Ottawa Citizen
Bluesfest fans sing along and squeal for Conan Gray's whimsy-filled show
Bluesfest resumed Wednesday after a two-day break, rising back to life with a slice of emotional pop fare headlined by Conan Gray, a 27-year-old musician who's already an icon to his devoted following. The thousands of fans in the crowd sang, bounced...
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Ottawa colon cancer survivor applauds province's earlier screening as lifesaver
For Michael Groves, what began as stomach pain turned into a diagnosis that changed his life. The then-49-year-old thought he might have appendicitis when he went to the emergency room in early 2021. A scan ruled that out, and after the pain subsided,...
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OCDSB reverses Pride parade decision
The Ottawa-carleton District School Board has reversed its decision and will now participate in this year's Capital Pride parade in an official capacity. Capital Pride executive director Callie Metler confirmed to the Ottawa Citizen that OCDSB CEO...
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No mandatory evacuation of storm-damaged building
No hydro, no water and no food — that was the reality for Olivia Allan after the Canada Day rainstorm flooded thousands of basements and roads across Ottawa. Allan was among the hardest hit, as a resident of Park West at 30 Mcewen Ave. The 24-storey...
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SPENDING NEEDED FOR `GROWTH,' MINISTER SAYS
The federal government plans to pay for its recent big-ticket spending through a combination of economic growth and deficit increases, Finance Minister François-philippe Champagne says. Prior to officially kicking off the government's pre-budget...
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OTTAWA'S HIDDEN CRISIS
Reuben Khaemba, 23, has faced housing instability since he was 18 or 19, but didn't consider himself homeless at first. He now lives at the Ottawa Mission, but is waiting to hear about an apartment. Nobody is sure how many homeless youth are in Ottawa,...
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Dad wants to see daughter's legacy keep others alive
Kevin Williamson remembers the exact moment his world came crashing down. On March 17, 2025, months of unanswered questions about his daughter's constant fatigue, unexplained pain and unusual discharge finally started making sense. The cause was a...
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Storms make for tight-knit community
If extreme weather brings out any positives, Marina Petrovic says it will frequently bring her neighbourhood together. She referred to it as a sort of trauma bonding in the Graham Park community, located southeast of Bayshore. “In every big disaster,...
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Can Stittsville shops survive Carp Road widening project?
After a few years of operating a food truck, Craig Beaudry and his wife, Monique Haugen, went “all in” when they opened Wiches Cauldron Sandwich Shoppe in 2023. From their hearty soups to their rotating sandwich menu, the owners like to “keep regulars...
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Stittsville deli owner `exhausted' as power returned after four days
Ivan Saric rarely takes a day off. But it was while relaxing at home on Canada Day that the business owner noticed the temperatures of his walkin freezers climb. The app that helps Saric monitor temperature levels at his Stittsville meat and deli...
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OLAND MURDER STILL OPEN 15 YEARS LATER
For those who were in the packed, fifth-floor courtroom of the Saint John Law Courts on Dec. 19, 2015, it was a scene that cannot be forgotten. Dennis Oland, on trial for the second-degree murder of his dad, Richard, stood next to one of his defence...
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`I FEEL BETRAYED'
Some weeks ago, a boarded-up stretch of Bank Street went up for sale for $14.5 million. It is a storied length of downtown Ottawa — the whole of the eastern side of Bank between Nepean and Lisgar streets. Wallack's Art Supplies and Framing occupied...
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Last Canada Day for country's beloved Snowbirds
For generations of Canadians, Canada Day in Ottawa has included a familiar ritual: looking skyward for red-and-white jets. With Wednesday's 1 p.m. flypast — heavy rains forced the cancellation of their 4 p.m. demonstration — the Snowbirds' iconic...
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Two kids die in suspected murder-suicide
Ottawa police are investigating a suspected murder-suicide after two boys were found dead inside a home in Findlay Creek, and their father was found dead, roughly 45 kilometres away in Kemptville. Police said officers were called to a home on...
