All Ontario News

Heather Wright/The Independent Plympton-Wyoming is backing Cargill’s call to ban housing development near its Sarnia elevators on the St. Clair River. In late 2025, Cargill asked Ontario’s minister of municipal affairs to use a Ministerial Zoning Order to override plans for housing developments in the area. Tricar is planning a 14-storey apartment building and Point Edward has approved a 156-unit

Blake Ellis/Local Journalism Initiative Helen Cole wants to know why fewer people are voting in municipal elections. Across Ontario, only 32.9 percent of eligible voters marked their ballot in the 2022 municipal election – an historic low.  The picture was a bit different in Lambton where 53.6 per cent of Brooke-Alvinston voters cast a ballot and the lowest turnout was

About 50 people join Sarnia ‘Fight Ford Protest’ Heather Wright/The Independent Being a child welfare worker has never been an easy job, but in Doug Ford’s Ontario, Mel Barnett says, it’s getting more difficult all the time. Barnett is a member of OPSEU and works at the Sarnia-Lambton Children’s’ Aid Society. She stood in front of Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey’s

Heather Wright/The Independent The legal fight to stop York1 Environmental from using a former Dresden landfill as a large construction and soil recycling centre and landfill is headed to court Sept. 21. The company filed a motion in Chatham court saying it shouldn’t need any municipal approvals to move ahead with the project without further municipal zoning approvals. It has

Cathy Dobson/The Independent Rural Ontario has been all but forgotten by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government, says Enniskillen Mayor Kevin Marriott. Marriott – who is also the warden of Lambton County – says funding reductions in how much the province provides to smaller Ontario municipalities for infrastructure are having a dire impact. In Enniskillen, cutbacks to the Ontario Municipal

Heather Wright/The Independent Ontario is moving ahead with changes to conservation authorities, merging 36 agencies into nine in a bid to harmonize regulation and make it easier for developers to get housing projects approved. In Lambton, boundary change being met with guarded optimism with the head of the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority saying the new regions may be the

Heather Wright/The Independent Warwick Township will start construction on a solution to flooding in Watford this year, thanks to a cash infusion from the provincial government. In 2023 and 2024, massive rainstorms hit the area flooding homes and backing up water on Highway 402 at the Nauvoo Road exit. “It really crippled our community,” said Warwick Mayor Todd Case as

Blake Ellis/The Independent “Our education system is in crisis,” said Chandra Pasma, the NDP’s education critic at Queen’s Park, as well as the Ottawa West-Nepean MPP. Pasma was speaking Wednesday at the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation office in Sarnia during a town hall meeting. “The Ford government has taken more than $6.3 billion out of the education system since

Cathy Dobson/The Independent St. Clair Township’s political support for additional natural gas-fired power plants ignores dire consequences to the health of local residents, says a prominent medical researcher and renewable energy advocate. “The Sarnia area should be urgently phasing out harmful gas-fired electricity to be replaced with renewable energy, not expanding gas,” said Dr. Mili Roy, co-chair of the Canadian

Blake Ellis/The Independent The pending amalgamation of all conservation authorities in Ontario hung in the air as the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority held what could be its last annual general meeting. Ontario’s Bill 68, the Plan to Protect Ontario Act moved to create the new Ontario Provincial Agency, to oversee and potentially consolidate the existing 36 conservation authorities into

Cathy Dobson/The Independent MPP Bob Bailey says an AI-related data centre may be interested in locating in Sarnia-Lambton and officials have spoken directly to him about the project. “I can’t say much more about it but we need that here,” he said while talking to reporters at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast Thursday where he was guest speaker. “It would

It’s not clear if delayed $245M St. Clair project could benefit The Independent Diageo and the Ontario government have reached a $23 million deal that invests in Ontario and returns Crown Royal to liquor store shelves. Last summer Diageo announced the closure of its Amherstburg bottling plant putting 200 people out of work. Premier Doug Ford lashed out, pouring Diageo’s