HELLO OTTAWA | → The Rideau Canal Skateway opens tomorrow | → City Staff don’t want an anti-renoviction bylaw | → 48 things to do this weekend | → Deals on cups of tea and pulled pork mac N cheese burritos | → ☀️ High -3° Low -13° and sunny | – Martha and Darren | | STATISTICS OTTAWA | | $2,000 | The amount in veterinarian bills that a Kanata dog owner paid after her Yorkie, Winston, ate some rat poison during a walk. The poison had somehow become separated from a commercial bait box on a retirement home property. | | | | Katelyn Wilson at CTV |
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| OTTAWANS OF THE DAY | Josh Earle and Leo Paz | The founders of tech startup Outlit have had their company accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator programme. Four year-old Outlit is an artificial intelligence system that helps entrepreneurs create, price, and close better deals. Y Combinator is probably the world’s most well-known accelerator: the leaders accepted companies are trained in San Francisco to take their tech start-up to the next level, in addition to receiving a $500,000 investment. AirBnB, Doordash, and Reddit are a few of Y Combinator’s alumni. | | | | Linked In |
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| QUOTE | | ❝ | | | Let's just hope the NCC doesn't change the rules at the last second |
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| – Ottawa Senators owner Michael Andlauer who says that he is ‘optimistic but cautious’ that a deal will be made the National Capital Commission for a new Sens arena in LeBreton Flats. | | | | Josh Pringle at CTV |
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| QUOTE | 🏒 NHL Ottawa Senators 0 – Buffalo Sabres 4 last night | | 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? | Please consider joining the many other readers with a monthly, annual, or one-time donation to keep THE OTTAWAN on its mission. | All annual or one-time donations over $60 get a free OTTAWAN or historic logo t-shirt of their choice. |
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| | WHAT’S GOING ON AT CITY HALL | Ottawa Board of Health
Monday, January 13 at 5:00 pm |
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| Chair of the Board of Health Verbal Report Medical Officer of Health Verbal Report Confirmation of the Chair and Vice-Chair for 2025 Selection of a Hiring Panel for the Recruitment of a Medical Officer of Health
| Agenda | | WHAT OTTAWA IS TALKING ABOUT | ⛸️ Rideau Canal Skateway | ▪️Barring some bizarre act of nature, the Rideau Canal Skateway will open tomorrow. The National Capital Commission says the weather lately has been ideal and the 3.6-kilometre stretch from Bank Street to Somerset Street will open at 8:00 am, the earliest date since 2018. Last year, the Skateway was only open a few days and rarely in a row; in 2023 it didn’t open at all. There’s a handy interactive map showing which portions of the route are open. | | | | CBC |
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| 🎒 Ottawa Catholic School Board | ▪️The Ottawa Catholic School Board is warning that hackers may have breached the database of a company that it uses for ’student demographics, class information and school-based staff information’. It is unclear what information PowerSchool collected and which pieces of information could have been exposed. The same breach has affected school boards across Canada, including the Upper Canada District School Board, and the public school boards in Toronto, York, and Peel Region. | | | | Josh Pringle at CTV |
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| ➕ Related Geeky website Bleeping Computer has more detailed, but generic, information about the hack. Powerschool told the site that it had paid a ransom and that it was ‘offering credit monitoring services to impacted adults and identity protection services for impacted minors’. | 🔨 Renovations | ▪️City of Ottawa staff have recommended against City Council enacting a renoviction law. Renovictions are when tenants are evicted from a property because the landlord wants to renovate the space. While reasonable on its face, there have been numerous allegations of landlords misusing the rule to evict long term tenants in order re-rent the unit at market rates, often with few or no actual renovations. While the report by City staff admits that misuse of the law is ‘highly probable’, it says that implementation may be costly. | | | | Joanne Laucius in the Ottawa Citizen The Report |
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| | 🎓 Algonquin College | ▪️Algonquin College is considering closing its Perth campus in 2026 due to the Federal government’s cap on international students. College president Claude Brulé says the new rules allow the college to accept only 5,000 students rather than the 7,450 that it had planned for, causing a loss of $32 million. If the Perth campus is closed, courses for its 350 students would move to the main Ottawa site. | | | | Josh Pringle at CTV |
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| | OTTAWA HISTORIC LOGO T-SHIRTS |  | Club Zinc |
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| Club Zinc T-Shirts | For underground Ottawa of 80s, Club Zinc was a short, dark light. | Help support THE OTTAWAN by buying one of our historic logo t-shirts. | |
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| | THE ROLLING 3 DAY CALENDAR | Is there an event we should know about?
