37 minute read
Close to home far from ordinary
InspirinG Movement
IN THE OTTAWA VALLEY: Ro Nwosu
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In many ways, Ro seems larger than life, and anyone who has met her won’t soon forget her. As a yoga instructor and lover of life living and working in the Ottawa Valley, for Ro, community, family, and a strong sense of self are key to it all.
Ro’s journey from a small maritime community of Newfoundland to the rugged whitewater region of the Ottawa Valley was pretty straightforward, and with a familiar tune many will recognize: she met someone and picked up and moved with them, landing in the Ottawa Valley.
At the time, Ro was looking for a simpler life to put down roots and offer the same community focus she had come to appreciate with her own family. Ro explained that Nigerians in general are very community based, and while she may have been rebellious of this as a teen, today she welcomes the strong sense of family and community that she was raised with.
“Nigerian culture is very ‘people coming together and learning from each other’ as much as possible, working out
problems in the village, celebrating together and more,” she explained. “When you have a community, whether it’s where you live or what you do, it’s a way to have an extension of your family with you, no matter where you are.” other things that are now a pivotal part of her life were not even on the horizon. It was only after she delivered her now eight-year-old son, that she hit a hurdle that started her on that path, but it all started in the Ottawa Valley.
“There were people I talked to in Renfrew who were so nice,” Ro remembered the period after first moving to the area, and the challenges it brought with it. “But I didn’t know anyone when I moved there, and I had postpartum depression hit me pretty hard.”
Lacking a support system, and living almost two hours away from her mother, and in a strange and new community where she had already encountered some racism, Ro struggled with depression. Ironically, it was that same postpartum depression that helped her to find her focus and discover what would soon become one
– Ro Nwosu
“I was always up late feeding my son and I found a yoga video that was playing on TV,” Ro explained. “It was very clear, interesting, and the things the person was saying made sense to me – they were talking about the breath, awareness, progress. When it was on the TV my son stopped crying and my mind wasn’t running in different directions either.”
One day while Ro was struggling, someone from the local health unit came by to see her and Lincoln, and to see how Ro was managing post-delivery. The woman asked to hold the baby and told Ro to go take a shower, to do whatever she wanted for an hour.
Ro showered and made herself something to eat, which may seem like small steps, but they had a tremendous impact for her. Shortly afterwards, she began practicing yoga at home, pushing herself to connect with her body and centre her mind.
Previously, Ro had been cautious about entering the community, concerned that she wouldn’t be welcomed, but she realized she needed to make a change.
“I started to do more, I started to connect more, I visited the library, I went to the early childhood centre, looked for work. I found my mood just improved and I thought to myself that “If I’m going to Teaching fell in line with Ro’s calling of connecting with and helping others, but she also saw it as a way for Black people to see her actively involved in the community and maybe decide to move to the area, knowing there was a safe community space there for them.
For Ro, teaching is more than just helping people to learn about yoga. It’s bringing people together and helping them to explore how they move, how they connect with the world around them physically, as well as mentally.
“My calling is to help people, to help them see the way they move is so unique to who they are,” Ro said. “I want people to come to class, learn, and take it home and pass it onto others, any little bit of kindness I can give I hope gets passed on to someone else. Yoga has given me a tool to use when I notice my mental health isn’t doing well, and helped me see community from a different perspective.” g
be part of this community I’m going to let people know I’m here, and I’m going to let them know who I am so they have no reason to judge me because of my skin but my character good or bad.”
This is when Ro’s Nigerian background really stood her in good stead. She explained that she would meet people at the Early Years Centre, or while dropping off resumes, and have a conversation with them, to find out how they connected in the community.
“It’s a big family thing to understand people’s history and see how they’re connected, how they dig their community,” Ro explained. “I kind of let people know where I’m at and to be honest I think that helped me out in the end.”
Meanwhile, Ro was continuing to practice yoga at every opportunity, and finally decided to take her yoga teacher training, and serve as an example for other members of the community.
“It just sparked for me that I wanted to take the training and do more…it helped me mentally, emotionally and physically I felt like I had never seen a Black yoga teacher before,” Ro said. “In the Ottawa area I couldn’t find any at the time, in Renfrew there were none. I feel like community wise, I would like to see different types of people being reflected in the community in all
ourconnections.ca
close to home far from ordinary
by Dan Donovan
MTL
Montreal’s Leonard Cohen has long been one of my favourite singers and this son of Montreal was known for his unparalleled love of his hometown. In describing the city that remains Canada’s greatest, he once said, “Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else.”
