By Randy Tumulty, Ottawa Metro News, November 17, 2016
There is still a lot of concrete to pour and track to lay down, but the first Confederation Line train will be on the rails within days.
LRV – 1, as it’s named, the first fully assembled and operational train car for the new line, arrived in Ottawa this week from an assembly facility in Hornell, NY.
It will be running on the line soon, between the Belfast maintenance yard and the main track as part of the early testing.
By Mohammed Adam, Ottawa Citizen, November 17, 2016
I understand why many in Ottawa view the introduction of photo radar as a cash grab. Even though Premier Kathleen Wynne and Mayor Jim Watson say the speed cameras are meant to promote public safety and would be confined to school zones and other “community safety zones,” there is reason to be skeptical. Based on experience elsewhere, people are right to see this as a slippery slope that could end with photo radar on every street corner.
By Megan Gillis, Ottawa Citizen, November 16, 2016
The gray jay “epitomizes” Canadians — smart, friendly and, above all, tough, according to the aptly named David Bird, who led the charge to have it picked as Canada’s national bird.
It nests in deepest winter, even staying atop its eggs in blizzards at -30C, when other birds have yet to swan in from sunny climes.
It’s found in every province and territory, but almost exclusively in Canada.
By Glen Gower, StittsvilleCentral, November 15, 2016
Can you imagine a Hazeldean Road development with more parkland than parking?
Believe it. On Monday night Kevin Pidgeon (pictured above) and Christine Forget from the Nautical Lands Group (NLG) gave the Fairwinds Community Association a preview of their Wellings of Stittsville project.
It’s an ambitious mixed-use development proposed for Hazeldean Road just west of Huntmar including:
a 5-storey, 185-unit apartment building targeted at older adults
a 4-storey, 256-unit long-term care Extendicare facility
a mixed-use retail/office building along Hazeldean road
a large park on the north end of the site, along Poole Creek
By Melissa Murray, Ottawa Community News, November 14, 2016
With 330 contributors, the Sir John A Macdonald Winter Trail has raised more than $21,000 and exceeded its goal.
Dave Adams, head groomer of the trail, is thrilled to have exceeded his initial goal of $20,000 toward funding the 16-kilometre groomed trail that will run from the Canadian War Museum to Dominion Station along the existing multi-use path.
By Adam Feibel, Ottawa Metro News, November 14, 2016
Athlete and entrepreneur Angella Goran is taking a leap into the insurance industry with a line of products designed specifically with active lifestyles in mind.
Goran, a professional cyclist who also founded SokJok – a retail-based social enterprise that sells athletic socks while donating to youth initiatives – was biking coast-to-coast across Canada a few years ago and heard from many other fellow athletes and adventurers about the problems they had encountered while participating in or competing in athletic activities.
By Ian MacLatchy and John Goddard, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, November 14, 2016
Tories, climate change is real
Re: Conservatives ‘need to build,’ Nov. 14.
I know carbon dioxide is an odourless, colourless gas, but if the Conservative Party of Canada ever wishes to rebuild and make itself more appealing to Canadians, especially young voters, it needs to get its head out of the bitumen deposits of western Canada and smell the CO2.
By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, November 14, 2016
Let the rivers fill, let the hills rejoice.” – Leonard Cohen.
In 1820, long before the Ottawa river was dammed, an ex-British merchant who had fought against Napolean was travelling along this stretch of the river looking for a place to settle down. Upon leaving the army, Hamnett Pinhey, an upwardly mobile man who had run a King’s messenger service during the war, had asked a Lord if he might be rewarded, and was offered 200 acres in the Canadian colony. The chance to be a big frog in a sparsely populated pool appealed to him and so he found himself here. Messengers now make considerable less.
By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, November 14, 2016
The National Research Council didn’t reveal ongoing chemical spills to the government spills hotline after it discovered chemical contamination around its National Fire Lab.
And the Citizen has learned Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change is making no move to lay pollution charges in the case.
Years of experiments with firefighting foam spread chemicals into the ground and a creek, and from there they seeped into the lab’s well water and the wells of neighbouring private homes.
By Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen, November 14, 2016
The city is beefing up its team of park planners and assigning the work to one department to clear a backlog of projects.
Two more park planning positions are being created through the City of Ottawa’s corporate reorganization.
Dan Chenier, the general manager of parks and recreation, said his department will now take charge of all park planning, rather than having the responsibility straddle the parks department and planning department.
By Tom Spears, Ottawa Citizen, November 14, 2016
A federal lab admits its chemicals escaped into the ground and into well water nearby. Just another chemical spill, right?
Not so fast, says Ontario’s environmental commissioner. Dianne Saxe sees legal grey areas in the case of the National Research Council, the firefighting chemicals, and the water of Mississippi Mills. The NRC’s National Fire Lab conducted years of experiments with the chemicals, which ended up in the lab’s well water as well as the wells of neighbouring private homes.
There was no shortage of drama at the Ottawa-Vanier debate on Nov. 10. Sitting
in a packed room at the Knights of Columbus in Vanier, all four invited
candidates – PC candidate André Marin, Liberal candidate Nathalie Des Rosiers,
NDP candidate Claude Bisson and Green candidate Raphael Morin – were ready to
start taking questions from the organizers of the debate, when everything came
to a standstill. For 37 minutes, the forum was put on ice while a registered
candidate who was not invited to the forum took over the stage. (...)
Four area community associations — Lowertown Community Association, Action Sandy Hill, the Vanier Community Association and the Overbrook Community Association — and four community resource and health centres (Lowertown Community Resource Centre, Vanier Community Service Centre, Sandy Hill Community Health Centre and the Eastern Ottawa Resource Centre), as well as Ecology Ottawa and business owners joined forces to host the forum and decided to only invite the four leading candidates in an effort to make the most out of the planned two-hour debate.
Organizers expressed frustration and anger about having the evening disrupted and the loss of time the invited candidates had to answer questions.
Source: Police escort uninvited candidates from Ottawa-Vanier debate