After the COVID-19 pandemic,  ridership on Toronto’s buses, streetcars and subways struggled to rebound.

But it surged back in nearby cities.

Brampton, Mississauga and parts of Waterloo Region were among the suburbs that rapidly recovered from COVID-19, setting records for the number of passengers and struggling with overcrowding.

Then, the federal government put a cap on the number of international students who could study in Ontario. The move appears to be directly linked to suddenly plummeting ridership in those cities, which are now recording millions fewer rides.

“In 2024, federal policy changes reduced immigration inflows and began to affect ridership,” the City of Brampton wrote in a statement to Global News. “Demand slowed late in the year and declines continued into Spring and Summer 2025, resulting in a revenue shortfall.”

Mississauga, for example, saw its student ridership drop 24 per cent last year and its total number of riders fall by 10 per cent.

“A 10 per cent drop in ridership does seem significant,” Mississauga’s Miway transit director Maureen Cosyn Heath acknowledged. “Certainly, the policy change is an impact on that.”

In Waterloo, Grand River Transit provided four million fewer rides in 2025 than it had the year before.

“Decreases in ridership were mainly due to reductions in the local student population,” a recent report from the agency explained.

The cap on international students was brought in by the federal government in January 2024 and then tightened. It’s been blamed by the Ontario government for financial struggles at provincial colleges as even overseas students who can get visas begin to stay away.

Cosyn Heath said the long-term impacts of the policy would mean Mississauga has to change how it plans its transit system, perhaps dropping or reducing its routes serving campuses or student housing.

“We’re aware that the changes on international students are going to have a permanent impact on us in the longer term,” she said. “So we revise our ridership projections, and then we pivot and shift to figuring out what new markets exist that we need to serve better.”

Brampton, too, said it would be “aligning service delivery with demand and long-term sustainability.”

Despite the short-term hit to transit ridership around Toronto, one transit expert believes it’s a bump in the road rather than an existential threat.

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“Brampton was the transit success story of North America long before the international boom,” Jonathan English, principal at Infrastory Insights, told Global News.

“They experienced a 250 per cent ridership bump before international students arrived. Is it a significant drop? For sure. And will that have financial consequences? Definitely. But I think we need to keep it in perspective.”

In Mississauga, the transit agency is taking a pause to assess the impacts, but not scaling back. After increasing ridership hours, MiWay will freeze them for 2026 as it works out how to address a 10 per cent drop in travellers.

“You’re not going to see service cuts unilaterally across the system as a result of one pocket of our ridership,” Cosyn Heath said.

English said that’s the right approach, urging cities to ensure service improves to attract new riders who aren’t as reliant on transit as students might be.

“It’s hard to change routes before ridership data comes in. Now the ridership data has come in and there is an opportunity for the systems to respond — and they need to respond,” he said.

“Are some routes going to permanently or, for the foreseeable future, have less ridership? Absolutely… but overall the cities continue to grow, people continue to travel to work, to play, to school, so the key goal has to be here ot make sure we maintain a basic quality service level.”

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Sophie Charpentier is one of some 23,000 federal public servants who have been told their positions could be affected by the government’s current move to reorganize and trim its workforce.

But the idea of ​​leaving her government job terrifies her, because Charpentier worries it might mean she’s never able to sort out a pay issue that began almost 10 years ago.

At one point, she nearly went bankrupt. Charpentier estimates the government still owes her more than $50,000 for work she did.

After launching in 2016, the error-plagued Phoenix pay system overpaid and underpaid thousands of public servants. Although a decade has gone by, the backlog is still long, the government has nearly 1,800 staff working to fix pay transactions, and it’s left many employees like Charpentier still reeling from the impact years later.

Charpentier is far from alone in this situation, according to the major unions. But the government is still unable to quantify the extent of the problem. 

“It’s unacceptable. Unacceptable,” said Sean O’Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC).

The equivalent of 1,769 full-time workers are currently trying to reduce the backlog in the Phoenix system through the payroll centre based in Miramichi, N.B. That’s triple the number of staff first tasked with fixing Phoenix transactions in the early days.

There are still 233,000 transactions awaiting processing, of which 105,000 have been pending for more than a year.

Charpentier’s pay problems bring back painful memories: The first errors coincided with the beginning of her battle against colon cancer.

“I still talk about it and cry about it,” said Charpentier, who lives in the township of Lochaber-Ouest, Que. “It’s a nightmare.”

