Toronto needs more wheelchair-accessible taxis, Beck Taxi says
As the city's demand for accessible cabs rises, Beck Taxi and disability advocates are calling for more support. CBC's Talia Ricci has more on the long-term solutions needed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
18 minutes ago
- CTV News
Ottawa residents sending less waste to the landfill following launch of 3-item garbage limit
Ottawa residents are sending less garbage to the city's landfill since the launch of the new three-item garbage limit. Last September, the city implemented a new limit on household waste being placed at the curb as part of a plan to extend the life of the Trail Road Landfill. Under the new garbage limits, households are limited to a maximum of three items of garbage every two weeks, with yellow bags required for any items over the three-item limit. Statistics provided to CTV News Ottawa show 41,506 tonnes of garbage was sent to Ottawa's landfill in the first five months of 2025, down from 51,279 tonnes of garbage during the January to May period in 2024. Residents sent 51,504 tonnes of waste to the landfill in the January to May period of 2023. 'The decrease may be attributed to several factors, including the implementation of the three-item garbage limit, enhanced recycling efforts, changes in waste management policies, weather-related emergencies, and shifts in consumer behaviour,' Andrea Gray Farley, program manager of program planning at Public Works, said in a statement to CTV News Ottawa. May saw the largest decrease in the amount of waste being sent to the landfill, with 9,393 tonnes of waste thrown out in May compared to 12,222 tonnes in 2024. A total of 26,277 tonnes of garbage was sent to the city's landfill in October, November and December, down from 31,180 tonnes during the same three months of 2023. Extending the life of the Trail Road Landfill The three-item garbage limit is one of several steps the City of Ottawa is taking to reduce the amount of waste heading to the landfill and extend the life of the Trail Road Landfill. As of July 1, the city's landfill will no longer be accepting industrial, commercial and institutional waste. All industrial, commercial and institutional waste (IC&I) will be accepted at private landfills. 'IC&I waste is bulky and hard to compact which takes up airspace much quicker than residential waste,' Shelley McDonald, director of Solid Waste Services, said in a memo to council last month. 'Staff calculated that banning IC&I waste could extend the life of Trail by approximately one year. The City is uniquely positioned to preserve Trail's capacity through the ban of IC&I waste, given the number of private sector landfills and transfer stations located within the city's boundaries and within 100 km of its boundaries that are open to accepting IC&I waste.' The ban on waste at Trail Road Landfill applies to all commercial vehicles, vehicles larger than a half-ton pickup, trailers with more than one axle, any vehicle or trailer with a dumping mechanism or any vehicle with business markings.
CTV News
41 minutes ago
- CTV News
New York transit executive selected to be new head of TTC
A New York City transit executive has been tapped to take over as the head of the Toronto Transit Commission, Mayor Olivia Chow announced Thursday. Mandeep Lali, who was previously in charge of subway operations at New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), will replace former TTC CEO Rick Leary, who resigned last summer. 'Mr. Lali has over two decades of global experience in transit,' Chow said during Thursday's news conference in Scarborough. 'He deeply understands public transit in a big, busy city. Mandeep Lali's depth of experience managing the most complex subway system in the world is exactly what we need to get Toronto moving.' TTC Chair Jamaal Myers called the hiring process an 'extensive international search' that lasted nearly nine months. He noted that Lali has 'immense experience' in both the private and public sector and has held senior roles at 'two of the world's most iconic transit system.' In addition to his experience at the MTA, Myers said Lali spent 13 years in 'progressively senior roles' at Transport for London. 'What made Mandeep stand out among all of the outstanding candidates that we considered was his clarity of vision,' Myers said. 'When we asked him what his goal for the TTC was he said, without missing a beat, 'To make the TTC the most reliable transit system in north American.' As a lifelong ttc rider, this was music to my ears.' More details to come...
