By Aedan Helmer, Ottawa Sun, October 16, 2018
Deinsberg St-Hilaire was driving 80 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, according to court testimony Tuesday, when his truck struck and killed Andy Nevin, a father of two who was cycling along Leitrim Road on June 28, 2015.
St-Hilaire, now 42, pleaded not guilty to dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death and failing to remain at the scene.
He entered a guilty plea at Monday’s arraignment to related charges of obstructing police.
By CBC News Ottawa, October 17, 2018
The parkways in Gatineau Park have been closed Wednesday evening due to a sudden drop in temperatures in the capital region.
The mercury is expected to drop below zero overnight Wednesday into Thursday.
The high for Thursday is forecasted at 4 C.
The Gatineau, Champlain, Fortune Lake and Philippe Lake Parkways are all closed until further notice.
By Don Braid, Calgary Herald, October 16, 2018
The thought of it makes us gasp in anguish — a little six-year-old girl, panicked by sudden lights and bells in front of her, turns back into the path of a CTrain and is killed.
(...)Every time these accidents happen, the focus should fall on politicians and experts who built the LRT, and to this day keep adding these often confusing and dangerous level crossings.
(...)“There’s more and more people crossing. But they continue to put these level crossings in, for the simple reason that it saves money.
“We all understand that if you put it underground, or raise the station, it costs more money. But what is the value of all these lives?
By Andrew Lumsden and others, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, October 16, 2018
(...)Let’s make the city centre pedestrian-friendly
Re: Armchair mayor: Fewer cares,more transit options, Oct. 9; and letter, Oct. 13.
Whether or not “building more roads invites more cars” or vice versa is a chicken and egg argument. The issue is, as Brigitte Pellerin clearly outlined in her article, one of how we get cars off the road or at least reduce their number so that we do not have to continually spend money on widening roads and highways.
Pellerin says that “city centres are made for walking.” Oh, that this were so in Ottawa. Instead we bend over backwards to accommodate motorists – why else construct an expensive LRT tunnel downtown? But put laments aside. Instead, as Pellerin suggested, let’s make it more difficult to drive downtown as opposed to using public transit.
By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, October 16, 2018
When Mayor Jim Watson blocks people on Twitter he’s violating their constitutional rights, a trio of Ottawa activists says, and they’re going to court to try to make him stop.
The case is the first of its kind in Canada, says human-rights lawyer Paul Champ, who’s representing them.
The group is Emilie Taman, a law professor and sometime candidate for the New Democratic Party and a regular critic of the mayor’s; James Hutt, a Canadian Union of Postal Workers campaigner maybe better known for helping with last year’s pop-up supervised injection site in Lowertown; and Dylan Penner, who works for the Council of Canadians.
(...)Hutt’s affidavit says that on Sept. 21 he criticized Watson for skipping the Ecology Ottawa debate, and tweeted “a number of examples of actions Mayor Watson had taken that I thought were unsupportive to gender equality.”
By CBC News Ottawa, October 15, 2018
Ottawa mayoral candidate Clive Doucet says it's "unfair" to expect him to detail how he'll pay for one of his key — and potentially costliest — campaign promises.
In an interview with CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning on Monday, Doucet was asked what he'd cut in order to pay for his idea of returning to weekly garbage pickup in the summer months.
By Dono Bandoro, Ottawa Citizen Letter to the Editor, October 12, 2018
(...) We can’t pretend climate change isn’t real
Re: Fast Moving Hurricane Set To Slam Into Florida, Oct. 10.
If climate change is a “hoax,” is Hurricane Michael (and those before it) also a “hoax”? Just saying.
By Roy Culpeper and Susan Tanner, Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 2018
Three things are conspicuously weak in Canada’s strategy to combat climate change: We have insufficient resolve to reduce the supply and consumption of fossil fuels; we need better incentives to promote the development of and shift to renewable energy; and national and provincial plans to prepare for catastrophic weather extremes are absent. The urgency to act cannot be exaggerated. According to the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global average surface temperatures are “likely to reach” the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as early as 2030 at current rates of net emission.
In December 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined leaders from around the world in Paris to set goals to reduce carbon pollution, in an effort to keep the global temperature at a level safe for human life. Scientists are now warning that those goals are inadequate. Yet after three years under the Trudeau government, Canada has no chance of meeting even the much less ambitious target for emission reduction established by prime minister Stephen Harper, under whose watch Canada was called a “climate laggard.”
By David Chernushenko, Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 2018
Twin crises are reaching the breaking point. A crisis of housing affordability and availability for the most vulnerable; and a climate crisis – with social and economic costs to all.
More than 40,000 families do not have housing they can afford, and too often it is mouldy and leaky. Today’s stock is not always located where employment, transit and basic shopping needs can be easily accessed. The “housing poor” are now also “transportation poor,” “energy poor” and living in “food deserts.”
We live in a world of cascading storms, flooding, forest destruction, crop loss and financial costs in the trillions. Mass migration is a reality. Thousands will want to come to wealthy cities like ours.
What are we doing to be ready? Not enough. But we can and must – beginning by making the links between housing, transportation, climate and migration challenges. We must increase the stock of healthy, energy-efficient, affordable housing and reduce emissions across the city, notably from existing buildings and transportation.
By Christine McAllister, Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 2018
The City of Ottawa has a budget of over $3 billion. That’s our money, and it should be carefully managed to best benefit the residents of our city. Meanwhile, the provincial government’s actions on its budget demonstrate that the financial decisions of our new council will come under even more pressure. It is your vote that will select the councillors who oversee how this multi-billion-dollar corporation is run.
A good example is a recent proposal for fare-free transit.
Public transit should be accessible and convenient for people of all ages and incomes. It gets cars off the road and benefits our environment.
At first glance, free transit seems like a great idea. Who doesn’t like free? But investing significantly in one proposal may mean holding off on other priorities such as affordable housing, better city services, or fighting climate change. Free also means charging a student or senior the same as someone who can easily afford transit fares. Funding this nearly $200-million hole in the city’s budget through property taxes would require a further tax increase of $500 for each Ottawa household, or major service reductions in other areas.
By Megan Gillis, Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 2018
Following the example set by Algonquin College last week, St. Paul University is going smoke-free under a new policy that takes effect Wednesday, as recreational cannabis becomes legal.
Algonquin College announced last week that it would be smoke-free under an interim policy from Oct. 15, 2018, until Jan. 1, 2019 while the college conducts “full consultations to understand the potential impact and develop a permanent policy.”
SPU’s new policy similarly bans the use of all forms of cannabis, tobacco or electronic cigarettes anywhere on its property, a move designed to “ensure the health and well-being of its staff and students.”