Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

Who's afraid of Amazon? Not this Canadian food retailer

By Diane Buckner, CBC News Ottawa, April 14, 2018

An Ottawa-based grocery chain believes the moment has come for its long-standing formula of fresh, local and prepared products, and it's launched into major markets, going head-to-head with the industry's giants.

If nothing else, Farm Boy is showing nerve and daring as it expands in a sector that is itself bracing for Amazon's entry into the market.

"We see weakness," Farm Boy chief executive Jeff York says of major players in Canada's grocery industry.  "We want to pounce on it. It's a good time to grow the business."

Saturday letters: How to use that green bin

By Janet Perry and others, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, April 14, 2018

Students set example on recycling

Re: Today’s letters: Thumbs down for plastic bags in green bins, April 8.

I agree that switching to plastic bags in compost bins is a step backwards.

We are at a small OCDSB high school program in Stittsville, called Frederick Banting Alternate Site. We compost food and paper towel waste at our school to divert waste from landfills. On Fridays, prior to classes bringing their blue, black and compost to our recycle audit area outside my class, students get together to make the week’s compost liners from newspapers. To assure safety, we researched and discovered that the dyes used in the Citizen are vegetable-based and safe for compost.

Dawson: Today's transit dilemma – pets on trains, versus my allergies

By Tyler Dawson, Ottawa Citizen, April 13, 2018

As a noted lover of dogs, I’m in favour of allowing pets on public transit. As a noted haver of allergies, I’m sort of uneasy about it, at least insofar as I’d have to sit near them or breathe the same air.

While Ottawa has tried to strike the right balance on this, the city hasn’t got it quite right. New rules say that only small pets, in a carrier, will be allowed aboard OC Transpo buses and trains. But these rules are too restrictive. The most important reason to transport an animal is for its own health, so the size constraints discriminate (a term used colloquially, not legally) against larger pets.

OC Transpo makes your destination clear by going mixed case

By Beth Audet, Ottawa Citizen, April 15, 2018

OC Transpo has unlocked its caps. For exterior bus destination signs, that is.

As of April, destinations displayed on the LED signs above bus windshields began appearing in mixed case (upper and lower case) rather than all capital letters.

Pat Scrimgeour, director of transit customer systems and planning, confirmed in an email Wednesday that the new format would “improve legibility” and help riders read destinations more easily, “especially from a distance.”

City beefs up pothole repair program after critical audit

By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, April 14, 2018

The city’s public works department has been on a mission to improve its pothole repair program after a stinging audit last fall.

After the auditor general discovered the city might have been using substandard asphalt, the city cancelled a contract for the supply of hot-mix asphalt used in the summer, according to a staff memo sent to council on Friday.

The memo updated politicians on steps taken by the city after the audit.

Bird safety group expects increase in avian injuries with spring migration

By Devyn Barrie, Ottawa Citizen, April 12, 2018

Anouk Hoedeman spent part of her Thursday morning at what she calls her “full-time, volunteer job” — patrolling the city for injured birds in need of medical care.

Hoedeman is the founder and coordinator of Safe Wings Ottawa, a group dedicated to reducing bird injuries and deaths — a task that may get a bit more demanding with an expected uptick in bird injuries, as more feathered friends migrate to the city for spring, she said.

Causes of injury can vary, from birds getting hit by cars, scuffles with other animals, or flying into windows — the latter being Hoedeman’s main area of focus.

What the #%$@ happened to spring in Ottawa?

By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, April 13, 2018

Our last warm days were in February. Just think of that. And with spring gone AWOL, our weather is not going to warm up anytime soon.

Environment Canada’s David Phillips has taken a look at what’s wrong with our spring weather. He has hope of a hot summer, but says we have to put up with more suffering first.

This doesn’t even touch on the immediate problem of an ice storm building up to wallop us this weekend. Phillips is taking the longer seasonal view, sent from sunny Florida where he is lucky to be on vacation:

Quebec drivers avoiding photo radar fines thanks to ruling

By CBC News Ottawa, April 11, 2018

Drivers issued photo radar speeding tickets in the Outaouais are getting off without a fine thanks to a legal ruling the province is trying to address.

In late 2016, Quebec court Judge Serge Cimon ruled photo radar evidence alone is "hearsay" and not enough evidence on its own to make someone pay a fine.

Because of this, only five drivers issued photo radar tickets from western Quebec's four mobile photo radar units in January had to pay a fine

Why products marked 'recyclable' sometimes aren't

By Emily Chung, CBC News Ottawa, April 12, 2018

Reduce, Reuse and Rethink is a CBC News series about recycling. We're looking at why our communities are at a turning point and exploring ways to recycle better. You can be part of the conversation by joining our Facebook group.

The recycling symbol is something many of us look for when deciding whether or not to toss something in the blue bin, be it a takeout container, a coffee cup lid or the packing material from your latest online shopping delivery.

But that iconic symbol of arrows chasing each other around a triangle — or even the word "recyclable" — doesn't necessarily mean the item will be accepted by your local recycling program.

End tax advantage for parking lots, councillor says

By Laura Osman, CBC News Ottawa, April 12, 2018

Ottawa's relatively generous tax policy for space-hogging downtown parking lots should be updated to encourage smarter development, an Ottawa city councillor believes.

"We want to invigorate, we want to revitalize downtown, and I think to do that we have to make sure we're sending the right tax signals to do that," Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Tobi Nussbaum said Wednesday.

(...)

Councillors agreed unanimously Wednesday to ask staff to come back with recommendations to bring the city's commercial tax policy in line with its goal of promoting transit-oriented development.

'We have to make sure we're sending the right tax signals,' said Coun. Tobi Nussbaum. (CBC News)

Nussbaum hopes to have those suggestions before council sets the 2019 tax rates.

Today's letters: Kinder Morgan pipeline pros and cons

By Scott Haines and others, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, April 11, 2018

Canada: Resourceful about what we can’t do

Re: Oilpatch in ‘crisis mode’ as investment suspended, April 10.

We cannot get resource projects developed in this country. In any event, we cannot develop the transportation infrastructure such as roads, rail and pipelines that are needed to move their products. We cannot have manufacturing because labour and energy are too expensive. We cannot do anything that will earn us a good income without the provincial and federal governments taking more than half of what we earn. We cannot work for the federal public service because we will not be paid properly.

Council briefs: Albert-Slater redesign approved, space granted for new landfill

By David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen, April 11, 2018

Ottawa will rebuild Albert and Slater streets after the new light-rail line opens, aiming to make them more pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists after hundreds of buses no longer ply the east-west downtown arteries.

City council approved detailed plans Wednesday that include bike tracks, wider sidewalks, planters, benches and trees. The work should start in 2019 and will change both streets end to end, from LeBreton Flats to the Mackenzie King Bridge outside the Rideau Centre.