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The Clemow's noise problem is back this summer, Glebe neighbours say
Neil Pearson used to spend summer nights with his windows open and relaxing on his front deck. Now, he says, he's often forced to shut the windows instead. “We have to close our windows on the front of our house,” said Pearson, who lives near The...
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A cruel irony of the war on drugs
It took Corey Tochor three years to get to this point. The Conservative MP turned heads on Parliament Hill when, in the midst of the House of Commons' final dizzying days of passing legislation before adjourning for the summer, he emerged with an...
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TURFED FROM MARKET
Has the city, in its haste to “reimagine” the Byward Market through activations, programming, placemaking and other fashionable planning jargon, forgotten the businesses that have helped make the market worth visiting in the first place? The question...
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WORTH REMEMBERING HOW THESE DRUG USERS GOT WHERE THEY ARE
I want to tell you about an eightyear-old girl and her pet dog, Scooby. But first I want to tell you about one recent Friday. It was the day before the last of Ontario's supervised consumption sites were closed by government fiat, when people with...
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An ongoing fight for inclusiveness
Celeste Constantineau knows the amount of time, planning and preparation that goes into attending a social event. Showing up to her six-year-old daughter's “seemingly benign” after-school events meant sitting down her oldest, Evelyn Zanivan, and...
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Parents sour on `sweet' school water
The walk to Fallingbrook Elementary is a short one. Two minutes tops, said Crystal Mask, who accompanies her daughter to school with her husband, Garrett Hansen, every morning. But since March, the Orléans couple has been forced to rejig their morning...
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TKACHUK FLIES SOUTH
The Ottawa Senators have traded captain Brady Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers, where he will play alongside his brother, Matthew. The team said Monday the Olympic gold medallist asked to be dealt in a meeting at his New Jersey home last month.
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FORMER EDMONTON COUNCILLOR WARNS FEDERALISTS AGAINST COMPLACENCY IN REFERENDUM
Former Edmonton city councillor and mayoral candidate Michael Walters is back on the doorknocking circuit. He's not currently running for political office. But he is travelling through neighbourhoods in the southside area he used to represent, talking...
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MORE OVERDOSES FEARED
Dean Dewar, director of the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, says the June 13 closure of the centre's supervised consumption site means more people will be injecting harmful drugs unsupervised on Ottawa's streets. Olivia Belovich reports.
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7 YEARS SINCE REPORT
Bridget Tolley is five years older than her mother was when a Sûreté du Québec police car struck and killed her in October 2001. She remembers rushing to see her mom, Gladys Tolley, shortly after she found out, along with her family and community...
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Hospital patients get house calls — from tattoo artist
On a recent afternoon in a family room on the fifth floor of the Bruyère Health Centretown campus in Chinatown — formerly St. Vincent Hospital — Hollis Peirce got his fifth tattoo. The new ink, on his right bicep, shows an opened zipper, underneath...
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Homeowner stuck between a root and a hard place
Nicole Robert doesn't usually work out of Ottawa's City Hall, but now she's hunched over on the floor next to security, writing code on her laptop. Robert doesn't work for the city — she's a statistical analyst for the Medical Council of Canada. On a...
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`Safe gathering spot' at risk in policing push: Inuit group
When Lisa saw Kate out of the corner of her eye, she sprang toward her. It was hot and clammy. But the two friends were glued to each other like magnets as tears dripped out of their eyes. They had not seen each other in more than a year. The last...
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Lax border policies fostered one of Canada's most dangerous gangs
At the immigration hearing for an accused Indian gangster earlier this month, an Edmonton police officer attempted to illustrate the scale of the criminal operation that law enforcement was now dealing with. The hearing concerned Jashandeep Singh, an...
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THAT SINKING FEELING
Paul Charette had just finished a locksmithing job at the Rideau Centre and was returning to the van he'd parked outside when he first encountered the sinkhole. It had opened up, a giant, yawning maw, between him and the company car, a dark blue Dodge...
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BUS ATTENDANTS CUT
Amanda Jollymore and Brian Mcphail say their six-year-old daughter, Mia, is strong enough to get herself into trouble, but she isn't always strong enough to get herself out of it. So, when the parents learned Friday that the bus attendants assisting...
