Ontario

Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised to sink more than $25 billion into building highways over the next 10 years as the Progressive Conservative government tabled its budget Thursday.

Ontario’s budget is perhaps most notable for what isn’t contained within its 268 pages.

Emissions of over 40 highly toxic chemicals in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec have significantly increased in recent decades, potentially exposing millions of Canadians to harmful groundwater and air pollution, a new analysis shows.

Condo highrises reaching skyward 80 storeys. Forty thousand new homes. Eighty-eight thousand more people. All in the space of about 45 hectares in Richmond Hill and Markham.

“Come for a coffee, we’ll have it inside,” Norfolk County resident Paula Jongerden says with a laugh. But she’s not joking. She lives about 300 metres from an old oil well that routinely belches foul-smelling odours.

When the full story of this pandemic is finally written, the behaviour of people like Dr. Kieran Moore — to say nothing of his political masters at Queen’s Park — will feature prominently, writes columnist Max Fawcett.

Premier Doug Ford’s government announced last week it would temporarily cut the province’s gas tax by 5.7 cents per litre and its fuel tax by 5.3 cents per litre, but not until July 1 — about a month after the provincial election slated for June 2.

The rosy economic projections come as Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government prepares to table its 2022 budget later this month in the lead-up to the June 2 election.

It has been more than seven months since an explosion decimated the downtown core of Wheatley, a small southwestern Ontario town on the shores of Lake Erie. Sixty-eight families still can’t go home.

The Ontario government has launched a five-year plan to bolster the province’s forestry industry by expanding biomass projects that turn waste wood into energy or useful products. 

The agency says avian influenza is not a significant public health concern for healthy people who are not in regular contact with infected birds.

A powerful drug used to sedate horses and cattle is creeping into Canada's illicit drug supply and has been detected in a growing number of human drug poisoning deaths in Ontario.

The past decade has seen exploding interest in an approach to farming focused on soil health called regenerative agriculture, which proponents say can help fix the climate crisis. The problem? No one agrees on what regenerative agriculture actually means.

Ontario's child-care deal will cut child-care fees in the province in half by the end of the year.