Latest news with #GTHA
CTV News
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
58th annual Toronto Caribbean Carnival Grand Parade. Watch live here
Watch CP24's LIVE breaking news coverage from across the GTHA The sounds of steelpan, soca, calypso and dancehall are set to echo throughout Toronto today as the city's annual Caribbean Carnival — commonly known as Caribana — returns with its 58th annual Grand Parade. Organizers say today's festivities are expected to draw millions of spectators and participants, with elaborate costumes, masqueraders, Caribbean cuisine and high-energy music transforming Lake Shore Boulevard. CP24 will have special coverage of the parade from from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., hosted by Bakari Savage, Lisa Morales and CTV Toronto's Jessica Smith. You can stream CP24's coverage on and through the CP24 and CTV News mobile apps. Here are the road closures you need to know: Toronto police say there is no credible threat to the event but will deploy extra officers for crowd and traffic management along the parade route and surrounding areas. Lake Shore Boulevard West from Fort York Boulevard to Colborne Lodge Drive Lake Shore Boulevard West westbound between Bathurst Street and Fort York Boulevard is open to local traffic only Strachan Avenue southbound from Fleet Street Closures on Gardiner Expressway ramps include: Westbound on-ramp at Jameson Avenue Eastbound off-ramp at Jameson Avenue Eastbound on-ramp from Jameson Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard West at British Columbia Road Westbound off-ramp at Dunn Avenue
CTV News
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Toronto Caribbean Carnival hits the streets today. Here's where to watch and what to know about road closures
Watch CP24's LIVE breaking news coverage from across the GTHA The sounds of steelpan, soca, calypso and dancehall are set to echo throughout Toronto today as the city's annual Caribbean Carnival — commonly known as Caribana — returns with its 58th annual Grand Parade. Organizers say today's festivities are expected to draw millions of spectators and participants, with elaborate costumes, masqueraders, Caribbean cuisine and high-energy music transforming Lake Shore Boulevard. CP24 will have special coverage of the parade from from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., hosted by Bakari Savage, Lisa Morales and CTV Toronto's Jessica Smith. You can stream CP24's on and through the CP24 and CTV News mobile apps. Here are the road closures you need to know: Toronto police say there is no credible threat to the event but will deploy extra officers for crowd and traffic management along the parade route and surrounding areas. Lake Shore Boulevard West from Fort York Boulevard to Colborne Lodge Drive Lake Shore Boulevard West westbound between Bathurst Street and Fort York Boulevard is open to local traffic only Strachan Avenue southbound from Fleet Street Closures on Gardiner Expressway ramps include:
CBC
31-07-2025
- Climate
- CBC
1 year after extreme flooding, Mississauga pours millions into speeding up storm water system improvements
How one GTA city is adapting after last summer's intense flooding 1 day ago Duration 2:09 Social Sharing Christopher Davidson, a water resources engineer and Mississauga resident, remembers the moment he realized 2024 would be a stormy summer like no other. On July 16 and August 17 and 18, two record-breaking storms unleashed 280 millimetres of rain on the city, trapping people on flooded roads, running over the edges of creeks and soaking into buildings. The larger GTHA was also affected. "Honestly, in my job I'm always expecting those 100-year storms, and to actually start seeing the manholes start to rattle and water shoot out… I thought, 'Oh, this is special,'" he said of the July downpour. Davidson, who runs an engineering-focused YouTube channel, whipped out his camera for both storms, documenting high creek levels, overwhelmed catch basins and a tree knocked down by floodwater. Storms like these, he said, "are something that [engineers] expect… but not something they'd expect this often. And that's kind of what we're facing." The City of Mississauga says it has spent the year since then working to prepare for climate change-fuelled storms by pouring money into storm water infrastructure upgrades. The city's accelerated plan, approved by council in September 2024, drew from urban examples as far flung as Nashville, Seattle and Vancouver. "As a result of the storms we had last summer, we took an approach to try and figure out if there's some immediate sort of quick wins we could look at," said Emma Calvert, director of infrastructure planning at the City of Mississauga. More than $20M spent this year The quick wins completed so far in Mississauga as part of the plan include the installation of a flood wall along Little Etobicoke Creek, a sewer upgrade not far from the creek near the Etobicoke border and improvements to the storm water system along Cooksville Creek. Calvert says the city is also fast-tracking longer term projects, such as the Dixie-Dundas Flood Mitigation Project, which she says prioritize "some of our flood vulnerable areas… to help improve resiliency." The Dundas-Dixie project, originally set to be finished by 2034, is being expedited by six years, with a new completion date of 2028. Another line of attack being taken by Mississauga is hiring new staff to step up the inspection of storm water inlets and increasing check-ins on the city's nearly 2,000 kilometres of storm sewer pipes. Finally, the city also rolled out financial relief programs for people impacted by last summer's extreme flooding, including a one-time grant of $1,000 to homeowners and tenants and rebates for installing basement flood protection devices like sump pumps. In all, the price tag for the accelerated plan adds up to just over $20 million in 2025, on top of the nearly $58 million the city was already set to spend on storm water management this year. Advice for homeowners Joe Desloges, a geography and earth sciences professor at the University of Toronto who studies climate change and flooding, says Mississauga's taking "very aggressive" steps to prepare for a challenge being faced by cities around the world. "There are strategies around retrofitting storm water ponds, updating sewer systems, and Mississauga is doing a lot of that," he said. "And then of course, they're using the natural waterways as sort of the last effort to try and help with water drainage." How Toronto could expand its flood mitigation plans 11 months ago Just weeks after Toronto's severe storm in July, city staff were tasked with investigating more flood mitigation measures. Their report is expected by the end of the year. In the final part of his three-part series, CBC's Shawn Jeffords speaks to experts about potential solutions the city could implement. Desloges told CBC Toronto that he sees flood mitigation as a "partnership" between individuals, governments and conservation authorities. He says homeowners should research steps they can take to prepare their own properties for rain, such as disconnecting downspouts, replacing hard outdoor surfaces with absorbent gardens and grading lawns. Davidson, the Mississauga engineer, says one of the biggest challenges cities face is predicting exactly what infrastructure will be needed in the decades to come. "If I'm building a sewer now, it's going to be there for the next 50 or 100 years. So we're all just trying to guess what's going to happen," he said. "We're trying to estimate the high end of that range to make sure that we're keeping things safe."
