O•S•C•A•R© Fida's Pizza Changes Hands - Old Ottawa South

The 

O•S•C•A•R© 

The Community Voice of Old Ottawa South 

Year 38 , No. 5 The Ottawa South Community Association Review 

MAY 2010 

By William Burr 

When Tony Maalouli arrived 

in Ottawa in 1971 at the 

age of 17, he had never 

tasted pizza in his life. He was staying 

with a friend who introduced him to 

the food. Upon seeing the slices in 

the box, he took three and piled them 

one on top of the other before sinking 

his teeth in. His friend exclaimed that 

that’s not how you do it. “But I was 

By Susan Dunton 

Presentation by the OSCA Program 

Committee to the OSCA Board April 

20, 2010 

The program Committee of 

OSCA presented a proposal 

for consideration to outfit an 

exciting new Cardio Fitness/Weight 

Room to be operational in January 

2011. 

The proposed CARDIO FITNESS/ 

WEIGHT ROOM would include new 

high-end exercise machines, including 

Treadmills, Elliptical, Exercise bikes, 

Free Weights etc., a comfortable 

environment for women, men, 

seniors and youth with affordable 

memberships. In the current design a 

1250 square foot room on the lower 

level has already been developed 

with the necessary ventilation and 

electrical service. 

Providing opportunities for 

members of the community to be 

Fida’s Pizza Changes Hands 

Fida’s Pizaa at the corner of Seneca and Sunnyside Photo by William Burr 

hungry,” says Tony. 

He adored the pizza. “What’s 

in it?” He asked his friend. 

“Mushrooms,” she answered. 

Tony came to Ottawa from 

Lebanon on a tourist visa. He describes 

his home country as troubled by war 

and says that it was difficult to make 

a living there. 

Two days after his arrival, he 

found a job as a dishwasher at the 

Grenada Steakhouse on Elgin Street. 

physically active is an important part 

of OSCA’s mandate. Old Ottawa 

South Demographics suggest that 

approximately 60% of the population 

is aged 30-65 which is a healthy 

market segment to target. A very 

large proportion has a post secondary 

education suggesting they value a 

healthy lifestyle. Our population 

is aging and we recognize that 

there is a very possible epidemic 

of heart disease around the corner. 

The Canadian and Fitness Lifestyle 

Research Institutes Reports that 52 % 

of Canadians are still inactive.48% are 

moderately active. Offering additional 

fitness opportunities in the heart of 

the community make for a healthier 

community. Even in slower economic 

times, people need to feel good. 

Adult Fitness is the fastest growing 

segment of OSCA programming. In 

Winter 2010 alone there were 262 

adults registered in fitness classes. A 

Cardio/Fitness Room would enhance 

already existing programs. The main 

goals are to: 

Six months into his stay in Canada, 

immigration authorities caught up 

with him. The RCMP brought him to 

the airport -- “in handcuffs!” brags 

Tony -- and put him on a plane back 

to Lebanon. Luckily, Tony’s boss at 

the Grenada Steakhouse, Lee Scaff, 

also of Lebanese origin, sponsored 

him to come back for permanent work 

in Canada. And so six months later, 

after working up enough money to 

buy another plane ticket, he was back 

in Canada for good. 

Though Lee Scaff has since died, 

Tony goes to put flowers on his grave 

once a year. “Otherwise, I would not 

be in Canada!” he says. 

Shortly after Tony’s return, 

Lee Scaff transferred him to Lee’s 

brother Rabiah’s restaurant: Robbie’s 

Spaghetti House on Walkley 

Road. Tony continued to work as a 

dishwasher at Robbie’s, but at the 

same time he was studying the cooks 

as they made the pizza. He says that 

is where he really learned how to do 

it. 

In July 1976, he and his friend 

Fida, who came from the same small 

town in Lebanon, Mashkara, rented 

out the property at the south east 

corner of the intersection of Seneca 

and Sunnyside and opened a pizza 

place. 

Proposed Firehall Cardio Fitness/ Weight Room 

Your Opinion Counts! 

• Provide a new service to 

residents of OOS close to home and 

within walking distance; 

• Supplement the active lifestyle 

of many OOS residents; 

• Allow for specialized 

programming including seniors’ 

fitness and strength training as a 

preventative measure for osteoporosis; 

• Facilitate unique training for 

Youth; 

• Offer a community focused 

cardio fitness/weight program; 

• Provide opportunities for 

cross programming – i.e., provide 

babysitting/kids programs while 

parents exercise; 

• Attract new clients to the 

community centre. These people 

would likely enroll in other programs 

at the centre; and 

• Offer affordable fees in your 

neighbourhood with opportunities 

that are substantially cheaper than the 

alternative choices currently offered. 

Along with specific times 

available to members, many programs 

One year into the life of the new 

business, things weren’t going well 

between Tony and Fida. “If you have 

a good friend,” says Tony, “never 

become business partners with him.” 

In 1977, Tony bought out Fida’s share 

in the business and continued alone. 

He’s been doing that now for 33 years. 

He never changed the name, though 

the business moved across the street 

to its present location in 1986. 

Now, he is ready for a change. 

Tony has sold his business to Milano’s 

Pizza. On May 27th, Fida’s will 

close, and shortly thereafter, Milano’s 

will open. 

Tony has worked hard at his 

business over the years. He says he 

has a hard time delegating, and likes 

to do things himself. Right up to 

the end, he has always continued to 

make the dough and the sauce and to 

assemble and cook the pizza himself. 

After over 30 years in the kitchen, 

Tony jokingly describes it as feeling 

“like you’ve been in Alcatraz.” 

“Now, I am eligible for parole.” 

He can “smell the holiday.” His first 

step will be to go back to Mashkara 

with his son, Christopher. It will 

be his first time back to Lebanon in 

almost 40 years. He’s brought all of 

Cont’d on page 7 

would be offered, such as Personal 

Training, Partner Personal Training, 

Fitness program with childcare, 

Strength Training, Working out with 

Arthritis, Fat Burning Zone vs.. 

Cardio Training Zone, Specialized 

programs for men, women, teens and 

seniors 

A substantial capital investment 

is required for launching this room 

including approximately $100,000 

for machines and $25,000 for rubber 

flooring, and mirrors. Special Air 

circulation equipment and in-floor 

electrical outlets for some machines 

are already in place. 

A qualified coordinator/supervisor 

would be present at peak times during 

the day and evening. The coordinator 

would also be responsible for the 

operation of the Cardio Fitness/ 

Weight Room ensuring it is organized, 

clean and overseeing the safety and 

maintenance of the equipment. 

Cont’d on page 9

Page 2 The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR MAY 2010

MAY 2010 

OSCAR 

The 

The OTTAWA SOUTH COMMUNITY 

ASSOCIATION REVIEW 

260 Sunnyside Ave, Ottawa Ontario, K1S 0R7 

www.OldOttawaSouth.ca/oscar 

Please Note: The OSCAR Has No Fax 

E-mail: oscar@oldottawasouth.ca 

Editor: Mary Anne Thompson 

oscar@oldottawasouth.ca 

Distribution Manager: Larry Ostler 

Business Manager: Susanne Ledbetter 

ledbetter@sympatico.ca 

Advertising Manager: Gayle Weitzman 

oscarads@oldottawasouth.ca 

OSCAR is printed by Winchester Print 

NEXT DEADLINE: FRIDAY, MAY 14 

The OSCAR is a community association paper paid for entirely by advertising. 

It is published for the Ottawa South Community Association 

Inc. (OSCA). Distribution is free to all Old Ottawa South homes and 

businesses and selected locations in Old Ottawa South, the Glebe and 

Billings Bridge. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not 

necessarily of The OSCAR or OSCA. The editor retains the right to edit 

and include articles submitted for publication. 

The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR 

613-327-9080 

613-730-1058 

(not classy ads) 

FOR DISTRIBUTION INQUIRIES, 

CALL 613-327-9080 

or email: larryostler@gmail.com The OSCAR thanks 

the following people who brought us to your door this 

month: 

ZONE A1: Kathy Krywicki (Coordinator), Mary Jo Lynch, Brian Eames 

and Kim Barclay, Wendy Robbins, Jim and Carrol Robb, Terri-Lee Lefebvre, 

Becky Sasaki, Kevin and Stephanie Williams. 

ZONE B1: Ross Imrie (Coordinator), Family Gref- Innes, Gabriela 

Gref-Innes and Fiona Fagan, the Montgomery family, Laurie Morrison, 

Susanne Ledbetter. 

ZONE B2: Craig Piche (Coordinator), Pat Eakins, Laine Mow, Hayley 

Atkinson, Leslie Roster, Kathy Krywicki. 

ZONE C1: Laura Johnson (Coordinator), the Williams family, Josh 

Rahaman, Lynne Myers, Jeff Pouw, Curt LaBond, Brendan McCoy, the 

Woroniuk-Ryan family. 

ZONE C2: Craig Piche (Coordinator), Alan McCullough, Arthur Taylor, 

Curt LaBond, Charles and Phillip Kijek, Sam & Avery Piche, Kit Jenkin, 

Michel and Christina Bridgeman. 

ZONE D1: Bert Hopkins (Coordinator), Emily Keys, the Lascelles family, 

Gail Stewart, Mary Jane Jones, Oliver Waddington, Sullivan-Greene family, 

the Sprott family. 

ZONE D2: Janet Drysdale (Coordinator), The Adriaanse Family, Gaia 

Chernushenko, The Rand family, Aidan and Willem Ray, the Stewart family. 

ZONE E1:Brian Tansey(Coordinator) , Wendy Johnston, the Rae Brown- 

Clarke Family (esp. Katie), Anna Cuylits, Sutherland family (esp. Edwina 

and John), Sanger-O’Neil family. 

ZONE E2: Chris Berry (Coordinator), Mary-Ann Kent, Glen Elder and 

Lorraine Stewart, the Hunter family, Brodkin-Haas family, Allan Paul, 

Christina Bradley, Caroline Calvert, Larry Ostler. 

ZONE F1: Carol and Ferg O’Connor (Coordinator), Jenny O’Brien, the 

Stern family, T. Liston, Ellen Bailie, Dante and Bianca Ruiz, Wendy Kemp, 

Kelly Haggart and Taiyan Roberts, Walter and Robbie Engert. 

ZONE F2: Bea Bol (Coordinator), the Tubman family, Paulette Theriault, 

Ryan Zurakowski, Susan McMaster, Paige Raymond, Pierre Guevremont, 

Cheryl Hyslop. 

ZONE G: Bernie Zeisig(Coordinator), Claudia and Estelle Bourlon- 

Albarracin, David Lum, Cindy MacLoghlin, Hannah and Emily Blackwell, 

the al-Asad family, Katya and Mikka Zeisig. 

Echo Drive: Alex Bissel. 

Bank Street-Ottawa South: Rob Cook, Tom Lawson, Paula Archer. 

Bank Street-Glebe: Larry Ostler. 

Ottawa East: Brian Lowley, Dave White. 

CONTRIBUTIONS 

SUBSCRIPTIONS 

Page 3 

Contributions should be in electronic format sent either by e-mail to 

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country. Please include a check made out to The OSCAR. 

SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS 

The OSCAR is sponsored entirely from advertising. Our advertisers are 

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them. Make the effort to let them know that you saw their ad in The 

OSCAR. They will be glad to know and The OSCAR will benefit from 

their support. If you know of someone providing a service in the community, 

tell them about The OSCAR. Our rates are reasonable. 

FUTURE OSCAR DEADLINES 

May 14 (June issue), June 12 (July/Aug issue), Aug 7 (Sept issue). 

tHe old FireHall 

ottawa soutH CommuNity CeNtre 

osCa@oldottawasoutH.Ca 

HOURS PHONE 613 247-4946 

MONDAY TO THURSDAY 9 AM TO 9 PM 

FRIDAY 9 AM TO 6 PM 

SATURDAY 9 AM TO 1 PM* 

SUNDAY CLOSED 

*Open only when programs are operating, please call first. 

WHAT’S THAT NUMBER? 

Ottawa South Community Centre - The Old Firehall 

Ottawa South Community Association (OSCA) 

Ottawa Public Library - South Branch 

Rob Campbell - Rob.Campbell@OCDSB.ca 

Kathy Ablett, Catholic Board Trustee 

Centretown Community Health Centre 

CARLETON UNIVERSITY 

CUSA (Carleton U Students Association) 

Graduate Students Association 

Community Liaison 

Mediation Centre 

Athletics 

CITY HALL 

Clive Doucet, City Councillor (clive.doucet@city.ottawa.on.ca) 

Main Number(24 hrs) for all departments 

Community Police - non-emergencies 

Emergencies only 

Serious Crimes 

Ottawa Hydro 

Streetlight Problems (burned out, always on, flickering) 

Brewer Pool 

Brewer Arena 

City of Ottawa web site - www.city.ottawa.on.ca 

247-4946 

247-4872 

730-1082 

730-8128 

526-9512 

233-5430 

520-6688 

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Page 4 The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR MAY 2010 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 

The OSCAR welcomes letters on subjects of interest to the community or in response to previous articles. All letters must disclose the name of the 

writer, as well as the address and phone number. Lettters may be edited for length, clarity, and libelous statements. The opinions of the writers are not 

necessarily those of the newspaper or its editor. Email your letters to oscar@oldottawasouth.ca or leave in print at the Firehall. 

Paul Dewar’s Rants! Re: Yasir Naqui, “Helping Ontario Families” January 

OSCAR 2010, p.35 

We wonder why Paul Dewar uses the column 

given him by the OSCAR as a monthly rant 

against the government. Surely, the idea behind 

this opportunity was for Paul to tell his constituents what 

his party stands for and what he has been doing for his 

constituents, rather than attacking another party. 

I strongly suggest that Paul think about this and, 

should he not be willing to change his tactics, that the 

OSCAR editor either cancel his column or run opinions by 

representatives of the other parties in an effort to provide a 

balanced opinion. 

Mr. Nacqui, who also is given a column, naturally puts 

his own governing party’s actions in their best possible 

light, but refrains from openly politicizing his free space 

by partisan attacks. 

Bill Grant and Jinny Slyfield 

Bravo Au Cinéma Mayfair! 

Bravo à l’équipe du cinéma Mayfair pour la projection du 

film La Donation réalisé par le cinéaste Bernard Émond. Ce 

magnifique film, présenté avec sous-titres anglais, nous a 

amenés à réfléchir sur le don et la compassion à travers la vie d’une 

urgentologue de Montréal qui vient remplacer un médecin d’un petit 

village éloigné. 

Quelle chance d’avoir pu discuter avec le cinéaste qui est venu 

rencontrer le public après la projection du film pour répondre à nos 

questions, et ce, en français et en anglais. 

Une soirée inoubliable avec un cinéaste exceptionnel! Merci 

beaucoup à l’équipe du Mayfair! À la prochaine! 

Well Done Mayfair Theatre! 

It was a fabulous evening, with the presentation of Bernard 

Émond’s film La Donation (The Legacy) with English subtitles. 

A beautiful film on compassion and giving about a Montreal ER 

doctor who takes over a colleague’s small-town practice. 

Thanks for having given us a unique opportunity to hear director 

Émond on his film and ask him questions, which he kindly answered 

and translated in English. A great director who has interesting 

views on what cinema is about. 

Thanks again for this special evening and à la prochaine! 

Linda Déziel, OOS resident 

Dear Editor: 

Yasir Naqui announced that his 

government has reduced income 

taxes and introduced a new Ontario 

Sales Tax Credit as of January 1, along with 

transitional payments to “support the shift” 

to the Harmonized Sales Tax system. He 

asserts that “they provide a significant savings 

for most Ontarians” stating that a senior living 

on $20,000 pension will save $170, a single 

parent earning $35,000 would save $275, and a 

OSCAR Mea Culpa 

John McNeish was the author of the 

April 2010 OSCAR Abbotsford article 

and not Pat Goyeche. Apologies to John 

McNeish. 

two income family with two children will save 

$605. He claims that “these are real savings 

that you can use to buy a house, save for the 

future or invest in an education.” 

Could someone please tell me where I can 

buy a home for between $170 and $605 a year? 

I would like to sign up for two. 

M. Lindsay Lambert 

Editor’s Note: For further discussion of Mr 

Lambert’s views of the HST please go to page 18. 

I may not agree with what you 

have to say, but I will defend to 

the death, your right to say it. 

....Voltaire 

Send your 

comments to 


or drop them off at the Firehall, 

260 Sunnyside Avenue.

MAY 2010 

OSCA PRESIDENT’S REPORT 


OSCA Annual General Meeting -- May 4, 7 pm in the 

Ladies Parlour at Southminster United Church 

By Michael Jenkin 

As the OSCA Annual General 

Meeting is coming up at 

about the time you read 

this column, I thought it would 

be a good opportunity to reflect 

on what we have achieved over 

the last year as a community and 

on the challenges that lie ahead. 

Many good things happened in our 

neighbourhood this past year. Perhaps 

the most noticeable is the significant 

level of public investment in our 

community services that is taking 

place. 

With both the community 

centre and our public library branch 

undergoing extensive renovations, 

representing in total about $5 million 

Brief Notes 

From the Firehall 

MAY at the ‘Firehall’ 

By Deirdre McQuillan 

Watch out for OSCA’s NEW LOGO – a 

new logo has been developed and will 

be part of our new look in our NEW 

FIREHALL Community Centre. 

SPRING PROGRAMS are up and running – 

although many programs are sold out some are still 

available. 

SPRING SOCCER in Brewer Park for 4 different 

age groups will start in May - here’s hoping for a 

warm sunny season. 

OSCA AGM – Tuesday, May 4 at 7:00 PM in the 

Ladies Parlour at Southminster United Church– 

annual reports from OSCA committees, followed by 

Wine & Cheese – all are welcome. 

AFTER FOUR 2010/11 - Online 

REGISTRATION will begin on Tuesday, June 1 

at 8:00 PM. Two payments of $155 are required at 

registration – the first will pay for September 2010, 

the second pays for June, 2011 and can be made 

as a deferred payment – payable for September 1, 

2010. 

…..and NEW! NEW! NEW!–SUNNYSIDE UP 

BREAKFAST CLUB at the NEW FIREHALL 

- 7:30 am to 9:00 am including breakfast and 

walkover to Hopewell School or placement on a 

school bus – registration date is the same as After 

Four. Cost: $145 a month. 

in investment, we are seeing an 

unprecedented improvement in our 

community institutions. In addition, 

the City has launched the Sunnyside 

traffic study to look at ways to improve 

safety on one of the main connector 

streets in the community. 

All of these developments are 

welcome and will make a significant 

contribution to improving the quality 

of life in Old Ottawa South. And 

I think it is safe to say that none of 

these things would have happened 

if it were not for the level of 

community activism we have shown 

in demanding improvements to our 

community infrastructure and actively 

fund raising towards that goal. 

We have also managed as a community 

association to maintain a fairly high 

level of community programming 

and community events even though 

we have been operating in temporary 

facilities while our community centre 

is being renovated. 

Indeed, we have managed to 

keep our operating costs sufficiently 

under control so that, despite a 

more expensive operating structure 

necessitated by renting facilities, 

we have not suffered any of the 

financial losses that had been forecast. 

So we are starting off a new year in good 

financial shape and with major new 

facilities in the community opening 

up. The challenge we will face will 

be to capitalize on these opportunities 

to deliver more and better community 

programming for our residents. 

But there are clouds on the horizon. 

SUMMER CAMP Registration is ongoing – check 

out our many exciting camps for preschoolers, 

children and youth – register early as a couple of 

camps are already sold out. 

MOVING BACK TO THE FIREHALL - the City 

is still telling us we will be in for summer – stay 

tuned!! 

INFORMATION and REGISTRATION for all 

OSCA programs at: www.oldottawasouth.ca - just 

follow the RED registration signs or call us at 613- 

247-4946 or drop by Southminster Church at 15 

Aylmer Avenue. 

Page 5 

As I have outlined many times 

since last summer in this column, 

the impacts on this community 

of the potential redevelopment of 

Lansdowne Park are likely to be 

very negative. The potential for 

consistent traffic congestion and the 

impact on our local merchants are 

major concerns. Council will review 

the project in June when critical 

studies on traffic and retail impacts 

will need to be carefully assessed. 

The irony we face is that the very 

substantial progress we have made 

over the past few years in improving 

our community could be negated by 

an ill considered and inappropriate 

commercial development on one of 

the City’s largest public spaces. 

OSWATCH 

By Brendan McCoy, OSWATCH 

Co-Chair 

At its April 20 meeting the OSCA Board 

reiterated the community’s interest 

in doing a Community Design Plan 

(CDP) and again asked the City to fund this 

study, as the Board did two years ago. There 

was also discussion of other measures which 

could be pursued in the interim to ensure infill 

development is reflective and considerate of the 

existing neighbourhood context. OSWATCH 

will be speaking to City staff and looking into 

these interim measures while planning for an 

eventual CDP. 

The OSCA President will be writing to each 

of the 5 short listed Lansdowne design teams, 

and Mr. George Dark and his design panel. They 

will all be offered a tour of the neighbourhood 

by me, OSWATCH Co-Chair Brendan McCoy 

based on my Janes’ Walk tour. All will be 

invited to the OSCA AGM on May 4 to meet 

our membership. Finally, the 5 design teams 

will be invited to a dedicated public meeting to 

meet the community and learn more about us 

and our ideas for a sustainable, affordable and 

flexible public space at Lansdowne. 

In March OSCA passed a motion indicating 

that it believed that more civic representation 

was needed on the Lansdowne Urban Park 

Jury, and questioned whether two federal 

representatives are required when one (the 

NCC) has a mandate to represent all land-use 

decisions affecting federal interests. OSCA’s 

Vice President brought this resolution to the 

Federation of Community Associations and 

they supported this resolution with one of 

their own to press the City to increase civic 

representation on the Lansdowne Jury. 

Councillor Doucet held a meeting for 

neighbours on a proposed development at 71 

Hopewell which OSWATCH had commented 

on. An alternative to the original garage fronted 

design design was shown. Most neighbours 

were not happy with either design, but many 

thought the second design, based on a carriage 

way with rear parking and suggested by City 

staff, was an improvement.


By John Dance 

The City’s Transportation Committee 

unanimously approved the initiation of an 

environmental assessment study for the 

proposed midtown footbridge at its April meeting. 

The approval allows City staff to request bids. Once 

a contractor is selected, the study is expected to be 

completed in approximately 18 months. 

The study’s scope includes satisfying 

environmental assessment requirements, 

recommending a preferred location, preparing 

functional design drawings of the preferred crossing, 

creating a project implementation/staging plan, 

estimating project capital and maintenance costs, 

and securing approvals in principle as required by 

regulatory agencies. 

Capital Ward Councillor Clive Doucet, who 

has been a long-time advocate of a new “green” 

link across the canal in the vicinity of Fifth Avenue 

and Clegg Street, called the approval a major step 

forward to building a sustainable and safe pedestrian 

and cycling infrastructure that will benefit not 

just those in the Glebe, Old Ottawa East, and Old 

Ottawa South but also many other Ottawans who 

live beyond the “three sisters” and seek a safer and 

more convenient midtown crossing of the canal. 

As noted in the approved statement of work, 

the origins of a Rideau Canal crossing near Clegg 

Street and Fifth Avenue date back to the Holt Plan 

(1915); the Greber Plan (1950); and National 

Capital Commission plans (1968). A ferry operated 

for several decades in this vicinity until circa 1950. 

Through the 1950s and 1960s, the National Capital 

Commission (NCC) annually constructed a wooden 

footbridge in the winter months between Herridge 

Street and Second Avenue. With the loss of these 

seasonal crossings, pedestrians and cyclists have 

had to detour to either the Pretoria Bridge (850 

metres north) or the Bank Street Bridge (1.25 

kilometres south). 

Extensive Consultation 

The study will involve stakeholders, including 

local community/interest groups, property owners, 

businesses, area schools and approval agencies. 

Early in the study process, community stakeholders 

will be identified through liaison with Councillor 

Doucet. 

A public consultation group and an “agency” 

consultation group will be formed to enable 

meaningful consultation with stakeholders at key 

stages in the study. A minimum of three public 

meetings/open houses with the general public 

will augment the consultation group meetings. 

Presentations to the NCC’s Advisory Committee on 

Planning, Design, and Realty will also be required. 

Footbridge Study Approved 

Councilor Clive Doucet and Transportation Committee Chair Maria McRae worked jointly to 

achieve unanimous committee support for proceeding with the environmental assessment study of 

the proposed midtown footbridge. 

The public consultation committee is expected to 

include representatives from the three neighbouring 

community associations (OECA, GCA and OSCA) 

and the Midtown Footbridge Group has also 

requested to be a part of the committee. One other 

opportunity for public input will be to comment on 

the specific Environmental Study Report, which 

will address the provisions of relevant provincial 

and federal environmental legislation. 

Lansdowne Relationship 

According to the statement of work, the 

contractor will develop alternative designs for the 

preferred crossing locations options and will develop 

criteria for assessing these designs. In this context, 

the contractor will assess any pedestrian bridge 

crossing proposals/designs that may be submitted 

by the winning design team for the Lansdowne 

urban park design competition to determine how 

the proposal could respond to the requirements 

determined through the environmental assessment. 

The Midtown Footbridge Group, which has 

been researching the proposition for several 

years, recently wrote to Kent Kirkpatrick, City 

Manager and the Chair of Lansdowne Park Steering 

Committee, to stress that the location and design of 

the footbridge should be decided in a process that, 

while taking into consideration the Lansdowne 

Design Competition, is independent from the 

By Scott Proudfoot 

Bowing to popular demand, 

organisers of the annual 

Rideau River Clean-up will 

hold this year’s event the day before 

Mothers’ Day, so as not to interfere 

with mums sleeping in, being fêted 

and brunched. Under the auspices of 

the Urban Rideau Conservationists, 

simultaneous community clean-ups 

will take place along the Rideau River 

banks in New Edinburgh, Overbrook, 

Vanier, Sandy Hill, Ottawa East and 

Ottawa South. The Ottawa South 

section will target the banks of the 

competition. 