Montreal is a gem. It is historic, refined, beautiful, friendly, classy, vibrant, cosmopolitan, and cultured. Montrealer’s are surely the chiquest people in Canada and the streets of Montreal and Old Montreal have some of the best offerings in Canada when it comes to fashion, food, shopping, museums, sport, social activities, and recreational activities.
For years I have always jumped at any opportunity to visit magnificent Montreal. Home of the Habs and the annual Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada, Montreal is going through another period of transformation. A massive cross-town rapid transit project connecting either end of the island to the airport and downtown is scheduled to be completed in 2022 and Highway 20, from Ville Saint-Pierre all the way to the Ville Marie Expressway, has been extensively upgraded in recent years and is now being enjoyed by locals and visitors alike. It has never been easier to get around this great metropolis
whether it is on the always impressive Montreal subway (le Metro), by bicycle the hundreds of kilometres of bike paths throughout the city, or on foot.
As a winter city Montreal has become one of the world leaders in underground city walkabouts with their famous RÉSO network that is under the heart of the city, and links metro stations to shopping plazas for over 33 kms. Built in the 1960s it now connects to over 1,000 retailers and restaurants, including links to the Place des Arts and Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and brings together 60 residential and commercial complexes. metro station running on an east-west axis to the Cours Mont-Royal. A second underground pathway runs between Gare Centrale, Place Bonaventure, and Place Ville-Marie and a third route takes you from Place des Arts to Complexe Desjardins, to Complexe Guy-Favreau, to Palais des Congrès, and Old Montreal. North-south axis. The easternmost entry is through Complexe Desjardins. An added bonus is that all visitors have free WiFi at the food courts in the system.
Obviously accommodation is important, and it is best to start by booking a stay in one of the many exceptional hotels to be found in the heart of the city. You can’t go wrong if you check into the Marriott Château Champlain in the heart of Montreal on De La Gauchetière Street, between de la Cathédrale and Peel streets. It is right next to Canada Place and is within comfortable walking distance of old Montreal and just blocks from Rue Ste Catherine. It remains one of Montréal’s most iconic hotels and is easily noticeable because of its iconic arch-shaped windows designed by Québec architects Jean-Paul Pothier and Roger D’Astous (who studied under celebrated American architect Frank Lloyd Wright) who wanted to complement the Romanesque arches of Windsor Station–the former Canadian Pacific train station across the street.
The hotel opened to host the world as part of Expo67. Back then, at 38 stories it was the tallest hotel in Canada! Over the past two years the hotel has undergone a significant retrofit that has completely transformed its interior, setting the stage for it to remain one of Montreal’s destination hotels for another half century.
We parked our car and walked or biked for the four days we were in Montreal. This is one of the best ways to really get a feel for the city in all its glory.
First off was an afternoon visit to the McCord Museum (across from the
LEFT: The view of Montreal and Mont Royal from the Marriott Château Champlain. (PHOTO:
OLM STAFF)
The Marriott Château Champlain
has an elegant and warm vibe when you enter the lobby. The combination of wood and stone serves to retain the historic grandeur of the hotel’s past while pivoting towards the future with a new level of functionality. Comfortable and accessible open spaces, bright lighting with beautiful fixtures and exceptional contemporary furnishings scream comfort.
There are 614 rooms and suites with exceptional views of Montréal. The 36th floor event space overlooks the St. Lawrence River and casts a clear view of Montréal’s skyline and Mount Royal. Renovations in the hotel also include a gym, a redesign of the lower-level grand ballroom, theater and the addition of twentyfour meeting spaces that can accommodate business meetings and small gatherings or larger events of up to one thousand people. Rooms are stylish and comfortable with views from the iconic crescent-shaped windows that overlook the downtown and feature lots of natural light. They come with all the expected amenities including WiFi.
main gates of McGill University) to see the exhibition Indigenous Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, Resilience that bears witness to the still unrecognized knowledge of Indigenous peoples in Quebec and Canada, and the deep wounds they carry, their resilience. This exhibit features one hundred carefully selected objects form the Museum’s Indigenous Cultures collection: more than eighty powerful inspiring stories from members of the 11 Indigenous nations of Quebec. The second exhibit we visited Chapleau, Profession: Cartoonist highlights the drawings and cartoons of one of Canada’s most storied political cartoonist and satirists. It doesn’t disappoint. To celebrate its 100th anniversary, the museum is offering 100 days of free entry. Visit for free until January 19, 2022.