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Proposed bill would keep tenants cool
Ontario landlords are required to keep tenants warm in the winter. Ottawa Centre MPP Catherine Mckenney says it's time the province offered the same protection from extreme heat in the summer. Mckenney has introduced a private member's bill that would...
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`Concrete action' on safe supply clinic celebrated
It's been a year since the New Dawn Medical clinic has called Chinatown home. But only now, Somerset ward Coun. Ariel Troster says, are residents and politicians seeing “concrete action” regarding the controversial safe-supply clinic. For months,...
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HOUSING PRICES WOULD BE 10% LOWER IF CANADA HAD KEPT PACE WITH U.S.: CMHC
Canada's housing stock would be about 30 per cent larger and prices 10 per cent lower if this country's building industry had been as responsive to demand as its American counterpart over the last couple of decades, says a new report from the federal...
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THE EARLY BUZZ
Robert Anderson, a research scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, says that while their appearance has been delayed because of a cool, damp spring, we can expect lots of mosquitoes in the Ottawa area now that the weather has warmed, Natasha...
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`It's just a mess': residents avoid congested intersection
For Findlay Creek resident Roger Baliki, avoiding the intersection of Bank Street and Leitrim Road has become part of his routine. Baliki says he now plans routes around the intersection whenever possible, frustrated by congestion and a layout he...
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OTTAWA HAS UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO BOOST SENIORS HOUSING OPTIONS
When Debbie Staples was told she might have to leave the apartment she has lived in for nearly 20 years, she tried to imagine what might come next. “Is the postman going to deliver the mail to my car?” she recalls thinking. “Because that's where I'd...
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GM seeks to get OC Transpo `on track'
OC Transpo general manager Rick Leary is hoping to “change the narrative” and steer clear of the negative media attention surrounding the organization he was tapped to lead two months ago. Leary highlighted some of the positive progress OC Transpo has...
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Highway 417 work making traffic woes in Nepean even worse, advocate says
Since the Highway 417 construction and closures began near Angela Prescott's Glabar Park neighbourhood, traffic congestion in the area is worse than ever. “The exacerbation has been tenfold since the reduction on the highway. So we've seen a dramatic...
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FEDERAL MINISTER POURS MORE COLD WATER ON N.B.'S LNG IDEA
Canada has reached a landmark deal to export liquefied natural gas to Germany — but it's from the Pacific coast. And federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson has poured more cold water on the possibility of an East Coast export terminal, even as New...
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FAMILY HOUSING CRISIS
Amy Ayers and her three children, 26, 15 and 14, along with their cat and dog, are living in tent in an Ottawa forest. Not for fun, but because they have nowhere else to live. Their precarious housing situation started more than a year ago. Ayers...
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This painful, common disease has no national action plan
Karissa Renaud was 25 years old when she first experienced pain in her pelvic area so severe that trips to the emergency room at various Ottawa hospitals became routine. Doctors couldn't quite figure out the cause. Instead, she was prescribed...
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Program expands to divert youth from gangs, exploitation
Ketcia Peters still remembers the moment a teacher told her she was a leader. As a teenager who had recently moved from Montreal to the United States and struggled to speak English, Peters said she often acted out in school rather than risk...
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Man turns whimsical mowing job into a cause
When Genevieve Herzog was working on the front lines during the COVID -19 pandemic as an occupational therapist, she would often walk through an overgrown stretch of Ottawa's hydro corridor. So her husband, Mike Herzog, cut a small path through the...
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A ROARING RACE WEEKEND
Marathon runners make their way past Parliament Hill during the early kilometres of their race on Sunday. From a 100-year-old man's grit to a running club that's all about community, participants in this year's event showcased a range of race rhymes...
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POLITICIANS SEEK TO EASE FOOD COSTS, BUT ARE BATTLING MARKET FORCES
OTTAWA Call it the coriander conundrum. Like with parsley, carrots, dill and most other members of the apiaceae family of edible plants, the retail price of coriander has been growing like a weed. While the prices of many items on grocery store...