The letter to Mr. Kirkpatrick notes: “The 

determination of the footbridge’s location should 

involve careful assessment against key criteria and 

full public consultation. Although the footbridge 

will provide a critical access to Lansdowne Park 

from the east, there are many other factors that must 

also be considered in determining the footbridge’s 

best location. These factors include the relative 

proximity to the Bank and Pretoria bridges; linkage 

to existing cycling and walking routes; contribution 

to an east-west cycling/pedestrian corridor; and 

safety concerns such as crossing the parkways and 

ensuring children can better get to schools on the 

opposite side of the canal from which they live.” 

At the same time as the midtown footbridge 

study was approved, the Transportation Committee 

also gave its blessing of a comparable study for a 

pedestrian crossing of the Rideau River, linking 

Somerset East with Donald Street (near the tennis 

club). The environmental assessment required for 

the river footbridge is expected to take 12 months. 

The midtown footbridge study will take six months 

more because of greater complexity and the need 

for additional approvals. For instance, in the case 

of the proposed river footbridge, the City owns the 

property at both ends of the bridge while for the 

canal footbridge none of the land is owned by the 

City. 

Join This Year’s Rideau River Clean-Up 

Saturday 8 May! 

Rideau River in Brewer Park from 

10:00 till 13:00 on Saturday, 8 May, 

rain or shine. Cleaners-up should 

gather at the corner of Seneca and 

Cameron, where the Ottawa Tennis 

& Lawn-bowling Club is providing 

space. The City of Ottawa is providing 

bags and clean-up equipment, while 

Bridgehead and the Monterrey Inn 

are offering coffee and sandwiches to 

hungry volunteers. This is a chance 

to contribute to a cleaner and better 

riverbank for all to enjoy, and a more 

sustainable ecosystem. See you there!

MAY 2010 

CITY COUNCILLOR’S REPORT 

Dear Oscar Readers: 

We are born old and young 

at the same time. 

We are born with great loves 

and great pains 

that we grow into like an acorn 

grows into an oak tree; 

like God grows into the universe. 

On April 14 th I advanced three 

motions at Ottawa City 

Council. The response speaks 

volumes about the challenges we face 

in the political arena in trying to make 

Ottawa a better, more sustainable 

place. 

The objective of the first motion 

was to reduce municipal tax increases. 

The motion stated that the Long 

Range Financial Plan Working Group 

“ review ways that the 2011 budget 

development process be adjusted to 

give priority to all Transportation 

and Transit projects and services that 

will in the short, medium, and long 

term reduce the overall operating 

costs required by the City of Ottawa 

to deliver these services”. In other 

words, give priority to Transit and 

Transportation projects that reduce 

By Brendan McCoy, 

OSWATCH Co-Chair 


A Tale Of Three Motions 

costs to the city as it grows. 

In the discussion leading up to the 

vote on this motion, a few councillors 

spoke in support of the idea but most 

of my colleagues decided this was too 

dangerous to the status quo to actually 

vote for it. The status quo for Ottawa 

in transportation has been to add 150 

to 200 kilometres of new roads each 

year and more express buses to name 

some projects and services where 

costs are rising much faster than 

revenues. 

The second motion was that the 

following question be placed on the 

Municipal Ballot during the 2010 

election: “Should the City of Ottawa 

have a competitive process for the 

disposition of Lansdowne Park? ” 

Both sides on the Lansdowne debate 

have claimed a silent majority on 

their side. Why not give everybody a 

chance to state how they want business 

conducted with their tax dollars? This 

motion was not carried forward as a 

majority of my colleagues felt that 

only they should decide whether 

a competitive process was used at 

Lansdowne, not the public. 

The third motion asked for 

another question to be put on the ballot 

College of Physicians and Surgeons 

Considers Changes 

The College of Physician 

and Surgeons is the owner 

and resident of the former 

Precious Blood Convent on Echo 

Drive off Bank Street. The beautiful, 

former Convent, along with its front 

and back lawns, is a designated 

heritage property, and has been 

carefully renovated into an office 

building and headquarters by the 

College. The College has wanted 

more space for some time but has 

not succeeded in securing any Bank 

Street properties for its expansion. 

The College had approached several 

private land owners, and also tried to 

make a deal with the Library; these 

approaches all failed. 

Now, with the Medical Council 

of Canada as partners, they are 

instead exploring the idea of 

building on their existing site, on 

one or both sides of the current 

College of Physicians and Surgeons former Precious Blood Convent 

on Echo Drive off Bank Street Photo by Brendan McCoy 

box in the 2010 election: “Should 

the City of Ottawa commission a 

study including details as to how deamalgamation 

could be effected, to be 

reviewed by City Council by January 

25, 2011? ” This question could have 

been used as a means of starting a 

discussion on how the shortcomings 

of amalgamation could be addressed. 

For instance, many local areas in 

the city feel decisions are forced on 

them by other parts of the city. This 

is a common complaint in urban, in 

rural, and in suburban areas, which 

were all more autonomous before 

amalgamation. Giving people more 

local control should be an appealing 

thing for many people and if it isn’t 

at least we would have a definitive 

answer to those who complain about 

the new larger city. 

I was surprised that many of my 

colleagues failed to see the wisdom 

of supporting these motions, because 

if we are ever to control our taxes, 

we have to reduce our per capita 

costs as the city grows – not increase 

them. If Ottawa city services have 

diseconomies of scale - you’ve got 

to ask why we amalgamated in the 

first place? Figuring out what those 

main building. The front and rear 

views of their building have heritage 

protection and are not to be changed. 

To develop ideas, they have engaged 

Barry Padolsky, an architect with 

strong heritage credentials, whose 

firm has worked on the Bank St. 

Bridge rebuild and the ongoing 

renovation of the Museum of Naturethe 

Victoria Memorial Building. 

At a recent meeting with myself 

and another OSCA Board member, 

issues of heritage, zoning, building 

size (75,000 sq ft +), parking and 

traffic were discussed. The College 

mentioned the possibility of 

changing the entrance and exit for the 

site by moving the existing bollards 

on Echo Drive slightly further east, 

thereby allowing College employees 

access to their site from Bank Street. 

The College is aware of the need to 

engage with the local community 

on all issues. OSCA was promised 

further information and OSWATCH 

and OSCA will continue to follow 

developments closely. 

On a side-note, the College 

informed us that it will be 

participating in Doors Open Ottawa 

this year; if you would like a peek 

inside this beautiful heritage 

building, I recommend trying to visit 

during Doors Open Ottawa on June 

5 and 6, 2010. 

Page 7 

low cost services are, is the first step 

to having a cost effective budget, just 

as the first step to changing our city’s 

governance is commissioning a study 

to figure out how some form of decentralization 

could be affected. 

These motions weren’t that 

radical: let’s weigh things that reduce 

long term expenses ahead of those 

that don’t, let’s confirm whether a 

majority are comfortable with noncompetitive 

big projects, and lastly 

lets just study what’s working or not 

with amalgamation. 

Coffee with Clive 

Please note that May will be the 

last month for Coffee with Clive and 

so Thursday May 13 th will be the last 

Coffee with Clive in Old Ottawa South 

at Bridgehead, 1176 Bank Street from 

9:00 to 10:00 a.m.. 

All the best, 

Clive Doucet 

City of Ottawa 

110 Laurier Avenue West, 

Ottawa, ON, K1P 1J1 

Tel: (613) 580-2487 

Fax: (613) 580-2527 

Clive.Doucet@ottawa.ca 

www.clivedoucet.com 

Fida’s Pizza... 

Cont’d from page 1 

his family over to Canada. 

Tony is tall and thin, and he looks 

you directly in the eye when he speaks to 

you. While we speak, he rushes around 

the kitchen, spreading dough into pans, 

assembling toppings, and putting pizzas 

into and taking them out of the oven. 

Growing up, I always loved the 

nights when my parents ordered Fida’s 

pizza instead of cooking. One of my 

favorite parts of the doughy, rich-tasting 

pizza we enjoyed was the lump of dough 

in the middle of the pizza. We called 

that the bun. I asked Tony why put 

a bun in the middle of his pizzas. He 

answered that he noticed that other pizza 

places put a removable piece of plastic 

in the middle of the pizza to prevent the 

box from caving in and sticking to the 

toppings. He thought he’d simply try 

something different and use a lump of 

dough to hold up the box. He’s stopped 

doing that today because the price of 

flour has gone up, making such liberal 

use of dough no longer economical. 

To his customers, Tony says, “I’m 

going to miss you all. I hope we meet 

again.” For their continuous support, he 

thanks his wife of 33 years, Pauline, and 

his son Christopher. 

After his trip to Lebanon, Tony isn’t 

sure what he’ll do next. He’ll take things 

as they come as he adopts to the fact that 

for the first time in 34 years, he will no 

longer be making pizza.


by Joanne Proulx 

It was a glorious sunny day in early 

July, 2008 when my friend Marcia, 

lounging on the deck chair beside 

mine, reached out a hand and placed 

it gently on my arm. “I have some 

bad news,” she said. I’d been at our 

family cottage near Peterborough for 

a few weeks and had thus slipped 

from the OOS news loop and I must 

have looked alarmed because Marcia 

quickly reassured me, “No one died or 

anything. But Fresh Fruit is closing.” 

So, yeah, no one was dying. Still, as 

a ‘heavy user’ of our local grocery, I 

could have cried. 

Flash forward to today. Now 

throw your hands in the air, your 

head back and shout out a long, loud 

Hallelujah (or whatever your favourite 

expression of celebration and thanks 

may be). Because the rumours are 

true. Cedars and Company Food 

Market will open its doors May, 2010, 

the same doors Fresh Fruit closed 

over eighteen months ago leaving 

the residents of Old Ottawa South 

nutritionally wanting. Forcing us to 

drive - or for those with panniers and 

a bit of spunk, cycle - across one of 

the bridges that bookend our little 

urban island, in pursuit of a fresh 

tomato. Or a clove of garlic. Or a 

roast chicken. Or a yam. 

Great News for Old Ottawa South 

New Home of Cedars -- Coming soon! Photo by M A Thompson 

Why Fresh Fruit closed up shop 

is still the subject of speculation. A 

landlord/tenant dispute? A loss of 

business to the then newly-established 

Farm Boy? The difficulty of 

competing in a market dominated by 

big-box food stores? No one is sure. 

What is certain is that the building 

at 1255 Bank Street, which had been 

home to Fresh Fruit for more than 

twenty years, needed major work. 

During the past several months, 

Cedars and Company’s owner Brian 

Mahmoud, who also owns O’Brien’s 

Eatery and Pub in Ottawa South, has 

done that work. Brian has literally 

gutted the interior of the building. 

Gone are the water stained ceiling 

and the grimy floors. Gone is the 

‘less-than-fresh’ smell. Walls have 

been knocked down to expand the 

retail space, custom-made cabinetry 

has been installed, new fridges and 

freezers are on their way. 

When asked about his plans for 

the new operation, Brian said that 

the theme at Cedars will be ‘fresh’. 

Bins will be stocked with organic 

and regular produce. There will be 

a dairy, a butcher, a deli, and a fish 

counter. Fresh whole grain breads 

will be delivered daily, and the store 

will offer a large variety of cheeses, 

nuts and olives. As well there will 

be a pastry shop with European 

and Middle Eastern delicacies with 

some Canadian flare and an in-house 

Shawarma restaurant where you can 

dine-in or take home a ready-made 

meal. Other prepared foods, including 

a large selection of salads and dips, 

will be available, which Brian hopes 

will make preparing healthy dinners a 

little easier. 

Although Mr. Mahmoud has 

plenty of experience in the restaurant 

business, this is his first foray into 

the grocery industry. His is no small 

undertaking. Running a fresh produce 

store is huge, hard work. And in 

the age of big retailers with mighty 

purchasing power, a local grocery 

store is no sure thing. I, for one, want 

to heartily thank Mr. Mahmoud for 

investing in our neighbourhood. As 

the last eighteen months have shown, 

without a local grocery store, ours is a 

lesser community. 

I hope to see you all at Cedars, 

sneakers on and shopping bags in 

hand, on opening day. And every day 

thereafter, around 5:30, when I realize 

I’m missing the last ten or fifteen 

ingredients I need to make a decent 

meal.

MAY 2010 

By William Burr 

The restaurant Domus in the 

Byward market is an upscale 

affair. On its menu, you can 

find such fare as Cast Iron Seared Wild 

BC Pacific Halibut ($33). Ottawa 

Magazine named it the best place to 

eat in the city. So it was all the more 

surprising to find John Taylor, Domus 

owner and head chef, in paint-stained 

work clothes amidst torn up floors, 

half-painted walls, and sawdust. 

The restauranteur is overseeing the 

transformation of the old Second Cup 

location at Bank and Sunnyside into 

Taylor’s Food and Wine Bar. “I’ve 

always said, If I wasn’t a chef, I’d be 

a carpenter,” he says. 

Taylor is tall and speaks directly 

and matter-of-factly, but with a desire 

to promote his brain-child. 

The opening of the wine bar marks 

the rising affluence of old Ottawa 

South. Over the past decades, house 

prices have doubled, and the shops 

lining the street have become more 

posh. The service station at Bank 

and Sunnyside and NAPA Auto Parts 

at Glen have closed, while specialty 

boutiques like Grace in the Kitchen 

and Serious Cheese have opened their 

doors. 

Now, we’ll have a wine bar. But 

what’s a wine bar? 

“It’s not a bar,” Taylor says. 

Except that it is, kind of. It’s a bar 

where you don’t go to drink, strictly. 

You go to savour a good glass of wine 

with tasty food platters. Meanwhile, 

you can watch people going by on 

Bank Street. “One of life’s great 

curiosities is people watching,” he 

says. 

There will be meat and cheese 

plates, featuring cheeses from Ontario 

and Québec. There will also be 

charcuterie, smoked fish, and salads, 

with an emphasis on local products, 

like at Domus. Taylor expects that he 

will be able to do a lot of his shopping 

at the Farmer’s market at Lansdowne 

Park. As an example of what you 

might catch on the menu, there could 

be a salad made of heirloom tomatoes, 

cucumbers, black olives, feta cheese, 

pickled red onion, and homemade 

lamb pancetta. 

Because the kitchen is so small, 

dishes will have to be designed around 

volume over fanciness. Prices will be 

lower than they are at Domus. The 

wines will be from Niagara, Prince 

Edward County, and BC, as well as 

from around the world. Taylor’s wife 

Sylvia, a sommelier, will be in charge 

of the wines, as she is at Domus. Beers 

will feature local microbreweries such 

as Beau’s. 

But the place will close around 

midnight. Don’t expect droves of 

rambunctious students or TV sets in 

the corners. 

Taylor got into the food business 

at a young age. He participated in a 

Canadian government job creation 

program when he was just out of high 

school. He had the choice of training 

to be a window-fitter, a glazer, a 

framer, or a cook. His first choice 

was framer, since he had already done 

some framing work. When he got 

deeper into the application process, 

however, he realized that he wanted 

to try cooking. He’d always enjoyed 

Proposed Cardio ... Cont’d from page 1 

Memberships would be 

available with drop-in opportunities. 

Fees would range from $37 a month 

to $172 for six months (about 38 

chai lattes). 

Although the room could be used 

as a space for a Yoga/Pilates Studio, 

or spinning Classes (requiring 

special equipment required) or as 

a Multi Use Space, the challenge 

remains to thoroughly understand 

if there is a need and want for a 

community cardio fitness room from 

the OOS residents. 

The program committee feels 

we have the money in reserves, the 

community deserves this kind of 

special programming and that there 

is a very strong case for this kind 

of cardio/fitness community based 

program opportunity. 

In support of better 

understanding the market segment, 

the OSCA board made a decision to 

expand the program committee with 

a few more board members for this 

study and to survey the community. 

We will be coming to the streets 

looking for your feedback as to 

whether you would support and/or 

participate in this initiative in the 

coming weeks. 

You deserve to be heard! Please 

go to www.oldottawasouth.ca for 

the link to complete a three question 

survey. 

May 12 at midnight is the 

deadline for doing the survey. 


Our New Wine Bar 

John Taylor Photo by W. Burr 

it growing up, making things from 

carrot cake to Caesar salad. All it took 

was a few moments in the kitchen 

at the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel in 

Fredericton, and he immediately knew 

it was what he wanted to do for the 

rest of his life. The hustle and bustle 

of the kitchen, the entire atmosphere 

of it all charmed him. 

He stayed in Fredericton for three 

years. Then a friend brought him to 

Ottawa to work for the new Novotel 

Hotel. In Ottawa, he met his mentor, 

Jean-Pierre Challet, a Frenchman 

from Lyon. Following him up to the 

Relais and Chateaux Inn at Manitou 

north of Parry Sound, Challet was one 

of the first to introduce him to using 

local produce. Taylor asserts that if 

you don’t start out with good products 

then you can’t turn them into anything. 

Challet also taught him what Taylor 

calls “quality versus attitude or ego.” 

Eventually he returned to Ottawa. 

Taylor’s inspiration is his 

grandmother. He spent a lot of time 

with her as a child, and remembers 

the smell of her freshly baked bread 

and her routine trips to local markets 

and farms to get fresh produce. “It 

was home-cooked, good food from 

farms.” 

Taylor’s favourite places to dine 

out in Ottawa are in Chinatown: Chez 

Nam on Booth Street, and Koriana on 

Somerset. Koriana makes a pork and 

kimchi stirfry with tofu - “It’s really 

Page 9 

spicy and porky and then you’ve got 

this really creamy tofu inside and the 

texture is just amazing.” 

Taylor purchased Domus in 1995, 

but it was already an established 

restaurant. He’s always wanted to 

do something “from the ground up,” 

something entirely his own. Notice 

the name of the new place: “Taylor’s 

Food and Wine Bar.” 

When the Second Cup location 

became vacant, it was almost an 

obvious choice. Taylor has lived 

in Old Ottawa South for years, on 

Belmont Avenue. 

Besides taking care of the wine, 

Taylor’s wife Sylvia has done the 

interior design for the wine bar. 

Taylor explained that it was absolutely 

essential to get rid of the old Second 

Cup colours. Sylvia has chosen a 

beautiful burgundy colour for the 

walls of the bar. It’s called nazahari; 

you might call it “wine.” 

As for the bar itself, the tables, 

the chairs, and even the floor – they 

are all still in progress. John Taylor 

works in this construction zone every 

day, helping to lay the floors, install 

the tables, and paint the walls. 

Come early May, Taylor’s Food 

and Wine Bar will be open, all going 

well. Taylor will dust sawdust off his 

clothes and step into the kitchen.


THE BIG PICTURE 

By Michael A. Dobbin and 

David Chernushenko 

“We have the power to lead abundant, 

fulfilling lives powered by renewable 

energy – and reinvigorate democracy 

in the process”. 

A 

new feature length 

documentary by Old Ottawa 

South filmmaker David 

Chernushenko is in the works. Coproduced 

with local producer Michael 

A. Dobbin of Quiet Revolution 

Pictures, Powerful showcases the 

remarkable achievements and inspiring 

examples of people and communities 

pursuing a path of conservation and 

renewable energy. 

The film explores the obstacles 

they encounter and introduces power 

players with an interest in maintaining 

the status quo. The feature length film 

is about reclaiming, or discovering 

for the first time, the power to do 

more and be more and to work within 

a community to accomplish more 

together. 

Headed for the Marché du Film at 

the Cannes International Film Festival 

in May, the producers have high hopes 

that the film will find audiences around 

the world. Exploring a universal 

theme, the subject matter is universal 

in asking: Who controls our energy 

supply and who has the power to 

decide which energy path to pursue? 

How will the quest for greater energy 

autonomy contribute to an important 

power shift that ultimately helps build 

a more just, equitable and healthy 

society and democracy? 

David Chernushenko, who 

describes himself as a Green Economy 

Educator and Entrepreneur, began 

his journey with his own electricity 

bill where an ongoing “nuclear 

debt retirement charge” appears 

every month. He journeys to the 

other side of the Atlantic to visit 

pioneering communities in Germany 

and Denmark who benefit from a 

100% renewable energy supply. Out 

in California and back in Ontario, he 

leads an examination of the North 

America’s flirtations with renewables. 

Putting it all in context, he takes the 

audience back to his own house here in 

Old Ottawa South, and personal quest 

to be a part of a clean energy future and 

an empowered community. Leading by 

example, the viewer will discover with 

David the power to make a difference 

in their own life. 

More than anything, Powerful is 

about passionate people, alone and 

in communities, who work towards 

solutions, rather than get bogged down 

in the problems. 

People like Josef Pesch of Freiamt, 

Germany. Once an anti-nuclear 

activist, Josef now partners with small 

communities to develop renewable 

energy projects. Freiamt is a rural town 

that is 140% powered by renewable 

energy. They sell their surplus energy 

to the German grid and pump the profits 

back into their town’s coffers and the 

locally-owned energy cooperatives. 

While North American 

governments are mostly making 

excuses for not tackling climate change 

and dealing with major transportation 

and waste management challenges, 

the town of Linkoping, Sweden is 

charting a course that makes it not only 

a great place to live, but a showcase 

of smart city planning and economic 

development for the 21 st century. 

From the deputy mayor, to the cycling 

coordinator and the citizen-owned 

“waste-to-energy” plant, David meets 

people who are showing Canadian and 

American cities what the future could 

look like. 

Samsø, Denmark is a renewable 

energy island that has received a lot of 

international press for its pioneering 

project to be entirely powered by 

renewable energy. While such a 

dramatic change in practices could 

easily have generated a backlash, 

the citizens of Samsø appear fully 

supportive of this direction. Some, 

like farmer Andersen, want to go 

even further. He’s running his car and 

tractor on canola oil, heats with solar 

and biomass, has photovoltaic panels 

for electricity, and owns shares in the 

community wind turbines. 

Meanwhile, in contrast to Samsø, 

Wolfe Island, Ontario is a community 

divided. The massive 86-turbine wind 

energy project has the support of 

the majority, but a vocal minority is 

disturbed by the lack of community 

involvement, the disruption caused by 

construction, and the threats to bird 

sanctuaries and migration corridors. 

What happened on Wolfe Island to 

cause such deep divisions, and are 

there lessons about how not to develop 

wind energy in North America? 

Canadian Olympian Adam Kreek 

is a giant of a man (and gold medal 

Olympic rower) with a sense of 

humour and a biodiesel car. He joins 

David for a fast-paced and upbeat 

tour of California renewable energy 

projects. Audiences will join the guys 

for visits to all-woman-owned Biofuel 

Oasis co-op in Berkeley; the Solar 

Richmond project that trains visible 

minority men and women in rooftop 

solar installation – winning an award 

for crime reduction from the FBI in 

the process; and a pilgrimage to the 

“mecca” of renewable energy: the Real 

Goods/Solar Living Institute in Ukiah. 

Call it a gimmick, call it education, 

call it a revolution, but when fans at the 

concerts of Mr Something Something 

of Toronto, Ontario want more volume, 

they’ll need to take turns pedaling the 

“sound cycle” which powers the sound 

system. Lead singer Johan Hultqvist 

calls himself a “dance floor activist”, 

mixing in social commentary with 

afro-beat music made for dancing. 

Powerful asks fundamental and 

sometimes uncomfortable questions 

about energy and power. But unlike 

the vast majority of environmental 

documentaries, the journey for the 

viewer will be at times amusing, 

enlightening, frustrating and intriguing. 

Ultimately, the film provides a unique 

and uplifting insight into how the pursuit 

of a future anchored by conservation 

and powered by renewable energy can 

empower and energize those who take 

on such a quest. 

Look for David Chernushenko’s 

Powerful: Energy for Everyone, 

coming soon!

MAY 2010 

17th Ottawa (Southminster) 

Heritage Area, Voyageur Region 

Dear Neighbour, 

Think Spring! The 17th Ottawa 

(Southminster) Scout Group’s 15th Annual 

Natural Garden Supply Sale is now on. 

Ninety young people, both girls and boys, from 

the Old Ottawa South community participate in 

Scouting, supported by 20 adult volunteers. By 

ordering from us you make it possible for local 

youth to have supplies and camping equipment, 

and to go on adventures! 

Our product selection includes grass seed, 

black earth, manure, decorative bark and many 

other garden inputs, all natural products supplied 

by Ritchie’s Seeds. We provide competitive prices, 

known products and free delivery. Please support 

Scouting in the community. 

Order forms can be returned to a member of 

the 17th Southminster Scout Group or dropped off 

at: 

Southminster Scout Garden Supply 

Coordinator - Jamie Bell, 118 Grove Ave, (tel: 

613.730.5077; e-mail jamieteribell@sympatico. 

ca) or 

Pilar Bryson, 115 Ossington Avenue (tel: 

613.730.2231; e-mail pbryson@rogers.com) 

If you have any questions please contact Jamie 

Bell. 

To book an OSCAR ad 

call Gayle 730-1058 


By Georgina Hunter 

Delivery of farm-fresh local, 

organic produce will soon 

resume again in Old Ottawa 

South. 

Outaouais farmers, Chantale 

Vaillancourt and Martin Turcot, 

deliver their crops from their familyoperated 

certified-organic Ferme aux 

Pleines Saveurs to the OOS drop-off 

site at 94 Hopewell Avenue. 

Basket deliveries run for 25 

weeks beginning in late June to early 

December. Summer (17 weeks) and 

fall (8 weeks) baskets come in two 

sizes brimming full of 40 varieties of 

fruits and vegetables. 

Contents coincide with harvest 

times and over the course of the 

season include strawberries, herbs, 

lettuce, broccoli and squashes. 

Customers can even exchange up to 

three items on-site. 

“I like to nourish people with 

what we eat ourselves. This fits into 

our personal values of caring for the 

environment and human health,” says 

Chantale. 

Imagine the taste of sweet carrots, 

the sound of peas snapping and the 

crunch of crisp lettuce. Chantal 

provides information and recipes to 

make cooking easy with ingredients 


15th Annual Scouts Natural Garden Supplies Sale 

Farm Fresh Organic Produce 

Straight to OOS Plates! 

such as herbs, leeks, and kohlrabi. 

Check out their web site for more 

details: www.legumesbiologiques. 

com 

Buying locally produced organic 

produce is healthy for both the planet 

and humans. The planet benefits as 

less greenhouse gases are emitted 

during transportation. Supermarket 

organic produce use more greenhouse 

gases as their produce may be flown 

or trucked in from far away to 

distribution centres then finally to the 

store. 

