Latest news with #MartyCarr
CTV News
2 days ago
- General
- CTV News
Car strikes front of Ottawa chiropractic clinic, causing damage
The front window of an Ottawa business after a car smashed through on Sunday, June 1, 2025. (Scott Rook/CTV News Ottawa) A car drove into an Ottawa strip mall and caused damage to an Ottawa chiropractic clinic Sunday afternoon, an Ottawa city councillor says. Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr posted a photo showing the front of a business with a blown out front window. 'My understanding is that a car drove into the window of Simply Chiropractic at 1569 Alta Vista Drive. I will provide more info when available,' Carr said. An Ottawa paramedics spokesperson says they received a call reporting the incident at 12:11 p.m. Two people were in the car at the time, paramedics say. One person from inside the car was assessed at the scene, but no one was taken to hospital. No one inside was treated or taken to hospital, paramedics say.
CBC
6 days ago
- General
- CBC
Gardeners call for more help, less bureaucracy in battle against invasive plants
On an overcast day in the Kilborn Allotment Gardens (KAG), Jeff Hoyle points out the garlic mustard's distinctive white flowers. He's a gardener and a former agricultural chemist with a keen eye. This plant is sprouting from a compost pile, but it can also be found across this large swath of public land, in gardeners' plots and below nearby treelines. Janet Mark Wallace, another gardener, points out dog-strangling vines a few metres away, growing under a handful of buckthorn trees. Buckthorn, dog-strangling vine and garlic mustard have one thing in common: They're all considered invasive species in Ontario because they harm the native ecosystem. "It's problematic in that it does kill off all of the plant life, or tends to choke out plant life that's indigenous," explained Hoyle. He's been gardening in the allotment for three years, and Wallace for even longer. Both have watched these species flourish. "There's much more buckthorn than when I moved in 20 years ago," Wallace said. "You can see that there's trees dying because they're surrounded by buckthorn." Invasives aren't just plaguing community gardens in the city — they're representative of a citywide problem, according to Coun. Marty Carr. "So much of our expansive green space all over Ottawa has been overrun," she said. To fight back against their spread, she wants the city to launch a more substantial effort to mobilize volunteers. "The city could make a lot of gains. We are really behind all the other municipalities," Carr said. 'Everywhere, absolutely everywhere' Under the Ontario Weed Control Act, the City of Ottawa is only responsible for taking "some action regarding the control of" only three invasive species on its property: wild parsnip, poison ivy and giant hogweed. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, many residents offered to help eradicate invasives themselves, Coun. Carr said. The City offered them legal agreements to do the work on public property. As demand grew, the city appointed a forestry stewardship co-ordinator to review the volunteers' plans and check that they had insurance, according to Carr. One of the agreements, for the land restoration committee of the Alta Vista Community Association, includes the green space around the KAG. But invasive species continue "slowly creeping in," said the chair of the committee, Michelle St-Germain, because the work is painstaking and labour-intensive. "I've seen it everywhere, absolutely everywhere," she said. City staff perform an assessment of the KAG each year at the start of the gardening season, according to a statement attributed to Dan Chenier, general manager of the city's recreation, cultural and facility services. Buckthorn was identified on the perimeter of the KAG in 2024, he wrote, but there are no plans to remove it because it does not pose a "significant issue" in garden plots. However, CBC did observe other invasive species inside garden plots during one visit. The city did not respond to a question about whether staff had identified other invasive species in the area. Groups like St-Germain's have taken up their shovels to make a difference anyway. She and the group's other members mostly focus on eliminating dog-strangling-vine, then plant and maintain native species in its place. But St-Germain said she's seen other invasives in and around the KAG, including buckthorn. "There is hope in getting something accomplished, but initially it could be very discouraging," she said. More volunteers could be contributing, Carr said, if the city wasn't holding them back. One of the existing groups sent her an email in mid-May, frustrated because they still didn't have their renewed agreement for the upcoming year. "We could have been mobilizing volunteers [in that time], removing invasive plants. It's the slow bureaucracy. We only have that one co-ordinator to do all that work," she said. "When there are people in the community who have significant amounts of expertise in identifying, removing invasive species, who can mobilize the volunteers, who can educate the public and who want to do this work, I think that we owe it to them to give them a program." 'Turning community members into experts' The model Carr suggested to city staff is used by Toronto Nature Stewards, a group run by the City of Toronto, which recruits and trains volunteers. The volunteers then work without direct supervision to monitor and remove invasives and plant native species in their place. Programs like that are a "powerful way of making change in the community," said Carleton University biology professor Joseph Bennett. He studies invasive species and the most effective ways to control them. "Having grown up near Ottawa, I have seen lots of invasive species increase over the years," he said. "Ideally, we are turning community members into experts and experts into people who are more in touch with the community." Hoyle said if the city co-ordinated a program, he thinks he and others like him would be willing to volunteer to train others in their communities. He noted it's especially important to him because some invasive species have native look-alikes. Bennett agreed that training would be an important component, to ensure people identify the right plants and also understand the best ways and times of year to remove them. "Just even learning about something for an hour can save hundreds and hundreds of hours in terms of the efficiency of removing invasive species," he said.
