By MarketsInsider, November 10, 2017
OTTAWA, Nov. 10, 2017 /CNW/ - The Climate Campus tour continues for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, as she endeavours to inspire young Canadians to get involved in climate action.
Minister McKenna delivered opening remarks at Carleton University's Innovation Jam: Ottawa Sustainability Challenge. She highlighted the Canadian clean-growth economy and the role student innovation plays in addressing climate change.
By Joanne Chianello, CBC News Ottawa, November 9, 2017
A year after Uber began operating legally in Ottawa, city regulators see no reason to make ride-hailing companies install video cameras in their vehicles, unlike traditional taxi cabs.
"There is no evidence to support the need for in-vehicle cameras" in cars driven by contractors working for Uber and other ride-hailing services, according to a staff report destined for next week's community and protective services committee meeting.
By CBC News Ottawa, November 4, 2017
Fish in the Rideau Canal are being tested for PCBs, mercury and other heavy metals, the federal environment ministry has confirmed.
On Thursday, Parks Canada listed a downtown stretch of the waterway as a contaminated area.
The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change is testing fish collected over the summer from Dow's Lake, as well as from three locations on the Rideau River and five on the Ottawa River, spokesman Gary Wheeler told CBC News in an email.
By Brady Yauch, Ottawa Citizen, November 9, 2017
The price consumers pay for power in Ontario is now a political decision, rather than an economic one. That’s the result of new measures introduced in the Fair Hydro Act, which will allow the minister of Energy to arbitrarily set electricity rates as he sees fit.
Much of the public debate around the Fair Hydro Act has neglected this aspect of the legislation, although it amounts to eliminating one of the last areas of independence at the Ontario Energy Board (OEB). It also caps off a decade-long march by the province to wrest decision-making away from the OEB. With the passing of the Fair Hydro Act, nearly every decision in the energy sector is now being made behind closed doors by Queen’s Park through the energy minister.
By Ottawa Metro News, November 2, 2017
Ontarians have a bad habit to break when it comes to coffee — and they need some help, says Progressive Conservative MPP Norm Miller.
He’s pushing for all parties at Queens’ Park to support a law requiring every single-use coffee pods sold in Ontario to be compostable within four years so they can be tossed into the green bin as soon as the cup of Joe is brewed.
The goal is to keep more of the 1.5 billion pods used annually in Canada out of garbage dumps.
“Ontario has a waste problem,” said Miller (Parry Sound-Muskoka) Wednesday before presenting his private members’ bill. He cited a recent warning from the province’s environmental commissioner.
By Ryan Tumilty, Ottawa Metro News, November 2, 2017
Bus cancellations rose again in October on OC Transpo routes across the city.Metro tracks the cancellations using the city’s @OCTranspoLive twitter account, which reported 1,063 cancellations in October.
After falling in the summer, cancellations have been steadily creeping back up. There were 880 trips cancelled in September, up from 749 in August and 570 in July.
The most frequently cancelled routes remain the large cross-town routes. Route 95 was cancelled 124 times in October, followed by Route 94 at 72 times, Route 91 at 69 times and Route 97 at 66 times.
By Ted Raymond, CTV News Ottawa, November 2, 2017
Parks Canada says a section of the Rideau Canal is now on a federal list of contaminated sites.
This all stems from contaminated sediments found at the bottom the Canal between the Ottawa Locks and Bronson Street.
“Based on the test results, this section of the Rideau Canal in downtown Ottawa from the Ottawa Locks to Bronson Street is now being listed on the Federal Contaminated Sites Inventory,” Parks Canada said in an information bulletin Thursday. “As this stretch of the Rideau Canal has a long history of industrial use and is in the middle of a major urban area, and given that other parts of the Rideau Canal are already listed on the Federal Contaminated Sites inventory, finding contaminated sediment in this section of the Canal was not unexpected.”
By Ted Raymond, CTV News Ottawa, November 2, 2017
The City’s new Confederation Line LRT is set to launch in 2018, and the City wants to name the rail cars.
They’ve opened up the naming to children 16 and under to give unique names to each of the 40 cars (34 Confederation Line and 6 Trillium Line cars) that will be on the rails next year.
The contest runs from now until December 8, and submissions can be made on OC Transpo’s website.
By CBC News Ottawa, November 2, 2017
Telecommuting could be key to reducing Ottawa's ecological footprint and could improve our health at the same time, according to the co-author of a new report on climate change and health.
Researchers from around the world, including Canada, have begun reporting annually in The Lancet medical journal about the world's response to climate change and the effect on human health, and Trevor Hancock — a professor of public health at the University of Victoria — is in Ottawa for the release of the Canadian data and recommendations.
By Mia Rabson, CBC News Ottawa, November 2, 2017
One month into her new job as Canada's Governor General, Julie Payette is taking on fake news and bogus science.
Payette was the keynote speaker at the ninth annual Canadian Science Policy Convention in Ottawa Wednesday night where she urged her friends and former colleagues to take responsibility to shut down the misinformation about everything from health and medicine to climate change and even horoscopes that has flourished with the explosion of digital media.
"Can you believe that still today in learned society, in houses of government, unfortunately, we're still debating and still questioning whether humans have a role in the Earth warming up or whether even the Earth is warming up, period," she asked, her voice incredulous.
By CBC News Ottawa, November 2, 2017
People living along the Ottawa River east of the national capital are being urged to stay away from fast-moving waterways as rain continues to fall across the region.
Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry issued a water safety advisory Thursday morning for Clarence-Rockland, Hawkesbury, and the townships of Champlain and East Hawkesbury.
By Paula McCooey, Ottawa Citizen, November 2, 2017
Crews are working to determine the cause of a newly formed sinkhole in the north lane of Rideau Street near Sussex Drive, which forced rush-hour traffic and bus services to be rerouted Thursday afternoon.
The hole, a few metres wide, is located in the same area where a massive sinkhole formed on June 8, 2016, causing a gas leak, building evacuations and closing the street down for months.
OC Transpo is warning riders there will be system-wide delays on several routes because of the Rideau Street closure. Rideau Street is now closed from Sussex Drive to Dalhousie Street to accommodate emergency repairs.