Mike Schreiner

The Green Party faces a self-reckoning after a federal election that dashed hopes of growth following a year marred by internal strife, say Green officials past and present.

In an exclusive interview, party leader Mike Schreiner said the Ontario Greens would crack down on urban sprawl and take aggressive steps to address the housing crisis. It comes as the province’s unofficial campaign season gets rolling ahead of next year’s election.

Norm Sterling ⁠— who oversaw cuts to the environment ministry’s budget that were later found to have contributed to what happened to the Walkerton E. coli outbreak ⁠— was a Progressive Conservative environment minister under the Mike Harris government.

The Ontario government has proposed repealing measures that made it easier to build new renewable energy projects. Critics say the changes would be a significant step backwards.

Ontario's years-long battle with Ottawa over the federal carbon tax came to an end on Thursday, March 25, 2021, when the country's top court ruled the national price on pollution was constitutional.

On Thursday, the Ford government introduced a bill that would expand its ability to use controversial land zoning orders. An internal document obtained by Canada’s National Observer shows the move is aimed at quashing a lawsuit that seeks to halt a casino development on a protected Pickering wetland.

Under fire during question period Tuesday, the Ford government didn’t address criticism about the environmental impact of MZOs, the subject of a Canada's National Observer investigation released last week. But PC MPP Parm Gill said the government “will not apologize.” Later, the government announced renewed funding for the Greenbelt Foundation, which critics said was a distraction.

The announcement comes the day after an investigation by Canada’s National Observer showed the Ford government has been using a controversial special zoning order to give the green light to developments in environmentally sensitive areas. Several allowed projects in close proximity to the Greenbelt, which experts say can degrade the protected land.

Annamie Paul has spent most of the past 10 months holed up in her apartment, just like you.

Ontario may not meet its greenhouse gas emission targets because they're not a "cross-government priority," the province's auditor general said on Wednesday, November 18, 2020, casting doubt on a key environmental pledge made by Premier Doug Ford.

Dianne Saxe was the Ontario environmental commissioner from 2015 until 2019, when the Ford government eliminated her position. On Friday, Canada's National Observer reported that Saxe would run for the Greens in 2022.

Dianne Saxe held the non-partisan watchdog role from 2015 to 2019, when the Ford government eliminated her position. She was often critical of the province's weakening of environmental policy. "I feel truly horrified by the unrelenting attacks by the Ford government on our natural environment, on the institutions that protect it," she told Canada's National Observer.

Conservation authorities oversee Ontario watersheds. The changes to how they work could allow developers to circumvent checks and balances brought in after hurricane Hazel in 1954, which destroyed houses built on flood-plains.

Ontario's Progressive Conservative government delivered a budget focused more on COVID-19 than the deep cuts it served up in 2019. But clean energy and green infrastructure were nowhere in sight, with recovery plans centred on tax cuts.

Ontario will not appeal a court ruling against its anti-carbon tax stickers, the government said on Thursday, October 1, 2020, putting an end to an 18-month political and legal battle between Ottawa and the province.