memories of his abuse started creeping back until he hit rock bottom. “One day I left work with the […] More »
July-August 2018

Ontario’s plan to sell weed may be tainted by the past of the Liquor Control Board

How the LCBO handled privacy with past alcohol sales could paint a picture of the future of legal cannabis sales

Gary Genosko

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) faced a monumental task: Not only did it need to build a credible recreational cannabis business to manage consumer demand, but it had to outflank the drug’s illicit market, all while undercutting head shops. In figuring out how to balance it all, the LCBO turned to its control-centric […] More »
January-February 2017

Migrant detainees use hunger strikes to enact change in Ontario correctional centres

In 2013, more than 7,300 migrants were detained in Canada without charges or trial

Pema Tsering@PemaTsering1

Macdonald Scott’s client called him on October 17, 2016 to tell him that he, along with the other detainees at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont., had stopped eating again. It was the third hunger strike in less than a year—an act of defiance that both encouraged Scott, an immigration lawyer, and worried him. […] More »

Gender Block: doctors can’t deny care based on their own beliefs. Wait, they could before?

Hillary Di Menna

In early March, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario released a draft policy paper saying doctors could no longer deny patient care based on moral or religious grounds. The Professional Obligations and Human Rights policy requires doctors who limit the care they provide based on beliefs—such as refusing to prescribe birth control or […] More »

Friday FTW: The movement to raise the minimum wage in Ontario

Espe Currie

The Workers’ Action Centre (WAC) is calling for a raise in the Ontario minimum wage, and has been organizing demonstrations and events since early March. On Tuesday, the Toronto Star published a piece from Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage members Navjeet Sidhu and Yvonne Kelly, in which the activists outline the myriad reasons an increase […] More »

FTW Friday: Sweet news for bees

Hillary Di Menna

Canada now has a working group dedicated to figuring out bee mortality. On July 9, environmental group Sierra Club Canada shared a press release announcing the group’s formation, which is made up of beekeepers, farmers, scientists and others in agri-business. The press release mentions the recent loss of 27 million bees near Elwood, Ont. In […] More »
May-June 2012

Why can’t Johnny blog?

Barb MacDonald

A growing number of teachers and parents say Ontario’s current school  curriculum will graduate scores of children who are 21st century illiterate. Inside the fight for more technology and social media in the classroom. Every school day from September to June at 3:30 p.m., Aerin Guy meets her nine-year old daughter at school. On this […] More »
November-December 2011

Ontario risks losing a huge swath of prime farmland to the Melancthon quarry

Matthew Strader

Carl Cosack wonders who is standing on guard for his piece of Ontario. The 52-year-old rancher manages a herd of black angus cows and 30 horses, making him one of Ontario’s last traditional trail hands and proud owner of one of the province’s few remaining amateur ranches (don’t call it a “dude ranch”). Thanks to […] More »