Budget week at Ottawa City Hall and Winterlude returns: Five stories to watch this week
Budget week at Ottawa City Hall and Winterlude returns: Five stories to watch this week
It's budget week at Ottawa City Hall, the Ottawa People's Commission on the Convoy Occupation releases a report on the impacts of the 'Freedom Convoy', and Winterlude returns after a two-year hiatus.
CTVNewsOttawa.ca looks at five stories to watch in Ottawa this week.
Budget week at Ottawa City Hall
Residents will find out this week how the city of Ottawa plans to spend their tax dollars this year, as the 2023 draft budgets are presented.
Council directed staff to draft the 2023 budget with a 2 to 2.5 per cent property tax increase, and approved a 2.5 per cent increase for Ottawa Public Health, the Ottawa Public Library, Transit Services and Ottawa Police.
Staff have warned the city is facing "extraordinary" pressures, and the draft budget will include mitigation measures to consider to find savings, including pausing discretionary spending and deferring capital projects.
Council also approved motions to freeze transit fares for one year, and reduce youth recreational programming costs by 10 per cent.
The Ottawa Public Health budget will be presented on Monday, followed by the Ottawa Public Library Board budget on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Council and the Ottawa Police Services Board will present the budgets.
Council will finalize the budget on March 1.
The Ottawa People's Commission on the Convoy Occupation
The Ottawa People's Commission on the Convoy Occupation will release Part 1 of its final report on the impacts of the 'Freedom Convoy' occupation on Monday.
The commission says the report will focus on the experiences residents have shared and key findings.
Ottawa's People's Commission is a grassroots effort to promote "healing and justice" after the 2022 occupation, according to the website. The initiative of Centretown Community Health Centre held 14 hearings, eight community consultations and received over 75 written submissions.
Part 2 of the report, offering further analysis and recommendations for action, will be released in March.
A protester waves a Canadian flag in front of parked vehicles on Rideau Street on the 15th day of a protest against COVID-19 measures that has grown into a broader anti-government protest, in Ottawa, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
February Deep Freeze
Ottawa is set to face the coldest stretch of the winter this week, with minus double-digit temperatures in the forecast.
After a relatively mild January, Environment Canada's forecast calls for overnight lows of between minus 15 C and minus 28 C all week. The low will be minus 24 C on Thursday and minus 28 C on Friday. Daytime highs this week will be minus 17 C on Friday and Saturday.
Environment Canada's monthly forecast calls for below seasonal temperatures for Ottawa over the next month.
The average temperature through Jan. 28 had been a high of minus 1.8 C and a low of minus 8.5 C. The average temperature for this time of year in Ottawa is a high of minus 6 C and a low of minus 15 C.
Rideau Canal Skateway
All eyes will be on the Rideau Canal Skateway this week, to see if the cold temperatures will allow the National Capital Commission to open the world's largest skating rink.
The Rideau Canal Skateway has not opened for a single day of skating so far this winter. The latest opening date for the skateway is Feb. 2, back in 2002.
In a statement to CTV News Ottawa, the NCC said its teams will "resume their work" this week to build the thickness of the ice following the snowfall of the last few days.
"The Skateway opens to the public once the surface is at least 30 centimetres thick with good quality ice. For that to happen, we need 10 to 14 days of consecutive cold weather," the NCC said.
A red flag signals that the Rideau Canal Skateway is closed. (Aaron Reid/CTV News Ottawa)
Winterlude
Winterlude kicks off in Ottawa and Gatineau on Friday, as the popular winter festival returns with in-person activities for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Activities include ice sculptures on Sparks Street and the Snowflake Kingdom in Gatineau's Jacques-Cartier Park.
The opening weekend of the 45th Winterlude will include the show Minsoshkite in the Great Hall of the Canadian Museum of History and the Winterlude National Ice-Carving Championship on Sparks Street.
The second weekend of Winterlude will include Winter Pride and many activities that "highlight our country's cultural diversity and inclusion", Canadian Heritage said.
Winterlude runs from Feb. 3 to 20.
EVENTS IN OTTAWA
MONDAY
Ottawa Board of Health meeting – 5 p.m.
The House of Commons resumes
TUESDAY
Ottawa Planning and Housing Committee meeting – 9:30 a.m.
Ottawa Public Library Board meeting – 5 p.m.
Ottawa Carleton District School Board meeting – 7:30 p.m.
