TORONTO — Tim Hortons will pilot all-day breakfast in a dozen Ontario locations and look to introduce a kids menu, delivery and loyalty program, in a bid to regain the trust of franchisees and customers.

The fast-food giant’s president Alex Macedo told The Canadian Press that the all-day breakfast experiment will begin at a handful of Hamilton and Brampton locations later this summer and include all of the menu items typically available at the store in the morning. If it is successful, he said the company would consider rolling it out further.

“The demand is loud and clear,” he said. “Any time we bring up the idea of breakfast at any time, the response is very favourable and very strong.”

‘Things are looking much better’

Macedo’s announcement came as the company has publicly been struggling to fix its strained relationship with some franchisees, who have been sparring with the company in recent months over everything from cost-cutting measures made in the wake of Ontario’s minimum wage hikes to delays in supply deliveries to a $700-million renovation plan that they say will cost store owners $450,000 per restaurant.

Last month, Macedo admitted that “we could have done a few things better” and started touring the country to meet with franchises and promise them that he would fix the relationship.

This week, he said the visits had concluded and added that “it can take some time to get exactly where we want to be, but right now, I think things are looking much better than they were at the beginning of the year.”

Watch: Restaurant Brands International announces a plan to improve Tim Hortons. Story continues below.

His attempt at easing the tensions have coincided with an intensification of Canada’s breakfast wars. In early May, McDonald’s, one of Tim Hortons’ biggest rivals, announced it had begun serving bagels across the country and in recent years. A&W, Taco Bell and Burger King have all upped the ante with breakfast offerings to compete with Tim Hortons, Starbucks and Country Style.

Macedo said Tim Hortons’ all-day breakfast launch wasn’t triggered by the McDonald’s bagel announcement, adding that “something as big as this would never be a reaction to anything a competitor would do.”

The company, he said, had done a market test on all-day breakfast in 2013 and found it was “generally successful,” but ultimately chose not to roll it out, in part because “the guests weren’t asking for it as much as they are now.”

Since then, he said consumer interest in breakfast has grown, as evidenced by research companies NPD Group and Nielsen calling it the fastest-growing part of the day for restaurants since 2012.

Looking at kids menu, kiosks, loyalty programs, delivery

In addition to all-day breakfast, he revealed that the company would also be looking to a kids menu, new packaging, kiosks, loyalty programs and delivery to entice customers and regain franchisee confidence, but he said he wasn’t prepared to share more details on any of those plans yet.

“I don’t think there is one answer to driving brand love,” Macedo said. “My only concern is to work with franchisees all over the country. … I think they are very willing to work with us to get the brand where we want it to be.”

Among those franchisees is Aron Burch, who will offer all-day breakfast at five of his seven locations. He said he was eager to get on board with the pilot because he owns a handful of locations near McMaster University in Hamilton and finds most of his customers are students who like to sleep in, often making it to his restaurants just as breakfast is winding down for the day.

He said the months of tension between Tim Hortons and the franchisees, and the rise in the cost of living, had caused his stores to see “a little bit” of a decline in transactions in same-store sales, but he was confident that all-day breakfast would help them lure more customers.

“Being able to offer all-day breakfast definitely is going to help us go to the customer who might have gone somewhere else or have it at home because of the convenience,” he said. “The busier the stores are, the better the day goes.”

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Single-use plastics have become a scourge on the planet, and the amount of plastic in the ocean could outweigh the amount of fish by 2050, the federal government says.

Canadians generate about 3.25 million tonnes of plastic waste, or about 140,000 garbage trucks’ worth, each year, according to Greenpeace Canada.

The federal government has yet to introduce any policies at the national level aimed at curbing plastics waste, though Canada was one of five nations that agreed to a G7 plastics charter on Sunday.

But several businesses and lower levels of government in Canada have taken on the task of tackling the polymer beast. Here are a few of them:

A&W Canada

Canada’s second largest burger chain announced Friday it would be eliminating all plastic straws by the end of 2018.

