Right this moment’s letters: Use surplus federal buildings to shelter the homeless

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Open vacant buildings to the homeless

Re: Non permanent constructions, bunk beds thought of as metropolis ramps up its emergency shelter capability, Nov. 22.

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This needs to be a no brainer if the federal authorities, the province and town are in the slightest degree critical about working collectively to assist the homeless.

The federal authorities has declared the Charles Tupper website as surplus. This four-to-five storey complicated might simply home homeless and fewer lucky individuals year-round.

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The construction remains to be heated and completely operational. Private house may very well be arrange utilizing the 1000’s of redundant (new or virtually new) cubicles which are at present being disposed of. Areas might even have sleeping tents for privateness. Mobility points may very well be happy by maintaining these customers to the bottom flooring.

Most federal buildings have cafeterias.

The primary concern could be to broaden washroom services. That shouldn’t be a giant deal seeing the constructing and 99 per cent of the infrastructure is already there.

This is able to be a marked enchancment in comparison with dwelling in an enviornment. The positioning may even be near LRT stops.

Our officers want solely to look outdoors the field slightly.

Brian Vachon, Greely

Transit plan received’t deliver riders again

Re: Need higher public transit, Ottawa? Spend money on it, Nov. 13.

Reducing routes and “robbing Peter to pay Paul” to be able to preserve our transit system afloat is just not the reply. The cuts to routes will see extra vehicles on our already-busy roads, which is what the LRT (when it really works after all) was alleged to get rid of within the first place.

The cuts and route adjustments proposed could serve transit’s backside line, however they’ll harm essentially the most weak. These people wouldn’t have a automotive at their disposal and can’t afford taxis, Uber or ride-share to get round for work, college, appointments, church, procuring, leisure or simply plain visiting household and pals.

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Perhaps the mayor, council and transit fee ought to ditch their rides for a six months and see what counting on public transit is all about.

A win-win could be to make Ottawa’s public transit dependable; then extra individuals will trip.

C.J. Kluver, Orléans

Gower tries exhausting to defend Transpo

Re: OC Transpo’s route adjustments will serve commuters higher, Nov. 22.

Ottawa Transit Fee chair Glen Gower needs to be admired for placing on a courageous face in describing OC Transpo’s proposed route adjustments. Sadly these are the results of $9 million in cuts to OC Transpo’s price range to assist stability town’s personal price range.

I don’t suppose “higher,” used within the headline, is the right phrase to make use of when one has to attend longer for a bus or stroll farther to catch one on account of the adjustments. These service cuts, coupled with fare hikes, will solely exacerbate the decline in transit ridership.

Alex Cullen, Ottawa

Prioritize clearing our sidewalks

Re: Ottawa to refit all bigger snowplows with rubber-edged blades, Nov. 22.

This feels like a good suggestion, nevertheless it’s one more nod to vehicles over pedestrians. These seemingly helpful additions needs to be prioritized for sidewalk-clearing gear — for which uneven scraping, extreme salt use and noise are much more problematic than for the beloved highway.

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John Cockburn, Ottawa

Shifting mountains, shutting bridges

Re: Chief William Commanda Bridge closed for winter, Metropolis of Ottawa says, Nov. 21.

I used to be fairly amused that, after watching a information report stating that town is unable to open the Commanda Bridge this winter, I then noticed a sequence on TV Ontario referred to as “Inconceivable Engineering” concerning the building of a railway by the Himalayan Mountains.

John Arbuckle, Ottawa

Clearing pine forest is unacceptable

Re: Ottawa Airport Authority broadcasts plan to clear Hunt Membership forest, saying it’s all about security, Nov. 20.

As one of many Canadian Forces members who planted the “Hunt Membership Pine Plantation” on Base Uplands within the spring of 1961, I say BS to the Ottawa Airport Authority, and totally agree with those that see this plan to clear the forest as simply one other land seize. It’s greed to show each inch of land in Ottawa into buildings and pavement.

