Tag: ottawa

Thank You, University of British Columbia

March 14

The current Ukrainian war reminded me of escaping from Hungary in 1956 and the unlikely admission to UBC in the following year. I am immensely grateful for the understanding and opportunity the University of British Columbia afforded me.

When I came home from school on the last day of October 1956, my mother ordered me and my brother to walk to Vienna. She did not explain why we should leave until months later: she had heard that when The Hungarian Revolution broke out in Budapest, on October 23, soldiers guarding the “iron curtain” (the border between Hungary and Austria) stood aside while the refugees crossed the border.

My brother, 18, and I, 16 years old, left with a sandwich and a name on a piece of paper that my mother told us to call when arriving in Vienna. The name on the slip of paper turned out to be a Jesuit priest, a college mate of my uncle’s at the University of Vienna. The priest picked us up from the refugee camp and settled us in Vienna. Just before the border closed, when the Russian tanks returned to occupy Hungary, my parents and younger brother also left Hungary and joined us. They thought they may never see us again.

We ended up in Vancouver in January 1957. I was 17 years old and hated the thought of going back to high school; I felt suddenly mature beyond my age because of the uprooting from Hungary to Canada via Vienna and Manchester, England. They were going to put me back a year because of my poor English language skills. That was abhorrent to me. I thought of attending university instead. But I was only in grade 10 when we escaped from Hungary; how could I apply to university?

Unbeknownst to my parents, I looked up when registration took place at UBC in the Fall and took a bus there. The admissions officer’s first question was to ask for my high school diploma, which, of course, I did not have. Actually; I had no papers to even show that I had been in high school. In my tortuous English (which I had learned in Manchester and courses at the YMCA in Vancouver) I said that I had not finished high school, but I was confident that I could do the science courses. Like maths, physics, and chemistry. But she said that I needed to have the graduation papers. I responded I would take a chance and if I could not pass the courses, I would just fail. Well, the officer went to the back office to discuss my unique request and after a half-hour; she came back and said that it was my choice and my money if I failed, but they would let me take the chance.

Then, she told me the fee for the semester was $250. Feeling foolish and by now totally embarrassed, I said that I had no money. But I improvised and said that the government, I heard, was paying for the tuition of Hungarian refugees. That, of course, caused another long discussion in the back room. I waited nervously with bated breath. After a substantial time, the officer came back and said that UBC would accept me with no payment. I sighed and my heartbeat came down a few notches. Although I was uptight with my heart pounding, the entire negotiation occurred in a friendly and relaxed manner.

And I did UBC proud; I excelled in all the sciences. My weakest performance was in the mandatory English language courses. I was fortunate to have Professor Woodcock for my English course, who gave me a “P” or pass mark; he was aware of my background and valued the effort I put into learning the language.

So thank you UBC. You were gracious and understanding. And you can be proud, I finished UBC with an architecture degree. I followed it up with a couple of masters’ degrees in the States. And made my career in Canada since 1973.

Without your understanding and taking a chance on a 17-year-old refugee in 1957, I could not have made a successful career, grown a happy family in, and given back in services to, Canada. Thank you!

What is Community Engagement in Ottawa

February 24

What is Community Engagement in Ottawa?

We called it “citizen participation” in the late sixties in Norfolk, Virginia, where I worked for the City of Norfolk as a city planner. Urban renewal was in vogue and I had to liaise with community groups in the inner cities where urban renewal took place. The program replaced dilapidated homes with public housing.

To help to identify what the residents of the inner city wanted in their neighborhood – in their homes and open space surrounding them–we played interactive games. We had paper cutout benches, models for housing types and asked for their preferences. We tried to develop a plan from their input. That was called “citizen participation”. To get federal program funding, we had to show and describe how we worked collaboratively with the inner-city people (mostly African Americans) in Norfolk, Virginia.

I have often wondered if and how the City of Ottawa would invite the public to comment on upcoming developments in our neighborhood. My curiosity increased with my discovery that over 3000 apartments units in highrise buildings have been proposed in our neighborhood in the last few years. Construction has already started on some of them.

 Where will all these people come from to fill these new units? And who will pay for the infrastructure required by the increased demand for roads and utilities? Who is the target market for all these units: families, singles, retirees? What effects would all these proposals bring to our traffic? To our water and wastewater systems, and electrical grid? Would our taxes go up to pay for the new infrastructure required or do developers pay for the increased demand for these services?

So it pleasantly surprised me when I saw an ad in my local community newsletter in Ottawa. The City of Ottawa, it said, was accepting applications for “community engagement” to review neighborhoods’ development proposals. What better way to understand plans for our neighborhood than to take part with the city in reviewing these proposals So, I jumped on the opportunity and applied.

The response to my application came a few days later, advising me: I have to belong to the local community association; sign a “non-disclosure” agreement, and that I’ll need some training provided by the City. Instead of providing training, I expected the City to find out what skills I would bring to these reviews. I sat back, awaiting info on my training.

