Programming news...
For the next 6 months, I'll be covering national health stories for
@CBCNews
, filling in for
@christinecbc
while she reports for
@cbcmarketplace
.
Make sure you follow
@CBCLorenda
for
#onpoli
coverage.
If there's an early election next spring, I'll be back!
My high-school daughter was working in the same room as me in the past couple days so I got to overhear bits of her online
@tdsb
classes.
I was so impressed at the energy coming from the teachers & at how hard they were working to make online learning engaging.
#ThankATeacher
BREAKING/EXCLUSIVE: Amazon is dropping the wetland in Pickering from contention for the site of what would be largest warehouse in Canada, an
@amazonca
official tells
@CBCNews
.
#onpoli
BREAKING: Not only did all board members of FH Health each donate max permitted amount to
@OntarioPCParty
within a few days of each other last fall, so did a bunch of their family members and colleagues, the
@OntarioNDP
has revealed.
#onpoli
BREAKING: The Ford government has lost another major court case. Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that campaign spending restrictions targeting unions & other non-party groups infringe voters' Charter right to meaningful participation in the electoral process.
#onpoli
I've received a few messages from people saying my question to Premier Ford today was anywhere from inappropriate to disgusting. I've also heard from lots of people saying the question needed to be asked. Watch, listen, and decide for yourself.
Premier Doug Ford often says his heart breaks for business people struggling in the pandemic. In the past week in Ontario, more than 100 people with COVID-19 have died.
@CBCQueensPark
asked Ford: “Why aren’t you talking about them?”
Here’s his answer:
Vaccine-doubting Ontario doctor tried suing 20+ physicians, journalists & academics.
Judge threw out her libel suit.
Now she's been ordered to pay $1 million in legal costs. Story by
@tomblackwellNP
NEW: Here’s the list of companies and people who own the land that Premier Doug Ford’s government wants to remove from the Greenbelt. Story by
@CBCToronto
’s
@helloryanjones
Family-owned Ontario ice cream-maker
@Chapmans_Canada
was paying for COVID tests for unvaccinated staff. So to be fair, they decided to reward employees who did get vaxxed with $1/hour raise.
The result: anti-vaxxers scream for boycott & harass owners.
This line in Premier Doug Ford's speech stood out: "This is a pivotal, pivotal moment for our nation. The eyes of the world are upon us right now, and what they are seeing is not who we are. This is not how we try to change things here in Canada. We do it through the ballot box."
If Doug Ford lifted every single COVID-19 measure in Ontario today, would the protesters pack up and leave? Their anger is directly focused on the prime minister. At their core, these are more anti-Trudeau-government protests than anti-vaccine-mandate.
Just last month, when the Ford govt tabled its budget, it said the province was running a $13.5 B *deficit* for 2021-22 (fiscal year that ended in March.)
Today we learned the govt actually ran a *surplus* of $2.1B.
That's a $15 B difference in a few weeks.
Premier Doug Ford twice claims NDP leader Andrea Horwath "wasn't here" last night for the debate. Here's a shot from the Legislature camera at 3 a.m.
#onpoli
NEW: Documents reveal Premier Doug Ford met developer Sergio Manchia on removing his land from the Greenbelt.
(This despite Ford telling integrity commissioner he had "no recollection" of meeting Manchia or having any conversations with him on Greenbelt)👇
My son received his first university acceptance today (engineering at Carleton) and while I am truly happy for him and very proud of him, I am also, officially, old.
NEW: Ontario's chief electoral officer believes record-low turnout in the 2022 election was partly due to polling showing a huge lead for the
@OntarioPCParty
.
His recommendation: ban reporting on polls for the final 2 weeks of the campaign
#onpoli
After listing off a litany of Ford government’s reversals & backtracks,
@CityCynthia
asks Municipal Affairs Minister Paul Calandra: “Does your government think before it acts?”