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
1 year after extreme flooding, Mississauga pours millions into speeding up storm water system improvements
Christopher Davidson, a water resources engineer and Mississauga resident, remembers the moment he realized 2024 would be a stormy summer like no other. On July 16 and August 17 and 18, two record-breaking storms unleashed 280 millimetres of rain on the city, trapping people on flooded roads, running over the edges of creeks and soaking into buildings. The larger GTHA was also affected. "Honestly, in my job I'm always expecting those 100-year storms, and to actually start seeing the manholes start to rattle and water shoot out… I thought, 'Oh, this is special,'" he said of the July downpour. Davidson, who runs an engineering-focused YouTube channel, whipped out his camera for both storms, documenting high creek levels, overwhelmed catch basins and a tree knocked down by floodwater. Storms like these, he said, "are something that [engineers] expect… but not something they'd expect this often. And that's kind of what we're facing." The City of Mississauga says it has spent the year since then working to prepare for climate change-fuelled storms by pouring money into storm water infrastructure upgrades. The city's accelerated plan, approved by council in September 2024, drew from urban examples as far flung as Nashville, Seattle and Vancouver. "As a result of the storms we had last summer, we took an approach to try and figure out if there's some immediate sort of quick wins we could look at," said Emma Calvert, director of infrastructure planning at the City of Mississauga. More than $20M spent this year The quick wins completed so far in Mississauga as part of the plan include the installation of a flood wall along Little Etobicoke Creek, a sewer upgrade not far from the creek near the Etobicoke border and improvements to the storm water system along Cooksville Creek. Calvert says the city is also fast-tracking longer term projects, such as the Dixie-Dundas Flood Mitigation Project, which she says prioritize "some of our flood vulnerable areas… to help improve resiliency." The Dundas-Dixie project, originally set to be finished by 2034, is being expedited by six years, with a new completion date of 2028. Another line of attack being taken by Mississauga is hiring new staff to step up the inspection of storm water inlets and increasing check-ins on the city's nearly 2,000 kilometres of storm sewer pipes. Finally, the city also rolled out financial relief programs for people impacted by last summer's extreme flooding, including a one-time grant of $1,000 to homeowners and tenants and rebates for installing basement flood protection devices like sump pumps. In all, the price tag for the accelerated plan adds up to just over $20 million in 2025, on top of the nearly $58 million the city was already set to spend on storm water management this year. Advice for homeowners Joe Desloges, a geography and earth sciences professor at the University of Toronto who studies climate change and flooding, says Mississauga's taking "very aggressive" steps to prepare for a challenge being faced by cities around the world. "There are strategies around retrofitting storm water ponds, updating sewer systems, and Mississauga is doing a lot of that," he said. "And then of course, they're using the natural waterways as sort of the last effort to try and help with water drainage." Desloges told CBC Toronto that he sees flood mitigation as a "partnership" between individuals, governments and conservation authorities. He says homeowners should research steps they can take to prepare their own properties for rain, such as disconnecting downspouts, replacing hard outdoor surfaces with absorbent gardens and grading lawns. Davidson, the Mississauga engineer, says one of the biggest challenges cities face is predicting exactly what infrastructure will be needed in the decades to come. "If I'm building a sewer now, it's going to be there for the next 50 or 100 years. So we're all just trying to guess what's going to happen," he said. "We're trying to estimate the high end of that range to make sure that we're keeping things safe."