Since 2016, she’s meticulously documented every inaccuracy. Calendars, financial statements, and pay stubs piled on her kitchen counter attest to the many hours she’s spent trying to sort things out. 

“It’s a second job,” she sighs, as she looks over over the documents.

Charpentier wonders if the government will ever pay her the lump sum she’s entitled to, if she loses her job as part of the workforce restructuring.

The federal government says all public servants will be paid, even those who will lose their jobs or retire early amid the current workforce adjustment. Thousands of public servants are in a state of flux as part of the government’s plan to shrink the bureaucracy by 40,000 positions from its 2024 peak of just under 367,772 employees.

O’Reilly expects the looming mass movements of personnel will further clog the payroll system and increase arrears.

“It’s going to cause more problems,” he said.

Nearly $5B gone

Alex Benay, the associate deputy minister for Public Services and Procurement Canada, who has been responsible for corporate payroll co-ordination since 2023, admits to having very quickly “learned never to guarantee anything with Phoenix.”

The last thing he wants, he said, is for public servants who go through the “traumatic experience” of losing their jobs to suffer pay problems.

But for now, Benay doesn’t foresee any technical problems with the payroll system that could be caused by the current cuts.

At his offices in Gatineau, Que., Benay notes Phoenix has “cost an enormous amount of money” since its launch in 2016. 

“We have no choice but to be more transparent, and we have to live with the consequences of our actions,” he said.

The government originally anticipated Phoenix to save approximately $70 million a year. Instead, the costs have just kept rising.

Spending on Phoenix has hit $4.34 billion, not including the additional $521 million planned for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

Each year, several million dollars are paid to outside consultants to support the payroll system.  IBM, which designed and deployed Phoenix, has received more than $851 million in the past decade.

In 2017, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada published a damning report on Phoenix, accusing the government of failing to “identify and resolve payroll issues in a sustainable manner.”

The following year, a second report described Phoenix as an “incomprehensible failure of project management and oversight.” 

It said executives sacrificed functionality and security to meet budget and delivery deadlines.

Benay points out that one of the “bad decisions” that led to the fiasco was separating human resources and payroll.

“To get out of this problem, we will have to transform the way we manage our human resources” and standardize several processes, he said.

Benay adds that although decisions were made “well above the pay grade of employees,” they were the ones who inherited the consequences.

“It’s inspiring to work with these people, who have worked tirelessly with a predetermined model that didn’t work,” he said.

Formerly chief information officer for the federal government, Benay was working in the private sector when he says he offered to lead this public payroll portfolio. 

He had just returned from trips abroad during which he said he was taunted: “Your country created Phoenix!” he recalled people saying to him. 

“It was embarrassing. Phoenix really had a negative connotation,” Benay said.

“When you tell me something isn’t feasible, I like to try and prove you wrong,” he said, explaining why he wanted to take on the thorny issue. 

“Now we have a chance to fix things, we have the support and the funding, we have momentum.”

Who’s responsible?

“Senior public servants and our leaders must be held accountable,” said Magali Picard, president of the Quebec’s Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ), who witnessed the Phoenix problems first-hand. 

Back in 2016, she was representing Quebec employees for the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).

“From the very beginning, the warning signs were incredibly frightening, and we kept being told that ‘everything was under control,’” Picard said.

For Geneviève Tellier, a professor at the school of political studies at the University of Ottawa, the problem is deeper. She says an abundance of rules paralyzes the government.

The federal public service follows procedures but doesn’t question them, Tellier said.

“The civil service must be able to tell the government, ‘This won’t work’,” said Tellier. “With Phoenix, we weren’t ready for implementation, but we had a government that was in a hurry.”

As soon as an error is identified, it must be reported and corrected before moving on to the next steps, added Justin Lawaré, assistant professor of digital management at École nationale d’administration publique, a specialized university for public administration with campuses in Gatineau, Que., Montreal and Quebec City. 

He said the failed deployment of Phoenix, just like that of the SAAQclic project by the government of Quebec, would have required more testing and a phased rollout.

Since “it affects human beings,” governments must “apply a precautionary principle,” Lawaré said.

Toward change… in 2030

Benay hopes that the Dayforce software, which will replace Phoenix, will be fully operational by 2030. 

“That’s a tentative date,” he said with a note of caution.

A $350.6-million contract signed with Dayforce covers work from June 2019 to June 2026. The agreement could be extended until 2049.

“The [internal] team is truly operating at a non-traditional level for the government sector,” Benay noted. “You can’t expect a different result by doing things the same way.”