#onpoli
NEW: Five Ontario 'hot spots' getting vaccine priority are actually less hard-hit by
#COVID19
than the average neighbourhood.
I’ve uncovered this by examining the data on rates of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
#COVID19Ontario
NEW:
@OntLiberal
leader Steven Del Duca will call for a return to mandatory masking in essential indoor settings such as schools, grocery stores & pharmacies.
NEW: "The federal carbon tax will cost you." declares the sticker that Premier Doug Ford is forcing gas stations to post.
The Green Party of Ontario's lookalike sticker declares "Climate change will cost us more."
#onpoli
WATCH: Minister of Long-Term Care
@DrFullertonMPP
refuses to take a question from reporter
@jessiecatherine
and walks out of news conference. Recent story by this reporter focused on Fullerton comparing
#COVID19
deaths to a bad flu year.
#COVID19ontario
Please note: no evidence the security guard was acting on orders from the
@OntarioPCParty
. I believe he works for
@sccniagara
Convention Centre. A party official eventually called him off. Two of Premier Ford’s top staff quickly apologized to me, said it shouldn’t have happened.
The CBC's Mike Crawley (
@CBCQueensPark
) was reporting on the Ontario PC convention when security tried to intervene. That didn't stop Mike, who kept his cool and carried on...
Two years after Premier Doug Ford announced he would require air conditioning in all resident rooms in long-term care, more than 100 LTC homes still don't have AC. Story by
@LisaYaxiXing
#onpoli
#ontltc
NEW: Hundreds more public buildings in this province - including schools - have the same type of lightweight concrete roof panels that triggered the Ontario Science Centre’s closure.
Yet only the Science Centre has been ordered shut down.
👇🏻Full story.👇🏻
NEW: Big step in gross negligence lawsuits against long-term care homes over COVID-19
The Ontario Superior Court gives the green light for class actions against six of the biggest for-profit LTC providers, including Chartwell, Extendicare, Revera & Sienna
FACT CHECK: Premier Doug Ford said ICU numbers in past few days exceeded modellers’ worst-case scenarios.
That’s not true.
Here are
@covid19mc
forecasts since March. There are *not* more COVID patients in Ontario ICUs than predicted.
The government can’t say it wasn’t warned.
NEW: I’ve got up-to-date stats about how many kids are coming to Ontario ERs / getting hospitalized with respiratory illnesses.
The numbers over the past week are nearly *triple* the usual for this time of year.
No more tweets from me for the rest of this week. I’ve booked days off to spend time with my kids on their April Beak. We’ll be outdoors as much as possible.
With much gratitude and appreciation for all hospital workers for their courage and hard work at this challenging time.
Not a single word in the text of this tweet or its 52-second whiteboard video to indicate that the federal government is actually the source of this $381 million for Ontario schools.
#onted
#COVID19Ontario
I joined Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health to announce new and tougher measures to further protect our schools, including expanded testing & an additional $381M in supports.
We're committed to following medical advice to safely reopen schools & get kids back to class.
Further example of what I've been hearing from my sources, that Premier Doug Ford and PM Justin Trudeau have firmly set aside their partisan differences and the provincial and federal governments are working well together in this
#COVID19
crisis.
Today’s decision by the federal government to close the border to non-essential travellers is a tough but necessary one. Goods and trade will continue to flow between Ontario and the United States. It’s vitally important we keep our supply chain intact.
Premier Doug Ford is trying to portray $633 million funding for construction of two new facilities at CAMH as a “great announcement” from his govt. It is, however, old news. The Wynne govt announced it. Construction began fall 2017.
#onpoli
#BellLetsTalk
NEW: Premier Doug Ford's government asked experts to assess the risks Ontario faces from climate change.
The report was delivered in January.
The government sat on it until August, when it was posted quietly to the web.
Here's what it says:
The Ford government said it inherited a $15 billion deficit from the Wynne government for 2018-19. The final numbers are in, and the deficit was actually $7.4B.
