PressProgress Sources

On Monday October 19, the Alberta separatist movement is going to face a major test.

Albertans are voting on whether to start a legal process to hold a referendum on full independence from Canada. 

Poll numbers in favour of separation have not cracked 25 percent as of this past week, meaning the movement is set up for a loss on Monday. 

Still, 25% is a big number, and leads to some questions, including one that I’m sure all of us have had at some point: “who is behind the separatist movement?”

Over the years, PressProgress has interviewed and written about many of the main figures in Alberta’s separatist movement. 

The person doing the majority of the legwork on those stories, Alberta reporter Stephen Magusiak, joins Ontario reporter Eric Wickham to talk Alberta separation, and the people driving the movement. 

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On September 16, Mississauga passed an interim control by-law pausing approval on all data centres with a peak power draw of over 10MW for the next year. 

Mississauga is one of a growing number of municipalities putting planning before development on these large digital infrastructure projects in order to make sure the right guard rails and regulations are in place before more data centres show up. 

But why are these centres showing up everywhere, and why has there so much pushback?

Ontario reporter Eric Wickham was there in Mississauga on the day of the vote to meet up with the activists involved in the grassroots movement to prevent the 40 MW data centre in the north end of the city. 

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Canada’s single payer healthcare system has always been a point of national pride. 

But according to advocates, policy decisions by the provinces are actively undermining the healthcare system we all rely on.

Alberta’s expansion of private-pay models, British Columbia’s reversal of harm reduction and decriminalization measures amid an ongoing public health emergency, Quebec’s handling of tuberculosis outbreaks in Inuit communities, and Ontario’s cuts to funding for long-term care are all raising concerns among healthcare advocates about the direction of health policy across the country. 

In a webinar on July 15, PressProgress Health Reporter Brishti Basu spoke with four healthcare experts and advocates about what is going on in the provinces, and what can be done to stop our healthcare system from getting worse. 

The following is a conversation with:

• Chris Gallaway from Friends of Medicare
• Dr. Ryan Herriot from Doctors for Safer Drug Policy
• Andrew Longhurst from Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
• Dr. Yassen Tcholakov from the McGill Department of Global and Public Health, and Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Service

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Five of Ontario’s Education Unions representing over 250,000 workers have served notice to the province to begin bargaining ahead of next school year, in a move some are calling “unprecedented.”

Union leaders involved in the announcement have described this announcement as an opportunity for a quarter of a million education workers to say “enough is enough” regarding the chronic understaffing and underfunding of public education.

Joe Tigani, president of the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) joins PressProgress Ontario reporter Eric Wickham to talk about what is at stake for public education ahead of this next round of bargaining. 

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"The homeless are not Other. They are Us," Ontario's Superior Court declared last month. 

In a ruling that had advocates cheering, Justice Michael Gibson affirmed that unhoused people are entitled to the same Charter rights as any other Canadian — and that a bylaw targeting a specific encampment for removal had therefore amounted to anti-homeless discrimination.

This left Doug Ford fuming. 

But this isn't about the premier. Not mostly, anyway. It is, as our story explains, about the people who have nowhere else to go.

On this episode of Sources, Eric Wickham travelled to Kitchener, Ont., to meet residents of the encampment at the centre of the landmark case, and spoke to Ashley Schuitema and Shannon Down, two of the lawyers who persuaded the court to recognize the dignity of their clients.

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A wave of changes is hitting Ontario, including one that is going to make finding things out about the province more difficult for reporters and the public. 

In March, Doug Ford announced that his government was going to change Freedom of Information Laws to exempt correspondence from himself and his cabinet ministers. 

These changes come after a court ruled that Ford’s personal cell phone records were subject to information requests. It’s been known for a long time that Ford conducts provincial business on his personal phone, so obviously - reporters have been trying to get to those records. 

Now - if these new rules are put in place, they can’t. 

The Trillium’s Queen’s Park Reporter Jack Hauen joins Ontario reporter Eric Wickham to talk about these proposed changes. 

Note:

This interview was recorded on Wednesday April 1, so there is no mention of the province’s most recent proposal to change regional government by slashing councils in Simcoe and Niagara and giving an appointed regional chair “strong chair powers.”

This new development was announced Thursday afternoon before the long weekend. 

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For decades, if you asked a Canadian to name something they appreciated about this country, our universal healthcare system would invariably come up.