When cleaning up my old emails yesterday, I came across my exchange with the City on the application I submitted ten weeks ago. Wow! I followed up and copied my local City Councillor on my response. That did the trick: I received an email from the city the day after explaining that their “priorities have changed” and that is why I have not heard from them. But someone will follow up this Spring. Does that mean that they have one training program in the Spring? Or that they do not need volunteers anymore?

More importantly, does the City want “community engagement” or just check boxes to reflect “political correctness”? I suspect the latter: the email I received from the City to my application ends with three expressions; “Thank you” “Mercy” and “Migwetch”! The first two words are standard in a bilingual city with English and French. But the last word got my interest. It is in a native language meaning “thank you”. OK. We are politically correct, the City occupies Algonquin lands and I suspect the native language word is an acknowledgment of that.

But only five percent of the Ottawa population is of native origin. The same percentage of the population is Chinese, Arabic, and Asian. Will we see “thank you” notes in City of Ottawa letters in Chinese and Arabic and Hindi as well to acknowledge other major ethnic groups? Just a question.

However, my more serious concern is the commitment of the City to “public engagement” – it has now been three months since I applied in response to a request by the City for “public engagement”. It looks like it will be another three months before there is a “training” session. The sluggishness and response to my inquiry lead me to believe that the City is more interested in checking boxes than receiving input from citizens on development proposals. Just my opinion.

Ottawa Under Siege?

February 18

The headline said “Ottawa under siege” and then “Ottawa under occupation”. I live in Ottawa and frankly, I did not understand what they were talking about. In our neighborhood, there was nothing different from yesterday or the week before. Or the month before. I did not see one single truck pulling through our streets. I went shopping, went for my walks, and continued with my usual activities, including going to the gym, etc. so where is this siege?

Ottawa’s population is one million people; the metro area, including the Quebec side (the City of Gatineau), is one and a half million people. One part of the downtown area is the Parliamentary Precinct that is one kilometer long along Wellington Street and is a narrow band of land housing the Center, East and West blocks plus the Supreme Court building and the Archives (Parliament meets in the Center Block). The northern boundary of the Parliamentary District is the Ottawa River. The Precinct is a narrow sliver of land.

The protesters jammed up Wellington Street and then expanded to occupy the next few streets in the downtown area. Most of the buildings in this area are office buildings but include some condo high-rises. Further out there are more low rise residential apartments. The protesters occupied a four-block area going south from Wellington Street. I do not know how many people live in the occupied zone, but I would hazard to say that there are no more than a thousand.

The diesel fumes, the honking, the dancing, and the parties plus the fires where the protesters drank and conducted themselves in a loud manner surely irritated the nearby residents. And there was taunting as well for people who wore masks. But there was no vandalism to speak of and what I heard was that it was a party type of atmosphere downtown. OK. So the occupation was downtown and covered the kilometer-long Wellington Street and a few parallel streets south of Wellington. So would that be half a square kilometer area: it is one kilometer long and half a kilometer wide? The area of the City of Ottawa is 2800 square kilometers, not including the Quebec side). So we are talking about much less than one percent of the area of Ottawa where the occupation is.

But, the occupied area is an important part of Ottawa, both economically and symbolically.  Many people, including government employees, work remotely, away from the downtown area. Their absence hurt downtown shops economically.

The Parliamentary Precinct is an important tourist destination as well, even in the winter. No question that the protesters create a nuisance for people living and working in the area. But to claim that the City is under siege is an overstatement. It is an exaggeration beyond reason. Outside of the small affected area, the city is carrying on normally as if there were nothing dramatic occurring.

I live nine kilometers from Parliament (by road) and if it were not for the newspapers and television, I would not have known that there was is an “occupation” downtown. For people with no interest in politics and no desire to go downtown, the protest is nothing more than an interesting episode on television. Please, do not exaggerate and sow panic! Just my opinion.

My Take on the “Freedom Truck Convoy”

February 1, 2022

Everybody was talking about the truck convoy arriving in Ottawa last weekend. Friends from New Jersey and Oregon called us asking to what extent the trucks blocked our street. We live in the inner suburbs and had no truck passing by our house. Now the downtown area was another scene, but we did not go there. We saw some of the long-haulers going by on the Queensway, our major highway into Ottawa. Most of what we saw was on TV.

The trigger for the convoy was truckers’ dissatisfaction with rules introduced recently by the federal government mandating cross-border truck drivers to have covid vaccination. Now 90% of the cross-border drivers are vaccinated. So one would have assumed that the unvaccinated drivers were the ones in the convoy, but vaccinated drivers also came showing their solidarity. The original purpose of the convoy morphed into a much larger movement to get rid of vaccine mandates, including masking. People were clamoring for “freedom” from the lockdowns. People were fed up with two years of not living the “normal” way.