#onpoli
NEW:
What Ontario hospitals pay nurses: up to $50/hr
What Ontario hospitals pay private staffing agencies for a nurse: $100/hr (& up)
The auditor general finds hospitals across the province doubled their use of nursing staffing agencies in just 1 year.👇
Today, Premier Doug Ford held his first news conference in nearly six weeks. Here's an edited sampling of how some of his answers to reporters' questions tended to wander away from the topic as his response went on.
#onpoli
For 3 years,
@CBCToronto
has been fighting for public access to Premier Doug Ford's mandate letters to his cabinet ministers.
Ontario's top court says the letters should not be kept secret.
#onpoli
BREAKING: Greenpeace and Ecojustice are suing the Doug Ford government over the cancellation of cap and trade. Court hearing scheduled for Sept. 21.
#onpoli
During a 25-minute news conference, Merrilee Fullerton took no responsibility for what happened in long-term care. She blamed it all mostly on previous governments, but also the health bureaucracy, community spread, and scientists disagreeing about masks & aerosol spread.
The
@OntarioPCParty
put out this media advisory about Doug Ford's campaign stops today.
When we asked for the locations, so that we could send cameras, we were told: "Today’s events are not open to media."
#onpoli
LOTS of people asking why the Public Health Ontario briefing on
#COVID19
projections talked about "slides" in a televised briefing but ***DIDN'T PUT THEM ON THE SCREEN.***
So I am posting them here publicly for all to see
Ontario Premier Doug Ford thanks mothers for working from home, while managing childcare and housework.
"To all the moms out there, you're true heroes."
(Meanwhile, I just put my son down for a nap, and am preparing to make homemade pizza dough with my daughter)
Trying to make sure this story I broke yesterday afternoon doesn't disappear under the radar amid the LCBO strike.
The Ford government will *not* bring in a deposit and return system on non-alcoholic drink containers such as pop cans and bottled water.
Premier Doug Ford just said “we were able to get the federal government to match” his govt’s promise of $1.9B over 10 years in funding for mental health. *Not true.* The feds committed to that before Ford was elected. It was even in Patrick Brown’s platform.
#onpoli
#cdnpoli
BREAKING: The Doug Ford government gets to go all the way to the Supreme Court in its efforts to keep cabinet ministers mandate letters secret. Lower courts have ruled the documents must be made public.
@CBCNews
has fought for access for nearly 4 years.
In the space of 30 mins last night, I got calls from my dad (in New Brunswick) and from my son, each informing me they had just tested positive. This morning, my mom is showing symptoms. My parents are 2X boosted and my son is boosted, so hoping all will be well.
#CovidIsNotOver
NEW: Only 1 of the 140-plus hospitals in Ontario told Premier Doug Ford that it was against a province-wide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for hospital staff,
@NatashaCBC_RC
discovered through a freedom of information request.
#COVID19Ontario
En octobre, Doug Ford a écrit aux hôpitaux de l'Ontario pour informer sa décision sur la vaccination obligatoire en santé. La mesure a ensuite été écartée et les réponses gardées secrètes. Nous les avons obtenues via la Loi sur l'accès à l'information.
NEW: The Ford government says its red-tape reduction measures will save people & businesses $1.2B this year.
CBC News obtained a breakdown of how the govt came up with that figure. A big share of the savings goes to developers.
⬇️ Full story ⬇️
#onpoli
Convoy donation scoop here for
@QPbriefing
: the staffer who donated was communications director for Solicitor General
@SylviaJonesMPP
, the cabinet minister responsible for policing in Ontario.
The government's own modelling shows building Highway 413 won't solve the GTA's gridlock problem, according to documents obtained through a freedom of information request by
@Thetrilliumca
.
Solid reporting here by
@jessiecatherine
.
NEW: 337 schools in Ontario reporting absence rates of 30% or higher among staff & students.
That's almost 1/10 of the schools for which data is available.
