The 905er Podcast

Coming off our previous episode, we wanted to examine the state of Catholic education in Ontario. Sparked by the recent York Catholic school board controversy, along with the stories of Catholic school boards fighting against raising the Pride flag, we were wondering about its future in Ontario. What is the support for Catholic education, and does it have a purpose in today's multicultural and div...

A few things in the world of public education cropped up on our radar this week. In the York Catholic District School Board, the Our Lady of the Lake Academy, saw students upset at what they viewed as an inappropriate presentation from a right-wing anti-abortion organization. The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethics gave a presentation in the school auditorium, as reported by City News contained graphic...

The Doug Ford government is looking to protect political staffers in Ontario's city halls. As reported by The Spec on February 21, 2024, Minister of Municipal Affairs Paul Calandra will be tabling legislation that would see Mayors and Councillors thrown out of office for workplace harassment. Ontario Liberal MPP Stephen Blais had similar legislation defeated by the Ford Government, at the time Min...

Lorraine Sommerfeld, author of the long-running Motherlode column in the Hamilton Spectator and multi-award-winning journalist at Driving.ca returns to discuss her new novel "A Face at the Window", before taking the time to dive into what on earth is going on with the recent driving-related announcements from the provincial government. "A Face at the Window" by Lorraine Sommerfeld is published by...

Anyone who has looked at the news in the past 6 months knows of the enormous shift in political leanings happening. Polls from various sources have shown that an enormous shift is coming in the federal government. According to the polls, the overwhelming number of Canadians in the 905 and the country at large want Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada to form the next government. H...

In previous episodes, we examined the City of Hamilton's flirtation with the Tiny Shelters project—a collection of shed-sized shelters with heat and power for the homeless to get back on their feet. However, the project has bordered on failing for the better part of last year. Hamilton City Council has yet to build support for the project and find a suitable location. In the meantime, homelessness...

A lot of stories have come through the news cycle this week. Roland and Joel have taken several of them to follow up with for a 905 Round-Up! Coming off our episode on Anti-Semitism in the 905, we travel down the QEW to Niagara Region. This week past at Niagara Regional Council, the Middle East found its way onto the Council's agenda. A motion was made to call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to...

In the last few months of 2023, while we were all preparing for Christmas and New Year, Doug Ford was busy with plans to further privatization of Ontario's public service. Namely Service Ontario. This month, Richard Southern of CityNews reported that Doug Ford sold several privately operated Service Ontario locations to Staples Canada. The sale would see Staples Canada move the locations inside th...

In October, Hamas launched an attack on Israel that killed 1,300 people and kidnapped 250 hostages. Israel launched a retaliatory strike campaign into the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas and rescue its citizens. Around the world, countries saw protests against Israel's retaliation and for it pop up. Here in Canada and around the province, news has been highlighted with Pro-Palestinian organizations ma...

Happy New Year 2024! After a welcomed break we are back and ready to dive into what awaits us in 2024! To start the year though, it appears that for Mississauga and Peel region, it will be more of the same. As loyal listeners of this podcast know, we interviewed then-Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie back in May about her push to see Mississauga leave Peel region. Shortly after that episode aired,...

This is it! Our final episode for 2023! As is usual for our year-end spectacular, and is the norm for every other news podcast and show, we wanted to focus on the year that was. What were the big stories, and how close did we get our predictions for this year? Well, as it turns out...we were pretty close. In 2022, we thought that the Greenbelt scandal would still prove to be a thorn in the side of...

It's a good old-fashioned 905 Round-Up! There have been a few stories that have cropped up in the last few weeks that have caught our eye. Rather than try to pick which one to spend time on, we decided to do a few for this episode. Our theme has been stories which back up things we've stated in the past on this podcast. Hamilton City Centre has been slated to be redeveloped into a four-tower condo...

We are closing off a series of episodes we did at the beginning of the summer on the Ontario Liberal Party leadership. Originally we interviewed all the candidates in separate episodes so you'd have a chance to hear their priorities and plans for Ontario and the 905. When the Ontario Liberal Party chose former Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie to lead them into the next election, we thought it prud...

