BedSharkPal

Something, something, broken clock.

This better just be rage-bait. Otherwise, wow is this person out of touch.

New COVID-19 vaccines designed to target current variants are now available at many pharmacies in Ottawa.

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Several Ottawa pharmacies contacted by the Ottawa Citizen said they were now administering COVID-19 vaccines, which they received earlier this week. At least one said they were still waiting for supply.

The updated vaccines were approved by Health Canada in September. In Ontario and some other provinces, previous versions of COVID vaccines, targeting older variants, were destroyed before the new ones would be made available. That meant no vaccines have been available in the province for weeks of a significant COVID wave.

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A spokesperson for Ottawa Public Health said it was awaiting shipment of the COVID vaccines so it could begin administering in its clinics, but it expected to have more information next week.

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the province is planning to increase speed limits on 400-series highways across the province.

The government increased speed limits from 100 km/h to 110 km/h on six sections of provincial highways in 2022 after several successful pilot programs that first began in 2019.

Earlier this year, the province raised the speed limit on 10 more sections of highways across the province, including a 70-kilometre stretch of Highway 416 from Highway 401 to Ottawa.

Ford said Wednesday that he had directed Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria to raise the speed limit to 110 km/h on all 400-series highways “where it is safe to do so.”

Ottawa's photo radar cameras have issued a record number of speeding tickets to drivers this year, as the city of Ottawa continues to expand the automated speed enforcement program in community safety zones, school zones and "high speed locations."

New data shows the 40 photo radar cameras have issued 229,105 tickets in the first seven months of 2024. The automated speed enforcement camera program resulted in 220,789 speeding tickets in 2023, 127,939 tickets in 2022 and 80,944 tickets in 2021.

Twelve new cameras have been activated so far in 2024, and work is underway to install 20 new photo radar cameras(opens in a new tab) across the city by the end of the year. Staff have estimated the city will issue one million tickets a year through the photo radar and red light camera programs.

The busiest photo radar camera is on King Edward Avenue, the busy road for motorists travelling between Ottawa and Gatineau over the Ottawa River. The camera issued 36,210 tickets in the February to July period.

The 10 busiest photo radar cameras in Ottawa in July

• King Edward Avenue southbound, between Bolton Street and St. Patrick Street: 7,096 tickets
• Walkley Road, between Halifax Drive and Harding Road: 2,873 tickets
• Bronson Avenue, between Raven Road and Sunnyside Avenue: 2,220 tickets
• St. Laurent Boulevard, between Noranda Avenue and Clarke Avenue: 1,838 tickets
• Cedarview Road, between Fallowfield Road and Jockvale Road: 1,772 tickets
• Katimavik Road, between Castlefrank Road and McGibbon Drive: 1,602 tickets
• First Avenue, between Chrysler Street and Percy Street: 1,504 tickets
• Hunt Club Road, between Pike Street and Lorry Greenberg Drive: 1,495 tickets
• Bayshore Drive, near Woodridge Crescent: 1,474 tickets
• Fisher Avenue, between Kintyre Private and Deer Park Road: 1,323 tickets

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Orléans East-Cumberland Coun. Matt Luloff was charged with impaired driving earlier in July. How will the legal process unfold and what does it mean for Luloff’s future as a city councillor?

Luloff, a second-term councillor, also serves as Ottawa Public Library Board chair and was the Conservative Party of Canada candidate for Orléans riding in the next federal election until he stepped down from that candidacy on July 10, citing personal reasons.

According to the charges filed in court, Luloff, 40, was arrested and charged on Saturday, July 6.

He was charged with two counts related to impaired driving, the filing shows. The first charge alleges Luloff was operating a motor vehicle while impaired. The second charge alleges that Luloff, “within two hours after ceasing to operate a (vehicle) had a blood-alcohol concentration that was equal to or exceeded 80 mg of alcohol in 100 mL of blood.”

The allegations have not been tested in court.

Luloff’s defence lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, signed an “enhanced designation of counsel” on July 9. That means a defence lawyer can appear in court on Luloff’s behalf.

Ottawa’s wastewater surveillance program will continue after the Ontario government ends funding on July 31, a memo from Board of Health chair Catherine Kitts says.

In a memo sent to Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and council members Wednesday, Kitts said the surveillance initiative, operated and managed under Robert Delatolla’s team at the University of Ottawa, will remain as it is while discussions about longer-term solutions continue.

The province announced earlier this year that it would stop funding for the highly regarded program as of the end of July — at a savings of around $15 million.

Provincial officials said then that the federal government was expanding its own wastewater surveillance initiative and they wanted to avoid overlap. The federal government currently has four wastewater surveillance sites in the Toronto area and has said it wants to add four or five more. Ontario’s program, one of the world’s most extensive, gathers information at more than 50 locations.