We spent one entire day in Montreal just cycling around the city. There are over 700 kms of bike paths and Montreal has been one of the most bike-friendly cities in North America by the Copenhagen Design Index. You can rent a bike, bring your own or try out or try out Montreal’s BIXI system which is linked to the city’s public transit system and is meant for short commutes.
Since we were going for the day, we rented bicycles, helmets, and locks from Ça Roule bike shop in Old Montréal. The shop provides excellent bikes and service (highly recommend). It also offers twice-daily bike tours during the summer that are very popular, so it’s best to book ahead.
Over the course of the day, we biked along the south shore of the St. Laurence then headed back into town along the Lachine Canal. We stopped at the Atwater Market to refuel and then zig-zagged through the downtown core until we hit Lafontaine Park. Then, we headed South through the hip St Denis area, and Chinatown before making our way back to Old Montreal. Six- or seven-hours of cycling really gives you a sense of a city and is invigorating. We returned in time to take the Montreal Ferris Wheel in the port of Old Montreal. It is cheesy, wonderful, and worth doing. With a panorama sixty metres high, four seasons a year, it is the largest observation wheel in Canada–equivalent to a 20-storey building. We were lucky because we had a cloudless day and with the 360-degree panorama you could see Montreal far into the distance on all sides-including the Saint Lawrence to the south and Mont Royal to the north. If you are adventurous, pair your ferris wheel experience with the zip line experience next door!
We enjoyed a fabulous dinner in Old Montreal at Tavern Gaspar (89 Rue de la Commune E), located across the street from the harbour in a 19th century warehouse. They serve comfort food and pub-style cooking along with
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The entrance to the exhibition Indigenous Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, Resilience that runs until January 9, 2022 at the McCord Museum. Even on a cloudy day, Rue St-Paul in Old Montreal looks charming. Once the home to George Stephen, the president of Bank of Montreal and the Canadian Pacific Railway, Le Mont Stephen is now a boutique luxury hotel. A seemless extension leads from the mansion to the modern 90-room hotel built behind the home—a national historic site. Whimsical sculputure of a frantic student on Sherbrooke St W across from McGill University’s Roddick Gates. Cycling through the beautiful Lafontaine Park on the east side of downtown.
great wines local beers and spirits. We lucky to go on a Wednesday when they had an exceptional live jazz/pop band playing. The ambiance, the food, the music Ahh, Montreal.
A guided walking tour is a great way to get to know a city. We spent an afternoon with guide Francoise Baby discovering Montreal’s Golden Square Mile which was established in the late 18th century as a peaceful homestead near the Old Port. This section of Sherbrooke Street remains one of city’s most storied neighbourhoods. Many of Canada’s most iconic business families of Scottish descent, including the McGill’s, Eaton’s, Ogilvie’s, Redpath’s, Smith’s, Stephen’s, built Victorian mansions in this one-mile area between the 1850s and early 20th century. They gave back to their new home by funding universities, hospitals and more. The numerous architectural styles found here defined the creativity, wealth, and lifestyles of the Montrealer’s who built much of Canada in the 19th and 20th century. Some say that 80 per cent of Canada’s wealth was concentrated in this one area in the early part of the last century.
You will pass by buildings that feature Neo-Classical, Neo-Gothic, Romanesque, and Art Nouveau designs. Also referred to as Museum Quarter: with Golden Square Mile includes the McCord Museum, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts and Redpath Museum. Today, this area is a nerve centre in Montreal–home to McGill University and the excitement of downtown–the main campus of Concordia and the many high-end fashion and luxury boutiques including Holt Renfrew Ogilvy, Tiffany & Co., Swarovski and Escada shop among others.
After taking the tour we were sure to return the next day to visit Canada’s oldest art museum, the worldfamous Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The front steps of the original museum building on the north side of Sherbrooke Street is adorned by a beautiful glass sculpture by American artist Dale Chihuly. The museum has a massive collection that includes 45,000 paintings, sculptures, and photographs and over 80 exhibitions that span five pavillions. The museum remains one of Canada’s leading publishers of art books in French and English.
The installation we visited was Ragnar Kjartansson’s Death is Elsewhere, a haunting yet meditative immersive video graphic by the Icelandic artist. Seven screens project a video of twin
The hotel staff are professional polite, knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful.