National Observer
30-04-2025
- Business
- National Observer
How energy-efficient, affordable homes could help Canadian renters and manufacturers alike
Smart building doesn't need to mean high-tech gadgets and 'smart' appliances — just ask Mark Bernhardt, who has been building high-performance energy-efficient homes across Canada for two decades. 'Actually, most of our buildings are kinda dumb,' he said. 'They're not smart buildings, they're simple, easy to operate.' Bernhardt said building energy-efficient homes is all about minimizing the house's surface area with a simple design, an envelope-first approach creating long-lasting structures with less energy, making other parts of the house like heating and cooling systems easier to operate and less energy-consuming — and that energy efficiency can and should 'definitely' extend to affordable housing. 'There's no good business case for building a crummy building,' he said. Bernhardt is not alone in his desire to see more affordable, energy-efficient homes in Canada. Local leaders across the country are also making the case to federal leaders. Mayors and councillors across Canada signed an April 11 open letter calling for 'bold and achievable' climate-related ideas for the next federal government to implement. One of those ideas is building at least two million affordable energy-efficient homes. According to open letter signee Ottawa councillor Marty Carr, builders and experts, bridging affordability with energy efficiency reaps more benefits than lowering greenhouse gas emissions and shrinking carbon footprints. Building energy-efficient affordable homes could also increase opportunities for Canadian-based manufacturing and address Canada's housing crisis with short- and long-term solutions. Canadian mayors and councillors are calling upon federal leaders to implement climate-related ideas, including 2 million affordable energy-efficient homes. Experts say they'd reap more benefits than reduced carbon footprints. 'The climate change crisis has been a topic of conversation for the last 10 to 15 years, and you take what's happening south of us, the trade war with the United States, and I think now is an extremely timely conversation we're having to see these three themes intersect,' said letter signee Marty Carr, an Ottawa city councillor and deputy mayor. 'One thing we've heard over and over again is that we need to build here in Canada and we need to develop our own manufacturing.' 'These projects would create hundreds of thousands of good local jobs in cities, rural and Indigenous communities, using Canadian steel, aluminum and lumber,' the open letter reads. 'This is not just a nice-to-have, it's a need-to-have' Sarah Sharma, a University of Ottawa political science professor who researches how politics and economics shape environmental policies, said 'it's welcome' for local leaders to be 'putting climate change back on the agenda.' She also cited current initiatives such as the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program as a 'good start.' The program is set to provide low- to median-income homeowners and tenants with no cost home retrofits to save on energy bills, but is not yet in place. 'We need to have policies like that moving forward,' she added. 'This is not just a nice-to-have, it's a need-to-have for Canadian households.' Bernhardt said a benefit about energy-efficient homes is that they don't need to cost more to build than regular housing, citing a 38-house case study from the BC Housing Research Centre that found no relationship between a home's efficiency and increased building costs. Bernhardt added that homes built with energy-efficiency in mind could reduce homeowners or tenants' monthly living expenses. 'You're gonna have an energy bill that's a fraction of what it was,' he said, adding that his own energy-efficient house rarely incurs a monthly utility bill. According to Statistics Canada, approximately 842,000 Canadians aged 15 or older reported living in subsidized housing during the 2021 population census. A further 245,900 households were on a waitlist for social and affordable housing in 2022. Keith Brooks, programs director with advocacy organization Environmental Defence, said building affordable energy-efficient homes within existing urban neighbourhoods would also reduce individual carbon footprints due to their convenient locations. 'When we add more housing to existing built up areas, that means people are going to have a lower carbon footprint, not just because they use less energy at home, but because their lifestyle can allow them to access transit more easily to walk to the grocery store and to do all kinds of things that don't require a car,' he said. But for Bernhardt and his company, the focus is on their next project: a 27-unit energy-efficient subsidized rental building as part of an urban development in the small town of Pictou, NS. He said the plan is to open its doors to renters in winter 2026. 'It's pretty hard for somebody to care about the environment if they can't afford a house,' Bernhardt said. 'But if we're just out there building really garbage-y buildings, that's not gonna get us anywhere.
CBC
06-04-2025
- CBC
Ottawa homicides concerning, but not necessarily on the rise, experts say
Social Sharing Ottawa officials are responding to three homicides committed in the past week, but say this is not necessarily indicative of a worrying trend. The three latest reports since March 30 brings to eight the number of homicides recorded in Ottawa this year. Charges have been laid in relation to six of them. "We share the community's concerns about the level of violence in our city," said a statement from the Ottawa Police Service released Friday. "Three lives have been senselessly lost, and families, friends, and loved ones are now grieving." The cases were unrelated, the statement said, and police do not believe there is a current risk to public safety. Despite this, Alta Vista Councillor and Ottawa Police Service Board Vice-Chair Marty Carr said she's heard from residents feeling afraid after the killings. "I understand why people are concerned," she said. "To say we shouldn't be worried, I can understand why people wouldn't accept that. "Three in a week is a lot. It's a lot for this community. It's a lot for the city that's considered to be one of the safest cities in Canada." While three homicides in one week is concerning, experts say it will take time before the numbers show a trend. Homicides in Ottawa reached a record high in 2024, with 25 people killed in 20 cases. Irvin Waller, a professor emeritus and criminologist with the University of Ottawa, says he's not more worried than usual just yet. "Is it consistent with the trend that we've been seeing in the last couple of years? We'll have to wait and see," he said. Waller said while it's not clear whether the number of homicides in the city will continue to increase, it is important that Ottawa rethinks its strategy for prevention. "[Police] react to crime and to homicides," he said. "The city council needs to invest smartly in the things that will reduce the risk of homicides taking place." The city dissolved its crime prevention taskforce, Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO), in 2023. Instead, it incorporated its mandate into the provincially-mandated Community Safety and Well-Being Plan (CSWB). Both Carr and OPS have said it will take more than enforcement to reduce crime. In its statement, OPS said it is "committed to working with community partners to address the root causes of violence and build long-term solutions." For Carr, those long-term solutions include using the CSWB to build more community supports — including mental health resources, addictions counselling, and youth programming. According to Carr, drug addiction and mental illness were believed to be factors in at least one of the recent homicides.
