Friday April 8, 2022
What Ottawa is Talking About – 8 April 2022
▪️We can only assume they practised, as the National Arts Centre Orchestra has played Carnegie Hall for the first time in decades. That's it, that's all we got. It's a half-decent quip. [Ottawa Citizen]
▪️Justin Bieber would like to buy the Ottawa Senators. The singer has made known his desire to buy an NHL team before, and with the death of owner Eugene Melnyk, there may be a possibility here. Melnyk’s daughters, heirs to his fortune, have not made their plans for the team known. [Clutchpoints]
▪️The National Capital Commission has created a new naming committee to oversee its 1,600 properties. Committee rules state that new and renewed names must be in both official languages, consider the Indigenous Languages Act, and be discussed through a reconciliation lens. First up, the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. [Ottawa Citizen]
+ Related Wellington Street was almost renamed Reconciliation Boulevard this year, that is, until Mayor Jim Watson bothered to ask members of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation. They asked Watson what reconciliation meant to him. When Watson couldn't answer, the proposal was stopped.
▪️L'Intrépide de Gatineau minor hockey team has suspended six players for ‘following deplorable incidents that occurred on and off the ice’. Six Black players had complained in the past few weeks that they have been subject to racial abuse. The league has cancelled the final two games of the season and ordered all players to take an education and awareness class on discrimination. [CBC]
▪️Ottawa Public Health is running mental health clinics in five of the CIty's most marginalized neighbourhoods. The clinics will be run from the Bellevue Community Centre, the Rideau-Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre, the Albion-Heatherington Recreation Centre, as well as the Don McGahan Clubhouse and Ron Kolbus Clubhouse. [CBC] [Mental Health]
▪️The Ottawa Bulldog points out that people in Ottawa just are not in favour of replacing the Alexandra Bridge. The Bulldog points out that the CTV News story on the replacement garnered over 300 comments on Facebook, almost all of them negative. We also agree that it seems like the National Capital Commission has made this decision over the actual wishes of the residents on both sides of the river. [Ottawa Bulldog] [Facebook]