Off the lobby is one of Montreal’s best new restaurants, LLYOD, a nod to architect Frank Llyod Right’s influence on the design of the hotel. The ambiance is “comfortable chic,” and the service is attentive yet relaxed. Executive Chef, Kevin Mougin has devised a unique culinary menu that is a feast for the eyes and your appetite. We tried the ‘Rose Prick’ and ‘Secret Garden’ cocktails and are anxious to return and try the others. The food is delightful–the shrimp satay appetizer and the beef tenderloin were scrumptious and duck main is heavenly. The dessert menu, of course, is to die for. Our server was hospitable and attentive without “hovering”. This made for a relaxing and enjoyable evening.
With a designated elevator in the main lobby that services the RÉSO, the Marriott Château Champlain is accessible to Montreal’s underground network. Rain, shine, snow or sleet, hotel guest have direct access to the tunnel system.
www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/ yulcc-montreal-marriott-chateauchamplain/
sisters singing with Bjork-like voices, each accompanied by a musicians as they circle around you. The piece is both haunting and meditative. It forces the viewer to reflect on life.
When you visit make sure to take in the exhibit The World of Yousuf Karsh. One of the greatest portraitists of the 20th century, Karsh, who called Ottawa home for a large part of his career, took portraits of Albert Einstein, Fidel Castro, Audrey Hepburn, Winston Churchill, Mackenzie King, Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, PE Trudeau, and the Kennedy’s among others. The late Karsh’s wife recently donated the works to the museum.
Step outside the museum and look south down the street and you’ll see the Leonard Cohen Crescent Street Mural – a tribute to the Montréal icon. The larger-than-life mural depicts Leonard Cohen gazing tenderly down upon Crescent Street sporting his signature fedora with his hand over his heart and, in the background, his highly symbolic Unified Heart icon. street portrait artist El Mac, “Tower of Songs” took two muralists, 13 assistant artists, 240 cans of paint and thousands of hours of work to replicate a photograph taken by Cohen’s daughter, Lorca. This immense 10,000 square-foot mural rising 21 stories above the city can easily be admired from the Mount Royal Lookout as well as from the glass court of the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. In the evening, the mural lights up with a soft lighting, but no less spectacular, just like the great Leonard g
PHOTO: © MU - VILLE-MARIE - ELMAC GENE PENDON (2017) - PHOTO © EVA BLUE - TOURISME MONTRÉAL
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Dale Chihuly’s glass-blown sculpture, The Sun, adorns the front steps of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion. When you visit the museum make sure to take in contemporary Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s Death is Elsewhere. Montreal’s famous son, Leonard Cohen watches over his beloved city.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR YOUR VISIT TO MONTREAL
Time-Out Market at the Centre Eaton de Montréal A selection of MTL’s best restaurants, including Toqué!, Le Red Tiger, Foxy, Moleskine,Le Taj, P’Tit Diplomate, and Casa Kaizen, all offering curated plates under one roof. Modelled after Time Out Portugal. Bar George: Le Mount Stephen 1440 Drummond Street A modern English restaurant in the national historic site. Les Enfants Terribles Restaurant: On the 44th floor of Place Ville Marie The restaurant offers a classic upscale brasserie menu and stunning views. Boris Bistro: 465 McGill Street Amidst the concrete skyscrapers and cobblestone streets of Montréal’s historic district rests a delightful bistro with one of the most enchanting terraces.
Lowertown be damned we’re reducing harm!
WARNING: This article contains language and scenes that some readers may find disturbing and offensive.
My cover story in the OLM summer issue was written in support of a fundraiser for the Shepherds of Good Hope that featured Kathleen Edwards. It began with an origin story set in the basement of St. Bridget’s Church on St. Patrick Street, in which, back in the 1970s, cots were first provided for homeless men. Or rather, persons experiencing homelessness, as I was dutifully advised to correct, because language is important and can apparently house people with a mere turn of a phrase. Anyway, what began as a shelter in more innocent times has become a civic calamity. Here’s an excerpt from that article (the Edwards event was a great success, btw):
Ambulances and police arrive at the scene day and night bringing people to the emergency transitional shelter program where staff do triage and intake. David Gourlay is Director of Philanthropy. “We work really hard to dispel stigma. People see police cars and they think, ‘there’s a crime, there’s violence,’ but that’s not what’s happening,” David asserts. Triage and intake occur 24/7 in order to save lives, and for that, the Shepherds are to be commended. There may or may not also be crime and violence at the corner of Murray and King Edward, but there sure as hell is in the surrounding neighbourhoods.