Now is the time to register 

for the baskets. Payment is simple 

with two post-dated cheques. For 

more information, contact Chantal 

and Martin via email: info@ 

legumesbiologiques.com; telephone: 

(819) 983-4858 

Page 11


OTTAWA SOUTH HISTORY PROJECT 

A Brief History of Hopewell Avenue Public School 

This month’s contribution to the 

Ottawa South History Project comes 

from guest columnists Mohammad Al- 

Assad and Kathy Krywicki. 

This year is the official 100 th 

anniversary of Hopewell 

Avenue Public School and 

many special events are planned in 

May to mark this significant occasion. 

What follows is a brief history of 

the school and its namesake, Charles 

Hopewell. 

Hopewell Avenue Pubic School 

The first school on the present 

Hopewell Avenue Public School site 

dates back to the 1830s or 1840s. It 

was a one-room log building with 

a few windows, a small door, and 

a wood stove. By the end of the 

1870s, this was replaced by a brick 

building with semi-circular arched 

windows and doors, as well as buffcolored 

brick at the corners to give 

the impression of rusticated stone. 

This newer building had two small 

classrooms and was heated by stoves 

connected by long pipes that ended at 

the building’s chimney. 

A new wing was added to the 

building in 1901. This contained two 

large, well-lit classrooms, a hot air 

furnace, and electric lights. By the 

time Ottawa South was annexed to 

the City of Ottawa in 1907, the school 

had about 175 students. It had been 

known under various names including 

Nepean Secondary School No. 1, 

Rideauville School, Bank Street 

School, and Ottawa South Public 

School. 

a009189 Hopewell Public School South facade of old building facing 

Hopewell Avenue, circa 1911 (William James Topley / Library and 

Archives Canada / PA-009189) 

In 1909, the Ottawa Board of 

Education announced its intention 

to construct a new school building 

as the existing one was considered 

“unsatisfactory and unsanitary.” 

Plans consequently were prepared 

by William B. Garvock, an architect 

and Superintendent of Buildings for 

the Ottawa Board of Education, who 

designed a number of the city’s earlytwentieth-century 

school buildings 

according to new principles of school 

building design that had become 

increasingly common during the earlytwentieth 

century. The new eightroom 

brick school building, which 

was constructed during the following 

year, cost the then considerable 

sum of $55,000 and consisted of a 

basement level and two storeys. It had 

standard sized classrooms intended 

to accommodate a maximum of forty 

students (although the rooms usually 

ended up accommodating more than 

that). In contrast to previous practices, 

emphasis was placed on dividing 

students into successive grades while 

the division of classes according to 

gender was no longer given priority. 

Classes were arranged so that natural 

light would come from the left side 

of the room, and specific window 

to floor area ratios were applied 

to admit adequate quantities 

of light. The classrooms 

incorporated mechanical heating 

and ventilation systems, and 

fireplaces functioned as an air 

exhaust system to remove foul 

air. The school also included a 

nurse room and an auditorium. 

The exterior design also 

expressed these new school 

design trends. It was intended to 

give a professional and businesslike 

image, and therefore 

followed a rather regular, simple 

arrangement incorporating a 

repetitive use of openings. Stone 

was used for the base of the 

building, and façade decoration 

was limited to patterned 

brickwork. The simple Beaux 

Arts inspired design contrasts 

with the more extensively 

decorated late-Victorian school 

buildings that had been common 

only a few years earlier. The 

Crichton Street Public School 

(1906, with an addition in 1919), 

also designed by Garvock, is 

another school building in Ottawa 

that expresses these new trends in 

school building design. 

By 1911, 360 students were 

attending the school, which 

included classes ranging from 

the kindergarten to secondary 

school levels. The old school building 

was maintained to accommodate 

the rising number of students that 

resulted from the growth of Ottawa 

South. This growth was connected to 

the construction of the high-capacity 

reinforced-concrete Bank Street 

Bridge, which connected Ottawa 

South with the rest of the city to the 

north. 

An expansion of this new school 

soon followed. Properties located 

between Hopewell and Glenn avenues 

were purchased to accommodate 

playground areas. Other properties 

located along Sunnyside Avenue 

also were purchased. The houses 

situated on the purchased properties 

along Sunnyside were torn down to 

make way for the new expansion. 

The expansion, which extended the 

existing building to the north, was 

carried out in 1915. It included 12 

rooms in addition to manual training 

and domestic sciences rooms in 

the basement. The Carnegie Public 

Library was granted use of one of 

the classrooms to establish one of 

Ottawa’s first branch libraries. The 

Boys Scouts of Ottawa also were 

granted use of the basement, and the 

Girl Guides were granted such use 

later on. The old school building was 

demolished by the time the newly 

expanded building was in use. 

In 1931, a gymnasium / assembly 

hall as well as a manual training 

room were added to the building. 

The addition was located along 

the northern part of the building 

and extended it along the east, thus 

creating an L-shaped composition. 

A third storey extension containing 

an additional eleven classrooms was 

also constructed. Following these 

expansions, the school contained 29 

classrooms accommodating 1289 

students. 

In 1944, the Ottawa South 

Community Association initiated a 

community center at the school that 

carried out programs serving hundreds 

of children, youth, and adults. In 1950, 

a celebration was carried out marking 

the 40th birthday of the school. 

The school underwent difficult 

times during the 1970s, and 

enrollment during the 1979 – 1980 

school year dropped to 399 students, 

which was not much more than the 

number of students the school had 

accommodated when it opened in 

1911. The community, however, 

rallied and initiated changes that 

resulted in a turnabout. 

The school underwent a major 

expansion and refurbishment in 1996 

– 1997. As a result of the expansion, 

the pre-existing extension with a 

gymnasium / assembly hall was torn 

down and replaced by a new extension 

that includes two gymnasia, one of 

which also incorporates a stage, and a 

music room. The extension occupies a 

Cont’d on next page

MAY 2010 

mass that approximates the preexisting 

school building in size, and fills up 

the area bound by the old school from 

the west, Sunnyside Avenue from the 

north, Hopewell Avenue from the 

South, and Bank Street from the East. 

In terms of architectural character, 

it projects a modernist image and 

is intended to contrast with the 

older building. It is sheathed with a 

relatively light-colored brick as well 

as aluminum building panels, and 

also incorporates projecting curved 

surfaces. The spaces where the old 

building and the new extension meet 

feature circulation areas that are open 

along three levels and are generously 

lit through skylights. 

Charles Hopewell 

Charles Hopewell, born in 1861 

and died in 1931, was a well-respected 

and prominent citizen in Ottawa. 

He served as Ottawa’s mayor 

from 1909-1912, a period of 

remarkable activity and growth 

for the city in part attributed to the 

annexation of the outlying suburbs of 

Hintonburg, Ottawa East and Ottawa 

South in 1907. In recognition of his 

civic accomplishments, Park Avenue 

in Ottawa South was renamed in his 

honour. 

As mayor, Charles Hopewell 

championed the efforts to expand 

transportation into Ottawa South. The 

construction of the new Bank Street 


History of Hopewell Avenue Public School ....Cont’d from previous page 

Charles Hopewell (City of Ottawa 

Archives) 

Bridge in 1910 and the expansion of 

the streetcar line help fuel population 

expansion of the neighbourhood. 

As a young man, Hopewell 

left his March Township Carleton 

County farm family home and went to 

Western Canada on the first CPR train 

to cross the continent. He lived many 

years out west working in the lumber 

industry. He moved to Ottawa in the 

1890s and operated a contracting 

business before entering civic 

politics. He was elected alderman for 

Wellington Ward in 1900, 1901, 1903 

& 1906 and subsequently was elected 

as a controller, a city-wide position, 

then as mayor. 

During his tenure as mayor, 

health issues figured prominently in 

civic debates. The 1911-1912 typhoid 

epidemic sparked calls for cleaner 

drinking water. Hopewell favoured 

a scheme to pipe fresh water to the 

city from McGregor Lake in Quebec 

but the Lemieux Island intake of 

Ottawa River water was eventually 

established. Contagious diseases 

concerned the citizens of the capital 

and many smallpox and diphtheria 

sufferers were sent to an isolation unit 

built in 1912 on Porter Island called 

the Hopewell Hospital. 

As the civil service grew, 

Hopewell negotiated grants from the 

federal government establishing the 

pay-in-lieu of yearly taxes principle. 

Hopewell was active in the 

temperance movement, a supporter 

of the Union Mission and a devoted 

member of Chalmers United Church. 

He was appointed police magistrate 

after his term in politics and was 

seen by his critics as often too lenient 

while recognized by his supporters 

as dispensing justice tempered with 

mercy. 

In 1931 he took his own life 

by drowning in the Ottawa River 

at Rockcliffe after a long period of 

ill-health, overwork and financial 

troubles. He had carried out his 

intentions as expressed in a letter 

to Mr. Hal Burns, one of the city’s 

prominent lawyers and legal advisor 

to Mr. Hopewell. 

Page 13 

The Evening Citizen of May 

31, 1931 reported that on receiving 

the news of magistrate Hopewell’s 

untimely death, the Allied Trade and 

Labour Association of Ottawa passed 

a resolution citing “We may all agree, 

as many delegates had personal 

friendship, that what he lacked in 

knowledge of the law was made up 

by his common sense application of 

same. Any errors he committed were 

of the head and not the heart”. 

Anniversaries Past and Present 

In 1985, as part of the 75th 

anniversary activities, a committee of 

volunteers researched and documented 

the school’s rich history. Glen Avenue 

resident David Bouse played a key role 

in finding and compiling stories into a 

commemorative souvenir publication. 

His historical research about the 

school and the neighbourhood has 

served as a touchstone for the current 

day Ottawa South History Project. 

To kick-off the 100th anniversary 

celebration, alumni, parents, staff and 

invited guests will enjoy a special 

commemorative opening ceremony at 

the school on May 17, 2010. 

Contact the Ottawa South 

History Project at HistoryProject@ 

OldOttawaSouth.ca or visit us 

online at www.OldOttawaSouth.ca/ 

HistoryProject).

Page 14 

The only thing better than the 

made-in-house delicious 

middle-eastern food served up 

at Jericho’s in the Glebe is the story 

of this little restaurant’s owner Raouf 

Omar. Mr. Omar is a very talented 

artist who immigrated to Canada quite 

some time ago from Palestine and has 

been running Jericho for more than 25 

years. 

Working primarily with painted 

glass to produce colourful pictures 

and unique ornamental doors, Mr. 

Omar has decorated Jericho from top 

to bottom with his work – including 

the ceiling which features a beautiful 

mural complete with palm trees and 

camels. All of the creations are for 

sale – at least the mobile ones, anyway 

- and he advertises a book he co-wrote 

with his best friend (who happens to 

be Israeli). Mr. Omar and Claude 

Weil’s book includes a collection of 

stories with an underlying theme of 

friendship and tolerance. 

There was so much to absorb 

with our eyes that our stomachs were 

momentarily forgotten. Although 

we were delayed in making our 

menu selections, at no point in the 


The Grosvenor Avenue Gastronomic Society 

“Life is too short to eat disappointing food.” 

Fantastic Falafels at Fifth Jericho 

evening did we feel rushed owing 

to the exceptionally relaxed feel of 

this establishment and Mr. Omar’s 

friendly demeanour. We felt as though 

we were having dinner at a long-time 

friend’s from the moment we walked 

in the door. There is a wide range of 

alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages 

available, but we selected the house 

red wine (2008 Beaujolais, Georges 

Duboeuf) that was quite reasonably 

priced at $26. 

Jericho offers a suite of appetizers 

($4-$10), along with standard middleeastern 

dishes and house specials ($7- 

$16). We opted to skip the appetizers 

on the recommendation of Mr. Omar 

who was certain that the portions of 

the main courses would be enough; 

he was right. We ordered the Chicken 

on Hummus platter, the Mishwee 

Meshakal special, the Falafel 

Combination plate, and the Chicken 

Kebab Combination plate. The 

chicken on hummus was a smaller 

portion than the others but was still 

satisfying, especially for our notso-hungry 

taster. The combination 

plates were delicious with the 

falafels being the absolutely perfect 

(slightly crunchy outside and tender, 

spicy goodness on the inside). Both 

combination plates included hummus 

and baba ganouj, but the falafel plate 

also included tabouleh. The chicken 

kebab was removed from the skewer 

and was tossed with potatoes and 

onions in a very flavourful dusting 

of curry and other spices. While 

the Mishwee Meshakal special was 

essentially the same as the chicken 

kebab combo plate, it also included 

beef as well as kafta on the side. A 

large serving of pita bread was 

brought to the table at the beginning 

of our meal and it may well have 

been the best pita any of us has ever 

tasted. It was impossibly thin and 

unbelievably fresh – an excellent 

accompaniment to our dishes. 

Even though we were all quite 

full, we couldn’t resist trying the 

MAY 2010 

Area Church Service Times 

Sunnyside Wesleyan Chuch 

58 Grosvenor Avenue (at Sunnyside) 

Sunday Worship Service at 9am & 

11am 

Children’s program offered during 

both worship services. 

Trinity Anglican Church 

1230 Bank Street (at Cameron 

Avenue) 

Sunday Services 

Regular 8.30 eucharist , and 10 am 

sung eucharist with church school 

and nursery, resume Sundays, starting 

September 6) 

Thursdays 

10 am – Eucharist or Morning Prayer 

house-made desserts and selected the 

baklava, two orders of clafoutier (one 

with apples, one with peaches and 

raspberries), and an alcazar (a heavy, 

fruity, marvelous torte). All were 

very good and the apple clafoutier 

was heavenly with its shortbread-like 

base and layers of thin, dried apples. 

Although Arabic coffee was offered 

on the menu, we declined and had a 

couple of really good lattes instead. 

The eclectic and cheerful 

atmosphere woven around the 

artwork at Jericho provides ample 

visual interest and adds to what is 

sure to be a fun night out. If every 

GAGS review had to feature at 

least one complaint, it would be 

this: the restaurant’s Mediterranean 

atmosphere manifested itself in 

temperatures and humidity that were 

tough to handle in our Ottawa winter 

duds! Jericho’s bright colours are 

sure to be a hit with the kids, and 

you’ll be all smiles owing to the 

tasty, reasonably priced meal you just 

scored. 

Jericho 

840 Bank Street in the Glebe 

613-235-1289 

www.ramors.net 

We’d be happy to receive 

comments or suggestions on the next 

restaurant to visit, so drop us a line at 

grosvenor.gastronomic@gmail.com 

Happy Eating! 

The Grosvenor Avenue 

Gastronomic Society (aka GAGS) 

in Chapel 

St Margaret Mary’s Parish 

7 Fairbairn (corner of Sunnyside) 

Sunday Liturgies 

9:30am and 11:30am 

Christian Meditation 

Mondays at 7:00 pm. 

Evening Prayer: Tuesday at 7 p.m. 

Southminster United Church 

15 Aylmer Avenue (at Bank & the 

Canal) 

Sunday Worship 

10:30 a.m. (9:30 a.m. July & August) 

Sunday School 

During worship, September - May

MAY 2010 


TRINITY ANGLICAN CHURCH 

Garage-Sale Heaven 

CARLETON CORNER 

Annual Garage Sale at Trinity Anglican Church Saturday 1 

May (9 am – 1 pm) 

You are strolling along on a beautiful May day. How 

odd—a cardboard box on the sidewalk! As you 

approach, you can’t help but notice that it is full of 

things: men’s button-downs, classic children’s books, a pair 

of brass candlesticks, a fishing rod, a beige computer monitor, 

some LPs (“The Berlin Philharmonic Plays Haydn,” “Derek and 

the Dominos,” “Ozzy Osbourne Live at the Tate”). You steel 

yourself: I do not need these things, I do not need... But already 

your pace is slowing. Your eyes are darting over the objects, you 

are taking quick, shallow breaths. And then you see the note: 

“$1.00 or best offer.” The inner struggle is violent but brief, and 

a few minutes later you are walking along again—box in tow. 

If this description matches you, then you are in for a treat: the 

attics and basements of Old Ottawa South have been ransacked 

and their treasures laid bare for all. Trinity Anglican Church 

(1230 Bank St.) will be holding its annual Spring Garage Sale on 

Saturday 1 May from 9 am to 1 pm. Books, clothes, CDs, DVDs, 

jewelry, crafts, household items, toys, sports equipment, garden 

tools, Sens regalia: you will find all the usual garage-sale objects 

there in heavenly abundance, miraculously preserved against 

the ravages of time. If garage-sale hawks know anything, it’s 

that the early bird gets the worm, so aim to be on the early side, 

especially if you’re angling for that serendipitous discovery of 

a neglected collector’s item. Anyone wishing to donate items to 

the sale may drop them off at the church the week before. 

If this description matches your spouse or significant 

other but NOT you, you are advised to keep him/her locked up 

and blindfolded that day; otherwise, you are sure to find your 

inventory of personal property increased and the uncluttered 

living space in your domicile decreased proportionally. 

For more information please contact the church at mail@ 

trinityottawa.ca or 613-733-7536. 

By Robert Taylor 

An exciting Concert For Kairos takes 

place at Trinity Anglican Church, 

1230 Bank Street, on the evening of 

Friday, May 28 at 8 pm. The concert is another 

significant demonstration of commitment to 

Kairos as Trinity continues to work together 

with Southminster United Church and St. 

Margaret Mary Roman Catholic Church to 

urge reinstatement of the $7.1 million that 

the federal government has cut from CIDA’s 

support of Kairos over the next four years. 

As reported in the March issue of OSCAR, 

Kairos is a non-governmental organization 

with which a number of national churches 

– including the Anglican, Roman Catholic, 

and United – are affiliated. Kairos’ vital 

work in promoting grass-roots partnership 

development in various parts of the world 

has been seriously placed in jeopardy by 

this sudden and unexplained government 

decision not to continue its funding. 

The concert for Kairos on May 28 will 

be a memorable evening of great music and 

performances. The evening will include a 

reception and provide information materials 

about Kairos. Its intention is to raise funds 

for Kairos as well as awareness of the crucial 

work that Kairos does. Although the concert 

takes place at Trinity, all three Old Ottawa 

South churches with a Kairos affiliation – 

Trinity, Southminster, and St. Margaret Mary 

- are involved in its organization. 

Well-known organist Matthew Larkin 

Concert For Kairos 

At Trinity Anglican Church 

For 33 days, Carleton University 

hosted its first celebrational Research 

Days to highlight outstanding and 

world-changing work from the university’s 

innovative researchers. Public lectures, 

conferences, films and project demonstrations 

were held from March 18 to April 19. The wrapup 

event featured the Hon. Michael Kirby, 

who delivered a speech on the importance of 

mental health services. Research Days gave 

the public an opportunity to experience the 

breadth and depth of research activities at the 

university. Carleton researchers are making 

their mark on the global scene in key areas 

such as digital media, the environment and 

sustainability, health and globalization. 

Another highlight in the month - the 

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the 

Faculty of Science partnered with the Ottawa 

Writers’ Festival to host an extraordinary 

evening April 12 with world-renowned 

primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, 

founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN 

Messenger of Peace on April 12. During the 

sold out event, Dr. Goodall reflected on the 

incredible insights her research has offered 

into our closest animal relatives and the 

extraordinary changes, since 1960, for people, 

animals and the environment. 

Meanwhile, Carleton President 

Roseann O’Reilly Runte continued her 

community outreach during a special event 

held on Parliament Hill on April 21 when 

she addressed the Canadian Institute of 

Intercultural Dialogue at its fifth annual 

Dialogue and Friendship dinner. The 

organization is committed to the principles of 

discussion, the productive exchange of ideas 

promises to reveal a jazzy side to his 

musical accomplishments at the concert. 

Also performing jazz is the popular Charley 

Gordon Group, a quartet that consists of 

Charley Gordon on trumpet and flugelhorn, 

Vince Halfhive on guitar and vocals, Ann 

Downey on bass and vocals, and Scott 

Warren on drums. As well, so far, the concert 

program includes the Big Soul Project, a choir 

and band of over 50 members, noted for its 

fresh and upbeat interpretations of traditional 

gospel music. Old Ottawa South’s own Doug 

Small will be Master of Ceremonies for the 

evening. 

Mary Corkery, Executive Director of 

Kairos Canada, has indicated that she will be 

present at the concert. 

Tickets for the Concert For Kairos are $20, 

or $15 for students. Trinity, Southminister, 

and St. Margaret Mary churches have 

tickets for sale. Advance tickets are also 

available, for cash purchase only, at the St. 

Paul University Bookstore, Main Street, and 

Compact Music, 785 ½ Bank Street. Posters 

will indicate other ticket locations. 

For further information about the 

Concert For Kairos, please contact 

L.A. (Leslie Anne) Palamar, palamar@ 

BuildingTourismExcellence.com, 613 266- 

2831, or Robert Taylor, r_taylor@rogers. 

com, 613 230-3903. 

Page 15 

and the celebration of the richness of the 

cultures, ethnicities, religions and races that 

are present in our community. 

The university was also proud to 

announce that two Carleton journalism 

students, Chantaie Allick and Margaret 

Cappa, will soon be winging their way to 

Norway as part of a new scholarship funded 

by Her Excellency Else Berit Eikeland, 

the ambassador of Norway to Canada. The 

Carleton Norway Journalism Travel Award 

offers two young aspiring journalists an 

opportunity to travel, work and conduct 

research in a field of particular interest to them 

and relevant to both Norway and Canada. The 

candidates will spend a month in Norway this 

spring, conducting research and interviews 

and spending some time in a newsroom. Upon 

their return, the students will either publish 

a story or broadcast a report that examines 

how one or both countries are dealing with a 

policy issue that affects Canada and Norway 

as northern countries. 

In May, Carleton is hosting the Green 

Building Ottawa Conference called Retrofit. 

The conference, the first of its kind in 

eastern Ontario, takes place from May 12 

to 14. More details can be found at: www. 

greenbuildingottawa.ca 

Carleton Corner is written by Carleton 

University’s Department of University 

Communications. As your community 

university, Carleton hosts many exciting 

events of interest to Ottawa South. For more 

information about upcoming events, please 

go to carleton.ca/events. 

Mary Anne Thompson reading OSCAR in St Louis, 

Missouri. Behind her are the Gateway Arch and the 

Historic Old Courthouse, which was completed in 1862. 

One Of Very Few Public Clocks In OOS 

Thank you Hillary’s Cleaners for keeping it running. 

Photo by M A Thompson

Page 16 The th OSCAR - OUR 37 YEAR 

MAY 2010 

AFTER THOUGHTS 

from Richard Ostrofsky 

of Second Thoughts 

Bookstore (now closed) 

www.secthoughts.com 

quill@travel-net.com 

The title of this column, taken 

from a much longer piece I’m 

writing, is not as contradictory 

as it sounds. It’s premise is simple: 

Though the Geriatric Superman on 

the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling is as dead 

intellectually as Nietzsche pointed 

out, the key issues of theology (the 

questions that any bright four-yearold 

begins to ask) are still very much 

alive, and must be expected to remain 

so. In adult, god-neutral language, 

they might be framed in terms like 

these: 

What is the cosmic context of 

our human lives, and how can I (and 

should I) understand and relate to that 

context? At the end of the day, what 

am I? 

How does the social world of 

human relationships really work, and 

where do I fit into it? 

Within those givens, which I 

cannot change very much, for what 

goals and values should I live? 

These three, I take it, are the central 

questions that religious thinkers down 

the ages have grappled with – and 

that people, religious or not, are still 

grappling with. The first is the sort of 

question you might ask, waking up in 

VRTUCAR, Ottawa’s own car 

sharing organization, is marking its 

10 th anniversary this spring. Started in 

the year 2000, with four friends and 

one car, VRTUCAR now serves over 

1,400 Ottawa residents with 70 fuelefficient 

cars. 

“Old Ottawa South residents have 

been enthusiastic supporters of car 

sharing from the beginning,” says 

VRTUCAR President and ‘Chief 

Theology For Atheists 

a strange house, in a strange bed after 

a hard night’s drinking: Where am 

I? What is this place? How did I get 

here? The second is the question you 

would ask on discovering that there 

were a lot of other people in the house, 

some even in that same bed: Who are 

all these people? How do I relate to, 

and deal with them? The third is the 

question you would ask after a further 

recognition that this place was to be 

home from now on: Either how do I 

get out, or how do I make a life here? 

Even when we reject all claims 

that definitive answers to these 

questions were once revealed, and 

when we discard all notions of a 

God or gods to do the revealing, the 

questions themselves remain as valid 

and urgent as ever. If anything, they 

become much more urgent, given 

the technological powers now at our 

disposal, and the political choices 

these entail. 

My purpose in the piece I’m 

writing is to review these central 

issues of traditional theology from an 

ecoDarwinian perspective that takes 

self-organization and emergence and 

(correspondingly) “the death of God” 

as its starting point – not to offer 

definitive answers to them, but to 

consider where they stand. The project 

is timely, but it should be the leaders 

of the major world religions, not just 

amateurs like me, who undertake 

it – because the mental health of the 

Sharing Officer’, Wilson Wood. 

“Old Ottawa South is extremely 

challenged when it comes to parking, 

especially as new development often 

adds to the neighbourhood’s parking 

woes,” Wilson notes. “Each shared car 

removes 8 to 10 private cars from our 

streets – reducing traffic congestion 

and air pollution – helping to make 

Old Ottawa South a more pedestrianfriendly 

neighbourhood. Studies have 

millions who rely upon and trust 

them depends upon their doing so. 

Unfortunately, they show few signs 

of being ready or willing to undertake 

the hard thinking and doctrinal 

revision that such an effort entails. 

With a few honorable exceptions, 

most religious leaders seem to be 

digging their heels even further into 

their dogmas which have decreasing 

relevance and decreasing credibility 

for modern people in today’s world. 

Their institutional interests may 

depend on their doing so, for there 

have always been more people who 

prefer to cling to ready-made answers 

rather than think seriously about 

difficult questions. Still, this is not a 

healthy state of affairs. As Emerson 

put it 150 years ago, “The religion that 

is afraid of science dishonors God and 

commits suicide.” 