Last week, the federal government announced a deal with Google to keep Canadian news indexed on their search engine. This was fortunate for us on a few levels. The first was that we had been waiting for a while to learn what Google would do in the face of Bill C-18. As we had reported earlier, we were caught up in the Bill C-18 fiasco when Meta decided to block our posts on their platforms. We wer...

The provincial government has rolled back all of its greenbelt and development policies. Being caught in one of the biggest scandals in Canadian history tends to do that. Included in that rollback have been the urban boundary changes the province introduced for Halton, Hamilton and other communities in the 905. The consensus around this move is that it's a welcomed reset and in general what people...

Part of the Ontario government's plans to address the housing crisis was to break up the 1.5 million new homes needed among the various municipalities in the province. Each municipality would be obligated to build an amount of the total housing in exchange for funds. Every municipality in the province signed on except for one. Newmarket Mayor John Taylor refused to sign the province's pledge, brin...

An underreported story in the 905 happened a few weeks ago. The Canadian Premier League championship was played at Tim Horton's Field. In extra time Béni Badibanga Diata, scored on a corner kick to win the game for Forge FC against their rivals Calgary Calvary FC. The victory secured a fourth championship title. In the five years since the league and the franchise's founding, Hamilton Forge FC has...

Last episode we spoke with Tim Gray of Environmental Defense, about their ongoing legal action against the Ontario Government to get to the bottom of the Greenbelt Scandal. Little did we know how deep the rabbit hole went. A few days after the episode aired, Environmental Defense alongside Eco Justice released close to 7,000 pages of documents obtained under an FOI request. Those documents illumin...

The Greenbelt scandal is a fast-moving story. Each week it seems that a new layer to the shady backroom deal to carve up sensitive protected land for a select few developers is revealed. Just how far down the rabbit hole does this story go? Thanks to grassroots organizations like Environmental Defense and Eco-Justice, as well as independent news like The Narwhal, we are learning more and more abou...

In the last few weeks, news of the horrific attacks by Hamas against Israel shocked the world. As was expected, Israel responded aggressively against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. We aren't going to get into the midst of that conflict on this podcast. That isn't our beat. What is our beat however is local politicians. Namely how they have responded to the attacks in the Middle East. One MPP has waded i...

We like to keep ahead of what we see as important to the 905 and Ontario. As such, we think we've been keeping you informed on the intricacies of developments and housing before they became household topics. In that spirit, we wanted to focus this episode on an aspect of the housing crisis that hasn't had a lot of focus to date. Our federal political leaders like to speak about tax cuts and red ta...

We've been wanting to do this episode for a few weeks now—however, other more immediate stories needed to be addressed fully. However, we are getting back on schedule and talking to set the matter straight on the issue of housing in the 905 and Ontario at large. This summer, it seemed that the Conservative Party of Canada would be taking the lead on the housing issue. Pierre Poilievre surged to ta...

You can support our podcast by visiting our website at https://905er.ca September is supposed to be busy for students as they head back to school. Get acquainted with new schedules and expectations for a productive school year. Instead at four Hamilton high schools, a total of 16 bomb threats have forced four high schools to close for student safety over four separate days. Hamilton police have op...

Please support us by visiting our website https://905er.ca We bring to you a special follow-up episode from our report on the front lines of the 1MillionMarchforChildren. As our host, Joel MacLeod reported in our last episode at the end of the protest he had the opportunity to speak with a group of teenagers who attended the Halton District School Board who identified on the trans spectrum. At the...

Please support our work at our website https://905er.ca On Wednesday last week, crowds appeared in cities across the country protesting pro-LGBTQ+ student policies in school boards. Remnants of the Freedom Convoy, have transformed from being anti-vaccine mandates into anti-LGBTQ+ policies in school boards. Under the guise of protecting students, these groups argue that pronouns should be disclosed...