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FACING A CRISIS
Ottawa's last two supervised consumption sites will close by June 13. What this means for the communities these sites served and for people like Joey Macrae-chiaralli — who has a history of homelessness and drug use — is unknown.
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Ottawa artist's joyful clay world resonates as call for inclusion
For Benjamin Lachapelle, gloomy weather is just another reason to reach for his colourful assortment of air-dry clays. “A lot of these figurines (are) incredible animals which inspire me,” Lachapelle said while holding a tray full of little handmade...
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Canadian military refused to release this F-35 photo
Somewhere, maybe locked in a vault at Department of National Defence headquarters, is one of the rarest recent photos involving the Canadian Forces. In February, RCAF commander Lt.-gen. Jamie Speiser-blanchet travelled to Lockheed Martin's Texas...
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Ottawans have caught the Hyrox bug. What's behind this new obsession?
Imagine running for one kilometre and doing one functional workout. Sounds doable, right? Now imagine repeating that eight times over. One-kilometre runs in between eight functional workouts including skiergs (which simulate cross-country skiing),...
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Pandemic-era stem cell treatment shows promise
In January 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Sharon Charlebois spent three weeks at the Civic hospital battling a life-threatening case of COVID-19. The Kanata woman had not been feeling well after Christmas and tested positive for the coronavirus...
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DOES THE NFB HAVE A PROBLEM?
In a windowless office in National Film Board headquarters, Eric Pouliot flicked on an ultraviolet light to reveal a series of dots painted in invisible ink on a puppet's head. Turning to his keyboard, the veteran technical director hit play on a...
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Inuk reverend keeping culture alive
In a small stone church on Montreal Road in the Ottawa-area neighbourhood of Vanier, something remarkable takes place every Sunday morning. Sun filters through the stainedglass windows in Easter shades of peach, pale pink and green as dozens of the...
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Filling in the fading Centretown canopy, one free tree at a time
In recent years, the trees lining the streets of Centretown — providing shade and respite for passersby — have slowly faded away. A group of non-expert volunteers concerned about the neighbourhood's declining tree canopy formed Centretown...
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Newborns may get genetic testing
Just a few days after her daughter was born, Robyn Miller was awakened by frantic knocking at the front door. Her midwife was there with an urgent message to contact Sickkids Hospital. Specialists were concerned about the results of a blood screening...
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City hall security incidents drop with addition of screening gates
City of Ottawa officials have noted a 30 per cent drop in security incidents at city hall since the installation of secure screening gates nearly a year ago. The city installed enhanced security measures in May 2025 that require visitors to pass...
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SUPREME COURT SET TO WEIGH IN ON HUGE INDIGENOUS TITLE CLAIM
The clock began ticking April 7 on what could be one of the most important Supreme Court of Canada cases in New Brunswick's history. That's the date the country's top court told several law firms involved in the Wolastoqey Nation's landmark title...
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SHOW, TELL AND AVOID
Hintonburg resident Cheryl Parrott has a “show-and-tell” kit of drug paraphernalia she uses to help educate her neighbours. In 2025, there were 35,917 discarded needles recovered in Ottawa — a 22 per cent increase from 2024.
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SOAKING IN THE VIEW
Erik Thuswaldner relaxes against a flooded park bench at Britannia Bay onwednesday. Thuswaldner's a member of the Ottawa West Ice Dippers, an ice plunging group based in Britannia, which has used the park's flooding to prolong their season this year.
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Mom takes on 'out of control' traffic chaos at Nepean elementary school
For the many years that parent council member Brittany Lauzon has been walking her two daughters to and from St. John XXIII Catholic Elementary School in Nepean, she's seen how bad pickup and drop-off times can get. Illegal parking and dangerous...
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Linda Thom — and her park — deserve a new gold medal
There's a tiny park in my 'hood — Linda Thom Park, named for the woman who at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics won a gold medal in the 25-metre pistol event — the first summer Olympic gold won by a Canadian woman in 56 years. A handful of metal seats...