Before I go any further, I hereby, and for the record, emphatically state that we at OLM steadfastly support safe injection programs and harm reduction, as does the neighbourhood at large. Bear this in mind as you read on, thank you. This is not about persons experiencing homelessness, who have been served by shelters in this part of town for more than a century. This is about haphazard mismanagement on multiple levels that has resulted in a very dangerous situation.
It’s been three years since the Lowertown Community Association commissioned a study into the soaring crime rate in the neighbourhood. Graduate students in Criminology at the University of Ottawa spent the summer asking Lowertown residents about their perceptions of the situation. 53 per cent ranked crime and public disorder as the top concerns, with drug use seen as the principal cause. At the time, and remember that was well before Covid lockdowns, crime causing bodily harm was three times higher in Lowertown than neighbouring communities like Centretown, Sandy Hill, and Vanier. Crimes against property were twice as high. The ByWard Market specifically saw two and a half times more crime than the rest of Lowertown, the study found.
Concerns have skyrocketed with the announcement that the Shepherds of Good Hope plans to construct a mixed-use eight-storey residence that would include a drop-in centre, kitchen and “48 supportive housing units for chronically homeless” Indigenous women. There is no solution in the plan for individuals who avoid the Shepherds’ supervised injection site (SIS) but who do congregate in the neighbourhood seeking dealers and drugs. Therein lies the crux of the problem.
Shepherds President and CEO Deirdre Freiheit was on the defensive last spring in an Ottawa Citizen editorial, publicly pre-empting any opposition campaigns from neighbourhood residences and
businesses. “If we don’t build this new facility to help people, the worries of our neighbours in the ByWard Market will only grow,” Freiheit wrote. She offered no evidence to support her claim. The neighbours beg to differ.
Four years ago, Ottawa Inner City Health (OICH) established the SIS at the Shepherds to replace an illegal pop-up in a Lowertown park run by volunteers. At the time, Rideau-Vanier councillor Mathieu Fleury endorsed the SIS and faced plenty of vitriol for demanding that the pop-up be phased out, going so far as to threaten police action. The belief was that the SIS could meet the demand safely and effectively. OICH director Wendy Muckle voiced concern about police harassment of clients, but no concern about drug dealers or related crime in the surrounding neighbourhoods once the floodgates opened.
The Citizen Coalition for Compassionate and Safe Communities is a determined collective of residents and business
owners in Lowertown. As they see it, “the main issue is that they [OICH] do not see themselves as part of the broader community but feel that the services they provide to their clients [of whom they regularly refer to as ‘the community’] are urgent and override any externalities that befall the Lowertown/ByWard Market residents and businesses.” As a result, Lowertown has become “ground zero for crime in Ottawa and has been described by health professionals as a ‘psych ward without walls – with unlimited drugs,’” making any expansion completely unacceptable.
One sentence jumps out from the Freiheit Citizen dismissive: “Shepherds of Good Hope and organizations like ours don’t create homelessness [obviously]. We are trying to help reduce it, by meeting people where they are without judgment and moving them into permanent homes.” To turn your phrase, Mme CEO, Lowertown does not create crime. And it too is trying to reduce it. It has never been a haven for drug use, any more than the Glebe, Sandy Hill, Vanier, Hintonburg, or any other old neighbourhood in the city. Lowertown has been home to families for its entire history. The Shepherds’ first building
was a school, as was the Routhier Community Centre around the corner, appropriated during the height of COVID, to allow for more physical distancing for men seeking shelter, and still off limits to the community at large in case it’s called into service again.
Furthermore, you are not, to a large extent, “meeting them where they are,” you are attracting them. People who suffer with addiction issues are not strolling over to the Shepherds from St. Andrew’s Street, or Guigues, or Boteler where families reside. Your safe injection site is a magnet, and will become evermore magnetic with every storey you build. Many of those tragic lost souls come, in ever-increasing numbers, from across the city and from as far away as North Bay and Sudbury and Iqaluit. I know this because I ask them. Toronto is experiencing an identical situation with desperate individuals flooding in from surrounding cities where services Dealers signal their presence by placing a bicycle in a certain location, among other variable clues, knowing their victims are hanging around looking for supplies. Users tell those of us who don’t merely “walk to and from work” through the neighbourhood, as do you Mme
CEO, that this is how it works. I repeat: you have created a magnet for drug use and dealers right smack in the middle of Ottawa’s oldest neighbourhood and prime tourist district, without anticipating the fallout. That’s pretty lousy risk analysis. Try to imagine a parallel universe in which the Glebe, or Westboro, or Rockcliffe, or Kanata, or Jim Watson’s Old Ottawa South experienced a sudden spike in crime due to the presence of one of Ontario’s largest injection sites, plus 3 others only blocks away, plus dealers in plain view.
