The Ottawan : Newsletters : The City wants your opinon on how its doing with housing and homelessness

Tuesday, July 29 July 2025

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⛅ High 31° Low 22° and partly cloudy ☀️ 5:44 am 🌛 8:34 pm

Hello Ottawa

In Today’s Edition

→ The City wants your opinon on how its doing with housing and homelessness

→ Watch Field of Dreams at the Titan’s baseball park on Thursday

→ Deals of the Day on mattresses from Dufresne and lip products from Cheekbone Beauty

– Martha and Darren

STATISTICS OTTAWA

NUMBER

823
The number of cars stolen so far this year in Ottawa. Rideau-Vanier tops the leaderboard with 67 cars stolen.
Josh Pringle at CTV

PERTHLING OF THE DAY

Toby Shannan
After Algonquin College announced that it would be closing its Perth Campus, the former former chief operating officer of mom-and-pop company Shopify is attempting to keep the college’s trades programmes in the town.
Shannan hopes to buy the campus and form a new organization to run the programmes, which add $3 million to the local economy.
Randall Denley in the Ottawa Citizen

QUOTE

“
If a ring road solution was a project that was worthy of council’s attention, it would have come through that process. But we didn’t see it.
– College ward councillor Laine Johnson on the ring road not making the cut in the City’s now approved Master Transportation Plan.
Josh Pringle at CTV

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WHAT’S GOING ON AT CITY HALL

Ottawa Investment Board
Wednesday, July 30 at 10 am

Statement of investment policies and procedures
Presentation for information: Board insurance (In-Camera)

Agenda

WHAT OTTAWA IS TALKING ABOUT

🏠 The City is looking for your opinion on housing and homelessness, midway through its plan. The City’s current 10 year strategy was approved in 2020 and this survey is to gauge how the public thinks the City is progressing. – City of Ottawa The Survey

🪭 The National Arts Centre has cut ties with the Shen Yun dance troupe. If you watch TV, you’ve seen their ads over and over for ‘China before Communism’. It’s an odd situation – the group is associated with the Falon Gong religious movement, with which the Chinese government has had a long-running feud. But the Centre has had issues with treatment of the cast and reported an event where the show wanted a disabled patron removed. – Raffy Boudjikanian at CBC

💨 Dozens of residents have been told to leave a Little Italy apartment building due to mould. The building at 101 Champagne Avenue South was taken over by the court when Ashcroft Homes Group got into financial trouble. However, a potential new owner wants the building emptied in order to fix its problems. The new company is proposing to offer two months rent to everyone and allowing them to take furniture from the furnished apartments. – Katelyn Wilson at CTV

THE DAILY POLL

When do you prefer to go out for dinner?

Early, so I’m home early

Eightish

Late (after 9 pm)

Timmy's is 24 hours

Previously in ottawan polls:
We asked, ‘Do you expect artificial intelligence to affect your workplace in the not-so-far future?’
- 54% Yes
- 31% No
- 15% At least there would be some sort of intelligence in my workplace
Commentary

▪️ “There's an expectation to embrace it! Mindful of security rules, use it to make the administrative work/creativity/development more efficient and therefore make you more productive in your role! Like a job aid/resource. It helps a lot.”

▪️ “Yes, and not in a negative way.

▪️ “It will have to be very carefully managed or it could lead to some very bad outcomes (eg impacts upon civil liberties).”

▪️ “I think AI is inevitable but will be terrible for our society as it will take over a high percentage of jobs.”

▪️ “As a Federal public servant, we are being pushed to embed more and more AI tech into our workflows (hoping a robot comes for my job soon!).”

▪️ “We’re already being encouraged to use it.”

▪️ “Already has. Coworkers paste responses from ChatGPT instead of talking about solutions. When they do talk I can see them reading the ChatGPT answers! It sickens me.”

▪️ “And I’m afraid that AI will become self aware (yes, I’m a fan of the Terminator movies) and I see this happening the more we rely on AI.”

▪️ “I’m a translator, and while I don’t ever expect AI to take over completely, it has already changed the nature of my job, with greater output expected by management since we’re expected to use AI as a translation aid.”

▪️ “I work reception in a Law firm. There is no way that AI could do my job properly. Especially with the people who walk in to book an appointment or ask law related questions.”

▪️ “It’s already impacting work both positively and negatively depending on the situation.”