As knowledge advances, the 

religious emotions – notably awe and 

alienation – live on. There is every 

reason why they should continue 

to do so. Yet traditional religious 

answers and practices no longer 

deserve to have the last word. They 

are suggestions from the past – 

worth consideration, but in need of 

questioning in the the light of existing 

knowledge and one’s honest sense 

of reality. Seen this way, one finds 

that many of the old traditions need 

serious revision or editing to remain 

playable – like an old theatre piece 

also shown that people who car share, 

reduce their transportation carbon 

footprint by up to fifty percent. They 

support public transit more, and tend 

to be healthier because they walk 

and cycle more. A great example is 

VRTUCAR member and long-time 

OOS resident David Chernuschenko, 

creator of the “Living Lightly 

Project,” he adds. 

Car sharing would seem to make 

sense economically, as well as 

environmentally. “Car sharing 

can save you thousands of dollars 

each year, over owning a car,” 

Wilson points out. Based on 2007 

Canadian Automobile Association 

figures (latest available), the cost of 

owning and operating an economysize 

car, including gas, financing, 

license, insurance, repairs, 

maintenance and depreciation 

is $8,588 per year, or $715 per 

month. The average VRTUCAR 

driver, according to Wood, spends 

about $1,140 per year, or only $95 

per month, saving over $7,000 per 

year. 

VRTUCAR members have 24hour 

access to a fleet of clean, fuelefficient 

cars stationed throughout 

that needs help from a skilled director 

if it’s to go on stage. Some remain 

wholly relevant and serviceable after 

such treatment. Others are interesting 

as historical specimens, but no longer 

as anything else. 

A religion is a world view that 

you can hope to live by, die by, and 

perhaps share with friends along the 

way. It is nothing more than that, and 

nothing less. One crucial intellectual 

task today is to save religion from 

itself: from its institutions and 

their interests, from its entrenched 

authorities, and from its own worst 

impulses. 

This OSCAR column is mostly 

excerpted from the beginning and end 

of the essay I’m writing – the first 

draft of which is nearing completion. 

It will run to about 90 pages when it’s 

finished – much too long to publish 

here, even in serial form. I want to 

invite comment on its thesis from my 

friends and neighbors, some of which 

I may use (with your permission of 

course) in the final version. Also, I 

will promise to send the finished piece 

by e-mail to anyone who requests. To 

facilitate handling, please put that title 

“Theology for Atheists” as the subject 

when you write for a copy. I will 

respond to comments as best I can, 

and will be thankful for your interest. 

VRTUCAR - Ten Years of Green Driving in Old Ottawa South 

Ottawa. VRTUCAR pays for the gas, 

insurance, maintenance and repair of 

cars, while members pay only for the 

hours and the kilometers they use, 

plus a modest monthly membership 

fee. Cars can be booked online up 

to 30 days in advance. Full details 

are available on VRTUCAR’s newly 

renovated website – www.vrtucar. 

com. 

In Old Ottawa South, VRTUCAR 

has three stations located at Bank 

& Sunnyside, Bond’s Décor and 

Carleton University. VRTUCARs 

are also located at Billings Bridge, 

Britannia Village, Byward Market, 

Carlingwood, Centretown, Glebe, 

Hintonburg, New Edinburgh, 

Sandy Hill, Vanier, Westboro, West 

Wellington, Woodroffe and Baseline, 

as well as several locations in 

Gatineau, through a partnership with 

Quebec car share Communauto. 

“We are looking forward to 

our next decade of providing a 

sustainable, affordable, alternative to 

owning a private car,” says Wilson. 

“Support from an environmentallyaware 

community like Old Ottawa 

South has helped make VRTUCAR 

the success it is today.”

MAY 2010 

Primary Paleontologists Can Find Fossils Here In Ottawa 

By Paige Raymond Kovach 

If your kids are like mine, they 

are fans of ancient herbivores 

and carnivores. Yet even though 

Ottawa wasn’t home to Brachiosaurus 

or Tyrannosaurus Rex, we have fossils 

right here for your favourite primary 

paleontologist to discover. 

The shales and limestones 

(sedimentary rocks) in and around 

Ottawa contain thousands of fossils. 

These fossils represent the life forms 

that once lived in the ancient seas that 

covered this region. 

We took the kids for a quick walk to 

Brown’s Inlet recently and they found 

some shale. Splitting the rock revealed 

a pattern. Was it a fossil? We had to find 

out what it was. 

Technically speaking these public 

lands are owned by the National 

Capital Commission so you must have 

permission before taking rocks or 

breaking them. Better to take photos 

of any fossils you find, and leave only 

footprints. 

“All the dingy, gray rocks you see in 

this area are from the Orvidician period 

and are over 440 million years old,” 

said Jean Dougherty, paleontologist at 

National Resources Canada. 

“The fossil you have in your picture 

has trackways or burrows made by a 

mud-dwelling creature. These creatures 

made a genetically set pattern in the 

mud we believe they used as a way of 

communicating to each other.” 

“The fossil you found was twice 

as old as the oldest dinosaur that ever 

lived.’ Said Ms. Dougherty, manager 

of the Earth Materials Collections of 

National Resources Canada. 

Or perhaps your kids have climbed 

and sat on fossils they weren’t aware of 

it. 

An Ottawa South mom introduced 

Squirrel Talk 

The weather keeps wavering as if on a ship at sea, 

making us reflect upon peoples’ impact on our 

world. This month’s soliloquy is from someone 

you might know, so we’ll leave you the pleasure of 

recognizing it. Read it in your mind or aloud, with the 

special verbal emphasis usually associated with this 

writer. Softly, it carries our spirits forward and gives 

our mind food for reflection. 

[…] 

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; 

No more; and by a sleep to say we end 

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation 

Devoutly to be wish’d. 

[…] 

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn 

No traveller returns, puzzles the will 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have 

Than fly to others that we know not of? 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; 

me to the fossils in some of the 

rectangular boulders in Brewer Park 

recently. “You can see some stacked 

columns of crinoids in some, some 

brachiopods, and corals if you look 

closely,” she said. 

According to Geoscape, the 

geology website of Natural Resources 

Canada, crinoids are a group of marine 

organisms that include starfish and sea 

urchins. Most forms consist of stalks 

with a series of stacked columns, a 

head-like structure and feathered arms. 

The most common fossil will be a 

single crinoid, or a few scales clumped 

together. Finding a whole crinoid is 

much more rare. 

If you and your kids still have the 

dinosaur bug, take your bikes, the bus 

or your car to visit Logan Hall. The free 

display of fossils, rocks, minerals and 

meteorites may just make your primary 

paleontologists into budding geologists 

too. My kids loved the meteorite found 

by a boy in St. Robert, Quebec. Logan 

Hall is located at 601 Booth Street, 

in the Geological Survey of Canada 

Building and is open Monday to Friday, 

8 a.m. until 4 p.m. 

The Canadian Museum of Nature 

is another great place to visit with your 

primary paleontologist. The second 

floor is devoted to dinosaurs. The 

museum is free on Saturday mornings 

from 9 a.m. until noon. Please note that 

the museum will be temporarily closed 

from April 26 until May 21, 2010 to 

prepare for its grand reopening. 

Resources 

Natural Resources Canada has a 

great website called Geoscape. In the 

lesson plans for the Ottawa-Carleton 

area there are great facts on our local 

fossils. http://geoscape.nrcan.gc.ca/ 

ottawa/index_e.php 

Professor JA Davidson from 

Carleton used to give fossil fieldtrips as 

More Than Words! 

And thus the native hue of resolution 

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, 

And enterprises of great pith and moment 

With this regard their currents turn awry, 

And lose the name of action.--Soft you now! 

part of a continuing education course. 

His itinerary is available on-line at 

http://http-server.carleton.ca/~jadonald/ 

fieldtrips.html. 

Ottawa fossil index from Geoscape 

Crinoids are a group of marine 

organisms that include starfish and 

sea urchins. Most forms consist of 

stalks composed of a series of stacked 

columns of with a head-like structure 

and feathered arms. The most common 

fossil will be a single, or a few scales 

clumped together. A whole Crinoid is 

much rarer. 

Trilobites were marine creatures 

that moved just above the sea floor. 

Trilobite means three lobes, and if the 

creature were to be divided lengthwise 

it would have a centre lobe and two 

side lobes. Trilobites were hard-shelled 

creatures, and they had to shed their 

hard shell in order to grow. The shell 

is usually what fossil hunters find. 

More than words, reading this author (and many 

others) is an experience that changes each time we read 

the text, as our personal interpretation is influenced 

by our current and past experiences. This time we 

are reminded of recent Buddhist teachings we took: 

take no less yet no more than our place. A statement 

of simple appearance yet of hidden depth. Clearly a 

soliloquy such as above can lead us into a myriad of 

directions, and we choose to interpret it as a positive 

message. 

The comment this time relates to noise, and 

refers to the article in last month’s OSCAR on Patty’s 

Pub. We like having a pub nearby, but we find that 

it creates unacceptable noise at night. Perhaps if the 

owners helped respect the neighbourhood’s residential 

character then the situation referred to in last month’s 

OSCAR would not happen: “The only issue the pub 

has had at its present location has been a struggle [… 

Page 17 

Three fossil hunting friends Oliver Waddington, Josh Rahaman, and George 

Kovach find some brachiopods in the shale boulders at Brewer Park. 

Photo by Paige Raymond Kovach 

Trilobites only lived in the Paleozoic 

era and are now extinct. If you find 

these types of fossils, you know how 

old the rock is -- between 545 and 250 

million years old. 

Cephalopods are ancient mollusks 

that were dominant large predators in the 

tropical seas that existed in the Ottawa 

area. There are two main groups of 

fossil cephalopods, but only nautiloids 

are found locally and most have straight 

shells (orthocone). They lived in the 

Ottawa area from the Cambrian to the 

Ordovician era. 

Corals are irregular colonial masses 

that contain radically symmetrical, cupshaped 

living platforms that are larger 

than 1 mm in diameter. Many coral 

fossils are found in the Ottawa area, 

which suggests the climate was very 

different compared with today 

when] neighbours objected [when Patty’s Pub wished 

to open an outdoor patio].” When pub patrons leave 

at closing time in the middle of the night and are 

loud and noisy as they often are, then the pub itself 

becomes unwelcome. Another unfortunate recent 

example is that the pub forced the city to repair water 

valves during the night instead of letting the city do it 

in the morning as planned. This repair was so noisy 

that the sound reached through the whole house and 

lasted till early morning, so we couldn’t sleep for most 

of the night. Such actions from the pub plainly show 

they do not care about the neighbourhood. We ask 

the pub to act responsibly and thoughtfully towards 

the neighbourhood, and to ensure its patrons are 

respectful of the neighbourhood. Then the pub will 

be a very welcome neighbour. Would the pub actively 

commit to this ? 

We are the sum of all our actions and the sum 

of all our actions is the footprint we create. We can 

choose to better the world and our community by 

positive individual actions. 

Zen squirrels check us from the fence, sitting like 

little buddhas. 

Write us at taniamich@gmail.com.

Page 18 

By M. Lindsay Lambert 

I 

am very angry at Dalton McGuinty’s 

Liberal Party’s decision to merge 

the Ontario Provinical Sales 

Tax with the GST. I had been quite 

proud to be in a Province, which had 

maintained a stand against the Federal 

Government’s tax system on behalf of 

its constituents. 

The reason given for the HST is 

that it will allow industry to become 

more competitive through the removal 

of the 8% PST that they now pay on 

their inputs. Consumers will be taxed 

more to make up the shortfall. 

I operate a small business, and 

don’t have a problem with paying some 

Provincial Sales Tax. Like every other 

commercial concern, I am currently 

exempt from the PST on materials 

and goods that I buy for resale, as my 

customers ultimately pay the 8% levy. 

I am only responsible for covering it 

on other expenses. 

I have been collecting Retail Sales 

Tax for almost 28 years, doing my 

part in supporting the system. The 

remittance forms always include the 

standard threat of penalties for late 

filing or non-compliance. I find it very 

curious that your government now 

doesn’t care if I collect any RST at my 

income level, unless I am charging the 

Federal Government’s tax as well. 

I want Ontario to retain our 

current Retail Sales Tax System. It 

The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR MAY 2010 

is our Provincial tax, and it is under 

our control. It works in a more 

balanced and human way than the 

GST model: Since the RST was 

introduced, it has gradually evolved in 

response to economic change and new 

requirements. The rate has increased 

over the year, and it was extended 

to most services in 1982. Certain 

principles have been maintained 

throughout, particularly the exemption 

of essential goods and services. (It was 

conceived as a tax on discretionary 

purchases only.) There is a good 

balance in the application of the tax 

between businesses and consumers: 

The former are exempt from the levy 

on goods or materials that they buy for 

resale, as their customers ultimately pay 

it, but cover it on other costs. Everyone 

benefits form Provincial Government 

services, and we are all responsible for 

maintaining them. The legislation also 

recognizes that businesses are doing a 

job in collecting and administering the 

tax on behalf of the Province, and are 

entitled to compensation. 

The RST is a flexible tax. If your 

government wishes to help businesses 

during hard times, you could permit 

them to claim back all their input taxes 

until prosperity returns. You could also 

encourage exports by providing rebates 

directly related to the percentage of 

goods sent out of the province. 

Under the Harmonized Sales Tax, 

Ontario will be abrogating its authority 

HST Opposition 

over the sales tax in favour of the 

Federal Government’s rules. The HST, 

based on the GST, is a very rigid tax 

formula: It will permanently transfer 

business’ share of the Provincial RST 

to consumers, irrespective of whether 

the economy is prospering or in 

recession. The long-standing principle 

of exemption necessities will be 

discarded. Rebates to people with low 

income and tax cuts elsewhere have 

been promised, but I don’t believe 

that they will be equal to the new tax 

burden on the general public. The 

provincial Liberal government’s claim 

that the Province will actually be losing 

revenue under the HST is nonsense. 

Businesses will no longer be 

compensated for collecting sales tax. 

This is wrong: People can’t be pressganged 

into working for free in this 

day and age. 

The McGuinty Liberals and 

boosters of he Harmonized Sales Tax 

have been asserting that businesses 

will be lowering prices for consumers 

with the removal of provincial sales 

tax from their inputs under the new 

system. Commerce doesn’t work this 

way: businesses are the business to 

make a profit, and tend to charge what 

the market will bear. 

The Mulroney Conservatives 

made the same claim for the Goods and 

Services Tax, regarding the removal of 

the old federal Manufacturers’ Sales 

Tax that was supposedly embedded in 

prices. 

When I registered to collect Retail 

Sales Tax, I signed up my business. 

My Vendor Permit is made out to 

“M. Lindsay Lambert Restoration” as 

were my RST Returns. The Goods and 

Services Tax requires the registration 

of one’s person, unless the business 

is incorporated. The Federal tax also 

defines private sales of used goods as 

Non-Taxable Supply, and I assume that 

both provisions will be extended to the 

HST> This creates a legal inequality: 

if you are registered as an individual, 

everything that you do comes under 

the rules of taxation. You cannot make 

a private sale. Your employee can sell 

his or her old chesterfield tax-free, but 

you will automatically be a tax criminal 

if you do the same. I expect to register 

a business for sales tax purposes, but 

no government has jurisdiction over 

everything that I do in my life. I am 

not government property, and will 

never register for the HST under this 

condition. 

In October of last year, the 

Ministry of Revenue assigned me a 

new business number in place of my 

original one, and the tax return slips 

are now imprinted “M. Lambert.” 

I telephoned to question this, and 

was informed that the change was to 

bring the RST in line with the GST. 


MAY 2010 

WINDSOR REDUX B PART 12 

For nearly eight years, from 

February 2000 to August 2008, 

OSCAR carried a monthly column. 

The Windsor Chronicles, written by 

Zoscha the Wonder Dog. Zoscha 

became something of a celebrity 

in our neighbourhood, and her 

observations on the passing scene, 

from a canine perspective, attracted 

her share of loyal readers as well as 

critics. 

OSCAR is reprinting some of 

Zoscha’s musings from eight years 

ago. The editors have annotated 

where we feel that today’s readers 

may need to be informed of 

references that may no longer be 

remembered by readers today, or 

where recent scholarship has shed 

further light on the world described 

in the Windsor Chronicles.. 

May, 2001 

Dear Boomer, 

The squirrels are out, the kids 

are back in the playground, 

and even the humanoids eat 

outdoors. 

Over the past winter, my 

humanoids kept me outside. They 

provided a little house on the deck 

beside the back door. In recent 

The government was apparently 

organizing for the HST well before the 

budget vote last March. 

There are some sound reasons for 

retaining our present provincial retail 

sales tax rather than joining with the 

Federal GST system. 

Medical services are currently 

GST-exempt, and will not be subject 

to the HST. Being exempt, they 

cannot claim their input taxes back 

like regular businesses. As of July 1, 

2010, doctors, therapists, diagnostic 

clinics and hospitals will be required 

to 8% more in new Provincial taxes on 

their commercial rents, heating, and 

electrical bills. (Hospitals will receive 

the municipality’s rebate on HST, as 

they do on the GST, so they won’t 

be hurting as much.) These are not 

taxable under the present PST. This is 

a substantial cost, and they will have 

to absorb it unless OHIP coverage is 

increased to compensate. 

This makes no sense. Our medical 

system is paid for through our taxes 

and all revenue should be used for 

health purposes. It shouldn’t be 

clawed back with a major hidden tax. 

Our food supply is more than taxexempt; 

it is Zero-rated. Groceries are 

not taxed, but everyone from farmers 

up through the distribution chain get to 

claim the input taxes on their expenses 

back as well. It should be the same for 

our health services. 

Mr Naqui states that his 

government has cut personal income 

The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR Page 19 

Eating Outdoors 

weeks, they’ve moved this little 

house into the shade under the trees 

by the garden. I’m not so sure I prefer 

it there. Perhaps when the summer 

weather gets really hot, I’ll see the 

benefits, but right now, it just keeps 

me too far away from the rest of the 

pack. 

That is, of course, except for 

those lovely evenings when the pack 

assembles on the deck, and my Alpha 

fires up the charring machine. Then 

the delectable smells of dinner waft 

across the lawn. On the soft evenings, 

you can lift your sniffer in the air, 

and tell what all the neighbours are 

barbecuing. At times like this, I’m 

sorry that the humanoids have fenced 

the perimeter of my territory. How 

wonderful if I could trot along the 

property lines, following the smells 

along the great buffet of backyard 

barbecues. 

One of my favourite things about 

this season: we resort to the more 

relaxed rules of outdoor eating. Inside 

the house, I’m often required to wait 

my turn in the spot below the kitchen 

counter, while the rest of the pack 

eats in the dining room. Only when 

the rest of the pack has finished am 

I allowed to go and glean whatever I 

can find. 

From my spot in the kitchen, I 

HST Opposition ... Cont’d from previous page 

taxes for 93% of Ontarians, “putting 

more money into the hands of families 

for them to decide how to spend it.” He 

doesn’t remind us that the PST will be 

extended to such essentials as heating 

fuel, electricity and gasoline. We have 

no choice on purchasing these, and I 

doubt if the reduced income taxes will 

compensate. Our current Provincial 

Sales Tax exempts necessities. This 

long-standing principle has been 

thrown out the window with the HST. 

Mr Naqui asserts that this is a 

“balanced tax package for families 

and businesses.” Under the present 

PST rules, businesses are exempt 

form paying the tax on goods and 

materials that they buy for resale, as 

their customers pay the 8% levy. They 

are only required to cover it on other 

expenses. I operate a small business, 

and regard this as a reasonable 

balance. We all rely on the same 

government services, and we are all 

jointly responsible for keeping them 

up. 

Under the HST, businesses will get to 

claim all their Provincial Input taxes 

back, and consumers will be taxed 

more to make up the shortfall. This 

is not equitable. As an individual, I 

regard businesses as neighbours. It’s 

not fair that the McGuinty Liberals 

should exempt my neighbours from 

a tax, and then expect me to pay it in 

Cont’d on next page 

have a good vantage point to watch the 

Pup, studying every morsel of meat 

and pasta that he inadvertently drops 

on the floor. As the Pup gets older, 

there’s a diminishing rate of return, 

but the quality of food improves. I 

would not want to go back to the days 

of pablum and mash, even though 

there was always ample spillings to 

go around. 

But in the summer, when we 

gather on the deck, there are different 

rules of proximity. I’m allowed on 

the deck as well and, if I don’t call too 

much attention to myself, they even 

let me haunch right down beside the 

Pup himself. This means being able 

to pick off any droppings right away, 

of course. And it also means that I 

can practice my skills at hypnotism – 

animal magnetism, as the humanoids 

used to call it. 

If I can position myself below 

the table from Alpha’s sightline, and 

with the back of my head toward 

She Who Must Be Obeyed, I have an 

unobstructed view of the Pup’s eyes. 

I can try various expressions on him: 

lonely, hungry, fun-filled, best-friend, 

partners in crime. And over the course 

of a meal I often go through variations 

of all these and more. 

By the end of the meal when the 

ice cream comes out, I resort to all- 

out hypnotism. I 

telepathize my 

message: “Drop the cone! Drop the 

cone!” 

So far, I have yet to score the big 

one. But on the hottest evenings, I am 

rewarded with frequent drippings of 

ice cream when the Pup is too busy 

paying attention to me to keep pace 

with the rivulets of melting ice cream. 

I consider all of this to be good 

training for those afternoons when we 

all go down to the Dairy Queen. (1) 

They leave me outside while they buy 

the ice cream, which leaves me time 

to ingratiate myself to anyone else 

who passes by. When they come out 

again, cones in hand, I have enough 

new friends to try my hypnosis on 

anyone sitting at the outside tables. 

I have faith that, some day – maybe 

very soon in this wonderfully hot 

weather – I will be rewarded for this 

hard work and diligence. 

Bone appetit, 

Zoscha 

(1) The Dairy Queen on Bank 

Street near Riverdale continues to 

be a favourite gathering place for 

both canines and humans on summer 

evenings.

Page 20 

By Anna Redman 

A 

Greek Goddess, a determined 

American, church services and 

the Mother of Pharaohs are 

only some of the major components 

that came together to create the globally 

celebrated holiday of Mother’s Day. 

The vast commercialization which 

is associated with the modern day 

version of this holiday leads people 

to believe that it is nothing more 

than a Hallmark creation. In actual 

fact, countries worldwide celebrated 

the mothers among them long before 

Hallmark even existed. 

Egypt was one of the first 

countries to celebrate Mother’s Day. 

The Egyptians held an annual festival 

in honour of Isis, the Mother of 

Pharaohs. Legend has it that Isis gave 

birth to Horus, son of her dead brother. 

Her brother was killed at the hands of 

their envious brother Seth, who Horus 

would grow up to defeat. This defeat 

allowed him to reunite Egypt and 

become the first Pharaoh, thus making 

Isis the Mother of Pharaohs. 

Both Greece and Rome also 

celebrated mothers in early society. 

Their focus was on the major mother 

deity. In Greece she was referred to as 

Rhea, while in Rome she was known 

as Cybele. Both countries celebrated 

with games, crafts, flowers and honey 

cakes during the later portion of the 

month of March. 


History of Mother’s Day 

March is also the month of 

celebration in Britain. The initial 

celebration was actually in honour 

of the “Mother Church” and fell on 

the fourth Sunday of Lent. However, 

the celebration changed in the 1600s 

to include actual mothers. This 

celebration still took place during Lent 

and became a one day vacation from 

fasting and penance. Presently, this 

holiday is known as Mother’s Day, but 

following the change in the 1600s it 

came to be known as Mothering Day. 

Unlike the European celebrations, 

which were always about celebrating, 

Mother’s Day in America was 

prompted by grief. Julie Ward Howe 

was the instigator, and her motivation 

came from the Civil War. Howe 

was so distraught by the deaths this 

war has caused that she called on 

mothers to come forward and protest 

the pointlessness of their son’s death. 

Howe wished to designate a day for 

celebrating peace and motherhood, 

suggesting that the fourth of July 

could be converted. This suggestion 

was ignored with June 2 eventually 

being deemed Mother’s Day. Howe 

funded the majority of Mother’s Day 

celebrations and when her funding 

ceased so did Mother’s Day. 

However, Howe’s efforts were not 

in vain as Anna Jarvis of West Virginia 

continued the Mother’s Day mission. 

She began by petitioning her church to 

start a Mother’s Day in honour of her 

own mother, who had taught Sunday 

school there. When her application 

was approved May 10, 1908 became 

the first official Mother’s Day of the 

church. The white carnation was the 

favourite flower of Anna’s mother. 

This prompted its use in the first 

official Mother’s Day and its continued 

association with the holiday. 

Jarvis quit her job and took the 

Mother’s Day project on full time. In 

1912 West Virginia celebrated the first 

state wide Mother’s Day with all of 

America celebrating in 1914. It was 

in 1914 that President Wilson signed 

a bill the deemed Mother’s Day a 

national holiday. While initially this 

bill signing appeared to be a success 

for Jarvis it later turned out to be quite 

the opposite. As a national holiday 

Mother’s Day came to be acquainted 

with the commercialization that 

holidays such as Christmas and Easter 

also know well. Jarvis felt that such 

commercialization defeated the point 

and spirit of Mother’s Day and is said 

to have regretted starting the tradition 

before her death in 1948. 

Regardless of Jarvis’ feelings on the 

holiday it is still celebrated today both 

in America and many other countries. 

Each country has its own time of year 

and festivities devoted to the holiday. 

America celebrates on the second 

Sunday in May with dinning out being 

one of the more popular traditions. 

Many other countries have adopted the 

American tradition such as Australia, 

Canada, and China. Pakistan and Saudi 

addition to my own. 

The HST system is designed to 

make industry more competitive in 

the export market by reducing their 

expenses. This was the Mulroney 

Conservatives’ rationale in replacing 

the old manufacturers’ Federal Sales 

Tax with the GST. The idea is that 

more export will bring wealth in to 

the province, to the benefit of all of us. 

Providing a tax incentive is perhaps 

fair. However, I would prefer a system 

where businesses are given tax breaks 

in direct relation to their exports. For 

trade within Ontario, they should pay 

some taxes along with everyone else. 

