Hershey Canada returns to Smiths Falls and the O-Train resumes full service: Top 5 Ottawa stories this week

Canopy Growth has sold its Hershey Drive facility in Smiths Falls, Ont. back to Hershey Canada. Canopy Growth, previously known as Tweed, opened its headquarters in the facility in 2013. (Dylan Dyson/CTV News Ottawa)

Hershey Canada is returning to Smiths Falls, a bumpy return to service for the O-Train and a reunion 80 years in the making.

CTVNewsOttawa.ca looks at the top five stories in Ottawa this week.

Canopy Growth sells former Smiths Falls, Ont. chocolate factory back to Hershey Canada

Hershey Canada is returning to Smiths Falls, Ont., buying back its former chocolate factory in the eastern Ontario community.

Canopy Growth announced Thursday that it signed an agreement to sell the Hershey Drive facility to chocolate maker Hershey Canada for $53 million.

Canopy Growth's decision to sell the main site for flower and edibles production at 1 Hershey Drive comes months after it announced plans to close the building and lay off 800 workers across the company. Approximately 350 of the 800 layoffs affected the Smiths Falls area.

A spokesperson for The Hershey Company confirms to CTV News Ottawa that it signed an agreement to purchase the 700,000 sq. ft. facility in Smiths Falls, but said it is premature to discuss potential hiring or production plans for the future.

"This project is a strategic acquisition and is another step in our continuing investment in our supply chain network to enable our leading snacking powerhouse vision," Todd Scott, Hershey's senior communications manager, said in an email.

"The facility provides us with the flexibility to support growth across the CMG portfolio."

Smiths Falls, Ont. Mayor Shawn Pankow (centre) and city officials pose for a picture with Hershey chocolate products after Hershey Canada purchased 1 Hershey Drive from Canopy Growth. (Dylan Dyson/CTV News Ottawa)

O-Train resumes two-track service after emergency track adjustments

It wasn't a smooth return to full service on the Confederation Line this week, as OC Transpo looks to get back to normal following a four-week transit disruption.

The O-Train resumed service between Blair and Tunney's Pasture stations on Monday, 28 days after the service was shut down after a bearing issue was discovered on one train during a routine inspection.  The light-rail transit system is running single-car service between Blair and Tunney's Pasture stations, with 11 cars during the weekday morning peak period, 13 cars during the weekday afternoon peak period and 9 cars the rest of weekdays and on weekends.

However, the system was reduced to a single-track on a section of the track for 10 hours on Thursday for "further track adjustments" to the restraining rail.  Transit Services acting general manager Michael Morgan say adjustments were needed on the track between Hurdman Station and the Rideau River Bridge to avoid contact between the restraining rail and the wheel hub of the LRT vehicles.

"As previously described, the Safety Note from RTG and Alstom requires that there be no contact between the restraining rail and wheels as part of the safe return to service plan. After completing adjustments to the restraining rail, testing was conducted to ensure that any contact was eliminated, and trains can operate safely."

The city also announced this week that it would continue to run a 'Shuttle Express' bus service between Blair Station and downtown and Tunney's Pasture Station and downtown to support single-car LRT service this fall.

An eastbound train approaches Hurdman Station after crossing the Rideau River Bridge from Lees Station on the Confederation Line of Ottawa's transit system. (Braeson Holland/Pexels)

Worker dies after being hit by dump truck in Kanata

A man died after being hit by a dump truck in Kanata on Tuesday.

Ottawa paramedics tell CTV News Ottawa that the man was hit by the dump truck at around 10:10 a.m. near the corner of Desmond Avenue and Carbrooke Street. 

The man was pronounced dead at the scene but has not yet been identified.

Residents in the area said a paving crew had been working on driveways on Desmond Avenue. 

In an email to CTV News Ottawa, the Ministry of Labour said Ottawa Pavemaster is the reported employer.

A man has died after being hit by a dump truck in Kanata on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023. Ottawa police say an investigation into a workplace fatality is underway.

He rescued her when she was 3 in 1944, now, the two meet in Ottawa for the first time since then

In a moment that was almost 80 years in the making, a 98-year-old Ottawa veteran reunited with the girl he rescued when she was just three years old in Holland during the Second World War.

"I'm elated," said Dr. Roly Armitage of meeting Sonja Jobes in person after so many years. "It's unbelievable."

"I never expected this, never," said Jobes.

The pair, along with family and friends, gathered in the city's west end on Sunday afternoon to celebrate.

Armitage was behind the wheel of a Jeep on a cold night in 1944 when something caught his eye in a nearby ditch.

"I thought I saw movement and I looked and lo and behold two children," Armitage recounted.

He pulled both of them out of the ditch and brought them to a field kitchen to give them something to eat and get them warmed up. The little boy went home, he said, but the little girl was sent to a nunnery and he had no idea what happened to her after he was forced to move on with the troops.

Earlier this year he told his story to Dutch media in the hopes of somehow figuring out who the little girl was and it worked.

Jobes, now 83, lives in Minnesota and came across the article online.

Sonja Jobes, left, and Roly Armitage speak at a reunion in Ottawa. Aug. 14, 2023. Armitage saved Jobes from a ditch in Holland in 1944 during the Second World War and finally reunited with her.

Vehicle crashes into bank building in Ottawa's west end

One person suffered minor injuries when a vehicle crashed into a bank building in Ottawa's west end.

Emergency crews responded to the collision on Merivale Road, near Baseline Road, at 12:31 p.m. Friday. A vehicle crashed into the Bank of Montreal building.

Video provided to CTV News Ottawa by the Ottawa Fire Service showed the front of the minivan had crashed into the building, with structural damage to the bank.

"The vehicle has been removed from the structure and our structural collapse team is once again assessing the integrity of the structure," Ottawa fire said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

A vehicle crashed into the Bank of Montreal on Merivale Road on Friday. One person was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. (Ottawa Fire Service/release)