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The report notes that residents in the capital should be making $129,320 per year -- as of February, 2024 -- to qualify for a mortgage to purchase the average priced home. The income needed to prequalify has risen by $480 from January to February.

The average price of a home in Ottawa was $621,600 in January and $628,500 in February – an increase of $6,900, reads the report.

The owners of planned Capital Region Resource Recovery Centre in Ottawa's east end have applied to the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks for permission to accept residential waste at its landfill at the intersection of Highway 417 and Boundary Road.

The landfill is a joint venture of Taggart Investments Inc. and Miller Waste Systems and is currently an approved greenfield waste management facility for recycling and disposal of residual commercial and industrial waste.

The city of Ottawa's only municipally run landfill is the Trail Road Waste Facility on Trail Road, which is expected to run out of space in the next 13 to 15 years.

The city of Ottawa ended 2023 with a multi-million dollar budget surplus, despite a series of severe weather events that hit the capital in the spring and summer.

A report for the finance and corporate services committee shows the city's tax-supported services ended 2023 with a $14.858 million budget surplus […]

Staff say COVID-19 added $64 million in cost pressures to the city, including at OC Transpo and Ottawa Public Health.  Costs included enhanced cleaning, personal protective equipment, required retrofits and equipment and revenue reductions primarily for transit.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/17609258

Sri Lankan family slain in Ottawa to be remembered at funeral service today

Non-Paywall Article

An Ottawa surgeon has been ordered to take a remedial course on ethics and boundaries after sharing with several patients his controversial opinions about the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

The complaints panel heard evidence Matyas cast doubt on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, promoted the use of ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, and suggested that surgical masks were ineffective at preventing the disease’s transmission.

Matyas appealed that decision to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, arguing the college had no authority to investigate and punish him for expressing scientific opinions that challenged the “official narrative” on COVID-19.

According to the review board decision in the case, the college received complaints about Matyas from two patients, including a Carleton University microbiology professor. The professor, an infectious disease specialist, said Matyas spread “unsolicited propaganda” about COVID-19 vaccines during an appointment in September 2021 and described them as a useless, money-making venture for pharmaceutical companies.

Staff at the City of Ottawa are working on a fast-tracked feasibility study for an incinerator, set to return to council by mid-2025.

"No matter what, we're going to be generating waste, and as Ottawa continues to grow we need to make sure we have a means to deal with that," said Hoover-Bienasz.

There is also no getting around emissions, she said. Landfills create their own greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane.

Building an incinerator similar to the facility in Clarington would cost $450 to $500 million, according to the city's estimates, with annual operating costs of an additional $25 million.

"Consumption of milk per capita has gone down every year over the last 30 years," says Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. "Actually, it's gone down by more than 20 per cent since 2015."

While bagged milk is often cited as a unique Canadianism, it's actually not sold west of Ontario. Those who prefer it, however, say it's more cost efficient and some even believe it tastes better.

On January 8, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) approved plans for a nuclear waste disposal facility at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) site at Chalk River. The near-surface facility located about 160 kilometres northwest of Ottawa would feature a mound holding up to a million cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste about one kilometre from the Ottawa River.

The site was chosen for its proximity to existing waste sites at Chalk River Laboratories, where the federal government once operated nuclear reactors and over eight decades of nuclear waste accumulated. A former senior manager said the waste proposed for this facility is “intermediate level” and requires underground storage in a facility planned to be as deep underground as the CN Tower is tall.

The site is bordered by wetlands that drain into the Ottawa River, the water source for millions downstream. Citizens are also concerned that the underlying bedrock is porous, with the groundwater table very close to the surface.

A report prepared for the City of Ottawa's Transit Commission says that OC Transpo's electric buses are performing as well as the existing diesel fleet, allaying concerns about the future transition to a fully electric fleet.

The buses are meeting their mileage targets and are performing as well as or better than the 60-foot diesel buses and the double decker buses.

Ottawa City Council approved a nearly $1-billion plan in 2021 to replace the full OC Transpo fleet with zero-emission buses by 2036. The city says each electric bus saves 25,000 litres of fuel per year.

Thousands of people in Ottawa have seen their credit score dip or outright plummet because of old tickets and fines. Some go back as far as 2003.

"In January, the City contracted a new private collections agencies (sic) through a competitive process. Financial Debt Recovery (FDR) is the final collection agency in the process and only collects debts that have already been at previous City-contracted collection agencies and remain unpaid," said Joseph Muhuni, deputy city treasurer revenue, in a statement to CTV News Ottawa.

"FDR attempted to collect the debt and to date, has subsequently reported 103,000 unpaid Provincial Offences Act fines and 3,000 unpaid water bills to the credit bureau."

An Ottawa man found himself intercepting an investment scam Friday afternoon.

Tom St. Denis was on his lunch break at the Kanata Indian Supermarket when he happened to pass by an elderly woman being guided over the phone to use the store’s bitcoin ATM.

He got in his car to leave, but a bad feeling drove him back inside. When he asked the woman why she was using the machine, his bad feeling was justified…

Ottawa firefighters say five people crawled to safety through the roof hatch of an OC Transpo bus after a two-vehicle collision that caused the bus to flip and land in a ditch, according to Ottawa Fire Services.

While the passengers made their way to safety, firefighters crawled into the bus through the roof hatch to check on the driver before cutting through the windshield to rescue them about 10 minutes later.

Five passengers and the driver were assessed at the scene and refused to be taken to hospital, according to paramedics.