Mr. Lyotier followed up United We Can with the Binners Project in 2016, continuing his efforts to bring respect and dignity to the work. That year, binners were hired as “zero-waste ambassadors” for Vancouver’s annual Pacific National Exhibition.
“He was a bridge builder. I don’t know very many people who could navigate that many levels of bureaucracy,” says Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan, a friend of Mr. Lyotier’s since meeting him in the early 1990s when she was a community legal advocate in the Downtown Eastside.