GUEST COLUMN: The Liberals have now admitted the carbon tax is a job-killer

By Pierre Poilievre, Ottawa Sun, August 7, 2018

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna admitted an inconvenient truth last week: the Liberal carbon tax would drive jobs out of Canada. The admission came in the form of a partial flip-flop on the issue.

The government quietly posted a document online indicating that 80%-90% of greenhouse gas emissions of large industrial corporations would be exempt from the tax. The reason? The government wants to avoid high costs that push industrial production out of Canada to places without carbon taxes.

Century-old trees off chopping block after outcry

By Laura Osman, CBC News Ottawa, August 8, 2018

A pair of 100-year-old sugar maples in Old Ottawa East have won a reprieve following an outcry over a developer's attempt to chop them down.

The trees sit on the northern edge of the 916-home Greystone Village development along the Rideau River.

The developer, Regional Group, initially promised the trees would be spared, but recently applied to the city for a permit to cut them down after it determined the trees wouldn't survive construction.

Drive-by dumping irks Gatineau shopkeepers

By July Trinh, CBC News Ottawa, August 8, 2018

The man drove up to the dumpster behind the boulevard Gréber art supply shop under the cover of darkness and began unloading junk. His trailer empty, he drove away into the night.

A CBC cameraman captured the whole thing, but the man didn't seem to care.

The next morning, Martine McFadden, owner of À l'Échelle du Monde, discovered her container overflowing with bulky trash. There were kitchen cabinets, bulging bags and even an old stove.

McFadden had become the latest victim of illegal drive-by dumping, a practice Gatineau business owners complain has turned into an epidemic.

Denley: Don't let Ottawa politicians tell you tall tales about the city's growth

By Randall Denley, Ottawa Citizen, August 8, 2018

There are four big, city-wide issues in this year’s election. Roads, taxes and garbage collection are the nitty-gritty of city services, but planning is the most important in the long run. Mistakes in the other three areas can be corrected, but the effects of bad planning last a lifetime.

Where new development goes, what it looks like, and how tall it is are all legitimate issues on which the public should have a meaningful say. And yet, for years, communities have been surprised when city council approved development that was not at all what local residents expected.

(...)Our choice is not between urban sprawl and super-tall buildings. Urban sprawl refers to pushing out the city’s development boundaries to accommodate low-density, car-dependent suburbs. In fact, Ottawa froze its urban boundary in 2016 and new suburban development is becoming increasingly dense. More important, Ottawa is exceeding its intensification targets and it is accomplishing that without relying on condo skyscrapers.

Welcome to Ottawa's summer of the chipmunk

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, August 8, 2018

Ottawa’s cutest wild animal is having a population explosion. Lock up your vegetable patch.

The eastern chipmunk is everywhere this summer, a phenomenon that affects the region of Eastern Ontario, West Quebec and Northeastern U.S. states.

One likely reason is that trees are providing extra food. There is a “bumper (chipmunk) crop because of the massive seed crop last year,” says Mike Runtz, who teaches biology at Carleton University.

Nu Grocery celebrates one year of zero waste living in Ottawa

By Drew May, 1310 News, August 8, 2018

Nu Grocery is celebrating nearly a year of helping people in Ottawa live a zero waste lifestyle and cutting down on the amount of garbage they send to the trash.

The store opened in August 2017 as Ontario’s first zero waste grocery store. The business makes it easier for people to cut down on the amount of garbage they produce by selling food without packaging and making people bring their own containers, according to Sia Veeramani, co-fouder of the store.

Veeramani has been living zero waste with her husband for the past six years. She said the lifestyle is something she is always working on and the goal is to send as little as possible – or nothing— to landfills.

Architects of LRT tunnel stations excited to show off their work

 

Charlie Hoang was so shocked by what he saw leaving the sound-and-light show in an underground LRT station last year that he immediately called his colleague as he made his way up to the street level.

It wasn’t the multimedia extravaganza in the Kontinuum Ottawa 2017 attraction that had the transit architect quickly dialling up Danielle Sernoskie.

It was the natural light cascading down the escalators.

Look up! Mars and the Perseid meteor shower are on full display this coming week

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Sun, August 5, 2018

There are two astronomical treats to see in the coming week — one slow and steady, one just a flash in the sky. (Actually quite a lot of flashes.)

Mars is putting on a continuing display that many astronomy websites have overlooked. As well, the annual Perseid meteor shower is coming.

There was a lot of internet chatter about the fact that Mars recently came closer to Earth than it has been for more than a decade. That happened July 27, making that night supposedly the perfect time to see Mars at its biggest and brightest.

Today's letters: The cycling debate heats up

By Erinn Cunningham and others, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, August 4, 2018

Cyclists deserve a safe space

Re: End the war between cyclists and motorists, July 28.

It is surprising, given recent coverage by David Reevely of the unsafe design for cyclists on Holland Avenue, that the Citizen would run a column proposing road safety education instead of safe cycling infrastructure.

As one of the organizers of the campaign for cycling infrastructure on Holland Avenue, I am confident that the hundreds of people who signed a petition asking for bike lanes, as well as the 100 people who came out to ride on the inadequate sharrows painted on Holland, did not feel comfortable with a paradigm where cars and buses mix with cyclists, and where everyone has an absurdly equal responsibility for road safety, regardless of vehicle size and speed. It is fair to say that this decades-old view of road safety, where education and enforcement are seen as paramount, has not made roads safer and has failed to encourage greater numbers of people to walk and bike.

Rose: Cycling 'is not an efficient way to travel' - time to bring back sanity to Ottawa streets

By Roger Rose, Ottawa Citizen, August 4, 2018

“The number of people choosing to cycle to work, to school, for errands and for recreation continues to grow every year in Ottawa, across the city.” This is the first line on a city of Ottawa webpage about cycling. The city likes to boast about spending millions of dollars to build segregated bicycle lanes while at the same time eliminating car lanes and parking spaces. That appears to encourage cycling. Of course it would.

On the other hand, the city should also pursue other requirements for cyclists, that car users must deal with:

• Cyclists must be licensed;

• Cyclists must have insurance;

• Cyclists must have a licence plate;

• Cyclists must not be allowed to ride on sidewalks, pedestrian overpasses, or the Sparks Street mall. to name a few;

Warning issued, with heat expected to build through the long weekend

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, August 4, 2018

Saturday was just the warmup act in a long weekend that’s going to get even hotter.

Environment Canada issued a warning for Ottawa on Saturday about a “two-day heat event” that is to begin Sunday. The forecast calls for a high of 32 C on each of Sunday and Monday, or a couple of degrees hotter than Saturday.

(...)The average for this time of year is a high of 26 and a low of 16.

Saturday was Ottawa’s 40th straight day with a high of at least 24, according to weather statistician Rolf Campbell. That’s not quite a record, but you have to go back 97 years to match the streak.

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