By Pepper Parr

October 28th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

There was a point at which it looked as if the provincial government was going to change the rules related to people who rent housing.

Renters came close to losing their “security of tenure.

The Ford government’s plans to consult on changes to Ontario’s long-standing “security of tenure” rules, a move critics warned might undermine rent control protections.

The decision came just three days after the province floated the idea of giving landlords more “flexibility” to adjust tenancy arrangements based on “market conditions, personal needs, or business strategies.”

That suggestion drew swift backlash from tenant groups and housing advocates, who warned it could lead to the end of automatic lease renewals and ultimately weaken rent control protections.

The walk back on the part of the government is an example of what can be done when this government makes decisions that favour the people who have property to rent against those who choose to rent rather than purchase their housing.

Many people are just not in a position to purchase a home.

The swift reaction on the part of organization that are in place to represent and protect renters resulted in the change.

By Gazette Staff

October 28th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

Open Doors celebrated its annual Harvest Fest last week at Paradiso Restaurant in downtown Burlington, bringing together friends, community partners, and supporters for a night filled with great food, connection, and purpose. The sold-out event raised vital funds to support local families through Open Doors’ community meals, clothing support, children’s programming, and wrap-around resources.

One of the evening’s most meaningful moments came when Burlington Helping Burlington presented a $10,000 cheque — a generous grant that will directly support Open Doors’ mission of reducing food insecurity and helping neighbours thrive.

Rev. Canon Dr. Penny Anderson & Shannon Shuell of Open Doors – Julie Neal & Michael Desjardins of Burlington Helping Burlington.

“We are incredibly grateful for this contribution,” said Shannon Shuell, of Open Doors. “This grant will help us continue offering healthy meals, essential supports, and a welcoming space to hundreds of individuals and families each week. It represents the power of community coming together — Burlington helping Burlington — and that is truly what Open Doors is all about.”

Last year alone, Open Doors served thousands of fresh, nutritious meals and distributed essential items — including clothing, household goods, and back-to-school resources — ensuring that families facing significant challenges weren’t doing so alone. With the cost of living continuing to rise, the demand for these services has grown dramatically.

Harvest Fest guests enjoyed an evening to remember — a celebration of generosity and the belief that everyone deserves to thrive. The funds raised will make a direct impact on those who rely on Open Doors as a source of nourishment, security, and community connection.

Open Doors extends heartfelt thanks to Paradiso Restaurant for hosting, to Burlington Helping Burlington for its incredible support, and to all attendees and donors who help make this work possible.

ByPepper Parr

October 27th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

Izabela Dombrovsky, ​Heather Drewett, ​Geraldine Guenot, ​Aimee Hilson, ​Zohair Khan, ​Karen Markowsky, ​Karl Meissner-Roloff and ​Derek Streefkerk are now member of the Burlington Aquatic Devilrays Swimming Club.

They have a lot of work ahead of them.  A Council Standing Committee will be deciding on November 4th if the matter of the way swimming pool allocation time was allocated should be reviewed by the Audit Committee.

Councillor Kearns on a CHCH television interview

Expect that meeting to be boisterous.  To date, with the exception of Councillor Kearns, the city council has become mute.

Head Coach: Sergei Soloukhin,

The administration side of the club has been in the hands of the Head Coach, who is much relieved that there is now a Board that will assign various administrative tasks to the individual board members.

Our understanding is that the eight people who were elected (we are not certain that there was an election) are part of the Board and that there are a total of 12 board members.

We have reached out to the board member who appears to be the point person at this time; no response yet

By Gazette Staff

October 27th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

On Saturday, October 4, Conservation Halton welcomed over 50 guests to Area 8 Conservation Area for Watershed Stewards Appreciation Day.

This annual event is hosted in partnership with the Hamilton Conservation Authority to recognize the outstanding efforts of local landowners in environmental stewardship.

The Watershed Stewardship Awards are presented to individuals, organizations, and businesses that demonstrate a commitment to protecting natural features on private or public land in the areas of agriculture, business, urban, and countryside. This year, nine landowners received the Watershed Stewardship Award, including four recipients in Conservation Halton’s watershed:

407 ETR: Corporate Environmental Leadership

From funding habitat restoration to helping create pollinator-friendly areas, 407 ETR is a long-standing supporter of environmental initiatives along its highway corridor.

Karen Brock: Community and Rural Stewardship

A passionate environmental leader with over a decade of volunteer experience with Oakville Green, Karen Brock inspires community members to take action for nature.

