Winters in Canada can be cruel. There are stories of 19th Century rural Canada where settlers and farmers, concerned for the welfare of their animals, have gone out into blinding snowstorms to secure their safety, then blinded by the blizzard surrounding them, never finding their way back home again, freezing to death a mere amble from home and safety.

And then there are their 20th and 21st Century counterparts. As when people living on the streets, and setting aside pleas from social service and humanitarian groups to shelter however temporarily from the threat posed by such inclement weather in spaces set aside for them, succumb to the icy temperatures, wind, frostbite and ultimately death, frozen in place where they huddle where comfort is simply not to be found.

In Toronto on Saturday night when the temperature dropped to -25C (-40C counting windchill), in an area of the city that just happened to have lost power, a 29-year old man froze to death just a few metres from the front door of the home he shares with his mother. And that's more southerly Ontario, where normal temperatures don't dip quite so perilously low and for such prolonged periods. This is certainly an odd winter. It was sunrise when a neighbour saw Mark Stroz face down at the front of his house, his wheelchair nearby

The young man had been out with friends, then got home by cab. He was a member of the Ontario sledge hockey community and popular in those circles, once a player at the Ontario Paralympic Winter Championships. When an ambulance arrived on scene just after 7:00 a.m. Sunday, paramedics described his condition as "vital signs absent"; no breathing, no pulse.

Toronto police are investigating the death, awaiting the results of an autopsy, and are looking to interview the cab driver. "It's considered a sudden-death investigation" advised a spokeswoman with the Toronto Police Service.

But then, it's not just in Canada where these things happen. The very same day, Sunday, the body of 66-year-old Olivia Benito was found at 7:00 a.m. face down on a sidewalk in Lakewood, New Jersey. She had visited with a friend the evening before, making her way home at midnight. Authorities feel she had suddenly collapsed while walking home, and then froze to death.