By Jessica Bell
The Ford government’s Bill 39 is a direct attack on representative democracy. The bill bulldozes local decision-making so Doug Ford can wield more power while making it easier for his developer friends to get rich paving over the Greenbelt.
By Fox Oliver
By Jessica Bell
As the Omicron wave overwhelms Ontario, University-Rosedale residents are facing big challenges. Parents are wracked with the decision over whether to send their children to school. Hospitals are near capacity. You can’t get a PCR test. Surgeries are being canceled. Demand at food banks is at record levels, driven by rising poverty, job loss and inflation. The science is rapidly evolving, people are exhausted, and there is no public consensus on how to proceed.
Tags: Annex · Columns · Opinion
By Jessica Bell
On November 24, the auditor general released her annual report on the environment. It reads as a dry and horrifying account of Premier Doug Ford’s assault on our natural environment, health and future. Here are the lowlights.
With less than a year before the provincial election our MPP reflects
By Madeline Smart
By Jessica Bell
With the provincial election coming fast and COVID in resurgence, this fall session at Queen’s Park will be impactful. Here are five issues to follow.
Our response to the fourth wave
By Jessica Bell
Housing affordability crisis requires action
Housing prices are now so high that the National Bank of Canada calculates that only the top five percent of income earning households can afford to buy an average Canadian home. Housing affordability is one of the defining issues of our era, and it threatens the very soul of Toronto.
By Jessica Bell
Since becoming premier, the Doug Ford government has rewritten many of the laws and regulations that decide how we build and what we build. These developer-friendly changes help Doug Ford’s donor base reap record profits, but their impact on people, the environment, democracy and our affordable housing goals is mixed. And I’m being nice here.
By Nicole Stoffman
Seven percent of Ontario tenants, or 98,000 families, can’t pay their full rent because of pandemic-related job loss. They are accumulating rent arrears that many will never be able to repay, according to the Federation of Rental Providers of Ontario (FRPO). In the Annex alone, 16 eviction applications have been made since November.
By Jessica Bell
The Ford government released its 2021-2022 Budget on March 24. The government will spend $186 billion next year, a cut of $4.8 billion from the previous year.
By Jessica Bell
I was sitting near MPP Sol Mamakwa in question period, when Premier Ford accused Ontario’s only Indigenous MPP of jumping the vaccination queue after he flew into a remote community to be vaccinated.
By Jessica Bell
I am concerned the Ford government is opening the economy too fast, setting the stage for another round of illness, preventable death, overwhelmed hospitals and lockdowns. We must make decisions based on what’s best for our public health. When we reopen, we must reopen carefully and slowly, with safety first and foremost in mind. We must make Ontario’s workplaces more safe.
By Jessica Bell
St. George Community Living, which is located in my riding of University-Rosedale, now has the largest COVID-19 outbreak in Ontario. As of January 5, 84 residents and 51 staff have COVID-19, and 6 residents have died. The staff and residents need help now, and we, as a society, need to change the laws of our province to stop these preventable tragedies from happening again.