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Wednesday, August 20 August 2025
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🌦️ High 25° Low 13° and 30% chance of rain ☀️6:10 am 🌛 8:01 pm

Hello Ottawa

In Today’s Edition

→ 85% of City of Ottawa employees are in the office every day

→ This week's dining and drinking news

→ Canadian Made Deal of the Day on Ursa Minor womenswear


Ghost City Tunnel Underpass

Readers continue to update us about the planned underpass connecting Kanata’s Centrum Shopping Centre with the Canadian Tire across the street on Terry Fox Drive. The plan was initiated by the now defunct City of Kanata in 1995.

William and Guillaume (yes, we noticed that too) both directed us to this Bike Ottawa feature from last year, ‘Earl Grey underpass: Is it worth $20m?’. Read it – it’s very good on the background.

Included in the story was the image below:

To THE OTTAWAN’s eye, this looks like a plan to spend $28 million and disrupt Terry Fox Drive for two years so an underpass can be built a block away from an existing traffic signal controlled intersection.

We’ll be sending an email later today to Kanata North ward councillor Cathy Curry asking about this. We’ll let you know what she says.

– Martha and Darren

WEDNESDAY DINING + DRINKING UPDATE

 

🍺 Overflow Brewing Co always offers deals on pints and snacks during its  Hoppy Hour (Tuesday through Friday from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm).  

🥘 Taste regional favourites at Navatara’s Indian Food Festival. August 22 - 24 at Clarke Fields Park (93 Houlahan St, Nepean K2J 3Y7) 

☕ Longtime readers of THE OTTAWAN know that we have promoted Canadian goods and services from the beginning, and we get especially excited those that make great gifts. So we were delighted to discover   The Roasters Pack subscription service, which sends out roasted-in-Canada coffee each month, as well as their cool festive season gift ideas. The first is the 2025 Coffee Advent Calendar, which offers your choice of roasts and sizes of 25 coffees from Candian roasters.  The calendar pack includes a tasting journal and a gift card for $10 off your favourite bag of coffee. There's also a smaller ‘12 Days of Matcha’ advent calendar (not technically an ‘advent’ calendar but you get the idea. It’s still a cool gift idea for the matcha lover in your life).  We're telling you about these Christmas gifts now because experience tells us that homegrown Advent Calendars always go fast.  

🍖 Meatings’ Beer + BBQ + Pairing + Tour in the Broadhead Brewery taproom will be a feast for your beer and brisket-loving senses. (Wednesday August 27). 

🍷 The Orléans Cork & Fork Festival is back November 7-8 at the Shenkman Arts Centre. Choose from sessions on Friday or Saturday.  

🚨 At Apartment 613, Ali Tejpar and Jade Monaghan have an overview of two year-old St Rita on Bank Street. They find the Italian resto is ‘less like an outing and more like an invitation to a family dinner’.

👨‍🍳 Chef Ric Watson is opening a second Chef Ric restaurant in September at the Taggart Family YMCA. Watson, whose first restaurant opened in the old Rideau Bakery space under the aegis of the Ottawa Mission, works to provide ‘healthy food, affordable catering, and a job training program for men and women looking to change their lives.”

🏳️‍🌈 Rainbow Doughnuts are back at Little Jo Berry’s for Capital Pride. But the gluten free treats are only available in store on Wellington Street.

🥊 The 2026 edition of the Canadian Culinary Championship will have five chefs representing the Capital. Returning chefs are Jason Sawision of Stofa on Wellington Street West and Mitch Lacombe of Gitanes on Elgin Street. Newcomers are Simon Beaudry of Les Fougères in Chelsea, Simon Laroche of  Caméline in the Hull quarter, and Michael Hauschild of the catering company InHaus Cooking.

🐟 We don’t mention Capital Eats very often as most of their stories are paywalled, but Ralf Joneikies’s review of Manotick East Coast seafood truck Chummy Jiggers is open this week. ‘Make no mistake, this is comfort food pure and simple. What this sometimes means is that it's not exactly healthy but that’s not a concern when we just want a taste of home’, he says.

🍴 Apropos of nothing, when ward councillors for Knoxdale-Merivale, Sean Devine, Barrhaven East, Wilson Lo, and Barrhaven West, David Hill, had a lunch meeting with the Prime Minister yesterday it was at Greenfield's Public House in Barrhaven. The CBC didn’t report the full menu but Lo had fish and chips, Devine had curry and Carney had a kale salad with chicken.