Please use our easy event submission form | TODAY | | TOMORROW | Yesterday we published a broken link to Hintonburg Pottery’ Hand Build a Snowman class. The correct link is here.
▪️ Whether or not you are Ukrainian, if you love a good party you’ll want to check out the Ottawa Malanka soirée. This ‘Old Ukrainian New Year’s Eve’ party includes cocktails, dinner, music, and dancing. $97.18 🆓 150 vintage clothing, antiques, food and drink vendors and bakers return to 613Flea at Lansdowne Park. ▪️ Ottawa Charge meet Boston Fleet at the Arena at TD Place. ▪️ Kanata Wind Ensemble will be playing a range of both familiar music - we’re looking at you, Barber of Saville - and lesser known pieces at its Overtures concert. ▪️ 20-and-30 somethings looking to make new friends: Meet people over cocktails at Rabbit Hole. ▪️ End the Christmas season in a big, Medieval way with the Boar’s Head Feast Society of Ottawa. ▪️ You’ll find more vintage sellers at Vintage Pop-Up 613 over at Next Door Event Space. Come back Sunday for different vendors. ▪️ Rainbow Bistro goes nostalgic with 80s & 90s Party featuring the New Vintage band. Tickets $15 in advance / $20 at the door. ▪️ ByTowne Cinema: The Seed of the Sacred Fig, L’Amour ouf, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T., To Die For ▪️ Mayfair Theatre: Flow, Queer, Vixen!, Saturday Night Sinema Gigs ▪️ Honey Locust with Neeve Crichton. Avant-Garde Bar ▪️ Hot Jupiter. The Carleton Tavern ▪️ The Haylofters. Irene’s Pub ▪️ Frostbite, Nirthal, Longhouse. Dominion Tavern ▪️ Jason Wilson. Red Bird ▪️ Open Mic Night. New Edinburgh Fieldhouse ▪️ Jesus Christ! The Band. LIVE on Elgin ▪️ Dance Mix 2008: Millennial Pop Dance Party. House of TARG |
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| SUNDAY | ▪️Let someone else make the Sunday night dinner. Maker Feed Co in Cumberland has a Roast Beef Dinner with green beans, roasted potatoes, and demiglace au jus for $28.99 per person. Reheat at home. ▪️Today at 2:00 pm, get insider and outsider perspectives in Ottawa Storytellers’ Signature Series event Bringing Villagers’ Voices to Life: Stories from Sierra Leone. Black Box Studio, Arts Court (and on demand). ▪️Have fun with the Winter Cookie Decorating Class at Boston Pizza Orléans, today from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. ▪️You’ll find more than 75 vendors at this Sunday’s inaugural Indoor Farmers’ Market of 2025. Aberdeen Pavilion, Lansdowne Park from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. ▪️Lesbians, book your place at the Lez Go Bingo N’ Brunch this Sunday at Royal Oak (180 Kent St). ▪️ByTowne Cinema: The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Good Morning, Small Things Like These, L’Amour ouf ▪️Mayfair Theatre: Flow, Queer Gigs ▪️Bent Up Good. Atomic Rooster ▪️The Sunday Night Revue. Irene’s Pub |
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| MONDAY | | JUST ANNOUNCED / NOW BOOKING | | | DEALS OF THE DAY |  | Quelque Chose |
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| Warm up with Quelque Chose Patisserie on Montreal Road. Throughout January, buy one Takeout Afternoon Tea and get the second for 50% off. Online orders only. Use the code TAKEOUTAT to receive the deal. |
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|  | Meatings |
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| This month at Broadhead Brewery (1680 Vimont Ct Unit 106, Orléans, K4A 3M3): enjoy a Meatings’ Pulled Pork Mac N Cheese Burrito for $17. |
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| | BUT, ONE MORE THING … | ▪️Rebecca Zandbergen will be the new permanent host of Ottawa Morning on CBC Radio One beginning Tuesday. Zandbergen grew up south of Ottawa in Iroquois before studying – and later teaching – journalism at Carleton University. Most recently, she was the host of CBC’s London Morning. Previous host of 13 years, Robyn Bresnahan, now runs the This is Ottawa podcast while Hallie Cotnam has been guest hosting the show in the meantime. | | | | CBC |
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| | DAILY QUALITY CONTROL | What did you think of today’s OTTAWAN? | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great ⭐⭐⭐ Satisfactory ⭐ Needs Improvement |
| Comment of the week: ‘Thank God you’re back! If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t know about the new idling bylaw til it was too late’ |
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