“We have a management team of about 50 people, and we share our failures to learn and be able to say, ‘It’s OK to talk about what doesn’t work,'” explained Benay. 

Every month, his team even awards a “lemon prize” for the biggest blunder, so they can discuss what happened and how to overcome challenges, Benay said.

A hallway with white walls is covered in words: teamwork, transparency, perseverance, relentless, accessible, tenacity, resilience. 

Staff use the wall daily as a testament to the team’s commitment, Benay said.

In September, the government’s new payroll software will be tested with employee data from three organizations: the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Shared Services Canada, and Public Services and Procurement Canada.

Before transferring files into Dayforce, organizations will have the responsibility to ensure that they contain no payroll errors whatsoever. The arrears must also be at zero.

PSAC’s national executive vice-president Alex Silas argued that “when this change happens, we can say that we have a government that is taking the Phoenix fiasco crisis seriously.”

He also asks the federal government to stop recovering overpayments beyond the limitation period provided by law. 

Since 2016, 483,130 public servants have received overpayments totaling $3.57 billion, according to PSPC data. This amount includes administrative overpayments automatically issued to prevent payroll errors.

For Silas, far too many lives have been affected by Phoenix. Benay agrees.

“No one should know the name of their payroll system,” he said.

As for Charpentier, she would like her salary problems to “go away, like cancer.” She gestures downward.

On her right thigh is a tattoo she had done to celebrate her cancer’s remission. It’s a phoenix — the mythical bird that rises from its ashes.

She hopes it will soon take on a second meaning, and come to symbolize the end of her decade-long pay odyssey.

A new palliative care team at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton has found a way to bring its services to more people with life-threatening illnesses.

Dr. Mino Mitri, one of the founders of Pegasus says his team brings palliative care directly to the offices of patients’ other specialists at St. Joe’s, making it more accessible than if they had to travel to a separate appointment to access such care.

“We chose the name Pegasus because we fly to the different clinic areas within our hospital campuses,” said Mitri in an interview with CBC Hamilton on Tuesday. The model will allow palliative care doctors to see more patients and spread themselves further, he said.

“We see patients who have had long-standing disease have a well-established relationship with their specialist, and we didn’t want to take that away from them,” he added.

As the program is still new, Mitri says doctors don’t always think to call them in the moment the patient is at their office — but when they do, a member of the team can often respond immediately.

Pilot launched last year

Pegasus began as a pilot program in February 2025, beginning as a partnership with the hospital system’s nephrology and respirology departments.

It became available to all St. Joe’s patients with life-threatening illness last summer, and has now served between 40 and 50 patients, estimates Mitri, who is the head of service for palliative medicine at St. Joe’s.

The team also stresses that palliative care isn’t just about end-of-life care, but about improving function and quality of life for patients.

Mitri explained that despite a common understanding of palliative care that involves the relief of suffering at the very end of someone’s life, there are many ways palliative care experts can help people who are much earlier in their journey with life-threatening disease.

“We’re providing whole-person support that helps patients manage symptoms, plan ahead and live well on their own terms,” he said.

Palliative-care physicians are experts in drugs that can help patients feel better and live more fully, and also in having conversations with patients about how their values align with the treatments being offered, he said.

His team has helped patients with kidney disease talk through the pros and cons of going on dialysis, or ending dialysis, for example.

“Sometimes the angle we offer is asking very specific questions about values and priorities,” said Mitri. “Palliative care is making sure they are being true to themselves the whole way, and making sure they know their options the whole way.”

Dr. Joshua Wald, a respirologist who has been part of the Pegasus program from the start, says it has been “incredibly valuable” for his patients to have direct access to palliative care through Pegasus.

“Many patients with advanced lung disease don’t know about or have access to palliative care resources,” he said in an emailed statement. “The Pegasus program has [provided] them with access to a team specializing in managing symptoms and discussing options for people near the end of life.”

Dr. Meera Joseph, nephrologist at St. Joseph’s, says the Pegasus team has helped her patients with kidney disease “better manage symptoms and improve patients’ quality of life at every stage of their illness — not just at the end of life.”

‘All of us have a stake in the game’

The philosophy of taking a palliative approach to medicine is gaining traction, and is also promoted by Dr. Samantha Winemaker with McMaster University.

She’s the co-writer of a book called Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest: 7 Keys for Navigating a Life-Changing Diagnosis, alongside researcher Hsien Seow, the Canada research chair in Palliative Care and Health System Innovation.

