Independent

There is an increasing disparity between university’s academic freedom statements and its actions. These comments were made during a talk held October 8 titled “Strengthening academic freedom in the corporatized university” by James Turk. A researcher on academic freedom, Turk is the director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University. Previously, he was executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) from 1998 to 2014.

It is easy to get lost in the numbers when talking about fracking in Alberta: to be temporarily dazzled by the growth of production, the insatiable thirst for water and the profits that follow. The practice has seen a dramatic increase over the past 13 years, with production rising sevenfold between 2013 and 2024 to the equivalent of more than 640 million barrels of oil per year. Water consumption also soared 335 per cent, from 6.5 billion litres to almost 30 billion litres of freshwater per year.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government was poised to lobby Ecuadorian officials to urgently speed up approvals for Canadian mining projects during last year’s presidential inauguration, briefing documents obtained by The Maple show. The push for faster mining permits came during a period in which Ecuador’s right-wing government had launched crackdowns on Indigenous protesters who opposed major Canadian-owned mining projects.

Election day is finally on the horizon — and if you don’t know exactly which election, this article is for you. B. C. residents will head to the polls Saturday to elect municipal, regional district and school board representatives. With a provincial campaign also underway, it can be hard to keep track of what’s happening at a local level.

Multiple British Columbia First Nations have taken the rare step of wading into a local municipal election. In Williams Lake, Mayor Surinderpal Rathor is facing a challenge from the city’s former mayor, Walt Cobb, marking the fourth consecutive election the two men have faced each other in the Cariboo city. Cobb beat Rathor in 2014 and 2018, before losing the mayor’s chair to Rathor in 2022.

Danforth Village resident Gary Kassbaum looks out from his balcony, his view of the lake now largely obstructed by new buildings. With thousands of new units coming, Danforth Village in the corner of Beaches-East York is a microcosm of a changing city. In today’s sprawling wards, can voters make their local issues heard?

The City of Montreal announced on Sept. 29 that the the cross would go dark for one year for restoration, but it was not made clear that the iconic structure would disappear from the skyline entirely. The 33-metre cross remains onsite but has been lowered to a standing position on the ground — one of the very few times this has occurred since it went up in 1924. The cross’s lightbulbs are being swapped for LED lighting that can be dimmed to reduce energy consumption and light pollution, and some steel parts are also being replaced. The restoration work also includes painting and landscaping.

As Vancouver residents head to the polls for the municipal election, advocacy group Vision Zero is focused on making road safety an election issue. In 2023, there were 7,345 crashes that resulted in death or injury in Vancouver. In 2024, there were 7,697, according to data from ICBC.

Being reader-funded means we can keep prioritizing your needs, and producing hyperlocal service journalism for Torontonians. I joined The Green Line at a time when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to call Toronto home.

The provincial government has announced $2 million in new funding for a Moncton-based company that has attracted protest for supplying American military giant Lockheed Martin, which builds fighter jets for customers that include the Israeli Air Force. Opportunities NB, the economic development agency, announced the new “performance-based support” for Apex Industries last week during DEFSEC Atlantic, an annual exhibition in Halifax billed as “a major networking opportunity for the Aerospace, Defence and Security industries.”

In the lead-up to the 2026 Toronto municipal election, The Green Line surveyed mayoral candidates to help Torontonians understand their priorities, policy proposals and vision for the city. You asked us, we asked mayoral candidates — and now, their responses are in.

A few days before I visited Devil’s Glen, a resident who lives near the Ontario provincial park got into a yelling match with a rock climber. It allegedly ended with the climber’s hands around the neighbour’s neck, and a call to the police. Over the years, there have also been allegations of litter stuffed into caverns used by at-risk bats, of centenary cedar trees sawed off, of cars egged and climbing routes sabotaged along this stretch of Niagara Escarpment in Clearview, Ont. For that neighbour, Adam Pearce, concerns started shortly after he moved into his home nearly two decades ago. He began noticing rock-climbing routes on the escarpment abutting his property — hundreds of bolts on bald stretches of cliff face are a giveaway. After a climber fell eight metres and had to be rescued by fire crews and paramedics, Pearce redoubled his efforts to understand how the sport was being monitored and regulated by Ontario Parks.

The Urban Farm Initiative is recruiting volunteers to help out at the Rexlington Community Garden until the first snowfall. Think farming season is over? Not quite, the Urban Farm Initiative is still recruiting volunteers to help out at the Rexlington Community Garden.

Avi Lewis told a roomful of university students in Ottawa last month that the federal government is not responding to the urgent needs of young people — in fact, he says, Prime Minister Mark Carney is actively sacrificing their futures for short-term profits. The NDP leader addressed an audience of approximately 100 students at Ollie’s Bar on Carleton University’s campus on September 23.

Since 2020, the last seven caribou of the Val-d’Or herd have lived in a 14-hectare forested enclosure, just south of the town of Abitibi-Témiscamingue in northwest Quebec. There were nine individuals alive when they were first captured six years ago — down from about 40 in the 1990s — but two have died since then, and the herd saw no new births this year. “It’s like a zoo, they are in a cage at this time. … A caribou is always on the move. If they’re not moving, there’s something wrong,” Lucien Wabanonik, Chief of the Lac Simon Anishnabe Nation, says of the famously roaming ungulates who need undisturbed old-growth forests to elude predators.

With popular incumbent Alvin Tedjo stepping aside for a mayoral run, 14 candidates present their vision for one of the busiest, and wealthiest, wards in the city. Current Councillor: Alvin Tedjo, first elected in 2022, is stepping aside to run for mayor.

BC Conservative campaign manager facing backlash for Islamophobic posts and reposts Additional Islamophobic posts have resurfaced from BC Conservatives campaign manager, Katy Merrifield, who was already facing backlash for past posts about Islam over the weekend.

With NB Power’s Coleson Cove Generating Station near Saint John set to sunset in about 15 years, will the provincial Crown corporation switch from burning one kind of fossil fuel to burning another kind? Coleson Cove burns bunker C oil, a heavy, tar-like leftover petroleum product, to produce electricity. Currently, the Coleson Cove plant is turned on only at peak times in the winter when NB Power is running short of power.