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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

TUESDAY

Enjoy an al fresco lunch to the sweet sounds coming from The Shed on Sparks St.
There are limited spaces at the Art House Café Life Drawing sessions. Advance booking is a must. All skill levels welcome; bring your own supplies.
Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage play Avant-Garde Bar. There will be word play, acoustic tunes, and “melodic garage-punk.”
ByTowne Cinema: La Pie valeuse (Stealing Angel), Cloud, Eddington
Mayfair Theatre: Bad Shabbos, The Life of Chuck, Crash
Gigs
Ultra Love, LÖRI (Berlin Post-Hardcore), Searing (Kitchener Emo-Crust), Malinovka. House of TARG
Trivia Tuesday. Irene’s Pub
It’s a Satire Summer. LIVE on Elgin
Bring the Kids: SHHHH!! Ensemble. National Arts Centre
Open Stage. Red Bird
Katy Perry. Canadian Tire Centre

WEDNESDAY

Bring your own chair to the Akoustik music series at St. Charles Market (135 Barrette St).
Head under the tent at Mad About Patchwork’s regular Wednesday evening event with live music. Bring your friends and your current creative projects. $5 in advance or $12 at the tent.
The Open Mic at Anina’s Café is for musicians, poets, and comics.
People are still making celluloid films. View some at The Independent Filmmakers Co-Operative of Ottawa's Emulsion in Motion: A Short Film Screening.
ByTowne Cinema: Eddington, Spectacle: Beau Travail, Cloud
Mayfair Theatre: The Life of Chuck, Bad Shabbos, Felidae
Gigs
Music Bingo. Brew Revolution
Jazz Night: Nick Adema. Bar Robo
Chairman George and Jing XIA. Irene’ s Pub
The John Carroll Show. The Laff
Karaoke. The Mill Tavern (Manotick)
NIIVI. Art House Café
Celtic Celebration: Lena Jonsson Trio. Red Bird

THURSDAY

Can’t wait for the weekend to shop the freshest produce? Head to Orléans Farmers’ Market at Ray Friel Recreation Complex parking lot. 11:00 am to 4:00 pm
Catch the Kevin Costner classic Field of Dreams … in a baseball field. Ottawa Titans will screen the 80s film in support of Ottawa youth charities. Bring your own lawn chair or blanket. $10.
🆓 Bust a move at the Salsa & Bachata in the Park at Confederation Park (100 Elgin St).
A thirty-something restauranteur recently advised Darren and Martha to call ahead for early reservations, even at the trendiest of dining spots. It used to be that no one but the elderly would dine at six, but we were told that thanks to the pandemic, even young people have discovered the joy of getting dinner out of the way before the sun goes down so they can be tucked up in bed by 10:00 pm. Turns out they like to rock out early too. Case in point: Six O’Clock Rock at LIVE on Elgin tonight, which declares it will suit those people “who love dancing to great music but have shit to do the next day or just plain value their beauty sleep. Anything goes as long as it's rock n' roll!” Doors open at 6:00 pm.
Buy something cool at Urban Art Collective’s Hintonburg Night Market.
🆓 There’s no charge to wander the regular exhibitions at National Gallery of Canada every Thursday from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm.
ByTowne Cinema: La Pie Voleuse (Stealing Angel), Eddington, Cloud
Mayfair Theatre: Bad Shabbos, The Life of Chuck, Pierrot le fou
Gigs
Femme-euses, Princess Unlucky. Rainbow Bistro
Switched-On Synths: PARAPHONIQUE + Hazy Montagne Mystique x Melina Spiga x Guillaume Vallée + Sam Aleums. House of TARG
Tour of Jazz: Wayne Eagles Trio. Art House Café
Concepthurs. Gridwrks
Open Mic. Stray Dog Brewing Co.

JUST ANNOUNCED / NOW BOOKING

Road trip: There are only a few weeks remaining in the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival in Prescott. See Much Ado About Nothing, Sherlock Holmes and the Vanishing Hour, and a return of last year’s hit Play On! A Shakespeare Inspired Mixtape.
Tickets for Pete & Bas, the legendary rap duo from the UK go on sale tomorrow (July 30). Use the pre-sale code BRONSON25 for tickets to the show, which is happening at the Bronson Centre on November 1.

MADE IN CANADA DEAL OF THE DAY

Save 25% on the Canadian-made Sleep By Dufresne Black Label 12" Medium Mattress - Queen size.

Save up to 50% on lip products at Sephora, including those from Canada’s own Cheekbone Beauty.

BUT, ONE MORE THING ...

When Laura Byrne Paquet, known for Ottawa Road Trips, talks about travelling locally, she means travelling very locally. Her column in the Ottawa Business Journal has ideas on how to be a tourist in such far flung locations as Rockcliffe Park, Lindenlea, and New Edinburgh.

RAPID RESPONSE QUALITY CONTROL

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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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