Downtown Windsor road closures Sunday for Khalsa Day Parade
The local Sikh community hosts the annual Khalsa Day Parade in Windsor, Ont. on Sunday, May 18, 2025. (Robert Lothian/CTV News Windsor)
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Globe and Mail
27 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Donna Stewart used the proceeds of her house sale to fund low-cost housing in Vancouver
Donna Jean Stewart: Teacher. Activist. Matriarch. Devout. Born Sept. 26, 1929, in Iroquois Falls, Ont.; died Dec. 18, 2024, in North Vancouver, B.C., of a brain injury; aged 95. Donna MacDougall was a brilliant child who loved to read and skipped grades in school. But she also had to endure her father's drinking and violent rages. She saved up and earned scholarships to attend university. There, she thrived, trying out for the University of Toronto women's hockey team, taking classes with Northrop Frye and earning an English Honours degree at Victoria College. She also discovered a Christian faith that healed her and inspired her to care for others. She met Gordon Stewart working at a summer camp. The handsome, athletic camp leader had a kind heart, a deep faith and a great sense of fun. Donna was immediately smitten and the feeling was mutual. They married in 1955 and moved to Orillia for their first teaching jobs. Donna and Gordon trusted and respected each other and were each other's best advocate, support and friend. Almost immediately pregnant with Ruth, the first of five children, Donna had to quit teaching. She soon gave birth to Cathy, John, Elizabeth and Alicia. In 1963, the family moved to Winnipeg for Gordon's work. Donna breast-fed her five children when formula feeding was the norm, baked bread and taught her children to cook, sewed her own curtains, knit beautiful sweaters and made room at the table for many a lonely soul. (She later said of those years, 'The CBC kept me sane!') Spending summers at Manitoba Pioneer Camp where Gordon was camp director, Donna mentored staff members and bravely shepherded her children on family canoe trips. Donna returned to teaching when her youngest reached school age. She taught Canadian women writers long before CanLit was canonical and earned an MA on Emily Carr's writings in the 1970s. In 1981 the family moved to North Vancouver when Gordon was offered a new job. There were no openings in teaching for Donna, so she took a pay cut to run the North Shore Women's Centre. Horrified by her clients' stories of abuse and limited options, she pivoted to a career as an eloquent and tireless advocate for women. At one rally she organized, someone in the crowd sneered, 'Who cares about the women and kids anyway?' Donna raised her fist and shouted fiercely, 'WE care!' It made the national news, but she was not posturing – she meant it. Donna co-ordinated campaigns to regulate violent pornography and served on the National Action Committee for the Status of Women in the 1980s. She also ran for city council and the federal NDP. In the 1990s she helped women find work in the trades and developed resources to prevent elder-abuse. In her later years she took on affordable housing, served on multiple boards and started her own charitable society. In 2010, Donna received the BC Achievement Award and the YWCA Woman of Distinction Award. But Donna was always invested in people and not accolades. Habitually honest and kind, Donna earned many lifelong friends. While she sometimes spoke before she thought and could be judgmental or reactive, Donna could also admit, mid-argument, 'Oh, well, that's true.' Whenever her children challenged her, she listened and tried to learn. Donna followed the prophet Micah's teaching: Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. When Gordon required a decade of care for cancer and Parkinson's disease, she never flinched. When her youngest urgently needed a place to live with her three sons, Donna underwrote the lease. And when her own home tripled in value, she used the proceeds of its sale as seed-funding for affordable housing: At endless municipal meetings she fought for low-cost apartments for single mothers in a North Vancouver development – it was her proudest achievement. Shortly after her 95th birthday, she fell and suffered a brain injury that led to seizures and a rapid decline. Over the next two months, she managed – on a good day – to vote in the provincial election from her hospital bed, to smile at visitors and to tell us that she loved us all and was not afraid to die. Donna was caring, honest, impulsive, generous, intelligent and courageous. It was a gift to have known her. Elizabeth Hodgson is Donna Stewart's daughter. To submit a Lives Lived: lives@ Lives Lived celebrates the everyday, extraordinary, unheralded lives of Canadians who have recently passed. To learn how to share the story of a family member or friend, go online to You can find obituaries from The Globe and Mail here. To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Manitoba cellphone ban in schools gets good grade from divisions one year later
CTV's Jeff Keele looks at how school divisions and students have been responding to the first year of a school cellphone ban.
CTV News
3 hours ago
- CTV News
Red-winged blackbirds are attacking Toronto residents again. Here is why
The red-winged blackbird is a familiar and noisy inhabitant of nearly any wet habitat across Canada. (Canadian Wildlife Federation/Keith Sharkey) Torontonians hoping to enjoy a walk or run this summer should prepare to be back on the defensive as dive-bombing attacks from the notoriously small but mighty red-winged blackbirds have reportedly returned. The small bird that bears an uncanny resemblance to the famed bird from the Angry Birds game, shares more similarities than just their bold-coloured appearance. Pedestrians and runners around the city have taken to social media to report sightings of the birds. In past years, the bird's have been particularly prevalent in Toronto's Liberty Village neighbourhood, but experts say they are common near areas with dense vegetation and water. But why do the birds display such high levels of aggression? The songbirds' defence mechanism is triggered when humans or other large animals approach their nesting areas, which can lead to them defending their nests against what they perceive as a threat, Andrés Jiménez Monge, the Executive Director of Ontario Nature told CTV News on Tuesday. 'They're defending because they have a housing crisis,' Monge says. 'Very little ecosystems and habitats are left in certain areas, and some cases, in those poor-quality habitats that are left, one male ends up with having a ton of females (mates) because that's where they found an opportunity to nest.' The birds that carry out these aerial attacks are usually the males of the species, he adds. The breeding season of the red-winged blackbird begins in early May and could continue until August, when they can be witnessed flocking in the marshlands preparing to migrate for the winter, Monge says. Primarily, they nest in areas with dense vegetation, like parts of marshlands or in wetlands, he explains. But due to rapid urban development, much of their natural habitat is now closer to the residential population. The blackbirds usually call out warnings prior to taking any action and attacking, but most people – like runners or pedestrians wearing headphones – don't hear their calls, he adds, which leads to them attacking anyone who comes close to their nests. 'They fiercely defend their territories during the breeding season, spending more than a quarter of daylight hours in territorial defence,' Monge says. He states that being mindful of the animals and birds and their habitats could substantially decrease the likelihood of being attacked by them. 'Pay attention to the birds. Look at them and realize if they are calling and singing,' Monge says. 'And if they (people) just stand a little bit away from dense vegetation where they like to nest, they will easily avoid being confronted by a red-winged blackbird.'