When confronted with the issue of crime in Lowertown or the eightstorey expansion at the Shepherds, the agency’s response is always the same cut-and-paste sermon. Well, here now is Lowertown’s response: eight stories in a single block. Identities are being protected.
A young woman was accosted in her apartment by a robber who ransacked the place and barricaded her and himself in her bedroom. The assailant was very high and very violent. She was forced to exit onto a very narrow ledge outside the window to scream for help. Neighbours
Break-in at a shop on Murray Street.
Theft at bike store on Murray Street.
captured video of her in a terrified state as she waited for Ottawa Fire Services to rescue her. Police arrived promptly and apprehended the man when he left the apartment and broke through the front window of an adjacent business. The apartment was left in a shambles, as was the woman’s sense of wellbeing in her own home.
A couple of doors away, a new coffee take-out recently opened for business. Its proprietor is also a Lowertown resident. He doesn’t dare take his young daughter to the park, which now serves as a toilet and needle disposal, as do ATMs, garages, sidewalks, backyards, alleys, lobbies, the Andrew Fleck Child Care Centre, and pretty much anywhere other than the toilets and safe injection site at the Shepherds.
After months of hard work, the owner hired and trained his first server. Her first Monday on the job alone was going to be his first day off with his family in what seemed like forever. At 8h15 his phone rings. A shirtless man had entered the shop and exposed his junk. When she finally had him removed by the police, she promptly quit, locked up, and never returned. The owner was back on duty by noon, and has never hired another employee.
The flasher returned the next day. The owner retrieved his dog from the back of the store, restrained him with a leash, and commanded him to bark to scare the individual from the premises. Not long after, Shepherds outreach workers chastised the owner for traumatizing their client. Here’s the kicker: The serial flasher is known throughout the neighbourhood by his first name. Days later, he treated tourists and families with small children who were enjoying brunch on a Market patio to a XXX show of masturbation. It’s not known if Shepherds outreach workers scolded the kids for being prudish.
A specialty store reports a litany of criminal incidents. Windows in the rear courtyard are regularly broken as individuals try to enter the business and the apartments upstairs, typically between 22h00 and 4h00. Drug use is common in the concealed space, which is constantly littered with needles. The users don’t want anything to do with shelters, they say. Many don’t, according to the data. The owner has invested thousands in unexpected costs to upgrade the premises with security gates, additional video cameras, and security glass. The building and lot next door have been vacant for years
and resemble the aftermath of a bomb blast. Non-emergency police calls are made regularly to deter trespassing, drug use, and defecation on the site, all in plain view of stores, restaurants, and apartments.
Next door, customers of a café tell the owners, whose work day begins at 6h00, that they feel that the market is dying and that they will only come during daylight hours with their families because it at least feels a little safer. That is until they are verbally abused and intimidated by individuals in a violent, deranged state, who enter yelling obscenities in front of children while grabbing the tip jar. It’s a familyowned and operated business that was closed for months during lockdowns.
Further down the block, a specialty food retailer is robbed regularly by a man who is arrested on every police call, only to be back at it two days later. The owner reports that, “this has been a huge frustration for us, the victims of these crimes. The situation has become very disruptive to my business and I often worry about the safety of my staff and customers. We have encountered countless other situations which are threatening our ability to operate in a safe and productive manner. This includes, among other issues, aggressive panhandling, intoxication, rampant drug sales and use, feces, urine and vomit dumped at the front entrance of my business, broken windows, garbage all over sidewalks and streets, and general mayhem.” This, from a business owner who employs 18 hardworking people and generously donates to shelter programs in the city.
Across the street, a restaurant employs many fine servers who were out of work during months of lockdown. Upon reopening, a man entered while customers were waiting for takeout. He announced he was robbing the place and demanded cash, which is not
kept on site. He then reached over the counter and tried to grab beer jugs. An employee grabbed them back and the man made his way to the patio to demand money from customers. The building has a back gate that is secured with a chain and industrial lock. It was smashed and removed one night. The following day, the owner encountered an inebriated man smashing the replacement lock with a large rock. The back alley has become a toilet.