(Absences tallied Friday, reported today, the first day Ontario has made this data public.)
#onted
Hey
@TwitterCanada
: Why can't Canadians report tweets for having false information, yet
@Twitter
users in the U.S., Australia, South Korea and other countries can?
“Where is Doug Ford?” asks Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca at a news conference in eastern Ontario in the wake of destruction from the storm 48 hrs ago.
Del Duca says he suspended his campaign schedule to meet affected people, while Ford campaigned in Toronto-area ridings.
#onpoli
CBC's research librarians are digging through the archives, but have so far been unable to find a record of any Ontario premier in history appointing a relative to cabinet.
#onpoli
SCOOP: Ontario government lawyers spent 1,672 hours working to keep Doug Ford's mandate letters secret (even before going to Ont Court of Appeal). And now those letters have been leaked.
Reporting by
@nicolebrockbank
@CBCToronto
#onpoli
SCOOP: The Ford government’s decision to shut down 10 supervised drug consumption sites goes against the advice of the province’s own experts.
Reviews recommended increasing funding for sites, not closing any.
#onpoli
The NDP's Andrea Horwath isn't praising Christine Elliott on her departure from politics: "She made choices, as did Doug Ford, that were the wrong choices, that were bad choices. This Conservative government was cutting in health care before the pandemic."
#onpoli
Here's video.
EXCLUSIVE:
The Ford government announced $100M last September to help Ontario tourism operators recover from the pandemic.
None of the money has gone to any businesses yet.
#onpoli
How much taxpayer money is
@TorontoPolice
spending on a podcast?
It took a freedom of information request & many months before the police would provide the answer: $337,000.
@CBCToronto
story by
@johnrieti
&
@Shawn_Jeffords
“Ford is doing only one event per day, reading his announcements off a teleprompter, and taking only 10 minutes of questions from reporters. It’s a peek-a-boo campaign designed to provide as few opportunities to stumble as possible,” writes
@spaikin
Premier Doug Ford’s government copied a developer's exact request (word for word) into Hamilton official plan to force the city to approve a controversial building
#onpoli
#hamont
👇story by
@Samantha_KB
THREAD: Ontario's second wave of
#COVID19
, in quotes and charts.
"We are flattening the curve." Premier Doug Ford, Oct. 6
(seven-day-average trend of new cases daily = 611)
#COVID19Ontario
BREAKING: Ontario's 2 million students will not go back to class in June. "We cannot open schools at this time. I'm just not going to risk it," announces Premier Doug Ford.
#COVID19
NEW: Peel District School Board declares 292 teachers surplus. Education Min Lisa Thompson calls this "an annual routine ... a regular occurrence that school boards undertake." But
@PeelSchools
officials tell me they haven't declared *any* teachers surplus in past 5 yrs.
#onpoli
Premier Doug Ford & his cabinet are criticized in report on Trudeau govt’s use of the Emergencies Act:
“I find the Province of Ontario's reluctance to become fully engaged in such efforts directed at resolving the situation in Ottawa troubling.”
#onpoli
Judge on Ford govt slashing Toronto city council seats: "Passing a law that changes the City’s electoral districts in the middle of its election and undermines the overall fairness of the election is antithetical to the core principles of our democracy."
Premier Doug Ford just claimed the world's biggest firms "stopped investing" in Ontario over the last 15 years.
Not sure that's anywhere close to the truth. This, from 2017:
When
@CBCToronto
was researching this story about Peel School District's culling of library books,
@Sflecce
refused to comment.
*After* we broke the story yesterday morn, Lecce announced he has written to the board to end this practice immediately.
#onpoli
Back in 2006, when the Dalton McGuinty government redesigned the trillium, MPP
@MacLeodLisa
slammed the Liberals for having "the audacity to waste taxpayer dollars on rebranding the logo of an institution that will be here long after we are gone."