I spoke with David Salter, who 

works for my MPP, Yasir Naqui.He 

explained that the HST legislation 

is needed to keep businesses going 

during the current recession. I’m 

in favour of helping people out in 

difficult times, but recessions come 

and go. Prosperity will return but the 

transfer of taxes from businesses to 

consumers will be permanent. 

The state of the economy is being 

used an excuse. This has been done 

before: The Provincial Sales Tax 

originally applied only to sales of 

goods. When recession and recordhigh 

interest rates were causing the 

collapse of the housing market in 

1982, the Province decided to create 

a special fund to give qualifying 

new home buyers interest-free loans. 

In order to raise the revenue, they 

extended the PST to most services. 

MAY 2010 

Arabia also follow a similar tradition 

but celebrate annually on May 10th. 

European countries tend to celebrate in 

March near the Easter period, but still 

celebrate in an American manner. 

Other countries are more original. 

Thailand celebrates on August 12 to 

coincide with the birthday of their 

beloved queen, Sirikit Kitayakara. 

Ethiopia celebrates with a 3 day 

celebration following the end of 

the rainy season in mid-autumn. 

Yugoslavia and Serbia have a 

particularly creative celebration 

around Christmas. Their celebration 

occurs over three weeks and begins on 

the Sunday prior to Mother’s Day. The 

parents tie up their children until they 

promise to be good. The following 

week the children tie up their mother 

until she offers them various treats. 

On the final week the father is tied up 

until he promises expensive presents, 

normally their Christmas gifts. 

Mother’s Day is celebrated all over 

the world. People from various cultures, 

countries and customs dedicate an 

annual holiday to the celebration of 

mothers. Each year children and their 

families come together to shower their 

mother with love, affection and gifts. 

It may not have been the tradition that 

Anna Jarvis had in mind, but Mother’s 

Day has come to be a day enjoyed and 

celebrated by people everywhere. 

HST Opposition ... Cont’d from previous page 

When interest dropped and the und 

was cancelled, the new taxes didn’t 

go away. At least they exempted some 

essential services, which the present 

government now intends to tax. 

Advocates of the HST are 

predicting that we will enjoy lower 

prices when businesses no longer have 

to account for the PST on their inputs. 

I don’t believe this: Companies need to 

make a [profit, and tend to charge what 

the market will bear. The Mulroney 

Conservatives made the same claim 

for the GST, that all prices would 

come down with the removal of the 

old Federal Sales Tax from production 

costs. 

The McGuinty Liberals are 

pretending to honour the principle of 

not taxing necessities by exempting 

children’s clothing, car seats, feminine 

hygiene products and books. Yet, they 

will be adding provincial tax to such 

essentials as heating oil, gasoline, 

and electricity. Fuel is absolutely 

crucial in our winters: A person will 

die a lot quicker without heat than in 

the absence of food and water. When 

I asked Mr Salter of Yasir Naqui’s 

office, if he would agree with me that 

heating fuel is necessary, he replied he 

couldn’t say. I find this frightening. 

The $1000 ‘transition benefit’ 

for families with an income less than 

$160,000 is simple bribery. It’s a drop 

in the bucket compared with what 

people will be paying in new taxes 

over the long term.

MAY 2010 

By Michael Preuss 

In the April edition of OSCAR, we 

could take a closer look at the OOS 

Neighbourhood Profile. It tells us 

nothing about crime rates. What if I 

tell you that one of our neighbours 

killed a Scottish general? He stabbed 

him, together with 7 other criminals. 

Infamous, bloody deed! If that ever 

happens again, the neighbourhood 

health outcome will drop drastically, 

respectively Canadian-Scottish 

relations. Doesn’t that sound like an 

Italian Opera – and in fact, the Italian 

composer Giuseppe Verdi made one 

out of that story. He did so long ago, 

in the mid 19 th century. What a genius! 

How could he know about OOS crime 

rates? 

OK, the story is a little bit 

different: Verdi got it’s libretto for 

his opera MACBETH from two 

librettists, Piave and Maffei, in the 

1840s. MACBETH was first staged 

in 1847 in Venice. As we all know, 

the plot of that opera is arranged 

around a cruel couple. OPERA LYRA 

OTTAWA staged MACBETH four 

times in late March and early April 

2010, and I had a ticket for the March 

31 performance. 

I like modern opera productions, 

intelligently enriched with videos 

and stuff like that (e.g. like Bill 

Viola’s Tristan did), but I don’t like 

modern productions which give 

you every second the sense that the 

whole production team brutally tries 

to convince you that an opera bears 

some meaning for us now (like Wotan 

with briefcase, Nabucco with military 

tanks, and stuff like that). 

The OLO MACBETH followed 

neither approach. The bad news for 

some opera friends (not for me, as I will 

explain later) – it was conventionally 

staged. I heard someone saying that 

night “utterly conventionally” (the 

stage design was rented from New 

Orleans Opera Association). The good 

news – the whole team was really 

blessed with theatrical aptitude, that 

means with a good sense for dramatic 

timing and an impressive presence 

of the whole cast on stage. Also the 

OOS resident, Rick Chataway, did 

a great job in stabbing Banquo with 

highly theatrical gestures in half-light 

scenery (he also acted in three other 

little roles). 

I know only a very few 

conventionally staged productions 

which do not degenerate to stiff trash. 

The OLO MACBETH did not at all. 


Every moment was full of theatrical 

drama and passion. Coherent changes 

of scenes made the plot of the 

Shakespearean drama shine through. 

Together with the wonderfully 

played and sung music, that made the 

ingredient for simply a great Verdi 

night. Greer Grimsley as Macbeth 

and Brenda Harris as Lady Macbeth 

gave stirring performances, both with 

significant vocal stamina. But for me 

the most convincing scene was the 

beginning of Act IV “Patria oppressa”. 

Scottish fugitives (i.e. the OLO 

Chorus) mourn their lost homeland. A 

feeling modern migrants all too often 

share with Verdi’s lameting score of 

that key scene. 

Shortly after that outburst of 

compassion in the pit, a future 

tenor star was born, as Luc Robert 

performed a stunning rendition 

of Macduff’s aria “Ah, la paterna 

mano”. And a few musical moments 

before Macbeth dies on stage, Harris 

was best at being Lady Macbeth 

the somnambulist, and Grimsley 

at Macbeth’s aria “Pietà, rispetto, 

amore” (here Verdi foreshadowes a 

similar scene of isolated Philip II. in 

Don Carlo). 

The bonus star for this very solid 

production goes to both stage director 

Joseph Bascetta (together with lighting 

designer Harry Frehner), and skliful 

chef d’orchestre Tyrone Paterson, 

who created dark and tragic sounds 

with his band. True Verdian Italianità, 

as heard in OLO’s MACBETH, is 

really rare these times. Even stellar 

conductor Leonard Slatkin had to 

pull back from La Traviata at the 

MET (see New York Times coverage 

Page 21 

Breaking News: 

Neighbourhood Thriller – Scottish General Killed by OOS Resident 

Tell OSCAR Readers 

about your travel 

or your interests. 

Send text and photos to 


OOS resident, Rick Chataway stabbing Banquo. Photo courtesy of Opera Lyra Ottawa 

of that story). But guess what, you 

can find true Verdian Italianità here in 

Ottawa! I must be on to every dodge if 

I would not go to one of the next OLO 

productions. You becha!


MAY 2010 

BOOK REVIEW 

Harvill Secker (Sep 14 2009), 272 

pp. 

ISBN-13: 978-1846553189 

Reviewed by: Friederike Knabe 

SUMMERTIME is the muchanticipated 

continuation to 

the author’s fictionalized 

autobiographies, or “autofiction”, 

BOYHOOD and YOUTH. While the 

earlier books follow a more traditional 

memoir format, this third volume takes 

a very different, innovative approach 

to the genre. Exploring the essential 

question - what can/should anyone 

know about any other person, whether 

public figure or private individual? - 

the author introduces a biographer who 

researches the life of John Coetzee. 

SUMMERTIME, however, may not 

even be a biography at all. Vincent, the 

Summertime by J.M. Coetzee 

young academic, researching the life of 

a John Coetzee, now deceased, having 

studied John’s diaries and notebooks, 

travels the world to fill in some gaps and 

hopefully, discover new facets of the 

man’s inner emotional being, especially 

during that decisive time in his subject’s 

life, the mid nineteen seventies. He 

interviews five individuals - lovers, real 

or unreciprocated, a close relative and 

colleagues - some thirty years after the 

period of interest to him. 

“What I am telling you may not 

be true to the letter, but it is true to the 

spirit.” Julia, one of the interviewees, 

admits to Vincent. “The story you 

wanted to hear and the story you are 

getting will be nothing more than a 

matter of perspective ...” While John 

was for Julia just an episode in her life, 

for Vincent, she continues, “ by dint of 

a quick flip... followed by some clever 

editing, you can transform it into a story 

about John and one of the women who 

passed through his life.” Her assessment 

of the biographer’s approach to his 

subject can be applied just as easily to 

J.M. Coetzee himself. He creates five 

scenarios, each engaging in its own way, 

in which John is supposedly the centre 

of the story. The author even teases 

the reader with numerous biographical 

facts of the real J.M. Coetzee, but is, 

what we are presented with, anything 

close to a biography? Adriana, another 

interviewee, is a Brazilian dance 

teacher and presents probably the most 

challenging and fascinating insights 

into the character and some of the 

South African social issues of the day. 

She asks: “What is this?... What kind of 

a biography are you writing?” We are 

A HARD DAY’S PLAY 

By Mary P. 

Zach. He trundles through his 

days with a grin, mostly, a 

stable, amiable, reasonably 

easy-going little guy. 

Except when his mother’s about. 

Then he’s temperamental, whiny, and 

prone to tears. Before you all start 

nodding your heads sagely and trotting 

out that old chestnut “Isn’t that always 

the way? They behave better for 

everyone else than for parents!” let me 

tell you a story. 

Yesterday morning, on our way 

to the coffee shop, Zach stumbled and 

fell. This is hardly unusual. Zach can 

trip over dust motes. An unexpected 

draft topples him. The rush of neurons 

caused by a sudden thought zipping 

from one side of his brain to the other 

overbalances him. In short, he is not the 

most coordinated of tots. 

I give him a kiss and set him on his 

feet. I notice that he has grazed one knee 

slightly, but since he doesn’t appear to 

have noticed, I’m not so foolish as to 

point it out to him. There’s no grit in it, 

it’s not even so deep as to bleed. Meh. 

We’ll wash it when we get home. 

Which we do. Zach is mildly 

constantly encouraged to ask the same 

question. 

It is easy to conclude that the 

interviewees’ memories are less than 

precise after all that time and that each 

encounter with a ‘witness’ will shed only 

some diffuse light on the person under 

discussion and more on the interviewee. 

John Coetzee’s own words are added as 

the opening and the concluding section. 

While interesting in a broader sense, 

will they shed more light on the person? 

It is up to the reader to decide. 

With the five interviews that 

characterize the structure of his 

“memoir” J.M. Coetzee plays with 

more than our curiosity to compare 

John and J.M’s personalities and life 

experiences. Structurally, he varies 

between an interview setting where 

the interviewee takes factual liberties 

when creatively telling the story of her 

time in the vicinity of John (Julia), or 

one where the fictional interviewer, 

retells a creatively rewritten interview 

with John’s cousin Margot, or a more 

confrontational setting that Vincent 

encounters with Adriana. Each of the 

first three, and to a lesser degree the 

last two interviews, shed some light 

on John’s intimate life at the time, yet, 

they are as or even more engaging for 

what they say about the social, political 

and personal environment of the person 

interviewed. The depiction of John is 

not very flattering. For example, Julia 

thought that “... his mental capacities, 

and specifically his ideational faculties, 

were overdeveloped, at the cost of his 

animal self. “ His cousin Margot, 

on the other hand, felt that John was 

always struggling against the Coetzee 

Cause and Effect 

distressed when he sees the scrape. 

In less than a minute, though, I’ve 

convinced him that getting a band-aid 

is FUN. It’s not so hard to do. When 

you are two years old and you get to 

decide whether to decorate your body 

with Elmo, Harry Potter or butterflies, 

band-aids ARE fun. 

Thereafter, he forgets all about 

the wound. The band-aid gets lots of 

attention. The other children clamor for 

one, but Zach sets them straight. 

“You don’t get a bannaid unless 

you get a bo-bo. Only I get a bannaid!” 

Mummy arrives at the end of the 

day, greets him with her usual affection. 

Zachary shares with her the highlight 

of his day, his voice ripe with pride. 

“Look, mama! I gots Elmo on my 

knee!” 

“Oh, no!” Mama’s voice drips 

pathos and concern. “Did you get a bobo?” 

Her face is awash with empathetic 

distress. Except... empathy? Zach 

wasn’t distressed -- well, not until 

mummy pushed him there. 

The pride of accomplishment 

vanishes from his face, instantly 

replaced by misery. “Yeeeeeah! I gots 

a bo-bo! I falled dow-ow-ow-owowwwwn!” 

inheritance: he was not a “slapgat” a 

person lacking backbone, choosing the 

easiest path through life. Adriana, who 

had reasons for her hostility towards 

John summed him up: “He was not 

a man of substance. Maybe he could 

write well, maybe had a certain talent 

for words, I don’t know... to my mind 

a talent for words is not enough if you 

want to be a great writer. And he was 

not a great man. He was a little man, 

an unimportant little man.” Finally, 

Vincent, while addressing Sophie, the 

last of the interviewees, expresses a 

warning to any gullible reader: “What 

Coetzee writes there cannot be trusted, 

not as a factual record - not because he 

was a liar but because he was a fictioneer. 

In his letters he is making up a fiction of 

himself for his correspondents; in his 

diaries he is doing much the same for 

his own eyes, or perhaps for posterity...” 

This is exactly what J.M. Coetzee 

does - creating a “fictioneer’s” account 

of somebody who may have traits of 

himself, or, very likely, not so many - 

and having great fun with entertaining 

the reader with the stories. His intimate 

knowledge of the social and political 

conditions in South Africa, life in Cape 

Town as well as the remote region of 

the Karoo shine through and gives 

the novel an added depth and a reality 

check. The interviews are exquisitely 

crafted and complement the multifaceted 

portrait of a fictioneer written 

by an even greater fictioneer. 

J.M. Coetzee, award winning South 

African author, now living in Australia, 

is the Literature Nobel laureate of 2003. 

I have tried to explain to this 

mother the strategy of responding to a 

bo-bo as if it’s an adventure. I’ve tried 

to explain the idea of leading the way 

emotionally by your reaction. Mother 

can’t bring herself to do this: she sees 

it as emotional manipulation. 

I see it as teaching/modelling 

resilience. However, even if I were to 

accept this idea of manipulation ... if 

my response has him happy and proud, 

and hers has him in tears – are we not 

both ‘manipulating’? Are tears the 

only ‘genuine’ response? And which 

‘manipulation’ has the most positive 

result? What is inarguable is that 

Zach is responding to the unspoken 

expectations of his mother’s responses. 

She expects him to be distressed, he 

is distressed. Parents have far more 

influence over their tot’s emotional 

responses to things than they often 

realize. 

And Zach? The boy who’d been 

full of pride and satisfaction five 

minutes before? The tears and wailing 

echoed down the street even after they’d 

vanished from sight. His mother’s soft 

coos of reassurance faded sooner. 

Sigh.

The th MAY 2010 OSCAR - OUR 37 YEAR 

Page 23 

BACKYARD NATURALIST 

by Linda Burr 

One spring, when I was a 

young girl, my father decided 

to build a bird house. When 

it was ready, he fastened it to the top 

of the clothesline pole, high above the 

ground, at the back of our yard. I don’t 

suppose we had any real expectations. 

We just waited to see what would 

happen. But sometimes the most 

amazing things can happen when you 

least expect it, as this story will show. 

It was late May, and most birds 

had already started their nests. We 

knew that sometimes it takes a whole 

year or more for a box to be accepted 

by birds for nesting. But the birdhouse 

was clearly visible from the back 

bedroom windows of our house, and 

we kept a close watch on it. 

Within a day or two, a pair of tree 

swallows came to investigate the box. 

They flew around it, and went in to 

inspect the interior. It must have been 

to their liking, because right there and 

then, the swallows decided it was good 

enough for them, and they wasted no 

time in getting busy making their nest. 

We were amazed and delighted 

that father’s nest box had been so 

quickly and eagerly accepted. Over 

the following weeks, we watched 

the activities of the swallows closely. 

When my sister and I returned home 

from school, my mother would tell us 

what she had seen the swallows doing 

during the day. 

For me, the budding young 

naturalist, it provided a wonderful 

opportunity to observe and learn about 

the behaviours of these lovely birds. 

I loved the iridescent blue colour 

on their backs, and their pure white 

bellies. They were truly beautiful 

creatures, with their delicate pointed 

wings and strong graceful flight. I 

came to recognize their bubbly song 

as they sat perched in nearby trees 

or on the overhead wires around the 

house. 

Summer of the Tree Swallows 

Tree Swallow Photo by Ken Thomas 

The birdhouse was up on top of 

the clothesline pole at the back of 

our yard. One end of the clothesline 

was attached to the house on a kind 

of pulley, which allowed mother to 

raise and lower it. In those days, she 

always hung the wet washing out 

on the line to dry. But whenever she 

moved the clothesline, the pole with 

the birdhouse would jiggle a bit. 

Mother was anxious about hanging 

out the wet clothes on washing day, 

and didn’t want to disturb the birds. 

She tried to move the clothesline as 

gently as possible. But every time, one 

of the swallows would poke its head 

out of the box and chatter at her, as 

if to scold her. In spite of these mild 

disturbances, the swallows stayed on. 

After a couple of weeks had gone 

by, we discovered that the eggs had 

hatched. The swallows could now 

be seen feeding their young, as they 

returned to the birdhouse with food in 

their beaks. Then it wasn’t long before 

the chicks were large enough to poke 

their heads out of the hole, begging 

for food. By early July, the chicks 

were nearly ready to fledge. 

We didn’t witness the moment 

when the young swallows took their 

first flight away from the nest. It just 

seemed that suddenly there was no 

activity around the birdhouse – it 

seemed empty. Where had they gone? 

Were they all right? After watching 

those swallows and their tireless 

efforts for so many weeks, we were 

desperate to know the outcome. 

Finally, we spotted the family perched 

all in a row on a wire near the house. 

The parents seemed to be proudly 

showing us their brood. All too soon 

they were gone. 

In all the years that followed, 

no swallows ever returned to that 

birdhouse. I think it was quickly 

taken over by house sparrows. Much 

later, I realized what a rare privilege 

it had been for our family to share 

this experience together. At such a 

late date in May, those swallows must 

have been desperate to find a suitable 

nesting site. Also, tree swallows 

normally prefer to nest in an open 

field, and near open water. In Toronto, 

our suburban backyard must have 

seemed a less than ideal nesting spot. 

It was a small miracle that our family 

still talks about today. 

Tree swallows are cavitynesters, 

meaning that in nature, they 

nest in hollow trees or snags. In the 

city, the cavity-nesters, such as tree 

swallows, chickadees, nuthatches, 

and woodpeckers, can have difficulty 

finding suitable nesting spots. This 

is partly because there aren’t too 

many hollow or dead trees around. 

Another more important reason is that 

starlings and house sparrows are very 

aggressive and tend to take over all the 

good spots. Fortunately, tree swallows 

readily take to birdhouses. 

Last year, my father built me a 

birdhouse – this time for my own 

backyard here in Ottawa. I’d better get 

it up soon – there might be a desperate 

pair of birds out there house-hunting 

right now! 

Linda Burr lives in Old Ottawa 

South and is a biologist and avid 

backyard naturalist.

The th Page 24 OSCAR - OUR 37 YEAR 

MAY 2010 

Hopewell Avenue Public School 

100th Anniversary Celebrations 

Alumni and members of the community are invited to join Hopewell 

staff, students, and their families during the week of May 17 to 

celebrate Hopewell’s 100th anniversary. Everyone is welcome at the 

following activities, which will take place at the school: 

Monday May 17 

2:30 – 3:30 Opening Assembly, guest speakers 

4:00 – 6:00 Wine & Cheese Reception 

Please RSVP by May 14 to parentspeak@gmail.com or, if you don’t have 

access to e-mail, to the school office at 613-239-2348. 

Tuesday May 18 

9:30 - 3:00 School Tours for Alumni 

Visitors are asked to sign in at the school office. Student Council members 

will provide tours of the school, including all of the changes, the artifacts on 

display, and a few typical classrooms. 

Wednesday May 19 

6:15 – 7:30 Musical - One Hundred Years 

8:00 – 9:15 Musical - One Hundred Years 

Admission: $3.00 per person 

Thursday May 20 

9:30 - 3:00 School Tours for Alumni (See description above.)


Page 25 

Helping girls in Lesotho one pearl at a time 

By Sara Dubé, Hopewell Avenue 

Public School 

Can helping young girls in Lesotho develop 

their potential really start with a bracelet? 

Mary Murphy, founder of Pearls for Girls, 

has proven that it can. 

In 2006, after hearing about Help Lesotho (www. 

helplesotho.ca), an organization aiming to end 

extreme poverty in Lesotho, a tiny country 

landlocked by South Africa, Mary decided to help 

reach that goal by starting a leadership education 

program for young girls. Mary knew a woman who 

had recently started a business that involved pearls 

and this sparked an idea that with the help of friends 

became Pearls for Girls. 

Over the past three years, Mary has been 

providing freshwater pearls to groups of teenage 

girls and sometimes boys too, through schools in 

Ottawa and other cities across Canada who learn 

about leadership, collaboration and contribution 

through bracelet making sessions called “pearl 

bees”. All profits from the sale of the bracelets go 

towards Help Lesotho’s education and leadership 

development programs for girls in Lesotho, all who 

have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. 

I am in grade seven at Hopewell Avenue 

Public School and have been assigned a project 

that involves helping the world in some way, and 

documenting the experience. At a celebration of 

Help Lesotho’s fifth anniversary in December, I 

became interested in Help Lesotho and Pearls for 

Girls, so when I heard of the assignment I thought 

that this was the perfect opportunity to host my own 

“pearl bee”. 

I contacted Mary to order pearls and supplies. 

A Bracelet That Makes A Difference 

She kindly spoke to two students from Nepean High 

School who have often volunteered to lead pearl 

bees and asked them if they were available to come 

to mine. They agreed. Then I asked some friends if 

they were interested in helping me make bracelets 

for Help Lesotho. When everyone arrived on the 

day of the ‘bee’, we sat around the dining room 

table and chatted while making bracelets that will 

soon make a difference to the lives of girls our age. 

I enjoyed “pearling” with my friends and 

knowing that our bracelets would help other girls. 

It is something you can do with your friends while 

expressing your creativity and feeling proud that 

your creations will help make someone’s life better. 

If you would like to provide your support, you 

can visit www.pearls4girls.org to learn more about 

the initiative and to order a bracelet. Think about 

purchasing one for Mother’s Day, teacher gifts, 

birthdays, bridesmaids’ gifts. If you have a shop in 

the neighbourhood, and would like to support Pearls 

for Girls by displaying and selling the bracelets, 

please contact Mary Murphy at pearl@pearls4girls. 

org. For just $27.00 you could give the gift of a 

bracelet that will help girls become young leaders 

in Lesotho.


MAY 2010 

NOTES FROM THE GARDEN CLUB 

By Colin Ashford 

The April meeting of Old Ottawa South Garden 

Club had its largest attendance this season. The 

attraction: Suzanne Patry of Whitehouse Perennials 

giving an entertaining talk on shade gardening. Not 

only did Suzanne arrive with a colourful PowerPoint 

presentation, she also brought along two- or threedozen 

shade plants—many already in bloom. 

Suzanne claims that Whitehouse Perennials is “…a 

Sanguinarea canadensis multiplex 

Photo by Suzanne Patry 

Made in the Shade—Life Beyond Hostas 

hobby that got a little out of hand…”. The nursery 

now boasts 1000 varieties of lilies and 400 varieties 

of hostas. Whitehouse Perennials is located just 

outside of Almonte; directions can be found on the 

nursery’s web site: www.whitehouserperennials. 

Hellebores—the Stars of the Spring Garden 


com 

Shade in gardens is an issue of particular 

interest to the gardeners of Old Ottawa South due 

to the large number of mature trees in the area. 

Some gardeners see shade in the garden somewhat 

negatively, but Suzanne reminded them of the 

aphorism, “Don’t moan over what you can’t grow, 

learn to rejoice over what you can grow”. Defining 

shade as “muted light”, Suzanne went on to list the 

advantages of shade gardens: cooler to work in; they 

require less watering and weeding; are less prone to 

An Intriguing Collection of Heucheras 


disease and insect problems; and, best of all, shade 

gardens look good for the whole of the season. 

Trees not only cause shade in gardens (although 

the effect can be mitigated by removing the lower 

limbs of the trees), but also compete for moisture 

and nutrients in the soil. Suzanne cautioned against 

trying to build up a plant bed around a mature tree 

(and especially including a retaining wall), because 

the build-up of soil can suffocate the tree roots. 

Rather she recommended planting large plants in 

holes lined with layers of newspaper or in nursery 

containers between the roots of the tree and watering 

them in heavily until they are established. 

Starting a bed in a shady garden requires 

removing the current ground cover either by digging 

it out and optionally lining the hole with heavy 

plastic or by suffocating the weeds with a thick 



Page 27 

By Arthur McGregor 

I 

write this from Fredericton, New 

Brunswick on the last week of a 

wonderful Celtic Rathskallion’s 

tour of the Maritimes. We started 

in Cape Breton and have played 

Dartmouth, Halifax, Lower Sackville, 

Kentville, and Middleton in Nova 

Scotia and five shows in the Saint 

John/ Fredericton area. The weather 

has been wonderful, the schools have 

been welcoming, my tour buddy is 

perfect and the traveling has been 

excellent. Four more shows and we’re 

on our way home. We had to leave 

Elvis, the poodle, with friends so 

we’ll be happy to see each other soon. 