One day the hydro was out. The manager went to the electrical room to investigate. Multiple people were passed out on the floor surrounded by dozens of needles. They had set up utility shelves, lamps, and used discarded foam as mattresses. They had urinated on the electrical transformers and caused $16,000 in damages. The 911 operator asked the owner to physically examine the individuals to determine if they were still alive. He angrily refused. A newly installed double-bolted door has since been dented by forceful kicks. An
upstairs apartment neighbour reports that individuals scale the outer wall to use balconies as injection sites.
Another restaurant sums up the frustration of the entire block. “To be honest, we are completely fed up with the Market altogether. We had our speakers stolen right off the walls last week from our back patio. The gate was locked so they had to jump the fence. We also had our chalkboard smashed Friday night as well. We’ve been broken into four times. TV stolen. Cash stolen. Liquor stolen. There are no consequences at all, I’m sorry to say that I don’t think it will ever change. We want out of the Market as soon as we can. We’ve had enough."
You had enough? Here are three more quickies to drive the point home. One
resident reports sexual acts regularly take place in the lobby of her apartment, located immediately to the south of the safe injection site. A woman couldn’t enter her office building because a naked man was passed out in the hallway. He had defecated on the floor and was found with a bag full of stolen mail. An elderly woman was punched in the face and her purse stolen by a wellknown assailant who was followed to the Shepherds by an outraged bystander while speaking with 911. Everybody knows the puncher. He does it all the time.
Opioids are a group of drugs that include morphine, heroin, oxycontin, codeine, and methadone. They are used for severe pain management, and as a psychoactive substance that produces euphoria. Men are four times more likely to suffer from addictions, die of an overdose, be chronically homeless, or commit suicide. Both the police and the courts recognize that addiction is a traumatic health issue, and not a criminal one. Incarceration for major crimes includes treatment for opioid withdrawal, which is a life-threatening condition.
Here’s the 911. Individuals who arrive at the Shepherds are typically not arrested for possession because that discourages them from using the SIS. Illicit dealing is another matter and is regularly curtailed by police, but there’s an endless supply line entangled in organized crime. Users who acquire safe supply from the SIS are commonly
known to sell that supply for cash to buy harder – and unsafe – drugs from dealers, despite the risk of being banned from SIS if caught. Police constantly make arrests for crimes reported by businesses and residents, like those described above, but the court may go with conditional release in 24 hours for minor offences. Individuals without a fixed address are recorded as residing at a shelter. The Shepherds cannot incarcerate people upon their return. A breech of court-ordered conditions results in more severe consequences, but the mental health or desperation of the individual may inhibit judgement. And around and around it goes.
There are success stories. I once interviewed a young man whose chances in life were severely damaged from childhood by a family history of violence and alcohol abuse. He turned to drugs and crime, finally landing before a judge who offered him a choice: court-ordered addiction treatment and rehabilitation, or jail. It was a turning point in his life, and one that he described as the best thing that ever happened to him. Today, he’s sober, working, and living in a nice apartment.
The bottom line for residents is that they are sick and tired of feeling that the threats they face are just not as important as the SIS program and that they need to just suck it up. The Citizen Coalition has a few questions regarding the expansion of services in what is already the greatest concentration of such services anywhere in town, all within
walking distance of each other. “There is talk of health care being provided, but no details. Will it provide after care (onsite) for the users of the SIS who visit up to 11 times a day? Who will provide the healthcare? Will it be an extension of the emergency hospital operated out of their present facility? We are so short on details [from OICH], that the only reasonable response comes from our current experience: NO MORE!”
Hyperbole and broken record repetitiveness are the cause advocate’s weapons of choice; hence, Canada’s interminable ‘Crisis crisis’. There’s the “concussion crisis”, the “ADHD crisis”, and the “White supremacy in veganism crisis” (I couldn’t have made that one up). The Ottawa Humane Society (OHS) recently declared a “rabbit crisis” (as in, ‘they breed like’). They should donate them to a soup kitchen and kill two crises with one stove. And, since a superlative just isn’t what it used to be, OHS recently released this cry for help: “A Crisis in a Crisis in a Crisis”, forewarns that “As of today, there are six dogs, 29 cats and six small animals in
Discarded needles and drug parphernalia litter the alleys in the ByWard Market and Lowertown, and addicts defecate on the streets.
