Most-read stories of the week: Truck driver heroes, Kitchener strip club misconduct, population growth

Purolator truck drivers from Guelph, Ont. save man walking in Hwy. 407 lanes

A pair of Purolator transport truck drivers from Guelph, Ont. are being hailed as heroes for their efforts in helping a person in crisis. On April 29, at around 10:30 p.m., a man was spotted walking in the middle of Highway 407 by the Highway 410 on-ramp near Brampton, Ont.

“It was very last minute that I saw him, then I had to act quickly,” line haul driver Melinda Olah recalled.

She pulled over and began yelling at the man as she tried to get him out of the live lanes of traffic. Olah quickly realized the man was in distress after he looked directly at her and didn’t respond.

“Quite a few people came very close to hitting him as well. So the visibility of him was next to zero,” she said.

Olah called police, but knew she couldn’t wait for them to arrive.

Longtime Toronto paramedic faces charges for misconduct inside Kitchener, Ont. strip club

A longtime member of the Toronto Paramedic Services is facing charges in relation to his conduct at a Kitchener, Ont. strip club.

On the night of July 26, 2023, Jennifer Marry was not expecting to go into Roxxanne’s, where she worked as an exotic dancer. However, a regular customer named Adam Deskur requested her.

“We made a deal that I would come in on the condition that he gave me a certain amount of money,” Marry explained.

She said it’s common to exchange phone numbers with regulars so they can plan their hours around visits.

During this particular shift, she noticed something was off with Deskur.

Two injured in multi-vehicle crash on Hwy 401 through Cambridge

A six-vehicle crash brought traffic to a standstill in the westbound lanes of Highway 401 through Cambridge on Wednesday morning.

“One is a tractor trailer,” said OPP Const. Scott Stratton. “Two parties were taken to hospital, one by Ornge. Currently, the information we have is that there is no life-threatening or life-altering injuries involved in this collision.”

Ornge confirmed that a woman in her 40s was transported to hospital in stable condition. The crash happened around 8:30 a.m., between the Hespeler Road and Highway 8 west exit, and shut down all westbound lanes of the highway, except the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane.

“It is a very busy stretch of the 401,” Stratton advised while crews were still on scene. “If you need to go somewhere – find another route.”

The highway reopened early Wednesday afternoon.

A multi-vehicle crash on Highway 401 through Cambridge on May 22, 2024. (Dave Pettitt/CTV Kitchener)

Region of Waterloo sees 5.5% population growth, Kitchener breaks 300,000 mark

2023 was a big year for the Region of Waterloo.

According to new numbers from Statistics Canada, the population grew by a staggering 5.5 per cent last year, jumping from 638,065 people to 675,227.

The data, assembled by Canadian economist Mike Moffatt, also shows the Region of Waterloo is the fastest growing community in Ontario.

The next closest is Toronto, which grew at a rate of 4 per cent, followed by a 3.7 per cent increase in Brant and Middlesex counties.

An aerial image of Waterloo.

Maple Leaf Foods closing its Brantford, Ont. plant

 

Maple Leaf Foods announced Wednesday that it is closing its Brantford, Ont. plant in early 2025. The Canning Street facility was built in 1899 and then rebuilt after a fire in the 1940s.

The company said the building, which is now more than a century old, “would likely require significant ongoing investment to continue long-term operations.”

“Consolidating production into our current network allows us to reallocate our resources and increase our efficiencies by further optimizing the existing, more modern facilities in our network," Curtis Frank, the president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, said in a media release.

The Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brantford, Ont. on May 23, 2024. (Ashley Bacon/CTV Kitchener)