PressProgress Sources

Send us a note! Five of Ontario’s Education Unions representing over 250,000 workers have served notice to the province to begin bargaining ahead of next school year, in a move some are calling “unprecedented.” Union leaders involved in the announcement have described this announcement as an opportunity for a quarter of a million education workers to say “enough is enough” regarding the chronic un...

Send us a note! "The homeless are not Other. They are Us," Ontario's Superior Court declared last month.  In a ruling that had advocates cheering, Justice Michael Gibson affirmed that unhoused people are entitled to the same Charter rights as any other Canadian — and that a bylaw targeting a specific encampment for removal had therefore amounted to anti-homeless discrimination. This...

Send us a note! A wave of changes is hitting Ontario, including one that is going to make finding things out about the province more difficult for reporters and the public.  In March, Doug Ford announced that his government was going to change Freedom of Information Laws to exempt correspondence from himself and his cabinet ministers.  These changes come after a court ruled that Ford’s personal ce...

Send us a note! For decades, if you asked a Canadian to name something they appreciated about this country, our universal healthcare system would invariably come up. But in recent years, chronic underfunding, personnel shortages and the creep of privatization have taken their toll on a system that may or may not remain a point of national pride. On this episode of Sources , our health reporter, Br...

Send us a note! Late last month, thousands of Calgarians trekked to Stampede Park to pledge their support for Alberta separation. Trekking there, too, was our Alberta reporter, Stephen Magusiak. Unfortunately, he didn't get to stay for long. Before the rally even started — and just after he interviewed one of the organizers — Stephen was unceremoniously removed. They evidently didn't lik...

Send us a note! More than 100 students have been stuck in limbo as they wait for the Canadian government to approve the visas that would allow them to come here for graduate school. At least 26 universities across the country have accepted them into a wide range of programs. But there's something the students have in common: they live in, or are from, Gaza. The Palestinian Students and Schola...

Send us a note! While, for the first time in decades, there’s a nonzero chance of Canada getting smaller (with Alberta maybe wanting out and the U.S. maybe wanting in), PressProgress , at least, is only getting bigger. That’s… something? On this extra-festive edition of Sources , Eric speaks to Emma, Stephen, Rumneek and Jonathan about some of the favourite stories they’ve worked on this year and...

Send us a note! Mark Carney is billing his first budget as an "investment budget," but with plans to eliminate 40,000 jobs in the federal public service and cut $60 billion in program spending, is this really an "investment budget" or is it an austerity budget? The 2025 federal budget gives Canadians a first look at the details behind Carney's plans to have federal departm...

Send us a note! An ostrich farm in rural British Columbia keeps making national and international headlines. It's the subject of a federal cull order, after 69 birds were found dead from an H5N1 or avian flu outbreak — routine procedure to stamp out further spread. But that's not entirely why they've caught the attention of U.S. politicians. On this episode of Sources , virologist a...

Send us a note! As the housing crisis persists throughout Ontario and across Canada, more and more municipalities are struggling with how to manage vulnerable residents in need of support. In Barrie, the mayor declared a state of emergency, so the city could more aggressively move to take apart encampments. But in Kitchener, a recent court decision concerning a longstanding encampment blocked the...

Send us a note! One of the top news stories in Canada this week was the tense stand-off between Air Canada and its 10,000 flight attendants. The Air Canada flight attendants' strike saw planes grounded across Canada as flight attendants demanded better pay, including an end to unpaid ground work . Then Mark Carney's government intervened and invoked a controversial section of the labour...

Send us a note! In the months since winning its third consecutive majority, Doug Ford’s government has proposed or passed a flurry of laws with the potential to reshape Ontario. But with aggressively vague names like the “Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act,” it can be hard to keep track of which bill does what — let alone all the ways they’ll impact the lives of the people who call the...