To have thousands of people congregating downtown Ottawa surrounded by thousands of trucks is no small matter. But the Prime Minister refused to meet with them and called them “fringe”, not representing Canadians. And the PM then moved out of his official residence for safety reasons, implying escalation of tensions, potentially resulting in trouble. In addition, he tweeted he would quarantine because one of his children tested positive with Covid. Very convenient. Could not meet the protesters. There were no politicians of his party and government officials to at least offer to meet with the protesters and hear them out. Shameful. I believe the government represents all the people of Canada, “fringe” or not. And the huge demonstration such as we experienced in Ottawa last weekend called for a serious government response to try to defuse the bottled-up frustration that two years of covid wrought. It was a major mistake to write off the protesters and not have a plan to meet with them, no matter how wacky their demands may have been (the provincial government controls the lockdowns).

But the more significant mistake occurred when the government, which controls the international border, announced late last year that all cross-border truck drivers had to be vaccinated. Before they brought in the rule, the truckers had had an exemption from vaccination because of the economic importance of the truck traffic between and the US., and at any rate, 90% of the truck drivers have been vaccinated. So why not continue with the then-existing rule? If the government wanted to ensure the virus was not brought into Canada by the truckers, then it could have asked for a test at the border, in place of vaccination. Many companies followed the test or vaccination approach. What was the thinking of government policymakers to make it mandatory for the drivers to be vaccinated? It was an absurd policy.

I am fully vaccinated and I do not agree with the arguments anti-vaxxers use against the jab. But I respect people’s opinions and their right to demonstrate peacefully against the jab and to be heard. Science provides the best current knowledge on a virus such as Covid, which of course can change over time, with additional information. Today, the mRNA vaccine is the best vaccine against Covid, supported by statistical evidence (obtained by testing). I remember when DDT was the ”go-to” pesticide until it was not. Today the Pfizer vaccine is one of the “go-to” vaccines for Covid and I have it.

Most of the columnists have been critical of the “freedom convoy”. They called them selfish, their goals unrealistic and their behavior in downtown Ottawa, with their blaring horns, bothersome. I have no trouble with their protest so long as it is peaceful. I have trouble with the government’s policy on cross-border driving and their inept handling of the convoy in totally ignoring them, especially their unwillingness to meet with them. Just my opinion.

The tremendous push in Ottawa for bicycling. Is it reasonable?

January 26, 2022

A week ago, the National Capital Commission in Ottawa announced the sale of a part of their lands for the construction of 601 residential rental units. Half of these will be “affordable”, or below-market rent units. What caught my attention was the proposal will provide 600 indoor parking spots for bicycles and 200 underground parking spots for cars. I read it twice: there will be 600 indoor parking spots for bicycles! And obviously, the NCC agreed with the proposal since they picked it from among three competing finalists.

So what is going on here? Clearly, there is a tremendous push for cycling, a push for encouraging people to use the public transit system, and a sideways nod to those people who still want to drive.

Now, Ottawa has a cold climate and most people get on their bikes for four to six months of the year. I would say that three to four months are desirable for biking when one does not need gloves to ride. During the winter months, the snow cover is treacherous for biking, coupled with cars that often lose control on ice-covered roads.

I am not against biking in Ottawa, and I enjoy riding during the summer months. But riding is most popular in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden…. where the climate is much more suitable for riding, where the cities are dense and distances are small, where the cost of gas for cars is much higher than here in Canada and therefore cycling makes sense.

The Lonely Planet developed a map of how the climate of different countries would match the provinces and states in North America. As shown below, the climate of Germany and Scandinavia approximates the West coast of the continent where the ocean provides a warming influence. Most of Canada’s climate approximates that of Russia. And Russia, like Canada, is not among the top cycling countries in the world. I would think climate plays a major role; both countries are cold most of the year for comfortable riding. Not that we should not cycle more, especially in urban areas like Ottawa, but our climate limits the seasons for cycling here. Bicycling is a good mode of transportation sometimes, but cannot be relied on all the time in Ottawa.

The other aspect of this proposal is that almost half of the rental units, the affordable units, target women and children, veterans, Algonquins, and indigenous people, and recent immigrants. These people would not be high-income people, therefore needing subsidized housing. But I read in the cycling literature that education and income positively relate to bicycling! I am not sure the proponents of this scheme considered who will be the cyclists in this development. The target group for subsidized housing is not likely in the high education and income groups.

The assumption is that if you have no car (there are only 200 parking spots for 601 units); you walk or bicycle or take public transit. Unfortunately, there is not a plethora of needed services in the vicinity; for example, there is no grocery store nearby. So do you go shopping on your bike with a couple of saddlebags? I do not think so: I just looked out the window and the thermostat registers minus 23 celsius.

The developers may take comfort in that Ottawa, with its hundreds of kilometers of cycling paths, is the number one cycling city in Canada, according to one survey. But providing 600 bicycle parking spots for 601 rental units may be overkill. Unrealistic or overly optimistic. Just my opinion.