Attempt to needless to say we now have a symbiotic relationship with timber: they take up our carbon dioxide, and supply us with oxygen in return.

Peter Vanderburg, Ottawa

Tree bylaws don’t provide safety

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Re: How a proposed bylaw change might have an effect on Ottawa’s timber, Nov. 16.

Does the Metropolis of Ottawa really implement this bylaw?

My neighbour had a mature tree, simply greater than a half-century outdated, that crammed the sky with a cover of inexperienced. In the event you hugged the trunk, you wouldn’t be capable to contact your different hand.

Sadly, when my neighbour offered this outsized property, a developer got here alongside and razed the tree, together with the property. As an alternative, the developer constructed two units of row homes.

All was not misplaced, although, as a result of the employees thoughtfully planted three saplings whose trunks I can wrap my palm round. Maybe in one other 50 or so years, some shade may even seem on the road.

That is what we misplaced.

James Harbinson, Beacon Hill North

Metropolis spurns concern over peak limits

Final 12 months, Ottawa Council took monumental pains to interact the general public in growing Ottawa’s Official Plan, the doc that’s to information Ottawa’s development for the subsequent 25 years. The problems have been vital: ought to Ottawa intensify to fulfill housing demand, or broaden outwards?

Council, after a lot public enter and debate, adopted a hybrid method, supporting intensification in established neighbourhoods (instance: elevating peak limits in minor corridors to 4 storeys) and designating new land outdoors the city boundary for growth.

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There was a lot consternation when, final November, then-municipal affairs minister Stephen Clark unilaterally modified the Official Plan by including further lands for city growth, in addition to elevating peak limits from 4 to 9 storeys in minor corridors to permit for extra intensification. Seems Ottawa was not the one metropolis the place Clark made such modifications past what the native councils had accredited.

Following the provincial auditor normal’s report that exhibiting undue developer affect guided these modifications, Clark resigned and new minister Paul Calandra introduced in laws to stroll again these imposed modifications to Official Plans, together with Ottawa’s.

Think about, then, our shock and disappointment to see Ottawa Council stroll on and approve a movement at its assembly Nov. 22 asking the minister of municipal affairs and housing to re-instate the upper peak limits of as much as 9 storeys with none try at public session.

The Federation of Residents Associations (a federation of 71 group teams in Ottawa) had participated within the metropolis’s Official Plan course of in good religion. Once we noticed this walk-on movement relating to larger peak limits, we wrote to council instantly asking that the movement be referred to town’s planning and housing committee for public enter. The problem of peak limits and intensification in established neighbourhoods is a significant concern to residents and this movement a major departure from what council agreed to final 12 months. We have been ignored.

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It seems that town engages in public session when it’s handy. We anticipated higher.

Robert Brinker, Ottawa, President, Federation of Residents Associations

Enbridge pipeline wants consideration

Re: Metropolis ought to endorse Enbridge pipeline: councillor, Nov. 20.

Metropolis Coun. Tierney has received this one proper.

The strategic goal of decreasing the usage of fossil fuel is sound given the necessity to cut back the emission of greenhouse gases. However reaching this strategic objective needs to be performed in a possible and tactically sound manner.

The pipeline requires prudent consideration, however it isn’t going to fail tomorrow. Denial of prudent motion is not going to cut back the usage of fossil fuel in a well timed method. Shoppers will proceed to purchase and the pipeline will keep on working. What is required is the fast supply of sound replacements for fossil fuel. That might be inexperienced electrical energy, warmth pumps and microgrids with battery storage.

Then the usage of fossil fuel could be lowered with out endangering the welfare of the massive variety of residents who at present depend upon it to outlive an Ottawa winter.

What council is doing right here is just not going to scale back emissions in a well timed method. Assume once more. There’s a higher manner.

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John Hollins, Gloucester

Use frequent sense on the pipeline

As quickly as a pure fuel pipeline is positioned within the floor, it begins to deteriorate. The longer a fuel pipeline is buried, the extra possible there may be to be a leak or, within the worst case, an explosion. These info are well-known to the business and to regulators.