Send us a note! Racialized immigrant women are some of the most disadvantaged workers in Canada, with an employment rate significantly lower than racialized immigrant men and non-racialized immigrant women. Often, certifications and work experience from their home countries aren’t recognized, pushing many into low-wage, precarious jobs. If they experience harassment or unsafe working conditions, r...

Send us a note! Alberta separatism is making headlines again, this time driven largely by figures associated with far-right politics and the Freedom Convoy who are disgruntled about the federal election results. Groups within the province are now organizing a petition for a referendum and it looks increasingly like they may succeed at putting a question about Alberta independence on the ballot in...

Send us a note! Far-right parties are on the rise across Europe. Germany’s recent federal election saw a dramatic and concerning rise in support for the Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, a far-right party that is considered a right-wing extremist organization and a threat to democracy . The AfD’s recent campaign was emboldened following endorsements by foreign billionaire Elon Musk and words of...

Send us a note! Who is lobbying Pierre Poilievre? An interactive map from DeSmog shines a light on the links between Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and various corporate lobbying interests and right-wing advocacy groups. The map connects the dots between top figures in Poilievre’s Conservative party, including Poilievre's top advisor Jenni Byrne and Campaign Chair John Baird, with big n...

Send us a note! As Justin Trudeau announced that he’s stepping down as Liberal leader, and many are saying that a federal election is just around the corner, one community is getting organized to make sure they’re needs are heard by politicians. A Mass Organizing Call for members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community in Canada is taking place on March 9. Its organizer is hoping that this event will h...

Send us a note! As education workers in Ontario experience unprecedented levels of violence in the workplace, staff shortages and burnout, experts say education is in crisis under Doug Ford. Educational assistants, custodians, secretaries, lunch supervisors, maintenance staff overwhelmingly agree there is not enough personnel in schools to do jobs properly and many now find themselves doing the wo...

Send us a note! Canada and the United States walked back from the brink of a full-blown trade war after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on products from Canada. While Trump has granted Canada a temporary 30-day "pause" on his threatened trade war, if he makes good on his threats, Canada's economy could be facing an apocalyptic scenario with food and gas pr...

Send us a note! While Ontario is gearing up for Doug Ford’s early election , many Ontarians are struggling to make ends meet. With one-in-three residents struggling to put food on their table, Kingston, Ontario just declared a food insecurity emergency — the third city in Ontario to recently declare this kind of emergency, following Toronto and Mississauga . In their announcements, all three citie...

Send us a note! Duncan Kinney is an Edmonton-based journalist and editor of a digital publication focused on Alberta politics called The Progress Report. From scrutinizing police budgets, shining a light on how police handle the city's unhoused population or drug poisoning crisis and exposing partisan connections between senior officers and Alberta's governing United Conservative Party,...

Send us a note! Residents of Jasper Alberta are finally returning to the town that made international headlines after it was devastated by a monster wildfire in July. Nearly a third of the town was damaged or destroyed, and the spot is currently closed to tourists for the foreseeable future. How do we prevent climate change disasters in the future? It’s complicated, according former Alberta Firefi...

Send us a note! Canada’s expert on the rising costs at the grocery store (no, not that one) joins host Stephen Magusiak to discuss his latest project, the Grocery Tracker , which monitors the price of food staples Eric Wickham is a data journalist for the Toronto-based Hoser. He co-hosts and produces the Big Shiny Takes podcast. Wickham recently wrote about the Loblaws boycott . He also produces S...

Send us a note! The foreign interference commission published its preliminary report — but the Sikh community in Canada says the inquiry largely overlooked India despite their role as a major threat of foreign interference in Canada.  In the foreign interference commission’s final report it was revealed that "India directed foreign interference activities related to the 2019 & 2021 genera...

Send us a note! Canada has been seeing an unusual wave of anti-LGBTQ+ protests over the last year. These rallies and marches targeted drag storytime events at libraries , they targeted local school board meetings – in fact, they even targeted high schools and elementary schools in residential neighborhoods . This organized wave of hate climaxed with a so-called “one million march for children” whi...