Who’s Actually Running Ontario’s Long-Term Care Homes?
Nearly 100 of Ontario’s embattled care homes are run by third-party operators—a management arrangement often invisible to the families of residents. Now, analysis by The Local has found that COVID-19 death rates at facilities outsourced to Extendicare, the largest operator in Ontario, are 81 percent higher than the industry average.
A Neighbourhood in the Dark
What good is public health information if nobody hears it?
A Long-Term Tragedy
The devastation in seniors homes during COVID-19 was the predictable result of decades of indifference and neglect. From Victorian poorhouses to sites of mass death—the shameful history of our long-term care system.
The Hands That Feed Us
Throughout the pandemic, temporary foreign workers have worked in cramped quarters under unsafe conditions to keep our pantries stocked. Is it time they were given a pathway to permanent residency?
A Congregation Apart
The parishioners at San Lorenzo are a tight-knit group of Latin American immigrants and refugees. When the pandemic forced the church's doors to close, Father Hernan Astudillo decided to bring faith and community to them.
The Other Epidemic in Toronto’s Schools
The problems in Toronto’s schools didn’t start with COVID-19—our underfunded education system has been in a slow-motion crisis for decades.
A Place for Those Who Raised Us
In many immigrant families, elders are the pillars of the household. With COVID-19 revealing flaws in the way we treat seniors, what can society learn from how different cultures value aging?
What’s Plaguing Toronto’s Ethnic Press?
In a city of immigrants, non-English language newspapers play a critical role in the fight against COVID-19. Can they survive the pandemic?
The Cost of a Stay at a Shelter Hotel
Temporarily housing homeless people in hotels was supposed to protect them during the pandemic. Why are residents overdosing and dying in the isolation of their own rooms?
Pandemic’s Labyrinth
How Canada’s secretive, byzantine, Cold War-era stockpile system left us unprepared for COVID-19.
How Noise Shaped a City
Toronto’s anti-noise movement began in the 1930s. Ever since, noise policing has been inextricably linked with issues of race, class, and power.
Are Noisy Hospitals Making Us Sick?
The constant beeping, talking, and overhead paging aren’t just an annoyance—they can lead to delirium, longer recovery times, and even sleeping pill addiction.
The City Below the Sound
As someone who’s half-deaf, I’ve always moved between two Torontos—the surface city and the muted, shadowy one beneath it.
FAITH/VOID Was a Thriving DIY Venue. Then Came the Noise Complaint
Fights around Toronto’s unofficial music venues reveal a stark reality—there is noise this city values, and noise it doesn’t.
As the World Grew Quiet, Inside Got Loud
Overlapping Zoom calls, fights between siblings, enraging neighbourhood pool parties—the maddening, unending sounds of a stay-at-home crisis.
The 35 Jane
What a bus route reveals about race, class, and social vulnerability during a pandemic.
A Summer Without Tourists
We don't usually think of Toronto as a travel destination. But when the tourism industry imploded overnight, the effects rippled across the city.
Here I Am, Stuck in Malvern
When my father died, heading downtown was a way to escape my grief. Now, under lockdown, I see him everywhere.