The start of construction season

Good morning!

Welcome to the last day of May! Spring is quickly melting into summer. Which means we’re also into construction season (more on that below). As much as construction can be a pain, when you look at the state of so much of the city, it’s certainly necessary.

At least when it’s done right. (Ahem, looking at you, LRT.)

So we’ve got news about that, the not-great news about staffing at Ontario hospitals this summer, and plenty more.

Let’s get to it.

— Robert Hiltz, managing editor

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Weather Report

Wednesday: 32 🌡️ 15 | ☀️

Thursday: 33 🌡️ 18 | ☀️

Friday: 31 🌡️ 17 | 🌦

THIS TOWN

Construction season kicks off across town

What happened: The city officially kicked off construction season for another year, as major roadwork projects get going across town. The season starts without any major delays early, when schedules can be most thrown off, CTV reported.

Major projects will touch neighbourhoods throughout town, including the Strandherd widening, completion of the Montreal Road upgrades, and the reconstruction of Bank south of Billings Bridge.

• “With over $800 million in investments in hundreds of projects ongoing across the city, Ottawa will effectively cater to the diverse needs of our communities. These investments in our infrastructure come at a crucial time, supporting Ottawa’s rapid growth,” Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said in a statement.

The numbers: The city broke out how some of the money that’s being spent this year.

• $136 million for road rehabilitation, including resurfacing, guide rails, rural road upgrades, and preservation

• $34.4 million for bridges

• $61 million for buildings and parks

• $7.7 million to renew sidewalks and pathways

• $245.9 million for integrated road-water-sewer reconstruction projects

• $15.7 million for culverts and stormwater structures

Downtown closures: Some of the biggest traffic effects will be around the reconstruction of Albert, Queen, Slater, Bay, and Bronson at the western end of downtown. Full and partial closures of the streets will start on a rotating basis as crews replace and upgrade sewer and water infrastructure, add bike lanes, and resurface the roads, CTV reported.

• There will be detours for cars and OC Transpo buses throughout the summer.

Keep up to date: For a better idea of the timing of construction in your area, the City of Ottawa has an interactive map with all the upcoming construction projects.

OTTAWA BY THE NUMBERS

🚨 Triple: A driver from Augusta Township was charged with impaired driving when police found they were this much over the legal limit. [CTV]

🏥 $2 million: The size of a donation to The Royal from BMO, the biggest corporate donation in the hospital’s history. [CTV]

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OUTSIDE DOWNTOWN

🏠 The Shepherds of Good Hope opened a new supportive housing building in Carlington that will give people struggling with homelessness a safe apartment to live. It’s the organization's sixth residence, and can house 57 people. [CBC]

🚒 It took firefighters more than 30 minutes to get a dangerous house fire in Metcalfe under control Monday night. The blaze severely damaged the home. [CTV]

🕳️ Once again, Carling Avenue has been voted the city’s worst road in a CAA survey. According to the survey, it’s the fourth worst road in the province. Heron, Bank, Bronson, and Hunt Club also made the list. [CBC]

🚜 The Ontario government appears to be rolling back plans to expand housing into rural Ontario farmland. In 25 years, as much as one-quarter of farmland in the province could disappear, the policy to open farms to housing could accelerate that further. [CBC]

👶 The Sandy Hill Child Care Centre got a two-week licence extension as it scrambles to finish renovations for a new location after the original centre was gutted by fire. [CTV]

HEALTHCARE

Hospitals brace for another summer of closures and staff shortages

What happened: Hospitals will once again face department closures this summer, particularly in rural areas, The Canadian Press reported. It’s unclear whether shortages will be as bad as last year, when many departments and emergency rooms had to close overnight, or for days and weeks at a time, because of limited staffing.

• The Ontario Nurses Association said the province is short about 24,000 nurses.

Recent closures: The Arnprior Regional Hospital ER had to close its emergency room Monday night because of staff shortages. It’s the second time this month the hospital had to close the department, CTV reported. This week the Children’s Outpatient Clinic Urgent Care Centre will limit the number of walk-ins, and may close entirely some days because of staff shortages.

• A rural hospital in Minden, Ont. decided to permanently close its ER on June 1 because it can’t staff it properly.

The agency problem: The shortage of nurses has been blamed on the provincial government’s capping of wages. Instead, hospitals have had to rely on nurses from staffing agencies which can charge high prices to bring in outside help. The average across the province has doubled from one to two percent of total staffing, with spending rising much faster.

• “The rates that some of the agencies are charging have ballooned completely.… They're absolutely taking advantage of the situation and they're taking advantage of the pandemic and the very demanding and punishing conditions that all healthcare workers face,” Ontario Hospital Association CEO Anthony Dale told CP.

Last year, the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital had to pay $2.8 million to hire outside nurses to boost staffing. That hospital had to close its ER for much of July because of a COVID outbreak in its nursing ranks.

Not enough progress: New programs and investments have come online in the last year in Ontario, but it’s not enough to undo years of damage, which was only exacerbated by the pandemic. Dale said to CP the programs have been “constructive” but “It's just some of the underlying pressures are so significant that it's proving to still be an ongoing challenge.”

