NarrativeBear

London woman stopped to help man who'd collapsed at in the sidewalk at Richmond and Oxford

But what made her challenge particularly difficult was that the drivers trying to get through the intersection honked with impatience and anger, swerving around her and darting through the intersection as she tried to help the man.

"They were acting like I was a delinquent and I was just trying to help someone," she said. "Drivers will stop for Canada geese but you've got a man in distress and no one cares."

Paramedics arrived shortly after and took the man who'd been struggling to hospital. Litsas doesn't know what caused him to collapse or how he's doing now.

After the ordeal, she posted on the social media site Reddit about how some of the drivers chose to honk instead of help.

"I was frustrated, I was a bit shaken up just having the traffic whiz by you and it's just an unnerving position to be in," she said.

The purpose behind her post is to ask that drivers show some patience and empathy if a pedestrian appears to be struggling.

"Stop, put your hazards on," she said. "It's a car against a human being and I'm not going to win against a five-tonne vehicle."

Vandertop, a co-founder of Don't Mess with the Don, says the restaurant chain Tim Hortons has a big problem when it comes to litter. The registered charity, run by volunteers, cleans up trash from ravines in the Don Valley and says it has picked up about 136,078 kilograms of garbage in the past six years.

The number one brand it finds in its garbage cleanups is Tim Hortons, Vandertop said.

"Imagine — Tim Hortons has more than 4,000 stores across Canada now and that would be millions and millions of cups and lids all strewn out throughout our parks, streets, wild spaces. And this is only cups and lids. There's also food wrappers, containers and other beverage containers," she said.

"I think Tim Hortons, as a flagship Canadian company, has a tremendous opportunity here to do something good for the world and for the environment that we live in. This is not in line with the times."

Karen Wirsig, senior program manager for plastics at Environmental Defence, an environmental advocacy organization, said it's important to hold corporations accountable for the waste they produce. Wirsig said Tim Hortons is a major generator of single-use plastic waste when it comes to its takeout packaging.

The province is in the midst of shifting the cost burden of trash away from municipalities (and municipal taxpayers), onto companies that make and sell products that generate waste.  

For material that fills up blue boxes — including non-alcoholic drink containers — industry began paying an increased share of the costs last year and is to cover all of the costs from 2026.

How it works: companies pay fees, based on the amount of waste material they create, to organizations that manage their sector's recycling programs. 

The theory of the system — known as extended producer responsibility — is that it gives companies an incentive to reduce their packaging waste and increase recycling rates. Otherwise companies have to absorb the fees as a cost of doing business or pass them on to consumers. 

When the government kick-started work on the deposit-return system last year, Piccini said it would "enable consumers to receive a refund for returning used beverage containers."

For more than a year, momentum was building toward a key shift to try to improve things. Premier Doug Ford's government was seriously considering creating a deposit-return system for soft drink containers, a system that's already in place in eight other provinces and that already exists for beer, wine and spirits in Ontario.

Then suddenly, with zero advance notice and no public announcement — and with a potential LCBO strike dominating the news — senior government officials scrapped plans for the deposit-return system.

What follows is the inside story of how, in a battle with big financial implications for companies and big environmental implications for Ontario, Doug Ford's government sided with Big Grocery over Big Beverage.

By abandoning deposit-return, the government bowed to pressure from the supermarket chains, said Wallis of Environmental Defence.

"It's frustrating the amount of power that they seem to have and the amount of influence that they seem to have over policy," Wallis said.

"These are companies that make money, lots of money from selling these drinks to us," she said. "Them refusing to participate in the kind of program that would actually keep these containers out of our environment is honestly shameful."

The notion that consumers could face added costs under the deposit system is now the government's key justification for scrapping it.

In a video message posted on X on Monday, Premier Doug Ford announced the release of the tech tool that allows Ontario residents to locate stores, other than the LCBO, selling alcohol.

“Our new interactive map shows thousands of convenient options where you can still buy beer, wine, spirits and other drinks across the province.”

The release of the map comes days after LCBO workers walked off the job prompting  province-wide closures of the government-run liquor store.  The announcement is stirring up angry reactions from many residents and city officials, who accused Ford of union busting and failing to address pressing socio-economic issues.

“While the Ford government wastes billions of tax dollars, schools need fixing, hospital wait times need attention, cities need support for transit, services & infrastructure, the science centre needs saving and people struggle to make ends meet. Yet, this guy’s priority is beer,” Councillor Josh Matlow wrote on X on Monday.

“You’re using public dollars to break a strike, undermine workers rights and to destroy an agency that generates $2.5 billion for healthcare and other services. But this app looks cute. Why didn’t you use this kind of tech to save lives from COVID19 or to find ERs,” one X user wrote.

“Can I get a map of where I can find emergency clinics that are open?,” another person said.

Police said emergency crews were called to the intersection of Frederick Street and King Street East shortly after 9:30 a.m. on June 1 after receiving reports of a crash involving a streetcar.

While it remains unclear what caused the collision, police say the driver of the vehicle involved was taken to hospital with serious injuries, while two people on the streetcar were also injured.

In an update, police said a 62-year-old man was charged with careless driving under the Highway Traffic Act.

Months after cancelling the construction contract for a new downtown pedestrian bridge in the face of “unforeseen challenges,” city officials have called off the project altogether.

As stated in a post on the city’s website on Friday, plans to build a bridge over the Speed River connecting The Ward with Downtown Guelph have been scrapped. Instead, city officials will look for ways to include pedestrian flow into another nearby project over the river.

Campaigners have called for “mini Holland” walking and cycling schemes to be introduced in towns across Britain after the first London pilot scheme produced dramatic results.

London’s pioneering “mini Holland” low traffic neighbourhood is “synonymous with the changes that need to happen around the world”, according to the capital’s walking and cycling commissioner.