He Complained About His Mother’s Care. The Long-Term Care Home Restricted Him From Seeing Her. Five years after Ontario banned the practice, families still being punishment for complaining about inadequate care, by @royinori.bsky.social thelocal.to/ontario-long... via @thelocal.to

If you've ever wished you had more time to read our work at The Local, we've now made it easier for you, debuting a new audio version of our latest story today - with ✨ no AI! ✨ Just hours of hard work from our team and me getting slightly dizzy staring at thousands of words on the page!

This story is the kind of work that made me want to become a journalist - to be able to bring to light an intimate, human story, something that few know about but that may in time affect all of us. I'm very grateful to my sources in this piece, who made room for me in the midst of their grief:

My latest, for the weekend crowd:

At a time when governments are withholding data and information at every level, building an algorithm to scrape data from 17,500+ documents—with no AI—is an unparalleled skill. It's something not a lot of journalists in Canada can do. A privilege to team up with Xavi for a project of this scale!

@royinori.bsky.social started talking about this incredibly ambitious project months and months ago. Today, @thelocal.to is launching its Inspecting Long-Term Care issue, which she single-handedly wrote. It is phenomenal data journalism. thelocal.to/spring-2026/

The Local does this thing where they'll publish an investigation and I'll be like "is this the most crucial work I've read this year?", and then they'll publish another and I'm like "is THIS the most crucial work I've read this year?" and so on until the sun explodes. LOOK at the work they did here!

EXCLUSIVE: In the wake of the pandemic, the Ford government set the target of one proactive inspection a year at every long-term care home. But our analysis of thousands of inspection reports reveals less than 40% of LTC homes received a proactive inspection in 2025. thelocal.to/ontario-long...

Tens of thousands of Ontarians are on #longtermcare waitlists. Gathering never-before-seen data on performance indicators, @xavierrichervis.bsky.social, Ilyass Moffadel, and I have created a tool to help people make informed choices about where to place their loved ones: thelocal.to/long-term-ca...

With data from 17,500 inspection reports, five months of work, and dozens of sources—families, health care workers, experts, policy makers—our new investigation on the state of long-term care reveals broken promises, and seniors being left behind by an inequal system. thelocal.to/ontario-long...

From Safe Parkside: look what happened on Parkside Drive after Premier Doug Ford banned speed cameras.

The Local is expanding! After seven years focusing on hyper-local reporting from Toronto, we're going (very slightly) west. We're thrilled to introduce our first Peel Reporter, @prarthanapathak.bsky.social! thelocal.to/the-local-ex...

personally I think it's a very big deal that the Canada bureau chief for the @nytimes.com — certainly one of the highest-paid journalists in the country — asked an unspecified "AI tool" what Poilievre said & published its AI-hallucinated quotes in her reporting.

Best Feature Article (Long): “Why Did a Group of Teenage Girls Kill a Man in a Downtown Toronto Parkette?” by @royinori.bsky.social. Editor: Dafna Izenberg; fact checker: Amarah Hasham-Steele; and illustrator: Alexandra Newbould. thewalrus.ca/why-did-a-gr...

Love that our issue about urban wildlife got so many nominations. Especially glad to see this story, in which @royinori.bsky.social hangs out in a field in the middle of the night picking worms, get the respect it deserves

So happy for @thelocal.to! Congrats to my amazing colleagues and our excellent contributors! 🎉 Especially to @royinori.bsky.social, @nickhunebrown.bsky.social, @kunalchaudhary.bsky.social, and the whole team behind our Wild Wild City issue

Every day with this team is a marvel, especially when you get to celebrate the work of your amazing colleagues and contributors. Check out our stories that received national nods last week, and congratulations to all the nominees 🥳

I've been offline on a deadline the past week so I'm only now getting to express how thrilled I am at being nominated for two National Magazine Awards, for stories in @thelocal.to and @thewalrus.ca. Honoured to be named alongside so many brilliant people. Unreal! magazine-awards.com/en/2026nomin...

Another year, another wonderful roundup of talent in the NMAs noms. @nickhunebrown.bsky.social! @royinori.bsky.social! @arnokopecky.bsky.social! @marcellodicintio.bsky.social! @alisonmotluk.bsky.social! @tajjaisen.bsky.social! @juliesobowale.bsky.social! @patkanephoto.bsky.social! + so many more...

Incredible story out in The Local today from @wencyleung.bsky.social and @chloeellingson.bsky.social about the human cost of cuts to refugee supports. The individual fallout of a decision like this is, for already marginalized refugees or asylum seekers, in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Being trusted to do this story, which was unlike anything I'd done before, was a privilege, and I'm grateful to now be recognized among an amazing group of fellow nominees. Congrats all, and special thanks to my editor Dafna and fact-checker Amarah, both extraordinary individuals and collaborators ❤️

Correction: that's five DPA nominations, not four, with our nomination for General Excellence for small publications (an award we've won four of the past five years!) Thanks to all the staff and contributors who make The Local generally excellent!

