The Chaotic Race to Vaccinate Peel
Overwhelmed phone lines, frantic group texts, frustration and relief—inside the first week of pop-up clinics in a region desperate for vaccines.
“You Can’t Stop the Spread of the Virus if You Don’t Stop it in Peel”
Not enough support, not enough testing, not enough vaccines—Peel has been neglected at every step of the pandemic, and the results have been devastating.
Bringing the Vaccine to Where it’s Needed
Relief, joy, and no hesitancy at a pop-up clinic at Jane and Finch, the postal code with the lowest vaccination rates in the city.
The Vaccine Rollout is Leaving Toronto’s Hardest-Hit Postal Codes Behind
New data reveals that Ontario’s vaccine strategy is missing the most vulnerable areas of Toronto.
Plenty of Pharmacies, but No Vaccines in Toronto’s Northwest
There are 25 pharmacies in the five Toronto neighbourhoods worst-hit by COVID. Why weren’t any of them chosen to administer vaccines?
A Year of Resistance in the Moss Park Encampment
Derrick Black, one of the original residents of the Moss Park encampment, survived a year of confrontations with the city, police raids, and extreme weather in his fight for permanent housing. His story in his own words.
A Year Looking at the Numbers
For the last year, seven days a week, I’ve woken up to post the province’s COVID numbers. It turns out people don’t want data—they want someone to tell them how this all ends.
A Long Year
As the months stretched on and days became meaningless, I did the natural thing—turned to 800-page novels and 15-hour German movies just to feel the passage of time in all its punishing slowness.
A Year of Kids Playing Pandemic
When COVID-19 leaked into my children’s make-believe games, I worried they were being traumatized. Maybe I’ve been looking at it the wrong way.
A Year on Two Wheels
My father believed that biking was a way to strengthen our communities. In this strange and sorrow-filled year, I’ve tried to follow his path.
A Year in Toronto
In a year of “unprecedented times,” the world didn’t split apart in ways that were terrifying and new. It cracked along familiar seams, over and over again.
A Year of Indigenous People Helping Indigenous People
In the middle of a pandemic, with multiple crises devastating their community, Nanook Gordon and Brianna Olson Pitawanakwat started a grassroots organization to bring compassion, aid, and culture to Indigenous people on Toronto’s streets.
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?