Enbridge, as proprietor and operator of main fuel pipelines in east Ottawa — some 66 years outdated, some adjoining the Queensway — has properly proposed that its pipelines get replaced earlier than they pose an unacceptable threat.

Unbelievably, the Ontario Power Board deserted a long time of subtle pipeline security administration practices and refused Enbridge’s software, partly, based mostly of obscure submissions by Metropolis of Ottawa officers that greening will sometime cut back the necessity for the fuel.

Let’s hope that this determination will likely be reversed, and customary sense prevail, earlier than catastrophe strikes.

Ian MacKay, Ottawa

Household docs should be paid correctly

Re: Variety of Ottawa residents with out a physician anticipated to just about double by 2026 with no change. Nov. 20.

I’m glad to see the disaster in household medication dropped at the fore. I agree fully that bettering entry to team-based care and decreasing the executive burden on physicians is important.

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Nonetheless, this text overlooks the elephant within the room. Skilled household docs are closing and leaving their complete household medication practices as quick as they’ll as a result of they’ll take some other doctor position for higher pay and higher working circumstances (as an illustration, work in hospitals, ER, palliative care, long run care, and so on).

This drawback received’t cease till the federal government begins investing and stops defunding pay for the work of household docs, in main care particularly.

Most household docs in Ontario are paid by the federal government by funding supposed to cowl bills reminiscent of lease, workers salaries, nursing providers, digital medical information, computer systems, cellphone payments, utilities and extra. This funding has remained stagnant for much too lengthy and has didn’t sustain with rising prices and inflation. In consequence, household docs wrestle to fulfill their fundamental operational bills.

Moreover, in contrast to salaried professionals or staff, household docs don’t obtain advantages reminiscent of parental go away, sick go away, trip pay, or well being and dental advantages, regardless of their vital position within the health-care system.

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All these monetary constraints strongly discourage new household medication graduates from working in complete household medication and are the rationale so many are leaving. We’ve got sufficient docs; the issue is that too few select to work in complete household medication.

Members of the general public and MPPs should foyer Well being Minister Sylvia Jones and Premier Doug Ford now to prioritize family-medicine funding in the course of the present doctor providers settlement (PSA) negotiations. These negotiations are underway now, and if the subsequent PSA doesn’t considerably enhance the state of affairs, the variety of individuals with out a household physician goes to get even worse than predicted.

Eugenie Waters, Ottawa, Household Doctor

Inform us why flags are lowered

Re: When the flag is at half-mast, we must always at all times know why, Nov. 23.

I completely agree with Bruce Deachman’s article about not realizing why flags are at half-mast. I hope you will get house to let readers know why a flag is down; normally l must Google after I see the flag lowered on the native hearth station.

Thanks for the article.

Debbie Currie, Ottawa

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Nahanni journey yielded a shock visitor

Re: How I survived the Nahanni — Canada’s ‘Holy Grail’ river of legend and literature, Nov. 16.

In 1980, I and one other paddler flew from Fort Simpson to the Nahanni headwaters (Moose Ponds) with a canoe strapped to a float. The subsequent 50 kilometres of technical class II to IV whitewater was difficult.

However most notable was the primary night time, camped on a gravel bar, when my accomplice and I have been chatting about being actually alone, free from civilization. Then, from across the bend, got here three canoes. The paddlers, on seeing our pretty gravel bar, and it being fairly late, requested if we minded sharing the location. Ahhhh … positive, no drawback.

They arrange camp, prepped a dinner meal, after which we heard a couple of songs combined with the silhouette and voice of a Canadian I’d seen and heard a couple of occasions. Regardless of the chances, and in the course of nowhere, Gordon Lightfoot and buddies had dropped by our gravel bar — a most Canadian expertise.

The next morning, we left early. I by no means noticed them on the river once more however did hear that anyone wrapped a yellow canoe round a rock.

That’s the factor concerning the Nahanni; then and now, it’s unpredictable.

Michael Hatton, Toronto

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