The pair, who also host a podcast, are urging Canadians to seek palliative care much earlier if facing a progressive illness, to ensure they have as much information and choice as possible. 

In an interview with CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Art, Winemaker said that after caring for thousands of people, she’s found that “having less information” leads to families making choices that are “very reactive and crisis-driven.”

They’re also teaching family physicians and other healthcare workers how to incorporate palliative care approaches into their own practices. 

“I think every cardiologist, virologist, nephrologist, hepatologist, neurologist, oncologist, family practice [physician], all of us have a stake in the game and all of us need to be providing a palliative approach,” said Winemaker, who provides in-home palliative care services. 

“In the future, personally, I hope no one needs us because we’ve done such a good job integrating a palliative philosophy of care into all care providers competence that we don’t have to label it palliative care. It just becomes very amazing, person-centered care delivered by everyone.”

Ramadan officially begun on February 17 in 2026, with Muslims all over the world beginning the month-long process of fasting, prayer and reflection.

Over the course of the ninth month in the Islamic calendar, Muslims of able body and mind who fast for Ramadan will not be allowed to eat, drink, smoke or have sex from sunrise until the sun sets.

But if you’re not a practicing Muslim, the rules can often raise the question of whether you can or can’t drink water during this time.

Are you allowed to drink water during Ramadan?

No, during the fasting daylight hours, practicing Muslims are not permitted to consume water.

Instead, it’s recommended that anyone fasting drinks as much water as possible in the early morning to ward off thirst during the day. If it happens to be particularly warm, they are advised not to exert themselves or be outside too much, in case they get dehydrated.

Regardless, if you were to willingly eat or drink anything during the day, the fast would be considered invalid.

Why can’t you drink water?

The reason water is abstained from is to remind Muslims of their dependence on the blessings they receive from Allah (SWT), according to UK Islamic Mission. These can easily be taken for granted, so it instils thatHe gives the blessings, and He can take them away.

It also reminds participants to be grateful for what they have and understand what others living in poverty experience every single day.

The fast would also be rendered invalid if you were to have sex or to make yourself vomit during daylight hours as well.

Who is exempt?

However, if you have your period during Ramadan, are a child, pregnant, or are not of sound mind, then you are exempt from the fast. If you have missed some of the fast due to your period, you’re encouraged to make up the time as soon as your period ends.

This time of abstinence is intended to be held in memory of the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad, and it’s thought that the tradition started as far back as 1000 years ago.

On the night that Ramadan ends, which is expected to fall on March 19 this year, Eid al-Fitr celebrations begin in which people pray and feast to mark the end of the fast.

This article was originally published March 9, 2024.

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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“On a daily basis, officers at the NCA and across policing are assessing some of the most obscene child abuse imaginable. And this is not hidden in the dark web – it’s being shared on social media and is accessible on the clear web as well for anyone to see,” said Rob Jones, the NCA’s director of general operations.

An Arizona gun store owner says an FBI agent asked him to review recent firearm purchases tied to a list of nearly two dozen people, as the search for Nancy Guthrie continues into a third week.

Phillip Martin, co-owner of Armor Bearer Arms in Tucson, told Fox News’ Amalia Roy that an FBI agent visited his store with three pages of approximately 18 to 24 individuals with corresponding photos and names.

The agent, Martin said, asked to check whether any of those people had purchased a firearm from his store within the past year.

“He actually had given me a list of paper, list of people that had pictures and names on it, and he wanted to know if I could help him pull up in my system if any of these people have purchased a gun in the last year,” Martin said.

Martin said he initially questioned the request but ultimately agreed to help out of concern for Guthrie’s family.

“I felt bad for the family. Anything that could help them find the person I was willing to help,” he said.

Martin said he entered each last name into his store’s electronic records system, which would display identifying information if the individual had made a purchase.

He said none of the names returned a match for firearm purchases within the past year.

According to Martin, the agent told him investigators planned to visit additional gun stores to determine whether anyone on the list had recently bought a weapon.

On Tuesday, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos disputed reports that authorities have narrowed the suspect pool to a few dozen individuals.

During an interview with Fox News’ Jonathan Hunt, Nanos denied that investigators had focused on a specific group.

“That’s not true,” Nanos said when asked whether authorities had identified around 40 people as potential suspects.

“We haven’t narrowed it down to anything other than we have pieces of evidence that we’re looking at to try to find this individual,” Nanos said.