CTV News
18-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
‘Invisible poor': Middle-income households making up to $125K annually getting squeezed out of the GTHA: report
An office worker talks on the phone in the financial district of Toronto, on Thursday, June 2, 2016. The working middle class in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area – a group that includes teachers, nurses and other essential workers – have become 'the invisible poor' and could soon be squeezed out of the region due to the ongoing housing crisis, a new report suggests. On Tuesday, CivicAction published the first instalment of a four-part research series delving into the challenges middle-income workers in the GTHA face. The authors of the report defined middle class workers as those making anywhere between $40,000 and $125,000 annually. 'Despite steady employment, they are increasingly becoming our region's 'invisible poor—often overlooked because they have jobs and are assumed to be managing, even as rising costs push them towards financial precarity,' the report reads. Since those who belong to the working middle class make more than what would qualify them for traditional housing supports, CivicAction says that the group ends up spending 45 to 63 per cent of their income towards housing—far surpassing the 30 per cent chunk typically recommended by financial experts. 'I'll give you the example (of) a nurse earning $80,000 a year today, (they) will need to earn over $200,000 to qualify for a mortgage for an average Toronto home,' Leslie Woo, CivicAction's CEO tells CTV News Toronto. 'That's our current situation.' The report notes that while the annual median household income in Toronto is $100,400, salaries have not kept up with rising housing costs. As a result, Toronto's price-to-income ratio has now reached 11.8 times the median household income, meaning homebuyers in the city with an average income would need to dedicate 76.9 per cent of their salary toward mortgage payments on an average priced home. The report warns of a 'downstream crisis,' which is when working people and families are past their financial breaking point and have to make hard decisions, up to and including leaving the region entirely. In the last decade, more than 500,000 people from the GTHA moved elsewhere in the province, like to the Simcoe or Niagara regions, while roughly 31,000 people moved to other provinces in Canada, like B.C., Alberta, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. Workers dissatisfied with housing and commute CivicAction and the Boston Consulting Group are actively conducting an online survey, analyzing responses from middle class workers who commute at least 30 minutes each way, either by car or public transit. The survey's preliminary results, compiled in early May after four weeks of polling, found nearly two-thirds of middle-income workers—62 per cent—are unsatisfied with either or both their housing or commuting situation. The majority of respondents—67.7 per cent—indicated wanting to do something to address their current dissatisfaction, with around 39 per cent considering changing jobs to so they are closer to home or just shy of 29 per cent looking to find a place to live closer to work 'We recognize that the folks who power this region, nurses, firefighters, personal care workers, teachers, they are—I think—a critical part of what makes this region livable, and their voice and an understanding of their needs, needs to be part of when policies are being made or initiatives that are underway, or money that is being spent, that we're truly benefiting them, and the best way to ensure that is to understand more deeply how they're affected and what it is that they need in order to meet their needs and their families needs,' Woo said. How this impacts the GTHA The high levels of stress mounting for middle-income workers in the GTHA can spill into other aspects of life, the report suggests, acting as sort of a 'canary in the coalmine' that can create an untenable situation for the region in the long run. The report notes a growing number of middle-income workers are less than 'one pay cheque away' from falling into serious financial distress, with the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's well-being survey determining 56 per cent of Canadian households are struggling to keep up with their financial commitments—up from 38 per cent in 2019—while 35 per cent borrow money to cover the costs of daily expenses, which is up by eight per cent since 2019. More people are using the food bank, with Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank's 2024 report indicating a record-breaking 3.49 million visitors, amounting to one in 10 residents having used their food banks last year. But the affordability issue goes far beyond how it is impacting individual households. From the business standpoint, the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis in 2024 determined 29 per cent of local businesses reported difficulty attracting employees while 20 per cent struggle to retain skilled employees. 'Perhaps most concerning for regional economic development and competitiveness, the Toronto Region Board of Trade (2022) found that 42 per cent of businesses are considering relocation specifically due to workforce housing challenges,' the report notes. The workforce housing crisis can also impact the quality of service, as the report estimates $575 million is lost annually in the health-care system due to staffing challenges or overtime requirements, $320 million in losses in the education sector due to turnover rates and substitute staffing and $230 million is lost in the emergency services sector due to increased response times and staffing challenges. The GTHA's traffic infrastructure is also burdening the economy, with the report pointing to the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis' estimations in 2024 has cost $10.1 billion annually over the last decade with 88,000 fewer jobs. 'If congestion had been reduced, real GDP in the GTHA could be $27.9 billion higher today—representing a 4.9 per cent increase over GTHA's 2024 economic performance, corresponding to an additional $3,400 in economic activity per person,' the report states. What can be done? The report provided preliminary actions to address the housing affordability challenge for middle-income workers, suggesting employers could look into housing assistance programs or workforce housing initiatives, It also said that municipalities can measure and track data around shelter usage to understand the magnitude of the housing problem and provide adequate housing supports. However, CivicAction will be publishing three more reports, which Woo says will address, in part, why the math doesn't add up. 'I think we can anticipate that, at its crux, part of what we will see in the next paper is that no one source of funding is going to be adequate. No one sector is going to be enough, and that, then, really will lead to paper three and four, which will speak about specific solutions that we want to see some action on,' Woo said.. Are you a middle-income worker in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area choosing between moving away to somewhere more affordable or making it work in the region? Share your story by emailing us at torontonews@ with your name, general location, and phone number in case we want to follow up. Your comments may be used in a CTV News Toronto story.