🍨 ByWard Market is getting a new Baskin-Robbins shop, located at the the old ByWard Fruit Market address.

STATISTICS OTTAWA

NUMBER

  • 85%

  • The number of City of Ottawa employees who are on site every day, according to the City of Ottawa’s Chief Human Resources Officer.

    Premier Doug Ford wants all municipalities to require fulltime employees return to work five days per week. He has already mandated that provincial employees return four days a week starting in November and full time in January.

  • Josh Pringle at CTV

  •  

OTTAWAN OF THE DAY

  • Paul Villeneuve

  • The Carleton University professor and epidemiologist is beginning ‘a five-year project funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research aimed at finding out how short-term exposure to wildfire smoke affects hospitalization and death rates among people aged 65 and older — particularly those with chronic conditions’.

  • Joanne Laucius in the Ottawa Citizen

 

QUOTE

  • “

  • If you’re closing supervised consumption sites based on ideology and not evidence, just say so 

  • – Somerset ward councillor Ariel Troster to Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones, accusing the provincial government of using inaccurate statistics to justify closing supervised consumption sites.

  • Jones had said that crime around the Somerset West Community Health Centre’s supervised consumption site had risen 142 per cent but a freedom of information request showed the increase was actually 14 per cent higher than the city average.

  •  – Katie Griffin at CTV

  •  

  • SPORTS

  • ⚾ FRONTIER Ottawa Titans 14 – Aigles de Trois-Rivières 5, yesterday

PLEASE SUPPORT THE OTTAWAN

the ottawan was launched in 2020 as the daily answer to the questions: What’s going on? What should I do? Where is somewhere good to eat?

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WHAT’S GOING ON AT CITY HALL

No more meetings this week

Meetings and agendas

WHAT OTTAWA IS TALKING ABOUT

🚨  A Carleton University professor has closed down his research lab after the Premier vowed to ‘start hunting down’ scientists who use cats and dogs in medical testing studies. While Canada research professor Andy Adler’s studies were non-invasive – he was working on improving monitoring technology for dog hearts and lungs – he says that he is ‘not taking any chances’.  – Kendra Seguin at CBC

💰 The City has issued a backgrounder on the proposed ‘Rental Renovation Licence By-law’. The new bylaw is intended to ‘ensure tenants are not unfairly displaced under the pretense of repairs or renovations’ and will require proof from landlords before tenants must vacate.  Engage Ottawa has a page to keep updated.– City of Ottawa 

🧠  The Federal government has contracted with a company to ‘identify areas where artificial intelligence can enhance public service operations’. Canadian company Cohere has received the contract, put in motion by Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon. – Anja Karadeglija in the Canadian Press

⛳  The Supreme Court has moved the City’s appeal over Kanata greenspace a little further. Decades ago, the ghost city of Kanata made an agreement with the Kanata Golf and Country Club to keep a certain per centage of greenspace in perpetuity. The Club successfully won a judgement that its plans to develop housing did not violate that agreement. Last week, the Court announced that the appeal has moved to a sub panel of judges, which will grant or deny the appeal. If granted, it could be heard in 2026.– Kanata Greenspace Protection Coalition

THE DAILY POLL

How do you feel about the supervised consumption sites?

While they don’t help users get off drugs, they do help users stay alive

The sites create crime around their locations

We need a comprehensive programme to help addicts, the sites don’t help much

We need a comprehensive programme to help addicts, the sites are just one tool


  • Previously in ottawan polls:

  • We asked, ‘How are you feeling about Buy Canadian these days?’

    • 18% Yes, Still mad, still not buying anything American-made if I can

    • 65% It’s changed my habits. I routinely look for Canadian-made now

    • 11% The passion isn’t as strong any longer. I don’t regularly check

    • 6% I’ve always bought whatever I wanted; origin doesn’t matter


  • Commentary

▪️ “This isn’t my real response since I’ve always bought Canadian when I could to support companies that at least employ our neighbours. Some of us have been on that train for a long time and it’s good to see others finally getting on board.”

▪️ “Americans are starting to notice that they’ve lost customers and visitors. Hopefully they will share this information with their President. Keep up the good work everyone!”

▪️ “I’ve been buying Canadian as often as I could LONG before this was a thing. Canadian first, then European and South American. American last when there was no other choice.”