In order to keep 82 million plastic straws out of landfills every year, customers will be given the option of paper straws, which are 100% biodegradable and will last 2-3 hours in a drink, the company said in a release.

Tyler Pronyk, A&W Canada’s director of packaging, said “packaging innovations that reduce waste” is key to the company’s environmental strategy.

“By using compostable packaging, real mugs, plates and cutlery, we are diverting millions of single-use packaging from landfills every year,” Pronyk said in a release.

IKEA Canada

Swedish home furniture giant Ikea has promised to phase out all single-use plastics by 2020.

It will stop using products such as plastic straws, plates, cups, freezer and garbage bags, and will phase out disposable plastic from its restaurants.

The changes are expected to take effect in 2019 in 29 countries, including Canada. But Ikea Canada sustainability head Brendan Seale told CTV News the company is going to make them happen “as soon as possible.”

Environment minister Catherine McKenna tweeted her support for the move.

P.E.I.

A bill to prohibit retailers from giving out single-use plastic bags passed its third reading in P.E.I.’s provincial government on Friday, and could make the island province the first one to ban them.

Starting July 1, retailers will have to charge customers 15 cents for a plastic bag. That fee would go up to 25 cents in July 2019. In January 2020, businesses will face fines for giving away single-use sacks.

The Plastic Bag Reduction Act is meant to encourage retailers to sell paper or cloth reusable bags, which would cost no less than 15 cents or a dollar each, respectively.

Montreal

Montreal’s ban on giving away plastic bags took effect this year, and penalties for businesses that violate it began earlier this month.

The ban includes oxo-degradable, oxo-fragmentable, oxo-biodegradable and biodegradable bags. The only exception is small bags used for hygienic reasons, like produce bags in grocery stores.

Regional Municipality Of Wood Buffalo

In Alberta, the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo adopted a bylaw in 2010 that prohibited most retailers from using single-use plastic shopping bags. Thin plastic bags used for dry cleaning, produce, or otherwise hygienic purposes are allowed, and restaurant businesses are allowed to use single-use bags.

Victoria

British Columbia’s capital has already passed a bylaw banning plastic bags (to take effect July 1), but is eyeing a ban on other single-use items like plastic-foam cups.

Victoria’s plastic-bag ban is similar to the one P.E.I. has introduced, which will phase out plastic bags with fees, and will eventually prohibit retailers from providing them for free. Businesses could also face fines if they provide one without asking.

Mayor Lisa Helps said the bag ban is part of an overall zero-waste strategy, according to the Victoria Times-Colonist.

“Really, what the aim is overall is to create strategies and programs to minimize all single-use materials.. so that really we do get to a zero-waste circular economy where there is no garbage,” Helps said.

Vancouver

In a bid to become zero-waste by 2040, Vancouver became the first major Canadian city to ban plastic straws in May.

The city council motion also bans the distribution of foam cups and takeout containers, and will come into effect on June 1, 2019.

Vancouver is also putting restrictions on other disposable cups and paper and plastic shopping bags in order to limit their use. If the city doesn’t hit its target waste reduction rate by 2021, it will fully ban the distribution of single-use bags and cups.

Other cities

In Edmonton, city councillors have agreed to look at what other municipalities are doing to reduce single-use plastics.

Municipal officials in Toronto are awaiting the results of a report on how best to curb single-use items like plastic cups, takeout containers, and straws before moving forward.

With files from The Canadian Press

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QUEBEC — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered a cautiously optimistic assessment of free trade talks between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico on Thursday, even as White House officials appeared to dampen expectations for a breakthrough in Peru next week.

Trudeau said negotiations toward a new North American Free Trade Agreement appeared to be making good progress after several previous setbacks and challenges — although he acknowledged uncertainty remains.

“I believe we’re in a moment where we’re moving forward in a significant way,” Trudeau said following an event in Quebec City.

