Maple Express | October 15, 2026 — Bradford targets Chow on youth jobs as Toronto mayoral race tightens

1. Toronto mayoral race enters final stretch as Bradford targets Chow on youth jobs

Source: CP24

Toronto's mayoral race is heading into its final stretch. Incumbent Olivia Chow and challenger Brad Bradford were both on the campaign trail Thursday, trading verbal jabs and rolling out announcements focused on youth unemployment.

With just 11 days until Torontonians head to the polls, both candidates are ramping up their stops. The latest exclusive Nanos poll, conducted between Oct. 8 and Oct. 10, found 51 per cent of decided voters would cast a ballot for Chow if an election were held today, compared with 47 per cent for Bradford.

The two are also preparing to face off in their final debate, "Toronto Decides: The Municipal Debate," airing live on CP24 on Oct. 22 at 7 p.m.

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2. Three-alarm fire at abandoned Riverside building deemed suspicious

Source: CP24

Police say they are investigating a suspicious three-alarm fire that tore through an abandoned building in Riverside on Wednesday night. Toronto Fire Services Chief Jim Jessop said crews received several calls shortly after 9:30 p.m. for a structure fire at 2 Matilda St., east of the Don Valley Parkway.

Jessop said crews were met with "heavy, heavy flames" coming through the roof, and the fire was quickly escalated to a third alarm. To let crews surround the building, the northbound DVP and portions of Queen Street and Dundas Street had to be closed. One northbound lane of the DVP remains closed Thursday and the Queen Street on-ramp has also been shut down. He said the bulk of the fire had been knocked down, but there had been a number of wall and ceiling collapses and crews were still dealing with hot spots.

Paramedics say one police officer was taken to hospital with minor injuries. The building, which used to house a live event space and a coffee company, has been vacant for years. The cause, origin and circumstances of the fire are under investigation, and police confirmed to CP24 on Thursday that the fire has been deemed suspicious.

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3. Toronto police officer injured in Scarborough collision

Source: CP24

A Toronto police officer has been taken to hospital following a collision in Scarborough on Thursday morning. It happened in the area of Sheppard Avenue East and Warden Avenue at around 9:20 a.m.

Police say a marked police vehicle and another vehicle were involved. They said the collision appeared accidental, but the circumstances surrounding it are unknown at this time.

The officer was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, while the other driver was uninjured.

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4. Mississauga crash leaves one person critically injured

Source: CP24

One person suffered life-threatening injuries after a crash in Mississauga. It happened on Network Road, near Highway 409, late Wednesday night.

Paramedics said one person was trapped and later transported to hospital. The victim's injuries are believed to be life-threatening.

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5. Mississauga woman blocked from Amazon caught in AI chatbot loop

Source: CP24

A Mississauga woman who makes her weekly personal purchases on Amazon was shocked when she was told she was banned from ordering over what she calls a "technical glitch." Sharon Jamison said she has fibromyalgia, limited energy and a lot of pain, and depends on having things delivered to her door. While she has returned items in the past, she said she always followed the return policy carefully.

This past summer, she was blocked from making future orders and banned from Amazon. It happened after she decided to go through the purchase of a portable air conditioner — an order she had previously cancelled. She said her orders started being cancelled and she received emails saying her account had restrictions due to policy violations, without an explanation. When she tried to get answers, she said she got caught in an endless loop of chatbots and AI responses, and she believes she hit a system glitch. Tech analyst Carmi Levy said that as companies get rid of human employees and use AI, it creates customer service nightmares, with accounts banned, suspended and cut off arbitrarily.

CTV News reached out to Amazon on Jamison's behalf. A company spokesperson said in a statement that, after reviewing the case, Amazon had fully restored the customer's access and was in contact with her to apologize and make things right, and was reviewing its processes to prevent similar errors. In the end, Jamison's account was reinstated and she was given a $200 gift card for her trouble.

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6. Alberta housekeeper charged after gold and silver go missing from employer's home

Source: CP24

An Alberta housekeeper is facing several charges after RCMP said she stole various items, including gold and silver, from her employer's home. On Sept. 18, Didsbury RCMP responded to a break-in in Carstairs, with the victims reporting their home had been burglarized while they were away.

During the investigation, police obtained video of a woman who was later identified as 69-year-old Ann Carveth, who was known to the victims. RCMP said she pawned the stolen gold and silver for approximately $87,000. A subsequent search of her Didsbury home found identity documents and contraband tobacco.

Carveth is charged with break-and-enter, theft over $5,000, mischief under $5,000, trafficking in property over $5,000, possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000, and possession for the purpose of sale a tobacco product packaged without a stamp. She was remanded into custody and is expected to appear in the Alberta Court of Justice in Didsbury on Oct. 19. RCMP believe there may be additional victims given her work as a housekeeper, and anyone with information is asked to call Didsbury RCMP at 403-335-3382.