Collapsing system: “Canadian health care, both primary and emergency, has been buckling for decades, and I’ve had a front-row seat to its slow collapse,” Perth Hospital’s Dr. Alan Drummond wrote last year in Maclean’s.

• “Everything that happens here is also happening in the roughly 850 emergency departments nationwide: overcrowding, staff shortages, violence, abuse, burnout, patients warehoused in the ER because they can’t get a bed. What happens in Perth happens everywhere, and what’s happening in Perth has never been as bad as it is today.”

HOUSE OF THE WEEK

There’s something about hardwood trim inside a house that just seems so…right. This home within sight of the Rideau Canal, just across from Lansdowne has plenty of that inside. Three bedrooms, three updated bathrooms, a renovated kitchen and more. Plus, it’s got this gorgeous exterior.

See how much this one will set you back.

THE AGENDA

⚖️ A guard told her superiors that Shannon Sargent was too ill to be accepted at the Innes Road jail, but was ignored. Sargent died the next day. The 34-year-old woman had open-heart surgery just two weeks before and was pale and out of breath, complained of pain, and was bleeding. Her death is under investigation at a coroner’s inquest. [Ottawa Citizen]

👮‍♂️ Const. Yourik Brisebois, the cop found guilty of uttering death threats and brandishing a knife in a domestic dispute, is back on active duty. He was brought back to work on desk duty more than a year before he was found guilty, and has since been put back on the beat. [CBC]

📱 Shopify is facing a possible class-action lawsuit for allegedly reneging on severance deals during the most recent round of layoffs. Several local employees said they signed for one deal, and were then told they would receive substantially less in their departure packages — sometimes less than half the initial deal. [CTV]

🏢 With hybrid work on the rise, the federal government wants to sell off about half of its office buildings across the country. No decisions on which buildings will be sold have been made yet, as they’re still early in the process. [CTV]

🏎️ Police on both sides of the Ottawa River are cracking down on dangerous street racing. Stunt driving charges more than quadrupled in Ottawa from 150 in 2018 to 691 in 2021. [CBC]

🚨 The father of an infant accidentally locked his child and his keys in his car over the weekend. He called 911, and had an officer break the car window because a tow truck would have taken too long to arrive in the heat. [CTV]

⚽️ Sports 4, the sporting goods store downtown on Bank, has decided to move to the Glebe. After 41 years, there isn’t enough foot traffic to stay open. [CTV]

💃 The popular weekly Salsa at City Hall event was abruptly cancelled by city staff, who said they no longer felt the location was viable for the event. [CBC]

⛪️ The TUPOC group of convoy supporters appealed an eviction order from St. Brigid’s Church from last year, hoping to be reinstated to the building. In addition, the group is asking for more than $80,000 in damages. [Ottawa Citizen]

COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

• A Boston terrier surrendered to the Humane Society last month is “living his best life” with his new family. [Reddit]

• Join EnviroCentre for our upcoming webinar Keeping Cool in the Capital: Exploring the Benefits of Heat Pumps on June 6th, at 7pm!*

• The Ottawa Art Gallery has announced its list of critics’ choice artists for the upcoming Give to Get Art auction. [Apt613]

• Have you seen Ruby? The senior dog went missing in Hintonburg has recently been seen near Somerset and Preston. [Twitter]

• It’s not every day you get to see a brown bat sleeping in Centretown. [Reddit]

• Want to have your announcement featured? Contact our partnership team for more info.

*Sponsored content

INSIDER CITY HALL

This story is available for Insider City Hall members. Consider becoming a member today and support independent journalism that investigates and explores the issues happening at city hall and across Ottawa

What happened: As part of its attempts to tackle the ever-expanding housing crisis, the city is prepping an application to get its share of a new $4-billion housing program from the federal government. The Housing Accelerator Fund is run by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), and is a big pot of money to get cities to approve more building permits.

In a new memo, city staff have put forward a draft plan for what programs they’ll implement, and how they’ll maximize the amount of federal funding the city qualifies for. One of the major focuses for the city will be using the federal funding to go toward affordable housing.

The program: It’s a reasonably narrow program, one that isn’t handing out money based on population, but rather on the number of new building permits a city expects could be issued between Sept. 1 2023 and Sept. 2026 with the addition of new programs. The program will pay between $20,000 and $54,000 per unit of new approved construction.

Read the rest of the article.

SPORTS

🏒 The long-running sale of the Senators is getting close to the end, maybe. Hopefully. The four final bids came in between $850 million and $1 billion, but no winner has been declared. [Ottawa Sun]

🚀 Literal rocket scientist Dustin Crum is in competition for the starting quarterback job with the Redblacks. [Ottawa Sun]

🏈 The Redblacks are searching for a replacement in their ranks for defensive back Josh Valentine Turner, after a torn muscle will keep the all-star out for months. [Ottawa Sun]

OTTAWA GAMES

Congrats to Adam, Rohit, Chantal, and Diane, who knew that 3,178 people participated in the full marathon on Race Weekend.

Do you know where today’s Ottawa Guesser is? (Bonus points if you know who it commemorates!) The first five people to respond get their names mentioned in the newsletter.

LATEST COVID STATS

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