#onpoli
Premier Ford has not explained why -- if the government was preparing for the second wave of
#COVID19
since the summer -- Ontario was not ready to handle the demand for testing that the second wave has brought.
#covidontario
I asked Education Minister
@Sflecce
twice to put a dollar figure on his moves on high school class sizes and e-learning opt-out. Both times, he didn’t answer. (He has frequently put $ figures on the teachers unions’ asks.) onpoli
#onted
.
BREAKING:
@envirodefence
and
@ecojustice_ca
release a trove of documents that they say show "partisan Minister’s Office staff – not civil service experts – directed changes to municipal Official Plans in ways that favoured select landowners."
#onpoli
I asked Minister
@DrFullertonMPP
if she or her government is going to apologize for what happened in long-term care. In her 3-minute+ response to that direct and specific question, she did not apologize.
#COVID19Ontario
BREAKING: Ontario is changing its public health advice to households. Multiple households to a max of 10 people can now have close contact. The province is calling these "social circles" (but you can call them social bubbles.)
The Ford government "deliberately avoided" consulting the public on environmentally significant decisions over the past year, despite a legal requirement to consult, the
@OntarioAuditor
reveals in a new report.
#onpoli
NEW: Stephen Lecce, one of the highest-profile
@OntarioPCParty
candidates, apologizes for 2006 fraternity event dubbed a “slave auction.”
@OntarioNDP
is calling for Lecce to withdraw his candidacy.
#onpoli
Source tells me Ford govt wants to call in OPP to investigate how NDP obtained leaked health documents. While they’re at it, cops could investigate how PCs (when they were in opposition) obtained these Lib govt documents
#onpoli
It seems
@RobynBresnahan
(host of CBC Radio
@OttawaMorning
) is getting some flack today for allegedly being too hard on Kathleen Wynne in an interview. She also got flack last week for allegedly being too hard on Doug Ford. That's the sign of a good journalist doing her job well.
Wondering why I didn't cover today's
@envirodefence
report on moving trucks to the 407 ETR vs building Hwy 413?
It's because I wrote this in March 2022:
"How subsidizing trucks to use the 407 could cost Ontario less than building Highway 413"
👇to read👇
Team of researchers from
@Sunnybrook
@McMasterU
&
@UofT
has isolated the virus that causes
#COVID19
, an achievement that will help researchers around the world develop better diagnostic testing, treatments and - hopefully - vaccines
“I wouldn’t have spoken out if I hadn’t heard Premier Ford say ‘these private clinics won’t charge you extra.’ That’s not true.”
Reporting by
@christinecbc
She was upsold thousands of dollars in extra services at a private for-profit clinic, and when she started to ask questions, the doctor asked her to leave.
Although people aged 60+ in Toronto can now book an appointment to get a
#COVID19
vaccination at a pharmacy, this map of the participating locations reveals a gaping paucity in the city's NW, one of the areas worst-hit by the pandemic.
#COVID19Ontario
SARS: 44 dead in Ontario, public inquiry ✔
Elizabeth Wettlaufer: 8 dead, public inquiry ✔
Walkerton: 6 dead, public inquiry ✔
Ipperwash: 1 dead, public inquiry ✔
#COVID19
in Ontario: 1,798 dead (so far).
I asked Premier Ford why he hasn't committed to a public inquiry.
These new rapid tests are game-changers in the fight against COVID-19.
This technology can provide test results in hours, even minutes, instead of days. We're deploying them as quickly as possible to protect patients, long-term care residents, and our frontline heroes.
NEW: Engineers and architects say what's in the engineering report on the Science Centre roof doesn’t actually match what the government has said about it. They say closing the facility wasn’t necessary.
👇🏻Deep dive here by
@bobbyhristova
👇🏻
SCOOP: You've almost certainly seen/heard these taxpayer-funded Ontario government ads that say "...and what if we told you, you already live here."
Premier Doug Ford's officials refused to say how much the ad campaign costs.
I found out the price tag👇