Nancy Guthrie disappearance timeline:

Jan. 31, 2026

• Between 9:30–9:45 p.m. – Family drops Nancy off at home

• 9:50 p.m. – Garage door closes (per authorities)

Feb. 1, 202

• 1:47 a.m. – Doorbell camera disconnects

• 2:12 a.m. – Security camera detects motion

• 2:28 a.m. – Pacemaker disconnects from phone application

• 11:56 a.m. – Family checks on Nancy after she misses weekly church livestream gathering

• 12:03 p.m. — 911 called

• 12:15 p.m. — Sheriff’s deputies arrive at home

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

The Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc investigation at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School has ruled out some areas on the grounds as areas where potential unmarked graves may be, while data from multiple surveys has identified other areas that “should now be the primary focus” of the search.

It’s been almost five years since the First Nation shared that preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey found some 200 potential unmarked graves on the grounds of the former residential school.

That announcement was the beginning of a nationwide movement, as First Nations across the country began their own searches of residential school sites and non-Indigenous Canadians began to comprehend the significance of the harms perpetrated at those institutions.

The First Nation says the investigation is “more complex” than originally thought. 

“We are making progress and will continue adapting our methodologies and information as it advances,” Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc said in a statement. 

Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc says it has used ground-penetrating radar and a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanner — which uses rapid laser pulses to measure distances and create 3D representations of objects and areas.

In addition, dog teams specialized in detecting historic human remains have also been used to study the area. 

In its statement dated Feb. 17, Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc says findings from all three of those methods overlaps in several areas — and those areas will now be the primary focus of the investigation. The First Nation did not share which areas that includes. 

Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc says the surveys have also found “signatures that resemble burials” in some areas on the grounds, while it has been able to rule out other spots. 

The First Nation is also using historical records from the Catholic Church, which ran the residential school from 1890 to 1969, and the provincial and federal governments, the latter of which ran the institution as a day school until its closure in 1978.

However, it says it’s faced challenges accessing those documents, particularly due to government restrictions and slow response times.

CBC News has contacted Canada’s Ministry of Crown-Indigenous Relations for a response to the nation’s claims. 

Whether or not to dig at former residential school sites has been controversial, as some survivors want human remains left undisturbed, while others feel exhumation could help lay victims properly to rest and offer some closure.

More than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were forced to attend residential schools between the 1870s and 1997. 

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation estimates about 4,100 children died at residential schools across the country, based on death records, but has said the true total is likely much higher.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission said large numbers of Indigenous children who were forcibly sent to residential schools never returned home.

The First Nation said that if any ancestral remains are discovered, it will seek consensus with the dozens of First Nations whose ancestors attended the institution. 

“Each [nation] upholds its own cultural and spiritual protocols for how ancestral remains must be treated,” Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc said. 

“We also understand that full consensus may never be achieved.”

---

Support is available for anyone affected by their own experience at residential schools or intergenerational trauma, or by the latest reports.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for survivors and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

Незабаром в Україні потеплішає до “плюсів”. Про це на своїй сторінці у Facebook повідомила відома синоптикиня Наталка Діденко.

За її даними, сьогодні нашу країну накриє циклон, який спричинить у багатьох областях опади та рвучкий вітер. Найскладніша ситуація очікується у центральній частині, де буде сніг, мокрий сніг, дощ, налипання мокрого снігу, ожеледь та сильний вітер.

Найближчим часом, за словами Наталки Діденко, ще побудуть коливання морозів від слабших до помірних, але згодом прийде довгоочікуване тепло.

“Стійкіше потепління до відлиги і до “плюсів” очікується з 22-23 лютого”, – повідомила експертка з погоди.

Раніше в коментарі Погода УНІАН синоптик Українського гідрометеорологічного центру Іван Семиліт повідомив, що суттєвого потепління поки не прогнозують. За його словами, 22 лютого у західних регіонах, а з 23 по 26 лютого у більшості областей країни періодично йтиме сніг та дощ.

Зокрема, 22 лютого у північних, подекуди західних і центральних областях температура вночі знижуватиметься до -9°…-14°. У денні години по Україні очікується від 4° морозу до 3° тепла.

Натомість на півдні та південному сході впродовж 22-26 лютого буде трохи тепліше – стовпчики термометрів підніматимуться до +2°…+7°.

Водночас про справжнє весняне потепління наразі не йдеться. За словами синоптика, ознак наближення метеорологічної весни поки не спостерігається.

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