Watch: explaining Ontario's Greenbelt cuts

This article is more than 1 year old

The last few months have been an endless rollercoaster of non-stop news in Ontario — and The Narwhal’s team is here to help you make sense of it all.

Ontario’s integrity commissioner and auditor general have each announced investigations into the Progressive Conservative government’s plan to open the Greenbelt to development. Meanwhile, the Ontario Provincial Police is mulling a probe, an endangered species official has resigned, an environmental organization is taking the province to court and a First Nation is considering legal action of its own.

Every step of the way, our Ontario bureau of Emma McIntosh, Fatima Syed and Denise Balkissoon has been hard at work breaking story after story.

Wondering what might happen next? Want to hear more about how we get leaked documents? Emma, Fatima and Denise dove into all things Greenbelt and beyond at a very special online event on Thursday. Watch the recording below.

Another year of keeping a close watch

Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.

And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.

In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”

We’d like to thank you for paying attention. And if you’re able to donate anything at all to help us keep doing this work in 2025 — which will bring a whole lot we can’t predict — thank you so very much.

Will you help us hold the powerful accountable in the year to come by giving what you can today?

Yes, I’ll support independent journalism

Another year of keeping a close watch

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