And our summer animals issue, Wild Wild City, is nominated for best editorial package. Congrats to all the nominees! thelocal.to/summer-2025/

@nickhunebrown.bsky.social's "Breakdown at the Racetrack" is nominated for Best Feature Article: Long. thelocal.to/breakdown-at...

@wencyleung.bsky.social's "Bird Flu Comes For Toronto’s Wildlife" is nominated for Best Science and Technology Writing. thelocal.to/avian-flu-to...

Quick 🧵 of the nominees: @kunalchaudhary.bsky.social is nominated in Best Feature Article for "How Ontario Sleepwalked into a Crisis in Higher Education" thelocal.to/ontario-post...

Amazing news to see the team celebrated in these DPA nominations, including work from the always smart @kunalchaudhary.bsky.social and my lovely colleagues @wencyleung.bsky.social @nickhunebrown.bsky.social ✨🎉

Finalists/Finalistes : Community written feature / Reportage écrit communautaire ⭐️Samantha Beattie - CBC Hamilton ⭐️Eve Cable - Eastern Door ⭐️Kathryn Mannie - TorontoToday ⭐️Inori Roy - The Local #CAJawards #prixACJ

Big congrats to @nickhunebrown.bsky.social @wencyleung.bsky.social @royinori.bsky.social for these stellar pieces of journalism and storytelling. I know how hard they worked to bring these stories to readers. Well deserved. 👏

This feature was a delight and privilege to write, and I was so busy having fun that I had no idea it would resonate with so many people (even across oceans!) and be recognized by my peers. I'm very lucky to get to do this work, and grateful to my @thelocal.to team for letting me chase this story. 🪱

So pleased to see this recognition for my wonderful colleagues @nickhunebrown.bsky.social and @wencyleung.bsky.social, and grateful to be nominated!

On April 4, TPS entered the lobby of Comedy Bar moments before the start of a fundraising event for Gaza. That same night, cops entered a theatre at TIFF Lightbox midway through a screening of 'Palestine 36.' I dug into this concerning trend for @thegrindto.bsky.social.

NEW: The Giller Prize boycott has ended. The embattled literary prize confirmed that it is no longer sponsored by groups with ties to Israeli occupation and genocide. I spoke to previous Giller winners and nominees about the news for @thegrindto.bsky.social. www.thegrindmag.ca/organizers-e...

Final days to apply for this amazing opportunity!

@torontotoday.ca now reporting that the TDSB plans to cut 600 teaching roles next year; meanwhile, @wencyleung.bsky.social revealed new data last week showing that in some parts of the city, students are already being taught by non-teachers hundreds of times a year. Such a grim state of affairs.

👉 Tue Apr 7 → 7pm • in-person & online @thelocal.to's @wencyleung.bsky.social on how local journalism digs into the data — Ontario sold Health811 as a great service, but wait times of up to 11 hours tell a different story. ✚ discussions & breakouts! guild.host/events/civic...

@karmicangel.bsky.social with an excellent story on how your local crossing guard is probably underpaid and more at risk than ever before, despite the increasing tax dollars paid to their employers. How much would you accept to step in front of (often speeding) cars dozens of times a day?

So we removed speed cameras, have zero reckless driving enforcement, and privatized crossing guards so that we now rely on a group of poorly paid contract workers to get people safely across the street. It's not going well! thelocal.to/crossing-gua...

Big news at The Local! Come work with us.

Last call to apply for The Local Fellowship 2026! Applications are due tomorrow. thelocal.to/local-fellow...

Come join us this summer+fall, and report on the 2026 municipal election. It's a chance to develop your skills as a magazine writer while also being responsive to a fast-paced election season. There's nothing else like it and I will always be grateful for the incredible time I had as a 2020 fellow!

Got to make an audio version of my @thelocal.to AI journalism scammer story for one of my favourite podcasts, Question Everything. Show: www.kcrw.com/shows/questi... Apple: podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/q...

The killing of 165+ students at a girls' school in Iran has also been largely ignored in Canadian media. As far as I can tell, neither the Toronto Star nor the Globe and Mail has run a standalone story on Saturday's attack.

Wency's newest reporting in the School Board Takeover series illuminates vital details about the how provincial funding breaks down from board to board, revealing an imbalance that's been ongoing in some form for nearly 25 years.

No one covers education as thoroughly as @wencyleung.bsky.social A must-read on the discrepancies between the ford govts stated aims in its board takeover —reining in spending —and the historic crisis of chronic underfunding that aim obscures thelocal.to/ontario-scho...

When the province took over some of the largest school boards last June, it vowed to restore financial stability & rein in out-of-control spending. More than 8 months in, there’s little evidence its supervisors have put these boards on firmer footing, @thelocal.to finds. thelocal.to/ontario-scho...

Gorgeous words from my friend @filipouris.bsky.social on finding meaning, catharsis, and queer joy in Heated Rivalry! 💗

“I think a lot of working people in Canada who are contributors to the CPP would be concerned to learn that the entity that invests their pension … is investing in this company that has been responsible for such an egregious treatment of women and minors.” www.thestar.com/business/why...