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HELLO OTTAWA

Happy anniversary! It's been one year since the Trucker Convoy came to town.

In recognition of that event, there may or may not be a reprise of it this weekend. The Ottawa Citizen asked the City for details on the ‘anticipated events’ that the City and the Police expect this weekend but were given no answer.

In a change of attitude from last year, the City has discovered that it is allowed to put up no-parking signs, can close streets, and ticket violations. 

OC Transpo has no plans to change services downtown this weekend.

The Ottawa Citizen also tracked down 14 figures from the Convoy – and where they are now:

  1. Tamara Lich – Convoy organizer, lying low in Medicine Hat while awaiting trial
  2. Patrick King – Convoy organizer, living in Alberta while awaiting trial
  3. Tyson George Billings – Convoy organizer, pleaded guilty, now driving a truck hauling natural gas liquid, possibly in Alberta
  4. Catherine McKenney – former City councillor, former candidate for mayor, now a co-founder of CitySHAPES, a non profit to improve communities
  5. Mathieu Fleury – former City councillor, now interim executive director of J.W. MacIntosh Community Support Services, a Williamsburg, Ont organization for adults with physical disabilities
  6. Benjamin Dichter – Convoy spokesperson, still driving a truck, and will be a keynote speaker at the 2023 Bitcoin Canada conference. the ottawan can‘t find this event online.
  7. Eli El-Chantiry – former City councillor and police board chair, now retired
  8. Diane Deans – former City councillor and police board chair, now works with the Native Women’s Association of Canada.
  9. Tom Marazzo – Convoy spokesperson, now living off the grid in eastern Ontario
  10. Chris Barber – Convoy organizer, living in Saskatchewan while awaiting trial, running a trucking company
  11. Peter Sloly – former police chief, now advising University of Toronto’s Massey College on modernizing the institution, on the boards of United Way of East Ontario and the Ottawa Community Foundation, and reactivated his consulting business
  12. Steve Kanellakos – former City manager, has since been recording in the Provincial LRT Inquiry report as making a “‘deliberate effort’ to mislead council on the decision to lower testing criteria for the LRT system prior to launch of Stage 1”, so he has that going for him
  13. James Bauder – founder of Canada Unity, awaiting his trial back home in Alberta
  14. Jim Watson – former mayor, an unspecified health issue has put off plans to explore post-politics job opportunities and to re-engage in charity and volunteer work

– Martha and Darren

 Holocaust Memorial Day

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorating the day that the Soviet Army entered the Auschwitz concentration camp, liberating 7,600 prisoners.

It's a day to light a candle in remembrance or to visit the National Holocaust Monument at the corner of Wellington and Booth Streets.

The video below is the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony from this morning.

New Edinburgh resident Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was joined by Barrhaven resident and leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition Pierre Poilievre, Kitchissippi resident Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, Ahmed Hussen (Federal Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion), Verna McGregor (elder of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation), Annette Wildgoose (the daughter of a Holocaust survivor), Artur Wilczynski (Canada’s head of delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance), Ronen Hoffman (Israeli ambassador to Canada), David Cohen (US ambassador to Canada), Sabine Sparwasser (German ambassador to Canada), Shimon Koffler Fogel (CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs), Agnes Klein (Holocaust survivor), Andrea Freedman (CEO of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa), and Rabbi Idan Scher (leader of the Machzikei Hadas congregation in Ottawa).

 

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Founded in 1971, Bell Northern Research 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.

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    Weather

    • ❄️  Chance of flurries. High of -5°, low of -4°.