Ashley Elliott: Cootes to Escarpment and Urban Stewardship

Part of the Cootes to Escarpment EcoPark System,

As part of the Cootes to Escarpment EcoPark System, Ashley Elliot’s property supports habitat across watersheds. Ashley is transforming her property by removing invasive species and creating rain gardens to manage runoff.

A family-friendly farm committed to caring for the land through sustainable agricultural practices.

Andrews Scenic Acres: Agricultural Stewardship

Known for its family-friendly farm experiences and fruit wines, Andrews Scenic Acres is committed to caring for the land through sustainable agricultural practices like cover cropping and windbreaks.

“Local landowners play a vital role in our collective efforts to maintain healthy watersheds and vibrant ecosystems,” said Chandra Sharma, President & CEO, Conservation Halton. “We appreciate all the efforts of this year’s award recipients in restoring damaged ecosystems, enhancing community resilience, and creating more spaces where wildlife can thrive.”

Since 1994, Conservation Halton and Hamilton Conservation Authority have recognized more than 300 local landowners and their families for exceptional stewardship of wildlife, meadows, streams, woodlands, wetlands, valley lands and the escarpment. Collectively, these landowners protect over 13,400 acres of land.

Conservation Halton offers a variety of financial support programs for landowners who are interested in leading stewardship projects on their property. Learn more about Conservation Halton’s Financial Assistance Programs here: https://www.conservationhalton.ca/financial-assistance-programs/

Conservation Halton is a community-based environmental agency dedicated to protecting people, property and natural resources from flooding, erosion, and other natural hazards. As one of Ontario’s 36 Conservation Authorities, we steward 1,000 square kilometres of conservation lands. From the Lake Ontario shoreline to the Niagara Escarpment and beyond, we safeguard forests, wetlands and waterways through science-based conservation, land management and climate resilience initiatives. Our eight conservation areas welcome more than a million visitors each year and offer opportunities to connect with nature through recreation and education.

By Aria Wilson

October 26th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

Burlington residents are putting themselves out there—and it’s helping them in the long run.

Colder weather can bring about less time outside and more time alone. While some might think of this as a way of staying comfortable, others can find it isolating.

The Halton Outdoor Club’s Annual Fall Fair (2025) Photo credit Marlis Butcher`

On Wednesday, The Halton Outdoor Club hosted the Fall Information Fair of 2025 at the Burlington Lions Club to spread the word. The room was buzzing with excitement and decorated with tables of information about the club events.

Susan Mansfield, the marketing and communications director of the club says the nonprofit organization is looking strong heading into the upcoming cold seasons.

When asked about the best part of the Halton Outdoor Club, she said, “The camaraderie, it’s really all for one or one for all.”

Sports director of hiking, Lisa Raftis highlighted the importance of community, stating that there is space for “all levels, at every level” of athleticism.

Not only does the club cater to all ages and skill levels, but the value of walking in a group, especially for young women, is safety.

Frank Vajda, another sports director of hiking, says that the hikes are generally filled with more women than men, with most hikes becoming social events.

If you are thinking of becoming a part of the club, you can attend two events for free before paying the $90 membership fee.

The Halton Outdoor Club takes on kayaking. Photo credit : Marlis Butcher]

It’s no wonder that people are on the lookout for ways to stay healthy and social. A study conducted by Cambridge University showed a general population shift towards lower moods as the year progresses.

One Burlington local, Mathew Cooke is a member of the Golden Horseshoe Mixed Chorus and the Burlington Men’s Shed.

When asked about how long it took Cooke to feel the mental benefits of joining a group, he said, “It takes about a year for that loneliness to start to fade and to start to feel more like you’re a member of a group, your participation is valued, and your contribution is valued.”

“[Men’s shed] started with retired men getting together in a garden shed, thinking of things to do and socializing,” Cooke said.

Burlington Men’s Shed has recently been added to the course curriculum as a senior’s program at the Burlington Seniors’ Centre.

It costs members of the Burlington Men’s Shed 10 dollars per month to join the nonprofit organization.

When Cooke was asked what Men’s Shed is for, he said retired men can have a “difficult time” feeling prepared for a life without “structure” and “system.”

Cooke said there are weekly activities and bigger, less frequent events organized by Burlington Men’s Shed.

This November the Burlington Men’s Shed intends on painting the town with festivities by decorating the area in lights.

When asked if he would recommend this type of organized activity to Burlington residents, without an inkling of hesitation, Cooke said, “Absolutely. Yes.”

By Joe Gaetan, 

October 26th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

The Burlington annual budget conversation has become a confusing blur of numbers and percentages that blend together the City, the Region of Halton, and the Province’s education levy. On paper, it looks simple — one tax bill, one number. But in practice, it’s anything but.