U.S. President Joe Biden arrived Thursday evening in Ottawa for a whirlwind 27-hour visit expected to focus on both the friendly and thorny aspects of the Canada-U.S. relationship, including protectionism and migration on both sides of the border.
Canada and the United States are negotiating a deal that could see asylum seekers turned back at irregular border crossings across the border, including Roxham Road in Quebec.
As the federal government looks to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S., an eastern Ontario mayor says his city needs more help from Ottawa to deal with the influx of asylum seekers arriving through irregular crossings like Roxham Road.
Amid renewed questions over the pervasiveness of alleged interference by China in Canadian elections and affairs broadly, opposition MPs voted Thursday afternoon to affirm a parliamentary committee's call for the federal government to strike a public inquiry.
A majority of Canadians have seen a mistake on their grocery receipts in the last year, according to a new survey conducted by Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.
An asteroid discovered just last week will pass closer to the Earth than the orbit of the moon this weekend, an occurrence so rare it happens only once in a decade, according to NASA.
The number of Canadians receiving employment insurance benefits are at record lows and down 44 per cent from last year, new figures from Statistics Canada show.
Two Kanien'keha:ka (Mohawk) sisters from Montreal are on a mission that is close to their hearts: to save their ancestors' first language by developing video games young and old can play.
The Tim Houston PC government remains firm in their promise they'll fix the health-care system by spending more taxpayer money on health than any previous government before.
Potato farmers on Prince Edward Island are taking the federal government to court due to the decision to restrict the movement of P.E.I. seed potatoes.
An Ontario man said he was shocked when his truck was stolen not once but twice, and the second time it was taken he was surprised to discover he was no longer covered for theft.
For the first time, the owner of a building in Old Montreal has responded to questions about the fire — through his lawyer — addressing allegations that the building was unsafe.
The political class at the National Assembly has condemned the 'violent' and 'hateful' remarks that columnist Gilles Proulx allegedly made about Quebec solidaire MNAs during Richard Martineau's show on Qub radio in recent weeks.
The co-owners of a new liquidation store in North Bay, Samuel Quesnel and Chloé Boivenue, say they want to bring a treasure hunt shopping experience to the city.
The new provincial budget features items specific to southwestern Ontario, including a new English public elementary school in London, Ont. that will serve 556 students and include 88 licensed childcare spaces.
A young Strathroy, Ont. man believes there's a promising way forward in the effort to fight his disease. But, he's being told, right now, that path isn't open to him. Friends and family are stepping up to try and make a case for Kyle McPhee to receive immunotherapy treatments.
Manitoba First Nation police have arrested a man connected with a shooting on March 19 on Long Plain First Nation that resulted in the community going on lockdown.
Manitoba’s labour force is growing at a rate to supply enough workers for available positions into 2026, according to the province’s labour market outlook.
The ‘Catch the Ace’ jackpot is still up for grabs in Hagersville. There was no winner Thursday night so the total prize money is now an estimated $1,526,067.
The resurrection of Zellers is officially underway with the Cambridge location opening its doors to eager shoppers who lined up ahead of the store's official reopening.
The Alberta Energy Regulator has cited an energy company for causing a series of earthquakes, including the largest recorded tremblor in the province's history.
An alleged victim of a former staff member of Legacy Christian Academy can now be identified after she successfully petitioned in court to have a publication ban lifted.
In the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s provincial budget, school divisions in Saskatchewan were expecting funding levels to increase, with the province repeatedly touting its $1 billion surplus.
The Alberta Energy Regulator has cited an energy company for causing a series of earthquakes, including the largest recorded tremblor in the province's history.
Following a court appearance Thursday, a B.C. woman facing more than 20 charges – including manslaughter – in connection with alleged druggings of men who used escort services was remanded into custody.
The man killed in West Vancouver earlier this week was a retired urologist who was involved in several legal disputes over valuable real estate, CTV News has learned.
A recent report from the province’s privacy commissioner says the Métis Addictions Council of Saskatchewan Inc. (MACSI) failed to take appropriate steps after patient treatment files were discovered in a recycling bin.
A protester waves a Canadian flag in front of parked vehicles on Rideau Street on the 15th day of a protest against COVID-19 measures that has grown into a broader anti-government protest, in Ottawa, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
A red flag signals that the Rideau Canal Skateway is closed. (Aaron Reid/CTV News Ottawa)