    Number 

    • 9,936 
    • – The number of tickets issued by Ottawa Bylaw for parking on City street during snowstorm bans this winter. Tickets are $125 or $105 with early payment.  (Josh Pringle at CTV)

    Gatinois of the Day

    Quote 

    • ‘Unvexed’ 
    • – What wannabee homebuilder Bryant Cougle is asking the Court of Appeal to make him. Superior Court Justice Heather J. Williams declared Cougle a ‘vexatious litigant’ after his decades of lawsuits against the Municipality of Mississippi Mills over land he wished to develop. (Aeden Helmer at the Ottawa Citizen)

    Sports: 

    • 🏒 NHL Ottawa Senators 2 – New York Islanders 1 last night

      

    🚊 May auld acquaintance be forgot

    • The details of the settlement between the City and Rapid Transit Group, the builders and maintainers of the O Train, have been released.
    1. Resolves the Notice of Default that arose following the August 8 and September 19, 2021 derailments through RTG’s acknowledgement of the Default and the City’s confirmation of the immediate cure based on RTG’s rigorous plan to address the issues that led to the derailments and come to a sustainable resolution of the axle bearing assembly issue. The City acknowledges the work RTG has done and will continue to do to ensure the people of Ottawa receive safe and reliable service on O-Train Line 1 and will continue to monitor RTG’s progress.
       
    2. RTG is committed to achieving a sustainable resolution of these issues for all O-Train Line 1 light rail vehicles before the opening of the Stage 2 East extension. In addition, RTG has and will continue to implement various interim mitigation measures to ensure the reliability of O-Train Line 1.
       
    3. The City and RTG have also settled several disputes concerning RTG’s performance during the maintenance phase and the City’s administration of the contract during the maintenance phase.

     (City of Ottawa)
     

    ⚠️ Metcalfe Street

    • The bit of Metcalfe between Somerset Street West and MacLaren Street will be getting plaques from the City at each intersection honouring Mahsa Amini. The building that formerly housed the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and still owned by that nation, is located on that stretch of road. Amini is the 22 year-old woman who was killed by Iran’s ‘morality police’ after being arrested for wearing her headscarf improperly and wearing tight pants . Iran and Canada do not currently have diplomatic relations. (Anil Jhalli at CityNews)

    🚺 Shelter

    • A planned women’s shelter in Embrun has been denied Federal funding, and they don’t know why. Maison Interlude House is planning to build 24 units of transitional housing for women who have been the victims of violence. Land had been procured and rezoned but Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Co-Investment Women and Children Shelter and Transition Housing Initiative, which has $250 million in funds, turned down Maison Interludes $11 million request. (Joanne Laucius at the Ottawa Citizen)

    🛒 Shopify

    • Pop of mom and pop business Shopify will now oversee research and development at the company with the departure of chief technology officer Allan Leinwand. Founder Tobi Lütke also took over chief product officer Craig Miller’s job when he left in 2020. (CityNews)

    🏠 Citizenship

    • A Canadian citizen accused of having ties to ISIL may be moving to Ottawa to live with his mom. Jack Letts, nicknamed ‘Jihadi Jack’ by the British press, had his United Kingdom citizenship removed but retains Canadian citizenship through his father. A UK court has ordered him to be sent to Canada. Neither the judge nor the Federal government has alleged that Letts engaged in or assisted in terrorist activities. (Ellwood Shreve in the Ottawa Citizen)

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    If you’ve got a project in mind that requires wool, check out DeSerres, where wool is 25% off.

    Even some new items are included in the Muttonhead sale.

    Get free shipping on your order from Prana Vida, until Sunday night at 11:59pm.

    Get a free 340g bag of Best of El Milagro coffee when you start a Bridgehead subscription.

    Use the code LOVE25 for a 25% at Loftan Indigenous made jewelry, until Sunday night.

      

    Ottawa Public Health reports COVID-19 data Tuesdays and Fridays, this is from this morning.

    Ottawa COVID-19 wastewater surveillance is tracked daily.

    The following isn’t about Ottawa – although written by Ontario-born journalist Clive Thompson – but it is so about Ottawa. 

    Five years ago, in Queens, NY, the city put in bike lanes and removed 116 parking spaces. The local businesses predictably howled, claiming they would lose money. 

    An investigative journalist asked the City for the financials: one year after the bike lanes were installed, revenue went up 12 per cent, compared to three per cent for Queens as a whole. Also, that bit of Queens had more businesses open, despite a net loss across the borough. The business owners though? They didn't believe it.

    ‘The Battle Over Bike Lanes Needs a Mindset Shift’ in Wired.

    We will see you Monday  – Martha and Darren
     

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