Roughly 52% of your 2026 property tax bill will fund roads, parks, fire services, libraries, and local transit. About 32.9% goes to the Region of Halton, which covers policing, paramedics, waste collection, and water. The final 15.07%, down from 15.75% in 2025, is for the provincial education tax — which the City merely collects and passes on to school boards.

That small change raises questions. A drop from 15.75% to 15.07% should mean the “Forecasted 2026 Tax” for Education is less than the 2025 amount of $153.00, yet the City’s 2026 Budget Blueprint suggests otherwise.

When our mayor issues budget updates, the practice has been to blend all three tax components together, reporting a “combined tax increase.” While this makes for a smoother headline, it muddies the waters of accountability. It obscures which level of government is responsible for what.

A reasonable taxpayer might ask:

Why are City and Regional budgets being presented as one when City Council controls little more than half of the total levy?

And if the Regional or Education portions were to rise sharply? Say, due to increased policing costs or provincial policy shifts. Will the “combined” number still be used, or will that change the narrative? A good question for someone to pose to the Mayor during the Nov. 5 “Budget Telephone Town Hall” from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Transparency matters. Residents deserve to know exactly how much of their tax increase comes from City decisions versus those made elsewhere. Combining the numbers may soften the optics, but it does not serve public understanding. In a time when trust in government is fragile, clarity should be the cornerstone of communication, not an afterthought.

A Path Forward: Learning from Best Practices

The C.D. Howe Institute’s 2025 Fiscal Accountability Report Card offers valuable insight into how Burlington could improve its own transparency. The Institute notes that citizens must be able to monitor, influence, and react to how governments acquire and use public funds. Budgets and financial reports aren’t just ledgers — they’re instruments of democratic accountability.

Burlington could easily take cues from the best practices outlined by the C.D. Howe Institute, the OECD’s Budget Transparency Guidelines, and the Open Budget Survey.

These frameworks call for:

Accessible financial documents that non-experts can understand. Timely interim reports comparing budgeted and actual performance. Consistent accounting standards from year to year; and

Placement of key numbers up front, not hidden deep in appendices.

Toward a Burlington Budget Accountability Scorecard

Burlington has an opportunity to lead by example. Imagine a “Budget Accountability Scorecard” published each year alongside the budget — one that clearly shows how the City’s spending and results compare to its own projections, and how those results stack up against other municipalities.

Such a tool, grounded in C.D. Howe’s framework, would strengthen public trust and show that Burlington is serious about open, evidence-based governance. It would move us beyond the politics of percentages toward a culture of measurable accountability.

Taxpayers don’t expect perfection, but they do expect honesty and clarity. Burlington’s leaders would serve residents better by speaking plainly about what they control — and just as plainly about what they don’t. Transparency isn’t just a slogan; it’s how trust is earned, one honest budget at a time.

Joe Gaetan, BGS, is a Burlington-based writer and community observer focused on governance, transparency, and civic engagement.

By Sara Farro 

October r25th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

The story so far

Canada’s regulated online gambling market is no longer a pilot project. Ontario’s open model—launched in 2022—now sets the pace, and its data offers a window into how digital wagering is reshaping jobs, tax receipts, and neighborhood life in the GTA. In the first quarter of fiscal 2024–25, Ontarians placed $18.4 billion in wagers and operators generated $726 million in gaming revenue across iCasino, online sports betting, and online poker. The market counted about 1.29 million active player accounts and 50 regulated operators during that period, according to iGaming Ontario’s official report.

For readers sorting the fast-moving product landscape, see this Canada-facing market guide from Gambling Nerd (the site’s explainer provides consumer context on regulation and site types), which helps separate licensed offerings from the gray market while detailing standard deposit and withdrawal rails. comprehensive Canada wagering explainer.

Why the numbers matter for Toronto

Ontario’s regulator has also tallied the broader economic footprint. In its latest annual review, iGaming Ontario estimates the regulated market supports nearly 15,000 full-time jobs and adds roughly $2.7 billion to provincial GDP—figures that encompass tech, marketing, compliance, payments, and customer support roles that cluster in major urban centers. Toronto, as the province’s media and fintech hub, captures a meaningful share of that employment and vendor spend. (iGaming Ontario)

Local spillovers show up in small ways as well: downtown agencies staffing peak sports calendars; payments and fraud-prevention teams scaling up to meet anti-money-laundering controls; and customer-service vendors hiring multilingual talent to cover late-night live chat. For commercial real estate, the sector’s headcount has helped backfill Class-A office absorption near Union Station and along the King–Front corridor, according to brokers who cite iGaming among several growth verticals alongside AI and film.