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New program helps seniors age in place
Researcher Suzanne Dupuis-blanchard had a light bulb moment when she began looking into why older adults often struggle to remain in their homes. Surprisingly, it had nothing to do with the medical side of aging. The director of the Centre for Aging...
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WHY IS WASHINGTON STILL SO ANGRY OVER BANS ON U.S. ALCOHOL?
It has been more than a year since most provinces banned U.S. alcohol from liquor store shelves, but the United States government is still feeling the hangover. Late last month, the issue of U.S. alcohol bans by every province except Alberta and...
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REMEMBERING PETER
A community vigil will be held on Sunday for Peter Clark, the crossing guard who died after he was struck by a hit-and-run driver on March 23 in Barrhaven. “I have been struggling with how to be strong without him,” says his widow, Amanda. She tells...
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Lack of a full-time EA for girl with autism pushes family to the brink — a shelter
Jennifer and Andrew Nickerson's precariously constructed life had been teetering for months. It crashed to the ground in March when they found themselves living in a city shelter. Andrew was laid off in March 2024. The couple left their Kanata...
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Police alone can't curb drug use, legal eagles say
As residents and local businesses push for a stronger police presence in downtown neighbourhoods like Ottawa's Chinatown over increased safety concerns and open drug use, some legal experts say policing isn't the solution. For many, safety concerns...
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AN UNBEATABLE VIEW
A vivid sunset lights up the Ottawa River at Harry Kingston Point Sunday. The warm weather is expected to continue through Thursday before cooler temperatures and a mix of sun and clouds settle in for Friday and the weekend.
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Felled by LRT construction, part of 'Mother Elm' is getting a new life
When an elm tree in Byron Linear Park was cut down in November 2019 to make way for LRT extension construction, residents were devastated. The elm was no ordinary tree: it was over 100 years old, beautiful with branches that stretched and hung with...
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MILITARY RECRUITMENT SOARS AFTER PAY RAISES, SOVEREIGNTY THREATS
The Canadian Armed Forces has recorded its highest recruitment levels in over three decades, enrolling 7,310 personnel in the last fiscal year. That's up 600 new members year-over-year. Officials said the new numbers show strong or stable recruitment...
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`ADVENTURE' BEGINS
A new designation will allow for off-road vehicles — such as those belonging to Thousand Island ATV Club president Greg Potvin — in parks like Charleston Lake. Welcome to the `adventure' class provincial park.
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Bookstore crawl highlights resurgence of retailers in brick-and-mortar spaces
Before Amna Hakim signed the lease on Love Lyla Books, she was an online retailer. For years, she sold a curated collection of books by Muslim authors through her website so she could work around her children's schedules. Then last summer she hosted a...
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Willola Beach residents hope for more volunteers, calmer waters in face of floods
Dave Mckay can hear the Ottawa River lap against his home from inside the living room. Looking out onto the waves from a window, Mckay, who's retired, can point out all the spots in his backyard that have been impacted by flooding over the years. The...
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An elevator breaks and a man falls
Laura Recoskie was headed to the stairs that take transit users to the platform at Parliament Station on the afternoon of April 8 when an anxious-looking woman approached her. The woman said her partner had fallen on the stairs. They didn't have a...
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She felt love in Canada as a refugee. As a doctor, she's worried for others
Unwanted. Uncared for. Unloved. Those were the cornerstones of what Parisa Rezaiefar had felt before eventually leaving her country in 1992. That year, after coming to Canada as a refugee from Iran, she remembered vividly the Persian man — a doctor —...
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`SCENARIOS ARE ALL EITHER BAD OR VERY, VERY BAD'
Grocery prices are elevated, gas prices are high, job markets are cooling, and U.S. President Donald Trump is sticking to his tariff plans while the world eyes a shaky ceasefire with Iran. The truce between the U.S. and Iran has raised hopes and...
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GHOSTS OF OUR GRIEF
There were 10 of us, more or less. Eight in the living room of a Kanata home, two more joining by video call from out of province, their faces small and pixelated on a laptop at the edge of the coffee table. The host, a friend, had invited me. I...
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