Playing music for kids is a real joy 

for me. We play to primary grades 

(kindergarten to grade 6) and it never 

ceases to amaze me how well our 

show is received. We play songs from 

the east coast tradition, Mary Mac, 

Lukey’s Boat and others and, though 

these are truly old chestnuts, I feel 

honoured to introduce these songs to 

kids who don’t know them. 

Which brings me to my theme 

for the month: A Good Song! There’s 

nothing like a song that speaks to you. 

I have a treasury of songs in my life 

that have all touched me at particular 

times. The Folklore Centre’s first 

songbook, Coast to Coast Fever, was 

my first attempt to put some of my 

favourite Canadian songs in a book 

and, thirty years later, every song in 

the book still resonates with me. 

Songs are often like smells; they 

bring back memories of situations, 

emotions, experiences and locations. 

Some songwriters, like Ian Tamblyn 

and Chris MacLean, have written 

songs that have helped me through 

good and bad times. They’ve been 

part of the soundtrack of my life. 

A good song lives forever. Even if 

it’s not sung or heard often, it has a life 

of it’s own that remains suspended in 

time until someone sings it. When you 

listen to an ‘oldies’ radio station, you 

realize how powerful a good song can 

be. The Beatles, John Fogarty, Carol 

King and hundreds of others have 

created such a body of work that you 

can listen 24/7 to only the old stuff, 

though not all of it is ‘good’! 

With the realization that hundreds 

of new songs are written every day in 

every country of the world, in every 

Garden Club ... Cont’d from previous page 

covering of newspaper or leaves. A 

liner will not only keep tree roots 

out, but will also keep moisture in; 

depending on the level of moisture 

retention, this approach can form the 

basis of a bog garden. In either case, 

top-dressing a shade bed is required 

every three years or so. 

One of most challenging of 

shade gardens is a dry one. Suzanne 

recommended being realistic on what 

could be achieved in a dry, shady 

garden and offered the following 

advice: choose groundcover that 

will look attractive all season; use 

small planting holes; water regularly 

during a dry spell, and replenish the 

organic material every year. Another 

interesting approach is to grow shade 

plants in containers either plunged 

into the ground or sitting on the 

surface of the ground. 

In terms of selecting material 

to plant in a shade garden, hostas 

immediately come to mind (and 

there is a seeming infinite number 

of varieties described on www. 

hostalibrary.org), but there are many 

other plant varieties that thrive in 

the shade. Our native plant, Actea 

rubra has a lovely red flower and will 

survive a good deal of shade; other 

native plants include Sanguinarea 

canadensis multiplex (with its 

beautiful white double-flower), 

Trilliums, and Hepaticas. Tiarellas, 

Songs Are Meant To Be Sung! 

with their long-blooming fragrant 

flowers add variety and colour to a 

shade garden, and Pulmonarias have 

attractive foliage and flowers and do 

well in dry shade. However the stars 

of the shady garden in springtime 

are the Hellebores. Heucheras boast 

a variety of leaf shapes, colours, 

and sizes and some have wonderful 

flowers; they also work well in 

containers. Arisaemas have one 

of the most bizarre flowers in the 

plant kingdom, but are great fun to 

grow. Other plants recommended by 

Suzanne included ferns, Astrantia, 

Ligularias, and grasses such as 

Hakonechlaoa macra. 

Maintenance of a shade garden is 

fairly straightforward and includes: 

cleaning up all debris in the spring; 

applying fresh mulch annually; 

trimming damaged leaves and spent 

flowers; and controlling slugs. 

This was the final meeting of the 

Garden Club for the 2009/10 season, 

but we will be rounding out the season 

with our annual spring perennial 

exchange entitled “Good Plants, 

Good Deals”. The plant exchange 

starts at 10.00 am on Saturday 8th 

May, 2010 in Brewer Park near the 

shelter at the children’s playground. 

Bring potted and labelled perennial 

plants to exchange at 9.30 am. 






language, using scales that visit every 

note in human experience, you can’t 

help but feel humbled at the power of 

a song. 

Once a month, the Folklore Centre 

hosts Writer’s Bloc, an afternoon of 

local songwriters sharing, trading, 

helping each other create. Recently, 

the Spirit of Rasputin’s Song-along, 

run by members of Writer’s Bloc, 

presented over 40 songwriters at the 

Elmdale, a record number. 

What constitutes a great song? 

Well, a catchy melody certainly 

grabs the attention but lots of catchy 

melodies are flying around. Pop 

music, that is music that’s designed to 

be popular and then disappear, often 

has melodies that stick in your mind 

but they are quickly replaced by a new 

tune on the block. 

A great set of lyrics often 

completes the requirements for a 

great song, but, unless brilliant lyrics 

are coupled with a good tune, it’s just 

a good piece of poetry and, with the 

popularity of poetry (that word ‘pop’ 

is the common denominator), many 

folks won’t spend the time on the 

lyrics. But a great melody and very 

smart lyrics are essential in the ‘great 

song’. James Gordon wrote a great line 

that has stayed with me for years: It’s 

a deep dark continent between what I 

said and what I meant, it’s as big as an 

elephant, that space between us when 

I try to talk to you’. (I hope that the 

words are mostly correct. Check out 

James’ music at jamesgordon.ca). 

So, what’s the key behind a great 

song? I think it’s context; where 

you heard it, what state you were in 

(emotionally, not geographically), 

how you heard it. I remember exactly 

where I was when I heard ‘Ruby 

Tuesday’ for the first time: in a car 

with my parents on the way to Italy in 

the 60’s. I remember hearing Sneezy 

Waters sing “A good love, is like a 

good song, it grows on you till it’s so 

strong, it’ll never leave you”: it was 

Roosters Coffee House at Carleton 

University in 1972. 

There’s a truckload of them for 

me. They rattle around in my mind 

like bumper cars at the Carp Fair. 

Every now and again, one jumps up 

and catches me. And, every now and 

again, I hear a new one. That’s really 

the beauty of the song; they never stop 

coming. 

Sing one. 



oscarads@oldottawasouth.ca

Page 28 

Local Singers Present Mozart’s 

The Marriage Of Figaro 

On May 22, 2010 (7:30 pm) and 

May 24, 2010 (2 pm) a talented 

group of Ottawa singers under 

the musical direction of renowned 

pianist Jean Desmarais will present 

a semi-staged concert version of 

Mozart’s famous opera “The Marriage 

of Figaro”. The performances will 

take place at Glebe-St. James United 

Church, 650 Lyon Street at the corner of 

First Avenue in the Glebe. The opera 

will be presented with the support of 

the Austrian Embassy. 

International performing artist and 

pedagogue, pianist Jean Desmarais 

earned his Masters degree and Premier 

Prix in Piano and Chamber Music 

at the Conservatoire in Montreal 

and continued his studies in Paris, 

Berlin and in the USA. He studied 

with Monique Collet-Samyn, Anisia 

Campos, Monique Deschaussées 

(Paris), Johanna Stieler (Berlin) and 

Dalton Baldwin (USA). 

Mr. Desmarais has collaborated 

with artists such as Kiri Te Kanawa, 

Ben Heppner, Pinchas Zukerman, 

Julie Nesrallah, Robert Cram, Amanda 

Forsyth, Tracy Dahl, Kevin McMillan, 

Monica Whicher, Steven Dann, Bob 

Becker, Alain Trudel, Rivka Golani, 

Shauna Rolston, Denis Lawlor, Donna 

Brown, Joel Quarrington and many 

others. Recently he was hired as a coach 

for the Canadian Opera Company for 

its productions of Don Carlos, Pelléas 

et Mélisande, War and Peace, Rusalka 

and Carmen. 

The cast features some well-known 

Ottawa singers including: Figaro - Denis 

Lawlor; Susanna - Marya Woyiwada; 

Count - Gary Dahl; Countess - Meghan 

McPhee; Cherubino - Liliana Piazza; 

Marcellina - Allison Woyiwada; 

Bartolo - Norman E. Brown; Basilio/ 

Curzio - Michael Carty; 

Antonio - Philippe Sabourin; and 

Barbarina - Carli diSano. 

The action of “The Marriage of 

Figaro” is a continuation of the plot of 

“The Barber of Seville” several years 

later, and recounts a single “day of 

madness” in the palace of the Count 

Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is 

now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking 

revenge against Figaro for thwarting 

his plans to marry Rosina himself; and 

Count Almaviva has degenerated from 

the romantic youth he was in “Barber” 

into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing 

aristocrat. Having gratefully given 

Figaro a job as head of his servantstaff, 

he is now persistently trying to 

obtain the favors of Figaro’s bride-tobe, 

Susanna. He keeps finding excuses 

to delay the civil part of the wedding 

of his two servants, which is arranged 

for this very day. Figaro, Susanna, and 

the Countess conspire to embarrass the 

Count and expose his scheming. He 

responds by trying to legally compel 

Figaro to marry a woman old enough 

to be his mother, but it turns out at the 

last minute that she really is his mother. 

Through Figaro’s and Susanna’s 

clever manipulations, the Count’s love 

for his Countess is finally restored. 

Interwoven throughout the opera is the 

mock preparation of Cherubino to go 

to war, as well as subtle and perhaps 

not so subtle references to the impact 

of the revolution, the division between 

aristocracy and the lower classes and 

the need for “liberation”. 

General admission tickets for the 

opera are $25 and are available at the 

door at the time of performance, or 

from Leading Note or Compact Music. 

The opera will be sung in the original 

Italian, with recitatives sung in English. 

All profits from the performances will 

go to benefit L’Arche Ottawa (Jean 

Vanier). L’Arche is a place of belonging 

for people living with a disability and 

those who share life with them. Since 

1964, men and women of good will, 

with and without intellectual disability, 

are commiting to each other in L’Arche 

to break down the barriers of fears that 

separate us and to create new places of 

belonging where everyone is important 

and can contribute. More information 

about l’Arche may be found at: http:// 

www.larche.ca 

For more information please 

contact: Jean Desmarais at (613) 608- 

279 


Mother’s Day Festivities 

Bloom At Billings Estate 

By Emma Jackson 

By Joe Scanlon 

MAY 2010 

Birds, buds and blossoms have returned to Billings Estate National Historic 

Site, just in time to celebrate Mother’s Day. 

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday May 9, visitors can help Billings Estate 

open its summer season while they treat their moms to a traditional Victorian tea 

service in the estate’s spring gardens. Throughout the day, visitors can also enjoy 

a Victorian fashion show on the lawn, live music, crafts and tours of the stately 

1820s house, which is now the oldest wood-framed house left in Ottawa. 

Billings Estate, located at 2100 Cabot St near Riverside and Pleasant Park, 

was originally settled by Braddish and Lamira Billings, who built the first Billings 

Bridge across the Rideau River and were integral in the creation of the Alta Vista 

community. 

The family once owned almost 1,000 acres of farm land in the area. Today, 

8 acres of lush green lawns, colourful gardens and a peaceful, shady cemetery 

surround the main house. 

Mothers will receive royal treatment on Mother’s Day, where they can enjoy 

their tea with fresh scones, sandwiches and desserts baked on site especially for 

the occasion. 

Admission to the site is $6 per adult, $5 per senior and $15 for a family. A 

three-tier tea service costs $23.95 and serves two adults. 

Visitors can come back on weekend afternoons in May for a friendly debate 

and some scandalous stories with the Ottawa Storytellers, to mark the opening 

of the museum’s new temporary exhibit, Battle of the Ballot: the Civic Election 

Story. Dates and times will be announced in May, but visitors can check out the 

new exhibit anytime during museum hours beginning May 9. Admission to the 

Ottawa Storytellers debates will include entrance to the museum. 

For more information about these programs and more, visit Ottawa.ca/ 

museums or call 613-247-4830. 

Travis Scott Has OOS Roots 

His grandfather owned the barber shop on Seneca just off Sunnyside. 

His mother grew up on Sunnyside: Her parents were Fred and Pat 

Hughes. 

His father grew up on Pansy. His parents were Gwen and Len Scott. 

His mother works in the athletics department at Carleton University. His 

father also works at Carleton in the Physical Plant. 

Despite those Ottawa connections, Travis Scott is a well-travelled worldclass 

hockey goaltender with three championship rings to prove it. 

But though he started his minor hockey in Kanata and played for teams 

such as the Oshawa Generals and the Windsor Spitfires, he wasn’t playing for 

Canada the first time his team won an international competition. 

Instead he was in goals for Russia in the Spengler Cup - a European 

tournament for club teams played every year in Davos, Switzerland between 

Christmas and New Year’s Eve. 

Canada has won the Spengler Cup seven times since 1995 but in 2005 it 

was won by Metallurg Magnitogorsk with Scott in goals. Team Canada finished 

second. Both teams had finished with 3-1 records in the round-robin; but the 

Russians defeated Team, Canada 8-3 in the final. Evgeni Malkin now with 

Pittsburgh was on that team and one of the current team members is Sergei 

Federov who defected from the Soviet Union and starred with the Detroit Red 

Wings. 

Scott offered to make up for beating his own country a couple of years later 

when he agreed to play with a team in Austria only on condition he could play 

in the Spengler Cup this time for Canada. That year Canada won a silver medal: 

Scott was on the team but was the back-up goaltender. 

The Spengler Cup ring was not his only one. He also won playing in 

Mississippi and for his team in Austria. But, although Scott has played hockey 

everywhere from San Antonio to Russia he played only once and only part of a 

game in the NHL, for the L. A. Kings. 

His problem? Apparently coaches were put off by his unorthodox 

style. One of his coaches, Bruce Boudreau of the Washington Capitals said, 

“Unfortunately, no ever gave give a chance. The kid has nerves of steel. All he 

does is stop the puck.” 

This year Scott is playing for the Hannover Scorpions in Germany and has 

re-signed there for next season. In the off-season he and his wife Lisa = and 

their two children, Jayden 13 and Owen 11, live in Windsor. 

However Scott does often visits his parents in Ottawa and when the NHL 

playoffs are on - the European leagues finish earlier - he can be found in front of 

a TV giving a running commentary on the play - and not just the goal tending.

MAY 2010 

By Georgina Hunter 

A 

chance encounter with a newly arrived family 

from Equador on a warm, sunny Sunday last 

March led OOS families to help them settle. 

While I basked in the warm sun, the family shivered 

in the cold. A look at their worried faces inspired me 

to help. 

First, my husband, James and I, along with a 

Spanish-speaking friend, greeted them in their empty 

apartment with donations, dinner, and a welcome to 

Canada cake. 

Next, more donations arrived from OOS families 

who responded to the April OSCAR ad and helped to 

fill their almost empty apartment. The Silva family 

thanks community members for their generosity. 

After becoming bilingual, the father Fabricio, 

a mechanical engineer, intends to seek work in his 

profession. His wife, Cati, their three sons, Kevin, 

Marcelo, and Daniel, ages 19, 13, and six, will study 

in French at local Gatineau schools. 

The family is already quickly picking up French, 

and with our family’s encouragement, will also learn 

English. They look forward to getting to know our 

beautiful region on the NCC bike paths. They hope 

to purchase bicycles at the Hopewell PS bicycle sale. 

Trading in a life in a hot South American country 

for one in the National Capital region means accepting 

sleet, snow, and ice for up to six months a year. Hearty 

Canadians know that means embracing winter by 

going outside to skate and ski. 

To that end, the Silva family would be grateful 

for donations of winter items so they can try skating 

on the canal or perhaps cross-country skiing in 

By Lin Moody 

You were an eyewitness to a 

crime. Carleton Professor 

Joanna Pozzulo is researching 

whether you would recall the faces of 

strangers differently than a child in this 

kind of circumstance. 

Pozzulo, who lives in Ottawa 

South, is one of 10 recipients of this 

year’s Carleton Research Achievement 

Awards. The recipients were honoured 

recently as part of Carleton’s Research 

Days celebration. 

Pozzulo says her investigation 

will advance the understanding of how 

verbal and visual memory are related 

and how they develop. “This is critical,” 

she says, “when one considers that 

police and other crime specialists rely 

on verbal descriptions to find suspects, 

person identifications are used in the 

prosecution of crimes and mistaken 

identity is the leading cause of wrongful 

conviction.” 

Pozzulo has researched other 

related questions such as whether 

eyewitness testimony is valid if culprits 

change their appearance. Her study 

showed that even small changes in 

hairstyle, such as growing longer hair, 

considerably reduce the ability of adult 

and child eyewitnesses to identify a 

criminal. 

Pozzulo is an associate professor 

in the Department of Psychology and 

director of the Institute of Criminology 

and Criminal Justice at Carleton. She 

has co-authored two textbooks in 

forensic psychology. She is also a child 

clinical psychologist registered with the 

Ontario College of Psychologists. 

She has received a number of 

awards for her teaching and research, 

including the Significant Contribution 

Award from the Criminal Justice 

Section of the Canadian Psychological 

Association, a Carleton University 

Teaching Achievement Award, a Capital 

Educator’s Award from the Ottawa 

Centre for Research and Innovation and 

the President’s New Researcher Award 

from the Canadian Psychological 

Association. 

Pozzulo’s research is funded by 

the Social Sciences and Humanities 

Research Council (SSHRC) and 

Carleton University. Her research 

laboratory (the Laboratory for Child 

Forensic Psychology) was made 

possible by funding from the Canada 

Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the 

Ontario Research Fund and Carleton 

University. 

Research Days at Carleton is 

a month-long celebration of the 

outstanding and world-changing work 

by our innovative researchers that ends 

April 19th. Carleton is staging public 

lectures, conferences, films and project 

demonstrations to give the public an 

opportunity to experience the breadth 

and depth of our research. Discoveries 

at Carleton are making a significant 

contribution to our country and the 

world. With more than 850 research 

projects underway, $84 million in 

research funding, 24 Canada research 

chairs and myriad public- and privatesector 

partnerships, Carleton is making 

its mark in fields as diverse as digital 

media, health, the environment and 

sustainability, and globalization. 


Donations of Winter Clothing Needed 

Ottawa South Resident and 

Carleton University Researcher 

Investigates Eyewitness Accounts 

Gatineau Park. Winter boots, skates, ski jackets, and 

accessories would be appreciated. Please contact me 

about sizes if you have any gently used items that 

you no longer need. Also, French and English books 

would be welcomed. 




Page 29 

Cati, Fabricio, Kevin, Marcelo, Daniel Silva, Henri Belanger, and James Hunter 

Photo by Georgina Hunter 

georginahunter@rogers.com; 613 730-0033.


MAY 2010 

Kathy Ablett, R.N. 

Trustee Zone 9 

Capital/River Wards 

Telephone: 526-9512 

Corpus Christi 

Thank you to students and staff 

at Corpus Christi school for their 

invitation to celebrate “Green Day”. 

Truly, you all have the spirit and your 

song ‘Lead the Way to Change the 

World’ says it all. Hold on for the 

official recording – release date to be 

announced! 

Immaculata High School 

Immaculata students and staff 

have been very busy and I was happy 

to participate in two of their recent 

activities. The Honourable Sheila 

Copps, former Federal Minister, 

spoke to a group of senior students 

about being involved in decision 

making and pursuing their goals. In 

reflecting on the Persons Case and 

the Famous Five, many stories were 

exchanged and the differences that 

still occur with regards to women 

were revealed. 

The debate about women’s 

hockey remaining as an Olympic 

event was most interesting. 

The very next week I was back 

at Immaculata to hear Lt. Colonel 

Scott Clancy speak to Grade 11 & 12 

students in a law history class. Lt. 

Col. Clancy was the Canadian Forces 

operation person in charge in Haiti 

following the recent earthquake. 

The students had just completed 

fundraising efforts on behalf of Haiti 

and were very keen to hear first-hand 

what was happening. Thank you to all 

OCCSB TRUSTEE REPORT 

“PUTTING STUDENTS FIRST” 

involved in making this happen. 

Just a few days later I learned that 

a graduate of Immaculata had been 

on the same tour in Haiti under Lt. 

Colonel Clancy’s command. Truly a 

small world!! 

Board Chooses New Director of 

Education 

The Board of Trustees for the 

Ottawa Catholic School Board has 

selected Julian Hanlon as the new 

Director of Education. Mr. Hanlon 

is currently Deputy Director of 

Education and will assume his new 

role on September 1, 2010. He 

succeeds retiring director James 

McCracken. 

“Julian Hanlon is well known 

for his devotion to our mission of a 

superior, faith-filled education for 

every child,” said Gordon Butler, 

Chairperson of the Board. “He 

is respected by educators, staff 

associations, parents and community 

partners for his collaborative and 

inclusive management style and his 

unwavering focus on student success. 

The Board of Trustees is confident 

that Julian’s proven leadership skills 

and experience will allow the Board 

to build on our achievements and 

continue to evolve to meet the needs 

of each and every child.” 

Mr. Hanlon began his career in 

education with the former Carleton 

Roman Catholic School Board as 

a teacher in 1979. After becoming 

a department head and a viceprincipal, 

he was principal of Notre 

Dame High School and St. Mark 

High School, as well as a system 

principal in Staff Development. Later, 

as Superintendent of Schools, he 

brought leadership skills and insight 

to his portfolio in Human Resources. 

Mr. Hanlon has been Deputy Director 

of Education since 2003. 

“It is both an honour and a 

pleasure to be selected to lead the 

Ottawa Catholic School Board.” said 

Mr. Hanlon. 

“This is my 31st year with the 

Board and I am deeply committed to 

continuing the tradition of excellent 

Catholic education that has made this 

Board one of the top school boards in 

Ontario.” 

Mr. Hanlon holds a Masters of 

Education degree from the University 

of Ottawa. A proud father and 

grandfather, Julian and his wife, 

Claire, are lifelong residents of 

Ottawa. 

“Going Green” is an ongoing 

commitment 

The Board’s Environmental 

Action Committee continued to 

provide leadership and support to 

the system in the past year. The 

committee works with schools and 

students to put the Board theme “We 

Care for God’s Creation” into action. 

While green initiatives in schools 

improve “ecological literacy” and 

help the environment, they also have 

a positive impact on those living in 

poverty. 

Superintendent of Student 

Success, Intermediate/Secondary, 

Denise Andre; Principal of Holy Spirit 

School and Committee Co-Chair, 

Marg Skinner; and Environmental 

Education Leader, Christine Adam- 

Carr, presented the newest initiatives 

in the schools to the Board. 

Twenty schools are working 

towards EcoSchools certification in 

this school year. Last year, seven of 

the Board’s schools were certified 

EcoSchools: one Gold, six Silver 

– schools where students, staff and 

parents get involved, and leadership 

roles for environmental activities are 

taken by students. 

Many students become 

environmental representatives in 

their schools. Grades 4-9 participate 

in outdoor environmental education, 

activities focus on habitats 

and communities, biodiversity, 

interactions in the environment and 

sustainable systems. These half-day 

camps are held in cooperation with 

the Baxter Conservation Area, the 

MacSkimming Outdoor Education 

centre, and YMCA Camp. A further 

focus is on experiential learning and 

field trips to a waste management 

facility, local watercourses and 

organic food producers. 

Notre Dame, Sacred Heart and 

St. Mark High Schools offer “The 

Environment” Specialist High Skills 

Major course with career-focused 

learning. All Board green initiatives 

count on community connections and 

co-op placements for students. 

The Board continues to be a 

provincial leader in energy efficiencies 

with solar hot water at Kanata North 

Catholic Elementary School (opening 

September 2010), efficient motors 

(energy capture) at Sacred Heart High 

School, and solar electric power at St. 

Pius X High School. 

Students continue to be the 

cornerstone of school-based 

environmental action committees. 

For more information go to: 

ottawacatholicschools.ca/content. 

php?doc=5411 

Early Learning Program (ELP) 

– Update 

In September 2010, the Ottawa 

Catholic School Board will begin 

phasing in full-day learning for 

four- and five-year old kindergarten 

students. The Board received an 

update on phase-two schools, for the 

2011-2012 school year. 

Phase-one ELP schools in 

September 2010 are: 

• Bayshore Catholic 

• Brother Andre 

• Our Lady of Mount Carmel 

• Our Lady of Wisdom 

• St. Bernard 

• St. Brigid 

• St. Daniel 

• St. Catherine 

• St. Elizabeth 

• St. Martin de Porres 

• St. Patrick 

• St. Michael (Corkery) – Board 

funded. 

Phase-two ELP schools in 

September 2011 are: 

• Prince of Peace 

• Our Lady of Peace 

• Blessed Kateri Takekwitha 

• St. Michael (Corkery) – Ministry 

funded. 

For more information about 

full-day kindergarten, go to: 

ottawacatholicschools.ca/content. 

php?doc=6418 

If, at any time, I can be of 

assistance to you please do not 

hesitate to call me at 526-9512. 

Sincerely, 

Kathy Ablett 

“Your Trustee” 



oscarads@oldottawasouth.ca

MAY 2010 

OCDSB TRUSTEE REPORT 


Unexpected Concerns About Secondary School Gifted Sites 

By Rob Campbell 

Last column, amongst other 

key news, I briefly noted that 

a report on the location of 

congregated secondary gifted centres 

was coming forward. Its general 

argument is that there are too many 

English and French immersion gifted 

sites at secondary schools and that 

these should be consolidated into 

fewer stronger program locations. 

The advantages to this are greater 

gifted course selections at each site 

and also a stronger per cohort while 

preserving some equity of access, all 

of which surely should be supported 

in concept. 

The report recommends reducing 

to three centres: Lisgar, Bell and 

Merivale. Lisgar would have 

Eextended French Gifted and English 

Gifted while the other two would have 

Ottawa Regional Youth Choir 

Saturday, May 8th - The Ottawa Regional Youth Choir, 

directed by Kevin Reeves will perform at 7:30 p.m. with 

Kingston ’s Cantabile Youth Choir directed by Dr. Mark 

Sirett at Knox Presbyterian Church, Elgin Street and Laurier 

Avenue 

Tickets: Adults-$20; Seniors-$15 Students-$10 

French Immersion options in addition 

to English. The report recommends 

redirecting students from Glebe 

Collegiate Institute’s gifted French 

immersion program. The numbers at 

Glebe had been weak (this year 60 

students across four grades). On the 

basis of these numbers I had been 

reluctantly willing to go along with 

the basic recommendation. 

Since then, the question has 

become more complicated. One, we 

now also know that Glebe registration 

numbers for next year’s Grade 9 

gifted have shot up to 26 students. 