Ottawa City Council’s everso oft cited “housing crisis and emergency ”declaration puts our sweet little burb in the same dire category as post-explosion Beirut, a city of similar size where there are 300,000 “persons experiencing homelessness.” But, by rational comparison, Ottawa has nowhere near a crisis or emergency. Not even remotely close. Anybody who argues that it does needs to travel from first-world privilege to Lebanon to acquire a little perspective.
There hasn’t been an official “crime crisis” declared in Lowertown because cause advocates are mighty adept at suppressing dialogue. That’s the thinking behind the Freiheit PR editorial in the Citizen, and the scolding outreach workers, politicians and activists who tell us that we all need to be part of the solution. No, we don’t. This is not our field of expertise; it’s yours.
Rideau-Vanier councillor Mathieu Fleury is pushing the City to adopt three urgent measures: • 24/7 on-the-ground City presence: coordinating outreach services and mental health responses, integrating urgent housing response to encampments, responding to drug dealing and drug use in the community, organizing needle hunters, and integrating the Ottawa
Police Neighbourhood Resource
Team. • Doubling of funding for the Safe
Supply program. A program that went from a pilot of 25 users to now 355 has shown its success, but the need is much greater. The focus should be to ensure that everyone has a safe supply.
Safe supply removes many of the drug use impacts in our community. A clean prescribed drug means no need to commit petty crime to pay for illicit drugs, no need to access from dealers, and reduces the sometimesdeadly effects of these illicit drugs. • Investments in permanent housing, including flooding the City, and every community with affordable housing investments under the Housing First and Supportive Housing models. This includes rethinking the old model, close temporary shelters by attrition, and open doors to homes. Fleury has called on concerned parties to bring pressure to bear on all stakeholders, including his fellow councillors. Well, here’s pressure for you. Lowertown has just declared a crisis!
The Citizen Coalition for Compassionate and Safe Communities has brought the
matter of the Shepherds’ eight-storey expansion up with the Ontario Lands Tribunal, blaming “the City of Ottawa for outsourcing their responsibility for the mental health and social welfare of citizens to organizations that are incapable and unwilling to see problems beyond their property lines. We are repeatedly told that whatever happens off their properties is not their problem. The CEOs of these orgs are highly paid [see sunshine list] to deflect complaints away from the Mayor and the City and scold and condescend to neighbours who worry about the safety of their homes and their children. We know of no publicly available independent audit of the value for money related to the $9 million+ tax dollars that are spent on these services.”
FYI There are three other shelters who receive city funds and who have staff doing redundant work among them at executive-level pay grades. If one CEO can oversee Shopify, its 7000+ employees, US$7.76 billion (2020) in assets, and over a million international clients, then one CEO can lead The Shepherds, The Salvation Army, The Ottawa Mission, and Cornerstone combined. A single agency and executive administration for all four shelters would free up millions of dollars for front-line services and programs. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a merger. There’ll be some excuse.
Mme CEO, Ottawa City Council, Ottawa Inner City Health, you are responsible for a very, very serious situation, and the collateral damage to the community at large must finally be factored into your strategy. Your work in harm reduction is noble and courageous, but it’s very difficult to feel compassionate at knife point, so if you’re in the business of harm reduction, then please reduce it. Do not continue to transfer it with myopic, half-assed solutions. Reduce the harm to the elderly woman who was punched in the face. Reduce the harm to the woman who had to be rescued from a ledge.
Reduce the harm to the woman who hides a baseball bat in her boutique. People just want to open their shops, employ their staff, welcome tourists, and enjoy their neighbourhood.
Perhaps money talks. Tour groups are cancelling visits. Buses that used to drop off groups of 50 for overnight stays are now skipping Ottawa. Tripadvisor reviews are getting worse. Lonely Planet recommends avoiding the ByWard Market. It’s no surprise. During Canada 150, some American tourists asked me if there were any parts of town that they should avoid. At the time, I smugly thought, in that oh-so-Canadian way, that this was an American view of cities and that we had somehow done better. Apparently, I was wrong g
Woman clings to the ledge after a violent break-in on Murray Street.
Michael Bussière was born in Lowertown. His grandparents owned the Windsor Smoke Shop on the corner of Rideau and Dalhousie Streets in the 1930s and 40s. His dad was a police officer, and his parish priest was Fr. Jack Heffernan, who started the Shepherds of Good Hope as a humble shelter and soup kitchen in the basement of St. Bridget’s Church with the support of neighbours.
