Editorials - May 16, 2025

Ontario is facing a housing crisis and is at the doorstep of an economic crisis, with trade wars and tariffs playing havoc with global markets. This much is true, and the Ontario government is pulling out all the stops to try to meet the challenges head on.

Two acts are being tabled that are intended to eliminate the bureaucratic red tape involved in building housing and development. Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, 2025 and Bill 5 – Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act are both designed to streamline the processes and to reduce costs to developers, but at what cost to the community?

Anyone with a pet knows that “unleashing” requires careful planning and monitoring to ensure the safety of the pet and others around it. Off-leash, by definition, is out of your direct control. 

Who will be monitoring the developers, builders and companies who may not have the long-term interests of the communities as one of their priorities? The Greenbelt, endangered species and farmland are the things that the bureaucracy was created to protect, and while some measures could be sped up, simplified or made less expensive, removing most of the controls could have far-reaching consequences.

As suburbs encroach on our food-producing land, how will we sustain the growing population for which the houses are needed? How will we share the land with flora and fauna to create a sustainable environment for all? As we “unleash” developers and manufacturers, we still need someone to be able to whistle them back and to set some safe boundaries. We don’t want to get to the end of one crisis, only to realize that we’ve created another. – DS

As the healthcare system in Ontario has continued to see increased scrutiny for its shortcomings, amid a perceived shift by Premier Doug Ford towards a more privatized, American approach to healthcare, a report sheds light on the money being spent to keep the system afloat.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in a report published on Monday, found that $9.2 billion was spent in Ontario between 2013/2014 and 2022/2023 on nurses from for-profit staffing agencies; nurses that can cost as much as three times what in-house nurses are paid. Over that time period, agency staffing spending doubled, while investment in employed staff rose by just six per cent. Furthermore, the study’s scope ends at a time (2022/2023) when Ontarians were only just beginning to understand the extent of agency nursing usage and its associated costs, so it’s reasonable to think that money spent on agency nurses has continued to grow in 2023/2024 and 2024/2025.

And while some hospitals failing to offer nurses gainful, full-time employment, complete with benefits, are right to be criticized, this crisis falls at the feet of the provincial governments of recent decades, failing to plan for retirements and other labour shortage causes that had been whispered about by nurses before the turn of the century.

As healthcare continues to sit under the microscope here in Ontario and the efficient use of every penny remains a priority, this trend needs to be reversed - not just to ensure that Ontarians are getting the best bang for buck, but to strengthen our public healthcare system at a time when politicians, businesspeople and citizens alike begin to think that privatized healthcare must be better than what we have now. – SL 

After Lucas Atchison stumbled upon a shipwreck at Point Farms Provincial Park, just north of Goderich, in 2023, he wasn’t quite sure what he had found, but his father was sure it was something big and old.

Atchison, now 10, is now seeing that discovery come to fruition as the Ontario Marine Heritage Committee is now, after just under two years of research and jumping through regulatory hoops, beginning to dig up what Atchison found. So far, according to a CBC News story on the find, marine archeologist Scarlett Janusas says that the group has found a smaller portion of the ship than they had first hoped, but that they have determined that what they found are frames from the side of the ship.

What they have found, however, is enough to tell them that the ship was likely a schooner. This, according to CBC News, suggests that the St. Anthony may be the ship they found. The ship was wrecked in October of 1856 while transporting grain from Chicago to Buffalo. Regardless of what they end up finding, Janusas told CBC News that, once the dust settles, the volunteers plan to rebury the ship, which will preserve it, shielding it from parasites or other organisms that might eat and/or destroy the wreckage for at least another half-century.

For the people of this community, Point Farms is likely an annual destination for camping, recreation and fun. And yet, this whole time, a big secret rested below their feet. Atchison’s discovery and the stories that will unravel in the coming weeks show us that there is still mystery in the world and that we haven’t lost the ability to be surprised. – SL