In the memo, Kitts said the city “has been assured that, although provincial funding sunsets on July 31, the University of Ottawa has secured funding to continue this program as-is for the coming months.”

Meanwhile, she said, Ottawa Public Health Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches had sent letters to federal and provincial public health officials “seeking to collaborate to ensure the uninterrupted continuation of high-quality wastewater surveillance in Ottawa.”

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Ottawa's vacant unit tax (VUT) is raking in millions more than expected, leaving some residents and one city councillor wondering whether it's a fix for the housing crisis or simply a cash grab.

The tax charges one per cent of the assessed value of homes left unoccupied for six months or more within one year. It's meant to push property owners to either put those units up for sale or rent them to address the city's housing shortage.

When council approved the tax two years ago, it was expected to bring in about $6.6 million per year. But city staff now say last year's revenue haul came to $11.5 million.

Orléans East-Cumberland Coun. Matt Luloff, a longstanding critic of the tax, asked staff for that information through a formal inquiry. He didn't like what he heard.

"I don't think that this program is truly doing what it was meant to do, which is to free up rental units — not to become a new income source for the City of Ottawa," said Luloff.

Luloff said he hasn't seen a clear measure of whether the tax is actually getting vacant homes back on the market. He also asked staff for more detailed information about how the revenue is being spent.

Staff responded that all of the money goes to fund affordable housing initiatives, minus about $2.3 million spent to administer the program, though they promised to get Luloff additional details.

Premier Doug Ford's government is scrapping Ontario's program for sampling wastewater to monitor the level of COVID-19 in the population.

The program measures how much of the virus that causes COVID-19 is circulating around the province and is run by a dozen universities and research sites, through funding from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.

In a statement, a provincial official said the move will "avoid duplication" with a federal program.

"The federal government conducts wastewater surveillance across Canada and is moving to expand its sampling to additional sites in Ontario," said Environment Ministry spokesperson Gary Wheeler in an email to CBC News.

"Ontario is working to support this expansion while winding down the provincial wastewater surveillance initiative," he said.

Public health officials are criticizing the move as short-sighted.

At a time when tick populations are increasing, the Ottawa area is becoming a hotspot for one of the lesser-known illnesses spread by black-legged ticks.

Anaplasmosis can cause fever, headache, muscle aches, chills and severe respiratory illness, among other symptoms. If not treated, it can be life-threatening, especially in people with compromised immune systems. It is less common than Lyme disease, also spread by black-legged ticks. Both are treated with antibiotics.

Those are two of the potentially severe illnesses spread by ticks that are now being closely monitored by public health officials in Ontario as disease-carrying ticks spread through the province. They also include babesiosis, a bacterial infection, and Powassan virus, a rare disease that causes encephalitis and severe illness.

The increased scrutiny comes as health officials are warning that Canadians are at increased risk of tick-borne diseases because of climate change. This week an Ottawa woman succumbed to complications from Powassan virus she has struggled with since she was infected by a tick near her home in Alta Vista in 2021.

Ottawa Public Health spokesperson Emily Morrison says people should take precautions to avoid being bitten by ticks. There are many health benefits from being active and outdoors during warm weather, said Morrison, who is program manager of environmental health at Ottawa Public Health, “however, if you will be in outdoor areas suitable for black-legged ticks, it is important to be aware of the risks of ticks and tick-related diseases, and how to protect oneself.” Tick habitats include wooded areas and areas with tall grasses.

A "frustrating" refusal by the province has not weakened the city's resolve to launch a taxis-as-ambulances pilot project, Ottawa's paramedic chief told reporters on Wednesday, explaining that an opportunity may be hiding in what the ministry didn't say.

The City of Ottawa proposed the pilot last autumn as a way to offset the hours paramedics are waiting at overcrowded emergency rooms. These delays lead to "code zero" events where no ambulance is available for calls.

The trial would have allowed paramedics to send patients with non-serious injuries to hospital in a taxi instead.

"That kind of creative solution is exactly what we need," said Mayor Mark Sutcliffe. "So, I was a little bit surprised by the fact that the province wasn't in agreement."

Ottawa's light rail trains will continue to skip St-Laurent station on Tuesday, as engineers complete repairs on delaminated ceiling tiles above the platform.

A memo to council sent Monday afternoon said trains will continue to run through the station, but will not stop.

The station has been closed to commuters since Friday morning after routine inspection found "a few of the suspended ceiling tiles above the platform were disrupted," according to Richard Holder, director of engineering services at OC Transpo.

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This is not the first time damage to the concrete has been found at the station. A freedom of information request obtained by CBC earlier this year showed inspectors found "severe" and in some cases, "very severe" damage to the concrete tiles in 2020.

CBC reported the city did not patch up some problem areas for years after the issues were observed in 2020.

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