Consumer behavior—and where risk shows

The Q1 data also hints at changing consumer habits. With more than a million active accounts in Ontario’s regulated system, average bet sizes have stabilized while revenue climbed year over year, suggesting repeat engagement rather than one-off spikes. For public-health planners, that’s a two-sided coin: regulated channels create clearer tools for age verification, self-exclusion, and deposit limits; at the same time, persistent engagement requires continued funding for education and treatment.

On that front, Toronto’s community organizations note two watch points:

• Advertising saturation. Sports and transit inventory see seasonal surges; regulators and lawmakers are debating national guardrails on ad tone and placement, with youth exposure a central concern.
• Payments friction. Credit-card cash-advance coding for some sportsbook deposits can trigger high fees and immediate interest; consumer groups encourage debit/ACH rails and clearer upfront disclosures by operators and banks.

Winners in the local economy

Three Toronto-centric clusters appear to benefit as the market matures:

1. Tech and data. Odds modeling, risk management, and real-time personalization need analysts and engineers. Several firms with GTA footprints supply trading algorithms, geolocation services, and anti-fraud tooling to multiple operators.
2. Creative and media. Live-odds graphics, streaming integrations, and multilingual campaigns have become a reliable pipeline for boutique studios and post-production houses—especially during the NHL and NBA seasons.
3. Compliance services. As rules evolve, legal, AML, cybersecurity, and responsible-gambling consultancies are busier, spinning up audits and incident-response playbooks for licensed sites.

The economic question for 2026 is not whether online gambling persists, but where its secondary spending lands—downtown agencies and tech corridors versus lower-rent nodes in North York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough.

Community concerns—and a policy path

Residents and advocates point to three pressure points that city hall and Queen’s Park can tackle without stalling the sector:

• Targeted ad standards. Toronto’s media market is dense; clearer ad codes for broadcast, out-of-home, and social placements—especially around schools and youth programming—would align industry practice with public expectations.
• Data transparency. Quarterly reporting already discloses headline wagers and revenue. Extending that to anonymized loss-distribution bands and time-on-site could sharpen prevention programs, directing resources to the narrow share of accounts that drive most losses. (Ontario’s public reports offer a starting model for consistent statistics.)
• Harm-reduction funding. A stable formula—indexed to revenue—would give Toronto Public Health and community partners predictable budgets for education, screening, and treatment, with evaluation baked in.

What to watch next

For news readers tracking the sector’s trajectory, three signals will tell us where Toronto’s local impact is heading:

1. Operator consolidation. Mergers tend to centralize tech stacks and marketing. If head offices move, Toronto could either gain regional mandates—or lose creative and engineering roles to global hubs.
2. Live-betting growth. As micro-markets expand, real-time risk systems (and associated hiring) will likely scale with them.
3. Regulatory tweaks. Any changes to advertising rules, inducement language, or affordability checks will flow directly into how operators spend on local media and compliance.

Ontario’s regulated model has turned online gambling into a measurable part of the provincial economy—billions in wagers each quarter, hundreds of millions in revenue, thousands of jobs, and a multi-billion-dollar GDP contribution—with Toronto absorbing much of the sector’s day-to-day work in tech, media, and compliance. The opportunity is to keep that growth anchored in responsible play and transparent data, so the economic upside shows up on Bay Street and at the neighborhood level. For consumers, the best advice remains simple: stay in the regulated channel, set limits, and treat wagering like entertainment, not income.

Sources: iGaming Ontario FY 2024–25 Q1 market performance update; iGaming Ontario 2023–24 Annual Report.

By Pepper Parr

October 24th, 2025

BURLINGTON, ON

On October 14, 2025, Council considered Finance Report and approved a direction to the Commissioner of Legal and Legislative Services/City Solicitor to release, and thereby waive privilege over, the aggregate amount paid to external litigation expenses in respect of the Ontario Land Tribunal appeal hearing regarding 2020 Lakeshore Road held between April 29, 2024 and May 17, 2024.

The development would have changed the way people saw their city and how Spencer Smith Park was used. The Ontario Land Tribunal hearing is one of the few the city won. It wasn’t cheap: $405,896.00

On January 8, 2025, the Ontario Land Tribunal released its reasons for a decision in this matter, dismissing appeals of refusals of amendments to the City’s Official Plan and Zoning By-law.

The City retained external legal counsel to represent the City in this matter, along with retained expert witnesses in land use planning, transportation planning and urban design.

This litigation has concluded in full.

In accordance with Council’s direction, the Commissioner of Legal and Legislative Services/City Solicitor confirms that external litigation expenses totaling an aggregate amount of $405,896 were incurred by the City in the litigation of this appeal at the Ontario Land Tribunal.