Globe and Mail
42 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
More than 2,200 Ontarians died from opioids last year as numbers trend downward, data show
More than 2,200 Ontarians died from opioids last year, a 15 per cent decrease from 2023, newly released data from the Office of the Chief Coroner shows. 'What goes through my head is a small degree of optimism in the fact that we have seen less people die last year, which is very good, but that's within a context of 2,231 people dying last year,' Dr. Dirk Huyer, the chief coroner, told The Canadian Press in an interview. His office had recorded 2,639 opioid deaths in 2023. 'I also have a degree of worry that this is a short interval, for whatever reason that we haven't identified, and that the numbers could potentially get worse again,' Huyer said. The mortality rate from opioid overdoses was 14.3 deaths per 100,000 people in 2024. That is down from the peak of 19.4 deaths per 100,000 people at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, when opioids took the lives of 2,880 Ontarians. How fentanyl transformed Victoria's Pandora Avenue from downtown hub to open-air drug market Fentanyl and its related substances were found in more than 83 per cent of opioid toxicity deaths, while stimulants were found in 69 per cent of deaths. Prescription benzodiazepines were seen in 45 per cent of deaths last year, a sharp increase from 33 per cent the year before. Non-prescription benzodiazepines were found in 62 per cent of deaths, slightly down from 66 per cent in 2023. The opioid crisis began to hit Ontario in 2015 and 2016 when illicit fentanyl made its way east from British Columbia. There were 728 opioid deaths in 2015 and by 2018, that doubled to 1,565 deaths. The crisis peaked in the middle of the pandemic. Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, declined a request for an interview about opioid deaths in the province. The Canadian Press has asked him on more than a dozen occasions since 2022 to discuss the opioid crisis but he has never agreed to an interview on the subject. Health Minister Sylvia Jones did not respond to an interview request. The Ministry of Health said the province is 'making it easier for people to break the tragic cycle of addiction by expanding access to safe and comprehensive mental health support.' 'Through Ontario's road map to wellness, the government is investing $3.8 billion over 10 years, and $124 million through the addictions recovery fund, supporting 500 new addiction recovery beds, more than 32 youth wellness hubs, over 100 mobile crisis teams, and innovative models of care like mobile clinics,' the ministry said in a statement. Explainer: What to know about Canada's toxic drug crisis and supervised drug-use sites Huyer lamented the fact that the province does not precisely know what's behind the decrease in opioid deaths, but postulated that it could be due to a slightly less toxic supply of drugs. 'I wish we knew because then I think everybody would be able to answer the question on where they should be focusing and how to help provide the best for everybody,' he said. Other hallmarks of the Ontario opioid crisis remain unchanged. Men account for 75 per cent of deaths, opioids disproportionally kill marginalized people and one in five opioid overdose deaths across the province occurs in the homeless population. The province has undergone a fundamental shift in its approach to the opioid crisis, which included banning supervised drug-use sites it deemed too close to schools and daycares. That legislation came about after a Toronto woman was killed by a stray bullet from a shooting outside one of the sites. Liberal health critic Adil Shamji, who still works part time as an emergency department physician and was on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic, said he's disappointed in the province's response. 'But there's no level of disappointment that can approach the level of heartbreak that families across Ontario are experiencing,' he said. The new homelessness and addiction treatment hubs also miss the mark, he said. 'They have no new services to offer and in many cases are underfunded, overwhelmed, and at a very immature stage where they're not able to meet the demand,' Shamji said. He said there's a void of leadership on the file. 'When you have the medical condition that touches on so many different people in so many different walks of life, it speaks to the need for a public health response and for leaders to come out with ambition, boldness and with the seriousness that it deserves,' he said. 'And we're not seeing that from this government, from the minister of health, from public health or the chief medical officer of health.' The Office of the Chief Coroner reported 197 opioid deaths across the province in April, the most recent data available, but stressed that number is very preliminary and will rise since death investigations and toxicology results often taken months to complete.