▪️ “Until the orangeman in power in the US removes tariffs, stops talking about annexing Canada and starts respecting human rights I will not travel to the U.S or buy anything from there. We should all continue doing this to support the Canadian economy.”

▪️ “Have been conscious of buying as local as possible for a while already, tariffs not being the only obvious reason.”

▪️ “Buying Canadian/non-or non-USA drives 99% of groceries! but I won't go shop elsewhere for a single low value item. No US travel.”

▪️ “The Dictator (that is what I call the ‘President’), has made me really not like the States! I will either not buy something if made in USA or will change to buy Canadian! Don't get me started!”

▪️ “I also shop more frequently at outdoor markets.”

▪️ “Ottawa Local > Canadian > Anything but American > Go without > American.”

▪️ “I’m an American expat. I don’t buy American if I can help it. Pretty telling.”

▪️ “I wish we manufactured more in Canada. So much of what I end up buying seems to be made primarily in China. Canada used to be a manufacturing country and now we are sadly just a land of Amazon warehouses.”

▪️ “Doing the best I can!”

▪️ “Definitely reading labels and checking that it is made in Canada. Buying Canadian every chance I get, now certain things we just don’t make but I’ll be picky & choose a different brand then.”

HISTORIC OTTAWA LOGO T-SHIRTS

T-shirt example

BNR T-Shirt

Bell Northern Research was founded in 1971. In 1996, it was purchased by Nortel and eventually shared that companies fate. The BNR campus in Ottawa was fondly deemed the 'Big Nerd Ranch', and is now the headquarters of the Department of National Defence.

Help support the ottawan by buying one of our historic logo t-shirts.

Shop for t-shirts

THE ROLLING THREE DAY CALENDAR

Is there an event we should know about?
Please use our easy event submission form

✳️ Means change from previous edition

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

🏳️‍🌈 Today at Capital Pride: 

FRIDAY

  • 🆓 Road trip: Ontario Moonshine Festival is back in Perth, ON  for a fourth year. Choose from Friday, Saturday, or Sunday visit times. Limited free tickets are available. 

  • 🆓 Vendors at last year's Navatara’s Indian Food Festival sold out, so don't miss your chance to sample regional favourites and catch the live cultural performances. It's all happening in Clarke Fields Park today (2:00 pm to 10:00 pm) through Sunday. 

  • Singing Pebble books has much to celebrate as it turns 37 years young. Get in on the celebration with a visit to the shop during the the anniversary sale (today through Sunday August 24). You'll save 20% on all items, and anyone who spends more than $37 will be entered into a draw to win a private guided shopping experience and a discount on rare and used books. 

  • There are cash prizes up for grabs in the one-on-one dance battles at ByWard Market (George St) tonight from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. 

  • 🪗 Road Trip: Ottawa Valley Buskerfest kicks off with a BBQ in Pembroke's Waterfront Park, followed by an evening of entertainment. 

  • 🆓 Ottawa Greek Festival programming begins at 5:00 pm. 

  • ByTowne Cinema: Hola Frida, Eddington, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, Drunken Cinema: Speed 

  • Mayfair Theatre: Souleyman’s Story, F1, There Will Be Blood  

    Gigs

  • Every Rose (tribute to Poison). Brass Monkey

  • Super K, Dead Gong. LIVE on Elgin

  • Double Impact Robert Clarot and Alex. Hard Rock Ottawa Council Oak Stage

  • Niel Young Experience. Hard Rock Cafe

  • Whiskey River Fever. Irene’s Pub

  • 80s Dance Party, The Underground. House of TARG

  • Motherland. Dominion Tavern. 

🏳️‍🌈 Today at Capital Pride: 

JUST ANNOUNCED / NOW BOOKING

MADE IN CANADA DEAL OF THE DAY

The Ursa Minor End of Season Sale means discounts of 15 to 70% on slow fashion made in Montréal.

BUT, ONE MORE THING ...

  • Lesley McKay in Stittsville Central has the tale of the Great Fire of Carleton County. Starting August 17, 1870, the fire ravaged several hundred square miles from Rideau Lakes to Wakefield over several weeks until the rains finally tapered it. Even so, in some areas, the fire was still burning a year later.

RAPID RESPONSE QUALITY CONTROL

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⭐ Needs Improvement


 

THE END

the ottawan is written and edited every working weekday by Martha and Darren.

Is there something that Ottawa should know about? Email to us at hello@theottawan.com. We read every single comment.

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