Given low attrition grade-to-grade for 

Glebe gifted, as this might be a result 

of a structural shift towards Glebe 

registrations given recent transfer 

policy changes, as the staff suggest 

that 70 students is minimum school 

program threshold, then whether the 

Glebe phase out of gifted French 

still makes sense now is in question. 

Changes to the transfer policy means 

that we may be making decisions to 

secondary gifted education looking in 

the rearview mirror, and we need to 

get this right. 

Also, an oil has been poured on the 

fire. It started with a very unfortunate 

side-bar in the report suggesting staff 

want to phase out the entire gifted 

secondary program in the OCDSB in 

time. This, along with questions about 

the specific school recommendations, 

has understandably raised concern 

as to a link between the two. Then a 

Trustee proposed that the Gifted be 

moved from Lisgar out to Gloucester! 

As a result, larger concerns going 

well beyond the limited scope of the 

formal recommendations in the report 

has been sparked. 

Gifted students are recognized 

as having certain special education 

Sunday, May 2 2010 | 9:00 am - 12:00 pm 

Location: Old Ottawa South Neighbourhood 

The 8th Annual Hike for Hospice in support 

of The Hospice at May Court at 114 

Cameron Avenue. A national fundraising and 

awareness event for palliative care; event in- 

Hike for Hospice 

needs by the Ministry and the OCDSB 

and have a right to have those needs 

addressed. 

We’ll see if satisfactory answers 

are forthcoming as to whether the 

named schools really are the best ones 

to host a reduced number of stronger 

gifted sites. Also, we may need to 

debate what minimum numbers at 

each should be. Down the road, there 

may be a District-wide review of 

all secondary school programming. 

Choices made today about gifted 

program sites may impact on the 

circumstances and options we discuss 

in a larger review in the years to come. 

If you have a suggestion or a 

concern then please contact me via 

rob@ocdsbzone9.ca or at 323-7803. 

Meeting and document info available 

at www.ocdsb.ca 

cludes a 5km wallk, picnic, Little Ray’s Reptiles, 

entertainment, prizes and more. Say 

hello to the walkers and they wind their way 

through the streets of Old Ottawa South. To 

walk in memory or in honour of someone 

special contact www.hikeforhospice.com.

Page 32 

Red Apron Cooks 

The month of May is always a 

very busy month at the Red 

Apron. We kick off the month 

with the Hike for Hospice at May Court 

on Sunday May 2 nd . Registration is 

at 9am and the Hike start time is at 

10am. This is a wonderful event that 

we have participated in for a number 

of years. As a sponsor of this event 

the Red Apron will be providing a 

picnic lunch to all hikers. We hope to 

see you there! For more information 

go to ww.hospicemaycourt.com. 

On Tuesday May 4 th , the Red 

Apron will be taking part in Bon 

Appetit, Ottawa’s premiere gourmet 

event at the Aberdeen Pavilion at 

Landsdowne Park. This annual 

cocktail party features over 90 

local food businesses and dozens of 

wineries & breweries. Over 2000 

people turn out to sample food, and 

raise money for a number of local 

charities. 

Over the last few years Bon 

Appetit has been going green, with 

biodegradable plates, reusable wine 

glasses, and multi purpose waste 

containers allowing for composting 

and recycling. For tickets visit the 

website at www.bonappetitottawa.ca. 

Spring has come early this year 

and if you have plans to grow some 


of your own food this year, you may 

want to visit the Canadian Organic 

Growers website. Along with tools, 

tips and publications, they also 

provide support to the new and the 

experienced gardener through a series 

of organic gardening workshops. 

Visit www.cog.ca/ottawa 

If growing your own vegetables is 

not your thing, now is also the time 

of year to consider establishing a CSA 

relationship with a local organic farm. 

For more information on how to find 

a farmer, visit the Just Food website at 

www.justfood.ca. 

Remember that the Ottawa 

Farmer’s Market at Lansdowne Park 

opens on Sunday May 9 th – Mother’s 

Day - and will be open each Sunday 

from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. Starting 

June 17 th , the market will also be open 

Thursday’s from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm. 

Local asparagus will be one of the 

first vegetables we see at the market. 

Asparagus grows well in many 

places around the world including 

North America, England, and is 

even depicted in ancient Egyptian 

writings. Asparagus has also been 

grown in Syria and Spain since 

ancient times. As a member of the 

Lily family, asparagus spears grow 

from a crown that is planted about a 

foot deep in sandy soils. Under 

ideal conditions, an asparagus 

spear can grow 10” in a 24-hour 

period. Asparagus is a nutritionally 

well-balanced vegetable, and is 

an excellent source of vitamin 

K, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin 

Sponsored by the Table 

Vegetarian Restaurant 

On June 19, 2010 Ottawa’s 

Natasha Kyssa and Mark 

Faul will be hosting the 

“4th SimplyRaw Healthy Lifestyles 

Festival and Raw Vegan Pie Contest” 

in Central Park, 19 Clemow Ave on 

B1, B2, B3 and B6 as well as dietary 

fiber, manganese, copper, phosphorus, 

potassium and protein. 

Asparagus is a very versatile 

vegetable that can be enjoyed a 

number of simple ways: 

• Sautéed and chopped, asparagus 

is excellent in a quiche, frittata or 

omelet. 

• Steamed or sautéed, tossed in 

a light lemon vinaigrette and topped 

with chopped hard boiled eggs & 

bacon bits 

• Tossed in olive oil and balsamic, 

and grilled on the BBQ, makes an 

excellent side dish for steak or chicken 

• Stir fried with shitake 

mushrooms and strips of breast of 

chicken or beef with a dash of tamari 

or teriyaki sauce and served with rice 

• Grilled and tossed with pasta, 

peas & bacon 

….the possibilities are endless. 

However, one of my favourite ways 

to enjoy asparagus is in a cream of 

asparagus soup. 

For more information on the Red 

Apron Dinner Service, visit www. 

redapron.ca or call us at 613-321- 

0417. 

Cream Of Asparagus Soup 

Ingredients 

1-1/2 lb (680 g) asparagus 

2 tbsp (25 mL) butter, olive oil or 

both 

1 chopped leek, (white & pale green 

parts) 

June 19, 2010 from 10am to 9pm. 

This is Canada’s premier and only 

raw food festival. It is a free, family 

and community oriented event 

featuring many local businesses. 

As in past years, there will be food 

demonstrations, sprouting and 

rebounding workshops, exhibits 

and lectures by knowledgeable 

authorities in healthy lifestyles 

and the field of raw food, plus the 

sampling of their wares. This year, 

special emphasis is being placed on 

sports and community involvement, 

with lots of activities for the whole 

family to enjoy together. 

Additionally, several raffles will 

be held throughout the day as well 

as yoga and other fun activities for 

the whole family to enjoy together. 

The inspiring Bhakti Connection 

will be performing their alluring 

changes and arrangements towards 

dusk. 

A highlight of the Festival is 

the Raw Vegan Pie contest and the 

after-contest sampling. After the 

judging by local community leaders 

and celebrities (Jim Watson, Paul 

MAY 2010 

1 tbsp (15 mL) chopped fresh parsley 

1 tsp (5 mL) grated lemon rind 

2 tsp (10 mL) lemon juice 

1/4 tsp (1 mL) pepper 

4 cups (1 L) vegetable broth or 

chicken broth 

1/3 cup (75 mL) whipping cream 

Snap off woody ends of 

asparagus; cut stalks into 1-1/2-inch 

(4 cm) lengths. Set aside. 

In large heavy saucepan, melt 

butter and olive oil on medium heat; 

cook leek, stirring occasionally, until 

very soft. Add parsley, lemon rind, 

lemon juice and pepper. Pour in broth 

and bring to boil; add asparagus reduce 

heat and simmer until asparagus is 

tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from 

heat and add whipping cream. 

In batches in blender or food 

processor, puree soup. If you are 

looking to achieve a super smooth 

consistency you can press through a 

sieve over saucepan to remove any 

fibre. However, we tend not to do 

this as the fiber can add nice texture 

and young asparagus shouldn’t be 

too stringy. At this point you can set 

aside the soup to re-heat at a later 

time, and store in your fridge for 2-3 

days. When ready to serve, heat until 

steaming. Serve immediately. If you 

leave the soup to heat for too long the 

colour will change and you will lose 

that beautiful spring green. 

You can garnish this soup with 

chopped chives, egg, bacon, parsley, 

or tarragon. 

The SimplyRaw Healthy 

Lifestyle Festival and Pie Contest! 

Dewar, Ron Eade, Robert Fife, Tony 

Greco, TL Radar, Derick Fage, etc), 

you will have the chance to sample 

the raw pie entries. The Raw Vegan 

Pie contest is open to anyone and 

the prizes are substantial and much 

sought-after - including a Vitamix 

Blender! Registration is limited, so 

if you are interested in participating, 

submit your entry now! 

To enter the Raw Vegan 

Pie Contest, please visit: http:// 

www.simplyraw.ca/community/ 

f e s t i v a l - 2 0 1 0 / p i e - c o n t e s t - 

registration/ 

More information on the June 

19, 2010, 4th Healthy Lifestyles 

Festival and Raw Vegan Pie Contest, 

visit Simply Raw’s website: http:// 

www.simplyraw.ca/community/ 

festival-2010/. You can also access 

information on Facebook at: http:// 

tinyurl.com/ygfqooh 

Mark your calendar and don’t 

miss this delicious event! 

For more information contact 

SimplyRaw at: (613) 234-0806 or 

festival@simplyraw.ca

MAY 2010 

by Rick Sutherland, CLU, 

CFP, FDS, R.F.P 

I 

know you’ve heard it all before. 

Although the internet can be a 

wonderful source of information 

and education is has also become 

a haven for the more unscrupulous 

aspect of society. There are reports 

after reports of how someone or 

another was duped or taken advantage 

of by these unsavoury characters. 

But this discussion is not about porn, 

scams or dishonesty. Today we talk 

about how the ethical element of 

society is now using the internet to 

find things out about you and then 

use this information, possibly to your 

detriment. 

Do you have a Facebook profile? 

Did you ever use MySpace? Do you 

Twitter? Are you on Classmates. 

com? Do you have a Blog? Are you 

LinkedIn? These modern inventions 

of the internet have become popular 

forms of sharing information about 

our lives. They are the new form of 

social networking. Old high school 

friends can reunite using these 


services. Businesses have a ready 

network of referrals. You can plan 

your next party. You can tell your 

story to the world, including pictures. 

Isn’t the internet a fantastic sharing 

tool? 

But you must be aware that there 

may be others checking you out: your 

banker for instance. These socially 

accepted services designed for sharing 

information have potential to become 

serious tools for lenders to decide on 

whether or not they will grant you 

a loan. One lender in California has 

admitted to using the information on 

social networks and matching that 

information with credit applications. 

Any discrepancy will be reviewed 

and the information gathered is used 

to determine the creditworthiness of a 

client. 

The insurance industry has been 

using the internet with success for 

some time now. It may seem crazy 

but there are people who are on a 

disability claim, collecting benefits 

and were supposed to be unable to 

work or perform any form of physical 

activity. Then they posted pictures of 

themselves on their social network 

Are You Liable If Your Guests 

Injure Others While Inebriated? 

By Anna Sundin 

As a general rule, a social host does not owe a duty of care to a person 

injured by a guest who has consumed alcohol, the Supreme Court of 

Canada held in the 2006 decision Childs v. Desormeaux. 

Zoë Childs was grievously injured when the car in which she was a 

passenger was struck by a car driven by a drunk driver, Desmond Desormeaux. 

Her spine was severed, and she is now a paraplegic. Desormeaux, who was 

driving an uninsured vehicle, had a blood-alcohol concentration at the time 

of the accident of about 225 mg per 100 ml -- well over the legal limit for 

driving of 80 mg per 100 ml. He pleaded guilty to criminal charges arising 

from the accident and received a 10-year sentence. 

Before the collision, Desormeaux had attended a bring-your-own-bottle 

(BYOB) party at the home of social hosts Julie Zimmerman and Dwight 

Courrier. Childs sued Zimmerman and Courrier, as well as Desormeaux, 

alleging that their negligence had contributed to her injuries. 

The supreme court held that a social host at a party where alcohol is 

served is not under a duty of care to members of the public who may be 

injured by a guest’s actions, unless the host’s conduct implicates him or her 

in the creation or exacerbation of the risk. 

Although Chief Justice McLachlin said that “holding a private party 

at which alcohol is served -- the bare facts of this case -- is insufficient to 

implicate the host in the creation of a risk sufficient to give rise to a duty of 

care to third parties who may be subsequently injured by the conduct of a 

guest,” she did appear to leave open the possibility of liability being imposed 

in some circumstances. 

It might be argued that a host who continues to serve alcohol to a visibly 

inebriated person knowing that he or she will be driving home may be 

implicated in the creation or enhancement of a risk sufficient to give rise to a 

duty of care to third parties. 

The trial judge had found that although the social hosts owed a duty of 

care in this case, this was negated by policy considerations involving the 

social and legal consequences of imposing a duty of care on social hosts to 

third parties injured by their guests, government regulation of alcohol sale 

and use, and the desirability of a legislative rather than judicial solution. 

If the social hosts had been found liable, the trial judge would have 

apportioned liability 85 per cent to Desormeaux and 15 per cent to Courrier 

and Zimmerman. All parties agreed that as Desormeaux appeared to have no 

assets and was not insured, the rules of joint and several liability would have 

made the social hosts effectively assume the full burden of a damage award if 

the Supreme Court had found a liability against the hosts of the party. 

Beware of the Internet 

site showing themselves taking 

part in extreme sports or physical 

activity like waterskiing. Insurers are 

searching social networks for those on 

claim and if discovered, benefits are 

cut, as they should be. Claims are also 

being denied for burglary when the 

homeowner is found to have posted 

that they will be away on vacation 

during certain dates. This just invites 

thieves to come over and take your 

stuff. 

And what about that job interview? 

Employers are making a point of 

checking social networks to see the 

character of the applicant. If there is 

a toss up between two candidates and 

one has a Facebook profile describing 

multiple parties and compromising 

photos it will probably be the other 

candidate who gets the job. 

We know that there are those 

who say, “No way, I don’t believe 

it.” “They wouldn’t do that.” “It’s 

too costly for the companies to look 

at me. They’d be wasting their time.” 

And you’re right. The message here is 

not to become paranoid about using 

the internet. We are simply suggesting 

discretion. We should not become 

complacent. 

Whether you are applying a 

loan or an insurance policy you may 

have a disclosure form to sign. Many 

companies are now inserting the clause 

“I consent to you reviewing social 

networks” or other similar words. So 

once you’ve signed the application 

anything in the internet is fair game 

for review. And if you didn’t get that 

dream job that you were absolutely 

suited for you may want to have a 

look at your Facebook profile. Keep 

your comments and photos private, or 

better yet, keep them off line. 

The foregoing is for general 

information purposes and is the 

opinion of the writer. This information 

is not intended to provide personal 

advice including, without limitation, 

investment, financial, legal, 

accounting or tax advice. Please call 

or write to Rick Sutherland CLU, 

CFP, FDS, R.F.P., to discuss your 

particular circumstances or suggest 

a topic for future articles at 613- 

798-2421 or E-mail rick@investedinterest.ca. 

Mutual Funds provided 

through FundEX Investments Inc. 




Guidance, Protection 

and Peace of Mind. 

Anna E. Sundin, Barrister & Solicitor 

GEnErAl PrActicE includinG: 

Family Law, Wills, Real Estate, Incorporations, Litigation and Collaborative Family Law 

– A Cooperative and Dignified Approach to Separation and Divorce.– 

Sundin-OSCAR-Ad-2006.indd 1 7/27/06 11:15:35 AM

Page 34 

Local Veterinarian - Dr. Miriam Boileau 

Written by Dr. Miriam 

Boileau 

Dr. Miriam Boileau is an associate 

veterinarian at Centretown 

Veterinary Hospital. She is standing 

in for Dr. Emily Black who is off 

in Hawaii getting married... and 

stalking Magnum P.I. Miriam has 

two cats Bonnie and Lilli and lives in 

Old Ottawa South! 

The warm weather is here! 

We’re all very excited that the 

snow is gone and we can go 

outdoors more often and spend more 

time in the dog park without freezing. 

The cats that go outdoors are going 

to start roaming around again also. 

Living in an area where winter occurs 

can be sometimes tedious but it does 

help us keep our pets healthy. This is 

because having a time of year where 

the ground freezes decreases the risk 

of certain contagious viruses and 

parasites being transmitted to our 

pets. Once the ground thaws however, 

watch out – they’re coming back in 

full force! 

One of the most common 

parasites we see in dogs and outdoor 

cats of all ages is roundworms. 

These are long white “spaghetti-like” 

worms that many of us have seen, at 

some point, in our pet’s stool. The 

adult worms live in the pet’s small 

intestine. The main route of infection 

of this worm is through ingestion of 

microscopic worm eggs or larva from 

the environment, and we all know that 

given 


Parasites and Springtime 

half a chance, dogs will eat any old 

thing they may find on their daily 

stroll; the smellier, the better. The 

surprising thing about these worms 

is that we don’t usually see any sign 

of disease! They have evolved to be 

so good at their survival that they 

essentially go under the radar, and 

hide from the pet’s immune system. 

In the meantime, however, we can get 

low grade inflammation building up in 

the intestines which will cause health 

problems over time. Furthermore, 

our pet is now shedding the worm 

eggs in the general environment and 

our backyards. This means other 

pets and even people can become 

infected. Yuck! Now, these worms 

are not able to live in our intestines 

but they are able to migrate through 

our bodies. In some rare instances 

they can cause damage to the eyes or 

the brain. Another type of gut worm, 

the hookworm, can cause similar 

problems in humans. These can be 

more dangerous to our pets because 

they suck blood from the intestinal 

lining. In large infestations, they can 

cause anemia, especially in young 

animals. 

Tapeworms are another fun 

parasite of the gut. Many people have 

seen this one as well. You may see a flat 

white segment about one centimeter 

long, either crawling around the pet’s 

bum or having a similar appearance to 

a piece of white rice once it has dried 

up. Although these are extremely 

gross, they generally do not cause 

our pets many health problems. They 

are acquired by both dogs and cats, 

mainly through hunting or by being 

bitten by a flea. 

All of these intestinal parasites 

can be easily detected with a simple 

test done on a poop sample from your 

pet at your veterinarian’s office; hence 

the request to provide us with the ever 

popular stool sample, which explains 

your vet’s obsession with poop! 

Should your pet’s stool be positive for 

any of these parasites, they are easily 

treatable with oral medication from 

your vet. 

The next two parasites we’ll 

discuss are definitely heavy hitters. 

The first can cause slowly progressing 

heart failure, and the second can 

quickly become an owner’s worst 

nightmare. We’re talking about 

heartworm and fleas. The good 

news is that many products now 

exist to treat both problems at once! 

Heartworms are parasites which can 

end up living in or around a pet’s 

heart. This disease is contracted 

when a pet is bitten by a mosquito 

that is infected with heartworm larva 

(or baby heartworm). These are 

obviously extremely small in stature, 

and they travel from mosquito to pet 

while the mosquito is attached to the 

pet to suck blood. Unless the heart 

disease is very advanced and severe, 

which occurs only after years of the 

pet having heartworm and is at that 

point permanent, the only way we 

can diagnose this condition is through 

a blood test. Only a few drops of 

blood are needed to conduct this test. 

If we are able to catch a heartworm 

positive pet early in the progression 

Fletcher Wildlife Garden 

Annual Plant Sale 

Saturday, 5 June, 9:30 am - 

12:30 pm 

(East side of Prince of Wales 

Drive, just south of the 

Arboretum) 

Hundreds of beautiful 

wildflowers are native to 

the Ottawa region. We 

can tell you which ones suit your 

backyard. Plant a wide variety of 

native plants to grow a garden that 

changes from month to month and 

MAY 2010 

of the disease, the treatment may 

have minimal to no side effects. As 

the worms increase in number and the 

heart disease advances, the treatment 

may be life threatening. 

Our final fun parasite to discuss 

is the lovely flea. Most pet owners 

have encountered this problem at 

some point in their lives. Fleas hang 

out in the environment waiting for 

an unsuspecting pet to come by and 

once they jump on, they hang on for 

dear life. The flea takes a blood meal, 

ie: sucks blood, when it’s hungry 

and it is this flea bite that makes the 

pet itchy. Some owners are even 

allergic to fleas and get red itchy dots 

around their ankles when their pet 

picks up fleas. Thankfully, gone are 

the days when we had to fumigate or 

spray our houses, exposing both pets 

and people to potentially dangerous 

products in a poor attempt to get rid 

of a flea infestation. These days, 

we have wonderful products that we 

can apply to the pets themselves to 

rid ourselves, and out surroundings, 

of this annoying problem and we no 

longer have to introduce chemicals to 

the environment at all. 




Say Good-Bye To 

Lawn Grubs, Fertilizers, 

Sprinklers, Pesticides 

that creates an ecological balance 

making herbicides, pesticides, and 

chemical fertilizers unnecessary. 

Most of our plants attract 

butterflies and birds that bring 

your garden to life. 

See our demonstration 

backyard garden, and pick up free 

plant lists and “how-to” info on 

gardening for butterflies, attracting 

birds, building a backyard pond, 

and more! 

Information : 

www.ofnc.ca/fletcher

MAY 2010 

M.P.P. OTTAWA CENTRE 

By Yasir Naqvi, MPP 

Ottawa Centre 

With the 2010 Ontario 

Budget, our government is 

moving forward to address 

our fiscal challenges in a responsible 

way that protects the social services 

we have all worked so hard for. 

The Budget includes measures 

to manage expenditures, including 

compensation restraint and making 

government programs more efficient. 

It lays out a realistic and responsible 

plan to cut the deficit in half in five 

years, and eliminate it in eight years. 

Most importantly, the Budget builds on 

the progress we have made to ensure 

that Ontarians have the opportunities 

to succeed, and the social services to 

protect their families. 

Postsecondary Education and 

Skills Training 

Ontario’s colleges and universities 

play a critical role in equipping people 

for success and preparing them to 

generate the ideas, products and jobs 

that will ensure future prosperity and 

economic growth. 

Though Ontario has one of 

the highest rates of postsecondary 

education attainment in the world at 

62 per cent as the economy changes, 

70 per cent of all new jobs will require 

postsecondary education or training – 

and that is our government’s goal for 


Ontario. 

That is why we are adding 20,000 

new student spaces to colleges and 

universities this September, through 

an investment of $310 million 

annually. This is great news for 

Ottawa’s colleges and universities 

who will now have the funding to 

attract more students. 

More students means more 

people will have the tools and skills 

they need to succeed. In addition, 

to supporting our post-secondary 

institutions, we have also pledged to 

boost Employment Ontario spending 

to $1.6 billion in each 2009-2010 and 

2010-2011 to help retrain an additional 

30,000 unemployed workers through 

the Second Career Strategy. 

Child Care Investments and Full- 

Day Learning 

Children are our most precious 

resource and one of our most important 

investments. We cannot afford to let 

our kids suffer, and that is why we are 

pledging to make up for the federal 

funding that is ending this year by 

investing an additional $63.5 million 

a year. As a result of this commitment, 

an estimated 302 child care spaces in 

Ottawa will be preserved. 

We are also moving forward with 

full-day learning. This fall, 39 Ottawa 

schools will be offering full-day 

programs for four- and five-year-olds. 

By 2015, full day learning will be 

available to every four- and five-yearold 

across the province. 

Moving to full-day learning is 

a big step. We are working with our 

education and child care partners to 

take a measured approach, and are 

taking five years to transition to the 

new model so we can make sure we 

get it right. To help facilitate this 

transition, we are investing $245 

million over the next two years in 

capital grant and subsides to help 

some child care centres convert 

existing space to serve other age 

cohorts. We will also review the Day 

Nurseries Act to support child care 

centre viability. 

Supporting Families and Reducing 

Poverty 

We have made a permanent 

commitment to break the cycle of 

poverty. In 2008, we announced a 

long-term poverty reduction plan that 

will give people the tools they need 

to succeed. The Open Ontario plan 

will help Ontario reach its full potent 

while supporting the vulnerable and 

helping everyone succeed. 

We are moving forward with 

our Poverty Reduction plan with the 

increase of the minimum wage to 

$10.25 an hour on March 31. This 

is the seventh consecutive year that 

the minimum wage has increased, 

following a nine-year freeze at $6.85. 

To help low-income Ontarians, 

Dorothy Reads 

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson 

I 

am eagerly awaiting the release 

of Per Petterson’s latest book I 

Curse the River Time which will be 

released in English during the summer 

of 2010. Petterson is one of Norway’s 

finest writers – his book Out Stealing 

Horses won the 2007 International 

IMPAC, the Independent Foreign 

Fiction Prize as well as the Norwegian 

Critics Prize for Literature and the 

Booksellers’ Best Book of the Year 

Award. It is one of the best books I have 

read recently. 

Out Stealing Horses is set in 2 

time periods: the fall of 1999 and the 

summer of 1948. Trond Sandor, a 

widower in his late sixties, has retired 

from professional life in Oslo to a 

A Balanced Plan 

ramshackle house in the woods of 

eastern Norway. He has pined to live 

in this setting for years: “All my life I 

have longed to be in a place like this. 

Even when everything was going well, 

as it often did.” Trond, it appears, was 

hoping to while away his twilight years 

in solitude with his dog Lyra, a radio 

and a collection of Dickens novels. One 

night, his solitary existence is disrupted 

by a chance encounter with a childhood 

acquaintance. This meeting sets off a 

stream of reminiscences through which 

we learn that Trond had lived in a very 

similar setting years before. 

As a 15 year old in the summer 

of 1948, Trond and his father spent 

several months together in a cabin near 

the Swedish border working the land 

and felling timber. Whilst there, Trond 

befriended a local boy, Jon, with whom 

he shared a slate of boyish adventures. 