“Hopefully, there will be some good news coming but we know in these negotiations there are good moments and there are slower moments but right now we are having a very productive moment of engaging with the United States and Mexico.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is scheduled to meet Friday in Washington with U.S. trade czar Robert Lighthizer and Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo, signalling that talks have bumped up to the ministerial level as the negotiations intensify.

Canadian officials believe the best chance for reaching a quick agreement in principle will occur next week when Trudeau, U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto travel to Peru for this year’s Summit of the Americas.

But in a background briefing Thursday in advance of the Peru meeting, a White House official said: “At this point, we don’t anticipate substantive discussions on NAFTA at the summit.”

The official added that Lighthizer, whose attendance at the summit remains uncertain, “continues to lead the negotiations with our partners separate to the summit.”

Lighthizer has signalled his desire for a deal by the end of the month, before the Mexican presidential election gets underway in earnest.

Many trade experts believe an agreement in principle — which would leave many of the details on the most challenging issues to be worked out later — is the best that could be cobbled together in such a short time.

But it could help offset some of the uncertainty that has erupted as the U.S. swaps escalating punitive tariff measures with China.

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VICTORIA — A Nova Scotia man banned from Victoria’s stately Fairmont Empress hotel is welcome back after apologizing for an incident more than 17 years ago in which seagulls hungry for pepperoni trashed his room in a frenzy.

Nick Burchill of Dartmouth, N.S., says in a letter to the hotel he was young and immature in 2001 and unaware of the aggressive nature of West Coast seagulls, especially when tempted with a suitcase full of fresh pepperoni near an open window.

“I remember walking down the long hall and opening the door to my room to find an entire flock of seagulls in my room,” stated Burchill’s letter. “I didn’t have time to count, but there must have been 40 of them and they had been in my room, eating pepperoni for a long time.”

He said he startled the gorging birds, which is when things really got out of control.

“They immediately started flying around and crashing into things as they desperately tried to leave the room through the small opening by which they had entered,” said Burchill. “The result was a tornado of seagull excrement, feathers, pepperoni chunks and fairly large birds whipping around the room.”

Tracey Drake, the hotel’s public relations director, said Monday there were thoughts this was an April Fools’ Day prank, but a check of the records and Burchill’s appearance at the front desk last weekend confirmed the seagull story and the former guest’s permanent ban.

“It is absolutely a true story,” she said.

‘The room was trashed’

Burchill was in Victoria for a conference and was booked to stay at the Empress back in 2001, said Drake. After the room fiasco, he was moved to another room for the rest of his stay.

“The hotel followed up with his employer afterwards, saying he’s not welcome back at the hotel due to the damage in the room,” Drake said. “He’s correct. The lamps were broken. The room was trashed. It’s a really funny story to tell 17 years later, but I was sitting here thinking about the housekeeper and what her first reaction must have been when she opened that door.”

Burchill’s letter stated he still remembers the dismayed look on the housekeeper’s face when she walked into his room.

“I have matured and I admit responsibility for my actions,” the letter stated. “I come to you, hat in hand, to apologize for the damage I had indirectly come to cause and to ask you reconsider my lifetime ban from the property.”

Burchill could not be immediately reached for comment.

The letter he sent to the Empress and posted on Facebook explained how his plan to bring spicy Nova Scotia pepperoni to Victoria to share with friends stationed at the West Coast naval base went astray when he decided to cool the meat near the window because his room didn’t have a fridge.

Drake said the damage to the room was beyond description, but all is forgiven and Burchill is back on the guest list.

The seagulls and pepperoni flap isn’t the only wild animal story to occur at the Empress.

Almost two years ago, thieves stole an iconic Bengal tiger skin that was mounted on the wall of the hotel’s Bengal Lounge. The theft remains unsolved.

In 1992, a cougar was spotted on the hotel grounds, where it was later tranquilized in its underground parking lot.

CORRECTION: A previous headline on this article referred to the “Fairmont Express” hotel. The hotel is called Fairmont Empress.

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