Methodology

Purpose & scope

ProtectOnt.ca is a public accountability project. We document how provincial policy, spending, and privatization affect Ontario communities — using legislation, government records, Auditor General reports, and independent journalism. The site is non-partisan and evidence-driven.

We do not cover every program or vendor in the province. We focus on consequential patterns: healthcare privatization, water and land control, environmental rollbacks, weakened oversight, and who benefits from major deals.

What we publish

• Printable flyers — letter-size community materials with sourced bullets on protectont.ca/flyers
• Issue pages — deeper context on healthcare, water, public land, wildlife, Indigenous rights, and related topics
• The Receipts — searchable Public Accounts payments on protectont.ca/receipts
• Protest listings — community events on protectont.ca/protests
• Materials & products — signs, shirts, and tabling resources for organizers

Flyers & community materials

Every published flyer is built from verifiable public sources. Bullets cite or paraphrase legislation, Ontario Public Accounts, Auditor General reports, CIHI and other government data, court filings where relevant, and documented journalism (e.g. CBC, Globe and Mail, investigative outlets).

Our standard for a flyer claim:

• Traceable to a named law, report, dataset, or published article
• Accurate in context — we avoid cherry-picking without noting scope
• Updated when major corrections or reversals occur (e.g. Greenbelt carve-out)
• Clearly separated from opinion — flyers state documented facts; interpretation stays on issue pages

Current topics include overview, healthcare, water, public land, wildlife, Indigenous rights, accountability, freedom of information, bike-lane safety, Ontario Place, and Ring of Fire. PDFs are generated from the same content shown on each flyer page.

Legislation & government documents

We read and cite primary legal and government sources directly, including:

• Bill 5 — environmental and species-at-risk rollbacks, special economic zones
• Bill 60 (Your Health Act) — expanded for-profit delivery, water and wastewater corporate structures
• Bill 124 — public-sector wage caps (healthcare context)
• FOI / transparency changes — ministerial records and accountability mechanisms
• Auditor General reports — Greenbelt, Ontario Place, program spending
• Ontario Public Accounts — who the province paid and how much

Independent research & journalism

We cross-check government claims against reputable third-party analysis:

The Receipts — Public Accounts data

The Receipts tool visualizes Ontario's Public Accounts — Detailed Schedule of Payments: who the province paid, how much, and through which ministry. This is first-party government data from Ontario's open data program.

Time window: fiscal years 2018–2024, focusing on the current government's term. Update cadence: when new Public Accounts releases or major policy changes occur.

Data integrity (Receipts)

Payment data has been audited and corrected where needed:

• Payment processors excluded — pass-throughs like OSAP loan processors are not counted as for-profit delivery
• Public institutions corrected — hospitals and municipalities misclassified as for-profit have been fixed
• Multi-source verification — large figures cross-checked against CCPA, OHC, and OFL research

Vendors are tagged public, non-profit, or for-profit where classification is possible. Only top spenders are fully classified; others remain unclassified and de-emphasized.

Protest & event listings

Protest dates and locations are submitted by organizers and community members. We verify basic details (date, city, public source where available) before publishing. Listings can change — always confirm with the host organization before travelling.

Derived estimates

Some pages translate large totals (e.g. annual agency spending) into illustrative equivalents such as beds or staffing. These are directional scale estimates, not precise budget lines. We link the underlying figure to its source and note assumptions when we publish an estimate.

Interpretation vs. source material

We distinguish raw source material from our interpretation. Payment figures come from Public Accounts. Flyer bullets trace to cited sources. Charts, classifications, and summaries are our analysis — open to scrutiny on this page and via corrections.

Limitations

• We document patterns and documented outcomes — not intent or legality unless sourced
• Not every vendor, bill clause, or program is covered
• Public Accounts show payees, not always end recipients of pass-through funds
• Protest listings depend on community submissions and may lag real-world changes
• Flyers are periodically updated; download the latest PDF from each flyer page

Corrections

If you find a factual error, send the source link or document reference via Take action. We document corrections and update content in the next release.