Measles Returns
As of March 26, there had been 572 reported cases of measles in Ontario since October 2024, according to Public Health Ontario.
When people aren’t fully vaccinated, measles spreads like wildfire. It travels through the air when infected people cough or sneeze, or when people touch infected surfaces and then touch their eyes, nose or mouth.
People with measles usually develop a fever, cough, runny nose and blotchy, red rash. Though most kids recover, one in three unvaccinated kids need to be hospitalized. They are at risk of complications like pneumonia, swelling of the brain and death.
Rates of measles vaccination among children have been falling in Canada and the U.S.
“When vaccination rates drop in a community, it is not a question of if; it’s a question of when measles is going to come, because it is so incredibly contagious,” says Dr. David Higgins, a pediatrician at the University of Colorado.
—By Saima Desai
Discrimination Rampant in Canada’s Rental Market
Renters with a disability are over three times more likely to experience aggression from landlords than those without a disability. That’s according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights.
They’re also 67 per cent more likely to be expected to follow different rules and 20 per cent more likely to have their boundaries violated by their landlord.
The national report looked at discrimination marginalized groups face when looking for apartments and while living in them. The survey included answers from 586 renters.
Policy recommendations include: amending provincial tenancy legislation to prevent discrimination when looking for apartments, establishing minimum residential maintenance standards and rental licensing programs to ensure units are livable and maintained, and implementing vacancy and rent control to prevent unfair rent increases and economic evictions.
—By Fernando Arce
Rents Falling in Ontario?
Like in the early pandemic days, which also saw a drop in rents, the trend is Canada-wide and mostly due to macroeconomic factors.
Low interest rates over the last decade were fuelling a real estate buying spree, often paid for by cheap debt.
Thousands of condo units built by people betting that demand would stay high are finishing construction this year. But instead of being bought up by investors looking to flip them, they are now becoming rentals.
Plus, new regulations cracking down on short-term rentals, like Airbnbs, mean many of those units are also hitting the rental market in Toronto.
A 2024 report showed that Ontario tenants paid an extra $2.6 billion in rent since 2017 because of short-term rentals driving up rents.
Tenants staying put probably won’t see their rent go down. But for those looking to move, all these extra, empty units mean tenants can have their pick and pay less.
But units built after Nov. 15, 2018, don’t have rent control, meaning there’s no cap on how much a landlord can raise rent in subsequent years.
—By Geordie Dent
After Years of Under-funding, Ontario Colleges Start Closing their Doors
Centennial College will suspend about a quarter of its programs this fall. By summer 2026, it will downsize from five campuses to four.
York University is temporarily stopping enrolment for 18 programs.
Last fall, Sheridan College said it would suspend 40 of its programs and lay off staff.
And Seneca Polytechnic announced it will temporarily close its Markham campus at the start of 2025.
The schools say it’s the result of years of underfunding by the provincial government. Plus the federal government slashed the number of international student visas by 35 per cent from 2023 to 2024, and then cut another 10 per cent for 2025 and 2026.
International students pay higher tuition, which allows schools to charge domestic students less than the cost of classes.
In 2021, an auditor general’s report said that almost 70 per cent of all tuition fees in Ontario’s 24 public colleges came from international students. The Ontario government provides the least amount of funding per student out of all provinces.
—By Saima Desai
Bike Lanes Fight Continues
Premier Doug Ford has his new mandate, and taking out some stretches of Toronto bike lanes is still on the agenda.
His government recently fought and won in court to have the right to remove them.
In March, cyclists protested at the offices of Stantec, the design firm contracted by the province to draw the roadways with the lanes removed. Stantec revealed to The Toronto Star that they were providing drawings related to 1.5 km of bike lanes. That is a relatively small amount of the system, but could have a significant impact on road safety.
The province has not yet said when it plans to actually remove the lanes, or exactly which sections it wants to take. The west end of Bloor in Etobicoke has been in Ford’s sights for a while.
—By David Gray-Donald
Council Staffers Want to Unionize. The City’s Trying to Stop Them.
Staff who work for the mayor and in the offices of Toronto’s city councillors are trying to unionize.
More than 60 per cent of them signed union cards in March. Then, all 170 staff voted on whether to join a union. If the tally shows a majority voted “yes,” they’ll become unionized with AMAPCEO (Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario).
But the City of Toronto asked for the union application to be thrown out by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB). It says the 170 workers should not be united in one bargaining unit because they are not employees of the City of Toronto. Instead, the city says, they have 26 different employers: 25 Toronto city councillors plus Mayor Olivia Chow.
The labour board ruled that the union vote should go ahead. Only after the vote will the OLRB decide whether it makes sense for all city council staff to be put in one bargaining unit.
AMAPCEO shared anonymous quotes on their website from city council staffers. One reads: “Many of us face long hours, inconsistent pay, a lack of standardized policies, and job insecurity — all without the means to advocate for ourselves effectively.”
—By Saima Desai
Eglinton LRT Opening Soon? Maybe?
The Toronto Star reported the Eglinton light rail transit (LRT) line will open in September, according to unnamed sources close to the project.
Construction is expected to finish in the summer, then the line will be handed over to the TTC to open in September.
That’s the plan anyway. But delays have plagued the project for a decade, so we’ll see.
—By David Gray-Donald
RSF Driven Out of Sudan’s Capital
The war between two military factions in Sudan which has torn the country apart may have reached a turning point in March.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) admitted it had retreated from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital city. This leaves its rival, the Sudanese Armed Forces, in control there. Many Khartoum residents celebrated the development, but the RSF says it will attack again.
The RSF is generally seen as the more aggressive and belligerent force, though the Armed Forces also violently suppressed the 2019 popular revolution.
The RSF is backed mainly by the United Arab Emirates, which is a close ally of the U.S., Canada and Israel.
—By David Gray-Donald
Nine Supervised Consumption Sites Close, Despite Injunction
Nine Ontario supervised consumption sites closed on April 1, even after a court injunction ruled that they could temporarily stay open.
Ten sites were on the chopping block under the Ontario government’s Community Care and Recovery Act, which requires sites to be at least 200 metres from schools.
The sites were set to close on April 1, but Justice John Callaghan ruled that while the province’s law in his view will address public disorder, closing the sites would cause “significant harm,” including loss of life. He allowed the sites to remain open while he considers a Charter challenge to the province’s law.
Still, only one in Kensington Market will stay open. The other nine became abstinence-based treatment hubs. They’ll receive more provincial funding, but will not be able to offer supervised consumption.
Toronto Public Health officials and others have stated that these facilities save lives by preventing overdose deaths. Thirteen sites in Ontario are located farther than 200 metres from schools and so are unaffected by the new legislation.
—By Fernando Arce
CORRECTION, April 3, 2025: In our print issue, we wrote that ten supervised consumption sites would stay open while an Ontario judge considers a Charter challenge to the province’s law banning them. In fact, nine would close. We have updated the online article. The Grind regrets the error.
This article appeared in the 2025 April/May issue.
