Last week's much anticipated report on reforming social assistance programs -- "Brighter Prospects: Transforming Social Assistance in Ontario" -- presents an opportunity for Ontario to make choices that will define our province. Unfortunately, the prospects for making these important reforms don't look bright at the moment.

The failure of world leaders to act on the critical issue of global warming is often blamed on economic considerations. But let's take a look at the economic reality. A new scientific report concludes that climate change is already costing the world $1.2 trillion a year. It's also killing at least 400,000 people every year.

Most North Americans know that human-caused global warming is real, even if political leaders don't always reflect or act on that knowledge. According to a recent poll, only two per cent of Canadians reject the overwhelming scientific evidence that Earth is warming at alarming rates -- a figure that may seem surprising given the volume of nonsense deniers.

The federal government announced it will close the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area in Southern Ontario in 2013. It's an odd decision, especially considering that it costs just $2-million a year to operate -- one-tenth the cost of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's security detail and about the same amount the government spent during the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto to build a tourism pavilion with a fake lake.

OTTAWA - The environmental advisory body that Ottawa is killing off has issued a final tally of how well federal and provincial governments are meetin...

I was shocked by this week's news that the Harper Tories were closing Environment Canada's Experimental Lakes Area, cutting a smokestack emissions research group and a Department of Fisheries and Oceans contaminants program. Where are the real Tories willing to put the word "conserve" back into the Conservative Party of Canada?

OTTAWA - The Conservative government is pointing to a new greenhouse-gas report as a sign that the economy's rebound from recession did not come at th...