But in recent years, chronic underfunding, personnel shortages and the creep of privatization have taken their toll on a system that may or may not remain a point of national pride.

On this episode of Sources, our health reporter, Brishti Basu, talks to Dr. Danyaal Raza, who believes Canada's public healthcare system — "one of the highest expressions of us caring for one another," as he puts it — should be a nation-building priority. Raza is a family doctor at Toronto's St. Michael's Hospital, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, a board member at Canadian Doctors for Medicare and a research fellow at the Broadbent Institute (PressProgress is an editorially independent division of the institute.)

They discuss promising models for healthcare already deployed in some parts of the country (team-based care!) and the acute threats the system is facing elsewhere, particularly in Alberta.

You can also read the interview here.

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Late last month, thousands of Calgarians trekked to Stampede Park to pledge their support for Alberta separation. Trekking there, too, was our Alberta reporter, Stephen Magusiak.

Unfortunately, he didn't get to stay for long.

Before the rally even started — and just after he interviewed one of the organizers — Stephen was unceremoniously removed.

They evidently didn't like his questions.

On the new Sources, Stephen talks about what went down, and why the Alberta separatist movement feels more confident than ever.

Links

• "Alberta Separatists Kicked Us Out of Their Event After Asking About American Support" (PressProgress, Jan. 30, 2026)

• "The Albertans Counting on America to Help Break Apart Canada" (PressProgress, July 25, 2025)

• "Alberta Independence Rally in Calgary" livestream (Freedom Calendar on YouTube, Jan. 26, 2026)

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PressProgress is an award-winning non-profit news organization focused on uncovering and unpacking the news through original investigative and explanatory journalism.

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More than 100 students have been stuck in limbo as they wait for the Canadian government to approve the visas that would allow them to come here for graduate school. At least 26 universities across the country have accepted them into a wide range of programs. But there's something the students have in common: they live in, or are from, Gaza.

The Palestinian Students and Scholars at Risk Network (PSSAR) has been sounding the alarm about the unusual delays, while some of the applicants remain in places that have been, and continue to be, bombed. They say the response from the federal government — particularly from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — has been wanting.

On this episode of Sources, Nada El-Falou, PSSAR's director of student services, joins Ontario reporter Eric Wickham to discuss how Canada's inaction is endangering these students, and what can be done to get their visas finally approved.

Links

• CBC Radio's The Morning Edition - K-W – "Hear Sally Ghazi Ibaid’s audio submission to the University of Waterloo" (Dec. 18, 2024)

• PressProgress – “More Than 100 Gazans Have Been Accepted to Canadian Universities. Canada Isn’t Letting Them In.” (Jan. 27, 2026)

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PressProgress is an award-winning non-profit news organization focused on uncovering and unpacking the news through original investigative and explanatory journalism.

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While, for the first time in decades, there’s a nonzero chance of Canada getting smaller (with Alberta maybe wanting out and the U.S. maybe wanting in), PressProgress, at least, is only getting bigger.

That’s… something?

On this extra-festive edition of Sources, Eric speaks to Emma, Stephen, Rumneek and Jonathan about some of the favourite stories they’ve worked on this year and the many ways that this place has grown.

Stories discussed include:

• "While workers walk the picket lines, DHL brings in scabs by the busload" (June 18)

• "The Albertans Counting on America to Help Break Apart Canada" (July 25)

• "There’s a Wave of Violence Targeting Canadian Sikhs, and the Government Seems Powerless to Stop It" (Nov. 18)

• "Ben Mulroney is Blurring the Lines Between Journalism, Business, Lobbying and Partisan Politics" (Sept. 22)

• "The Campaigns Targeting Canadian Doctors Who Want to Discuss the Health Crisis in Gaza" (Sept. 18)

• "Journalist in Poilievre’s Viral 'Apple' Video Says Election Results Bring Him 'Satisfaction'" (April 30)

And note: We recorded this episode before Elections Alberta gave its go-ahead to the separatists’ latest petition application, and also prior to the OneBC party losing official status in the BC legislature. A couple weeks, it turns out, really can be a long time in politics.

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PressProgress is an award-winning non-profit news organization focused on uncovering and unpacking the news through original investigative and explanatory journalism.

Support our work so we can keep telling the stories that matter to you. Head to our website and make a contribution today.