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7. Hockey Hall of Famer Brendan Shanahan joins Kilmer as PWHL advisor

Source: CP24 / The Canadian Press

Brendan Shanahan is following his passion back to the world of professional hockey. He was named Kilmer Sports Ventures' new strategic advisor on the Professional Women's Hockey League on Thursday. Kilmer is owned by Larry Tanenbaum, the former co-owner of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, where Shanahan was president and alternate governor of the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs for 11 years.

Kilmer became a strategic capital partner in the PWHL in June, adding to a sports portfolio that includes the WNBA's Toronto Tempo. Shanahan said he was eager to reunite with Tanenbaum and reconnect with PWHL executive vice president Jayna Hefford. "Hockey is in our DNA as Canadians, and few people embody that more than Brendan Shanahan," Tanenbaum said in a statement.

The Toronto native played 21 seasons in the NHL with the New Jersey Devils, St. Louis Blues, Hartford Whalers, Detroit Red Wings and New York Rangers, winning the Stanley Cup in 1997, 1998 and 2002 with Detroit. He won the 1991 Canada Cup, the 1994 world championship and Olympic gold in 2002, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013. He became the Maple Leafs' president in April 2014, a post he held until May 2025, when the team announced his contract would not be renewed. He has worked with the NHL as a consultant the past two seasons and joined Hockey Canada in January for a nine-month review of men's junior hockey in Ontario. He will not be involved in the PWHL's day-to-day operations.

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8. 82-year-old Ontario woman who killed husband with a hammer gets 10 years before parole eligibility

Source: CP24

An elderly woman from Brant County, Ont., convicted of killing her husband with a hammer, will spend 10 years behind bars before she is eligible for parole. A sentencing hearing was held for Elfgard Oughtred on Wednesday — which was also her 82nd birthday. She was found guilty in April of second-degree murder for the 2022 death of her husband, Gordon Oughtred. An autopsy concluded his death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head.

A second-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence, but a decision still had to be made about parole ineligibility, which could range from 10 to 25 years. The Crown argued an appropriate eligibility would be 14 to 15 years, but noted a Charter breach during Elfgard's time in custody would bring it down to 12 or 13 years. When the jury delivered its verdict, eight jurors suggested a minimum of 10 years, while three others offered no recommendation. Defence counsel Nimrata Sandhu also asked for the 10-year minimum.

Sandhu cited the "serious" breach of Elfgard's Charter rights while in custody and several mitigating factors, including her age, poor health, lack of criminal history and custodial conditions. She asked that the parole eligibility period start from when Elfgard was first taken into custody on July 9, 2024, which would make her eligible no earlier than July 2034, at age 89. The court also heard victim impact statements from family members. Justice Aubrey Hilliard ultimately decided on 10 years of parole ineligibility. Elfgard must also provide a DNA sample, is prohibited from owning any weapons, and was ordered not to contact her children or Gordon's son, Warren Oughtred.

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9. Supreme Court of Canada to hear appeal of Ottawa's single-use plastics ban

Source: CP24 / The Canadian Press

The Supreme Court of Canada says it will hear an appeal of Ottawa's ban on single-use plastics. The Federal Court of Appeal overturned a lower court decision in January, allowing the federal government to keep the ban in place.

A 2023 Federal Court decision in a case brought by the plastics industry said Ottawa had overstepped by designating all "plastic manufactured items" as toxic. But in a unanimous decision in January, the three-judge appellate panel ruled the federal government's decision to list plastic manufactured items as toxic was reasonable.

Ottawa used that designation to issue a ban on the manufacturing and importing of six types of single-use plastics, including straws, grocery bags, stir sticks and the six-pack rings used to hold soda and beer cans. The government said it chose those items because they were commonly found in litter and had known and accessible alternatives.

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10. Ultra-processed foods linked to brain damage and dementia risk, study finds

Source: CP24

A Canada-wide research study that began in 2014 has uncovered a new possible link between brain damage and ultra-processed foods. Russell De Souza, a health research professor at McMaster University and registered dietitian, said items such as chips, sweet breakfast cereals, highly processed sweet yogurts and some frozen food meals fall under the ultra-processed food umbrella.

More than 8,700 middle-aged Canadians took part in the study, including people who eat very little processed food and those who eat it frequently, and each underwent an MRI. The findings, published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that people who eat ultra-processed food for nearly half of their daily diet appear to be more than 40 per cent more likely to have a "vascular brain injury." Dr. Sonia Anand, the senior author of the study and a professor of medicine at McMaster University, said the injuries included a combination of silent strokes and a pre-stroke profile in participants whose daily diet was more than 45 per cent processed food.

Anand believes there is a direct link between ultra-processed foods and the brain injuries seen in the MRI results, and it is believed those injuries could lead to dementia. Participants who ate the most ultra-processed food also carried more body fat and more deep belly fat. In 2025, the Heart and Stroke Foundation found that nearly half of all the food eaten each day by the average Canadian is ultra-processed. The study, which includes 16 researchers and doctors, is continuing, with some participants returning for an additional MRI; those findings are expected in early 2028.

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