One morning, while playing a cowboy 

inspired game of ‘stealing horses’ 

Trond is thrown from the horse he is 

riding and experiences what is later 

described as a turning point in his life: 

“I remember I opened my eyes as if to 

a new beginning; nothing I saw was 

familiar to me, my head was empty, no 

thoughts, everything quite clean and the 

sky transparently blue and I didn’t know 

what I was called or even recognize my 

own body”. Unbeknownst to Trond 

at the time, everything would indeed 

change that day. An unimaginable 

tragedy at Jon’s house forces him to 

leave home and sets in motion a chain 

of events with lasting consequences for 

both families. 

Out Stealing Horses is chiefly 

about a nascent relationship between a 

father and son which began to develop 

during a summer spent together. With 

his friend Jon away, Trond is left to 

work the land with his physically fit 

father, and seeks to gain his approbation 

by demonstrating a capacity to pull 

his own weight. He endures gruelling 

days of physical labour by taking to 

heart his father’s advice “you decide 

yourself when it will hurt”- advice 

that will resound for him in the years 

to come. The book is also about loss 

and betrayal, and Trond’s inability to 

cope with either of these. We sense that 

following the events of 1948, he has 

lived a life of deadened consciousness 

and been incapable of forging functional 

relationships. The end, however, offers 

glimmers of hope. Perhaps through 

revisiting his past, a rapprochement 

with his estranged daughter is possible. 

Trond may yet come to be, like the hero 

of his Dickens’ novel, hero of his own 

life. 

a new, permanent refundable sales 

tax credit of up to $260 per person 

is available in 2010. We have also 

enhanced the property tax relief, 

providing more support particularly 

for seniors. To ensure that vulnerable 

Ontarians are protected, we 

have increased adult basic-needs 

allowances and maximum shelter 

allowances by one per cent for people 

on the Ontario Disability Support 

Program and Ontario Works. 

In addition, we are protecting 

our core public services by with 

an increase of 1.5 per cent in base 

hospital funding, and 3.6 per cent in 

school board funding. 

The Road Forward 

The 2010 Ontario Budget reflects 

the values of Ontarians. We are 

prudent and responsible, and believe 

in the return to balanced budgets. 

However, we also believe in the core 

public services like health care and 

education that make Ontario the best 

place to live, work and raise a family 

in. With this plan, we will move back 

to balanced budgets, create jobs and 

return to prosperity. 

For more information on the 

2010 Budget, please do not hesitate 

to contact my community office at 

613-722-6414 or visit my website at 

yasirnaqvimpp.ca. 

This is a beautifully written book: 

the writing is simple, well paced and 

understated. What remains unsaid is 

often as important as what is said. I 

recommend it particularly to fans of 

Hemingway. 

Dorothy Jeffreys, Librarian, Alta 

Vista Library

Page 36 

Par Jean-Claude Dubé 

La Montagne Secrète est un 

œuvre semi autobiographique 

qui révèle la profondeur de 

l’âme du son auteure Gabrielle Roy. 

Cet œuvre est un de ces rares livres 

qui commande une deuxième lecture 

pour être apprécié à sa juste valeur. 

Gabrielle Roy s’inspire de la vie 

du peintre René Richard, son ami et 

voisin de Charlevoix. Né en Suisse, 

René Richard devient trappeur et 

coureur des bois dans le nord de 

l’Alberta à l’âge de 18 ans. Peintre 

autodidacte, il crée des centaines 

de dessins. En voyage en Europe, il 

rencontre le grand peintre Clarence 

Gagnon qui le convint de s’installer 

au Québec pour se consacrer à son 

art. René Richard s’installe à Baie St. 

Paul d’où il partira maintes fois pour 

des randonnées lointaines dans le 

grand Nord canadien. 

Pierre Cadorai, créature de 

Gabrielle Roy et l’avatar de René 

The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR MAY 2010 

l’Amicale francophone d’Ottawa - Cercle de Lecture 

Richard, parcoure les rivières et 

les lacs du haut et bas Mackenzie, 

dans les Territoires du Nord-ouest 

du Canada. Il rencontre Gédéon, 

vieux prospecteur se servant toujours 

d’une passoire, et, plus tard, Nina, 

fille de Gédéon qui s’était évadé de 

la solitude du milieu de son père et 

travaillant comme serveuse de taverne 

timide dans un monde d’homme de la 

brousse. 

Plus tard, Pierre Cadorai s’associe 

avec un ami, Steve Sigurdsen, et ils 

passent les hivers sans soleil à la 

trappe et la chasse. Les étés, ils sont 

pêcheurs dans des lacs et rivières à 

peine dégelés. Tout se passe dans la 

solitude des bois et de la toundra où 

seul le loup est maître. 

Plusieurs années plus tard, 

Pierre est en Ungava et c’est là qu’il 

découvre, par hasard, une montagne 

solitaire qui l’épate car il la voit dans 

toute sa splendeur d’une fin de journée 

d’automne comme il n’y en a qu’au 

nord du Canada. Cette montagne est 

une muse et une maîtresse. Pierre la 

peint, maintes et maintes fois, dans 

tous ses éléments, en mangeant peu et 

sans se soucier de faire des provisions. 

L’hiver arrive, la montagne disparaît 

sous la neige et la brume et Pierre est 

affamé. Il doit abattre un vieil orignal 

à coup de hachette en le pourchassant 

une nuit entière sur la toundra. Est ça 

continue… 

Ce livre révèle la maîtrise de la 

prose que possède Gabrielle Roy avec 

une écriture douce et fine et à la fois 

poétique. La ponctuation est parfaite. 

Le style est exceptionnel: il est doux 

et puissant. Un exemple: « Dix fois 

au moins en une heure, Pierre allait 

à la porte, l’ouvrait, s’efforçait, 

à travers les bondissements de la 

tempête revenue, de saisir au loin un 

bruit d’attelage, ou quelque forme 

approchante ». 

Gabrielle Roy révèle son âme dans 

cette Montagne secrète et, telle qu’une 

montagne qui se métamorphose avec 

les saisons, les intempéries et les 

heures du jour, l’âme de Gabrielle 

Roy est inscrutable. La montagne est 

Sips from the Poetry Café 

That’s What Mothers Are For 

by: Susan Atkinson 

I’ve been thinking a lot about 

mothers of late (my mother, 

other mothers, being a mother). I 

suppose it’s mostly because Mother’s 

Day is on its way and I knew I wanted 

to write something as tribute, not just 

to my mum but all the other women 

out there who fulfill a nurturing role in 

someone’s life. Anyway I had known 

I had wanted to write this piece and 

had been percolating ideas like mad 

but hadn’t landed on anything until 

last night when one of my daughters 

literally opened the floodgates. 

So this is what happened – actually 

let me back up and set the stage – it’s 

mid-week and I’m tired and as so often 

happens while putting my youngest to 

bed we’ll read, cuddle and I’ll find my 

eyes drooping slightly until an hour 

or two has passed and I realize I had 

better get up and finish all the things 

I’d left unfinished. Well last night I 

didn’t come to my realization on my 

own because my next daughter up (we 

affectionately call her “Number 3”) 

snapped me out of contentment with 

urgent pleas of help. 

She had (although she argued 

it wasn’t her fault!) overflowed the 

upstairs toilet. Now when I say 

overflowed I don’t mean a trickle, I 

mean a FLOOD. As I arrived on the 

scene, water was flowing everywhere 

and bobbing along in it were several 

of my ‘best towels’ (I suppose I should 

have been grateful at her attempt to 

clean up!!). Well by the time it was 

all put right by, yes you guessed it… 

by me – I had one very soggy hallway 

mat, a number of soaking towels and 

a rather melodic drip from the ceiling 

into the kitchen. Now I agree that 

by now I was probably neither very 

pleasant nor very patient but I think 

under the circumstances I held up 

pretty well! I may have been a little 

terse with my goodnight and not as 

loving as usual but by morning I was a 

little more like my ‘motherly- angelicmother-Theresa-self’ 

and uttered a 

condensed apology just in case I had 

seemed MAD. As you can imagine 

(oh I forgot to mention #3 is 14!) my 

daughter did linger on the fact that she 

felt I’d been mean and that she was 

perhaps a little hard done by. 

I have to admit that the inspiration 

for my article did not end there. 

Coincidentally we happen to be 

hosting her best friend for the week 

and while the two girls were busily 

getting ready for school, breakfasts, 

lunches, this and that, I tried to explain 

that sometimes I’m tired and need 

a little help (put your hand up if a. 

you’ve ever given this speech, b. If 

you’ve ever received it or c. BOTH!) 

une quête de l’absolu, de l’idéal, d’un 

exploit qui est toujours insaisissable. 

La montagne est à la fois une amie 

qui console et une rivale qui menace 

et tourmente. En lisant la Montagne 

secrète de Gabrielle Roy, on ne doit 

pas y voir simplement qu’un roman 

mais aussi une vision de soi-même: 

car il y a probablement une montagne 

secrète en nous tous. 

La prochaine rencontre du Cercle 

de lecture de l’Amicale qui aura lieu 

le 11 mai ne discutera pas de Rouge 

Brésil tel qu’annoncé le mois dernier. 

La lecture choisie pour le mois de 

mai est L’élégance de l’hérisson 

de Muriel Barbery. Le livre Rouge 

Brésil de Jean-Christophe Rufin sera 

la lecture de l’été pour la rencontre du 

mois de septembre. 

Pendant la période de rénovations 

à la bibliothèque Sunnyside, le Cercle 

se réunit en l’église Southminster au 

coin des rues Bank et Aylmer. L’entrée 

est sur la rue Galt et la rencontre dans 

une petite salle au premier plancher. 

I used the freshly-created “mess” to 

prove my point and #3 smiled sweetly, 

kissed me on the cheek, breezed out 

of the room to go to school while at 

the same time genuinely believing her 

words “but mummy, that’s what mums 

are for”. And now here I am, finally 

ready to explain why I started writing 

this piece in the first place… 

I had no argument for my daughter 

as she did indeed have a strong 

point. Mums are for so many things, 

for example: cleaning, picking up, 

fetching and carrying, chauffeuring, 

counseling, coordinating, social 

conveying, nursing, and anything else 

that ends in an –ing that involves doing 

for others! I suppose if my daughter 

hadn’t rushed out to catch up with her 

busy life then I may have pointed out 

that mums have other jobs that are 

way, way more important but in the 

end I realized it wasn’t my daughter I 

needed to tell this to but rather I needed 

to tell my mother that “I got it!” I 

needed to let her know that now as a 

grown up with children of my own I 

had experienced the epiphany of what 

mothers are really for. They are there 

for the way, way more important things 

like comforting, cuddling, loving, 

supporting, being there to pick up the 

pieces, to say the right things, to give 

advice and to give encouragement. 

Making their children feel like nothing 

else matters and that they are number 

one is what mums are not only for but 

what they do every single minute of 

every single day. I hope everyone out 

there who plays this role in someone’s 

life has a really lovely Mother’s Day. I 

know that on May 9 th I’m going to be 

giving a certain someone a really big 

hug! 


MAY 2010 

Demystifying Home Technology 

By: Russell King, CCPD 

Sovereign Designs Inc. 

With Earth Day 2010 just 

behind us, I thought it 

a good time to do our 

part by talking about home energy 

management. Most all of us are 

concerned to some degree about 

saving on our energy bills and in 

doing so reduce our eco footprint on 

our small part of the planet. This is 

the 1st part in a small series which 

will cover energy management in the 

home. 

So for this, the 1st part of our 

series, let’s talk lighting. Did you 

know that lighting accounts for about 

20% of an average home’s energy bill. 

Pull out your latest energy bill subtract 

20%; now wouldn’t you like to spend 

that elsewhere? Sure you would, 

who wouldn’t? Take the most basic 

example: a single light in your home. 

We’ve all been told that we should 

replace our standard (incandescent) 

light bulbs with the more energy 

efficient CFL (compact fluorescent) 

There were over 4,000 charges 

in Ottawa in March for unsafe 

and heavy/commercial vehicle 

infractions and speeding. 

The Selective Traffic Enforcement 

Program (STEP) focus on unsafe 

and heavy/commercial vehicles and 

speeding resulted in 4,358 charges 

being laid in March, according to 

the City’s Integrated Road Safety 

Program (IRSP). 

Specifically, 1,063 tickets 

Mothers ... Cont’d from previous page 

Tradition 

(For my mother, Margaret) 

I vowed I’d never do it, 

you know, spit on an old 

piece of discarded tissue 

and wipe your face. 

Not the way 

my mother used to. 

The big cotton handkerchief 

she kept stuffed 

in the bowels of her handbag, 

encrusted with expelled 

jewels of waste that clung 

to old, dry tobacco flakes. 

Her spit, yellow-stained 

from coffee and 

non-filtered cigarettes 

bathed our chubby little faces 

removing sweet stains 

with one foul swipe. 

And now, I do as she did 

and you, as I, 

hold your breath 

and puff your cheeks 

like a cartoon goldfish. 


Energy Management - Part 1 

bulbs. While this does reduce the 

energy consumption used, they are 

generally environmentally unfriendly 

due to the chemicals used in the bulbs 

when improperly disposed of. There 

are also practical issues with CFL 

bulbs: you can’t dim them, and until 

recently there has been no choice in 

the colour of the light they give. The 

CFL bulb doesn’t sound so appealing. 

So what to do? 

Lets first look at changing the 

switch controlling the bulb, instead 

of the bulb itself. By replacing a 

standard switch with a dimmer you 

now have control as to how much 

energy is going to the bulb, not just 

off 0% or on 100%. Also you’ve 

gained an excellent way to create 

different moods within your space. 

By dimming a single light or a group 

of lights to create a lighting scene 

you can easily add drama to a space. 

Think of the last time you went to the 

theatre, the curtains opened, the lights 

dimmed and the show started. All of 

that is in place to set a mood and to 

create drama. Replacing a standard 

were issued to drivers for unsafe 

and heavy/commercial vehicle 

infractions and the speeding initiative 

resulted in 3,295 charges being laid. 

Examples of unsafe vehicle charges 

include: improper tires, obstructed 

windshield, no clear view to side or 

rear windows, and defective brakes 

and steering. 

Examples of heavy truck and 

commercial vehicle-related charges 

include: insecure load, load not 

Police Report 

switch with a Lutron dimmer can save 

you up to $30/year (1). 

So what about dimmers? Well, 

a typical dimmer (2) will save you 

energy -- an eco-dim dimmer (3) - 

guarantees at least 15% energy savings 

and 3X bulb life extension when you 

replace your standard switch. These 

dimmers, manufactured by Lutronm 

the company that invented the solid 

state dimmer, are the latest in the 

green movement. 

In addition to dimmers, 

occupancy/vacancy sensors can be 

installed so you never have to worry 

about the light that you think you left 

on. An occupancy sensor is just that, it 

senses when someone is in a room and 

turns on the light or lights associated 

with it and when no one is in the room 

turns off the lights. A vacancy sensor 

will turn off the lights when you have 

left the room, which means you’ll still 

need to turn them on when you enter 

the room. 

Wireless Occupancy Sensor 

My suggestion then when it 

properly covered, improper use of 

the designated Truck Route Network, 

failure to surrender Commercial 

Vehicle Operator’s Registration 

(CVOR) Certificate and operating 

commercial vehicle without valid 

CVOR Certificate. 

Each month since 2004, STEP 

has been profiling and enforcing two 

initiatives that target specific traffic 

safety priorities. These initiatives 

support larger IRSP public awareness 

comes to bulbs: leave what you have 

and add dimming solutions or take the 

leap with LED (light emitting diode). 

Although LED bulbs are fairly new 

to market and therefore a bit costly, 

huge strides have been made in the 

field of LED technology. You can get 

replacement bulbs from most lighting 

resellers in the city. Be careful when 

purchasing, as many bulbs currently 

on the shelf are non-dimming so if 

your intended application requires a 

dimming styled bulb ask for one. 

Next Time: Home Automation 

‘With home automation systems 

starting in the hundreds of dollars it 

has now become affordable for most 

everyone to have the benefits of 

automating in at least a part of their 

home. 

--------------------------- 

(1) based on 2009 US energy 

prices. 

(2) Dimming your lights just 25% 

saves 20% in energy 

(3) eco-dim dimmers are a 

trademark of Lutron Corporation 

and enforcement campaigns. 

In 2003, two City departments - Public 

Works and Ottawa Public Health - and 

the Ottawa Police Service developed 

the IRSP to provide a comprehensive 

approach in promoting road safety. 

Ottawa residents have identified 

traffic safety as a top priority. 

The IRSP is committed to using 

available resources to make Ottawa 

roads safer for residents.


COMPUTER TRICKS AND TIPS 

Viruses Are Popping Up All Over 

By Malcolm and John Harding, of 

Compu-Home 

There is a new malware kid on the block, and 

we at Compu-Home have been spending an 

increasing number of our appointments in the 

past few months helping people who have become 

mired in this vandalism. The new breed of malware 

has some things about it that are innovative and 

stubborn, and it takes a combination of old standby 

strategies and a couple of new tricks to defeat it. 

Notice that I went straight to “defeat” and didn’t 

mention “avoid.” That’s because we have found 

that there is really no advice that will guarantee that 

you won’t be stricken. There is no anti-virus utility 

(free or expensive) that is guaranteed to protect you 

and there is no nice and neat category of websites 

or practices to steer clear of. In the old days, people 

who didn’t go to porn, gambling or illegal file 

sharing sites were fairly safe from viruses. Add 

a strict rule of not opening unexpected email and 

never downloading suspect attachments, and you 

might have stayed virus-free forever. Nowadays, 

alas, the old safeguards don’t apply and people are 

being hit after browsing where it was reasonably 

assumed to be quite safe. 

All the same, it is well worth your while to 

continue to follow the traditional safe surfing rules 

and to avoid high-risk Internet activities. Recently 

we have added a caution about downloading 

“viewers” for all of those cute little video clips that 

your friends love to send you; if they won’t run with 

Flash, Windows Media Player, Quicktime or Real 

Player, you might be better off skipping them. 

Another noteworthy factor about this new 

threat is that when you are attacked, the files that 

are installed on your computer often do not have 

the characteristics of a traditional “virus” and so 

they fool or foil your virus protection utility, even 

though you have it set up correctly, and it is recently 

updated. As mentioned above, it doesn’t matter 

how much or how little you have paid because none 

of the utilities has a perfect record of protection - 

yet. We’ll let you know if one emerges as the best 

choice. 

There is a wide range of possible consequences 

to falling victim to this kind of malware. At the 

so-called lucky end, you will be able to clear your 

hard disk of the infected files quite easily, perhaps 

by following the instructions below, and there will 

be no residual damage to your operating system. 

At the other end of the spectrum, in the worst-case 

scenario, your Windows may already have been 

damaged and will have to be re-installed, but only 

after your data has been rescued so that it can be 

restored after the re-install. 

A typical scenario: Suddenly a big box pops up 

on your monitor, telling you that several viruses have 

been found on your computer. A list of familiarseeming 

virus jargon appears – “trojan,” “worm,” 

“infected,” etc. Well-known names are displayed 

– Microsoft, Norton, AVG, Symantec and so on, 

and the boxes might look vaguely like the familiar 

logos and appearance of one of these companies. 

There will be very assertive instructions to click 

on a link to download a utility that will clean your 

computer of these problems, or you will face dire 

consequences. 

1. NEVER follow that suggested link; it will 

simply take you to a site that will eventually want a 

credit card number, leading to a huge escalation of 

the problem. 

By: Karen Joynt 

Director of Development at 

The Glebe Centre 

From all of us at The Glebe 

Centre, we wish to extend our 

warmest thanks to everyone 

involved in making our 2010 

Rockathon an amazing success! 

From the generosity of our sponsors 

to the spirited rocking chair teams 

more than $20,000 was raised - once 

again we have been overwhelmed 

by the support shown by so many of 

you. 

The impact of this event has made 

it possible for our existing activities 

and programs to continue and in 

2. Attempt to launch your own virus protection 

utility. The icon for your utility should be in the 

Systray (the tiny area in the bottom-right of your 

display, where the clock is located). If the utility 

will launch, follow the instructions for how to scan 

your hard disk(s) manually and get rid of any bad 

stuff it finds. 

3. The attack may have disabled your antivirus 

utility, and it might not launch. At this point, 

many people call for a technician. If you want to 

fight on by yourself, your next step is to shut down 

your computer forcibly, by pressing and holding 

your power button for about ten seconds. After the 

computer has been off for about 30 seconds, press 

the power button again. 

4. As your computer re-boots, tap repeatedly 

the F8 key. From the list that appears, choose “Safe 

Mode with Networking.” 

5. When you see your Safe Mode Desktop, 

launch your browser and go to www.malwarebytes. 

org and download the free version. Follow the 

instructions to install it, update it, and run a manual 

scan of your computer. A second, independent 

utility like Malwarebytes often acts as the B-team, 

and finds the offending malware. You may have to 

run it more than once, and this might take as long 

as several hours. 

The only place to take comfort in this miserable 

situation is in the knowledge that all of the Internet 

and software giants are, in this particular case at 

least, on our side. We are confident that it won’t be 

all that long before reliable protection is available 

against this threat. Of course that probably just 

means that we’ll have to turn our attention to the 

next one. . . 

Malcolm and John Harding are owners 

of Compu-Home. They assist home and small 

business computer users. 

Write to harding@compu-home.com or 

phone 613-731-5954 to discuss computer issues, 

or to suggest future columns. 




Thank You! 

From The Glebe Centre 

doing so offers so many people the 

chance to have a full and active life. 

A huge thank you to our Chair, 

Kevin Nelson from Majic100 and to 

our sponsors: 

Scotiabank - Glebe Centre 

Medico-Dental Pharmacy 

CapCorp Financial 

Family Physiotherapy Centre 

TD Waterhouse 

Abbotsford Members Council 

Sodexho 

Taggart Construction 

Nutrilawn 

Medigas 

Dalex Canada 

And a reminder to pledge a 

rocking chair team next year!

MAY 2010 

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT OTTAWA CENTRE 

Affordable housing has long 

been a major issue in Ottawa. 

The report by the Alliance 

to End Homelessness offers a sobering 

picture of the housing crisis that exists 

in Ottawa. Last year 7 445 individuals 

stayed in an emergency shelter and 

more than 1300 of them were children 

under the age of 16. The average 

length of stay in Ottawa shelters has 

risen to 57 days, with families staying 

an average of 67 days. 

The report also highlights the 

shortage of affordable housing (only 

88 new affordable units were built last 

year, yet the housing waiting list has 

increased to more than 10 000) and 

those apartments that are available for 

rent in Ottawa have seen their average 

costs increase. 

But the crisis in housing is more 

By Frances Berkman 


Housing Crisis Continues in Ottawa 

than just people needing emergency 

shelter. Across the country Canadians 

are having a harder time affording 

their homes. A recent Conference 

Board of Canada report revealed that 

20 percent of Canadians are struggling 

to keep up with the costs of owning a 

home. 

As a result “about one-fifth of 

Canadian households do not have the 

resources to afford both good-quality 

homes and other health-enhancing 

expenditures, such as nutritious food 

or access to recreational activities”. 

A key social determinant of 

health, affordable housing can have 

an impact and benefits beyond the 

wellbeing of the individual person. 

People who have access to affordable 

housing, especially seniors and those 

on a fixed income, won’t need to 

www.freecycle.org 

Changing the world free & open to all 

24 hours a day, 365 days a year 

Spring Concert at St. Matthew’s 

On Saturday, May 15th, at 7:30 pm the 

combined choirs of St. Matthew’s 

Anglican Church in the Glebe, 

under the direction of Stephen Candow, will 

present their spring concert of music by J.S. 

Bach and G. F. Handel. Featured soloists 

will be sopranos Martha Coulthart and Clare 

Jackson, countertenor Kevin Hassell, tenor 

Michael Ruddy and bass Philip Holmes and 

the choir will be accompanied by a string 

orchestra, continuo and oboes. 

The concert will open with Bach’s 

Cantata No. 179, Siehe zu, Das Deine 

Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei, followed by 

Bach’s Missa Brevis in G major. The second 

half of the concert will feature Handel’s 

Chandos anthem No. 9, O Praise the Lord 

with One Consent. 

Cantata 179 was originally written for 

the 11th Sunday after Trinity in 1723, shortly 

after Bach moved to Leipzig to assume the 

post of Director of Choir and Music. That 

year, along with his duties of teaching and 

organizing and rehearsing the music for 

services at the four main churches of Leipzig, 

Bach undertook the task of composing a new 

Cantata for every Sunday and Feast day of 

the year. The cantata would be an integral 

part of the church service with the text based 

on the set readings for the day. 

For Bach or other Lutheran composers 

of his time, a Missa Brevis or Short Mass 

consisted of the Kyrie and Gloria. Bach 

wrote 4 Missae Breves, all of which are 

known as parody works, that is works based 

on pre-existing music. While it was not 

uncommon to compose music based on wellknown 

folk or popular songs, Bach used 

music from his own earlier works for each 

of his Short Masses. In his Missa Brevis in 

G major, composed in 1735, Bach reworked 

some of the musical themes from Cantata 

no. 179 into the mass setting. In this concert, 

the earlier work and the “Parody Mass” have 

been paired---see if you can recognize the 

“recycled” materials! 

The final piece, Handel’s “O Praise the 

Lord with One Consent” is based on texts 

from Psalms 135, 117 and 148. This is one 

of 12 anthems composed from 1717-1718 

for the Duke of Chandos while Handel was 

composer-in-residence at his estate outside 

of London. These anthems, which combine 

choral and solo movements, were quite 

distinct from earlier English church music 

and in fact are similar in style to Bach’s 

church cantatas. 

St. Matthew’s, the Anglican Church in 

the Glebe, has two active choirs which take 

part in sung services. The Men and Boys’ 

Choir, founded in 1956, practices twice a 

week and sings 3-6 services a month. The 

Women and Girls’ Choir, founded in 1990, 

practices once a week and sings 1-2 services/ 

month. The choirs will combine forces for 

major feast services and for our two annual 

concerts. The choirs provide an opportunity 

for children from the Glebe, Old Ottawa 

South and beyond to receive musical training 

and to learn and sing a wide variety of 

liturgical music throughout the year, as well 

as the chance to sing with a full voice choir 

and orchestra in concert. For a number of 

choir members, singing with St. Matthew’s 

is a family affair, with children singing 

together with their siblings, parents and even 

grandparents. 

Tickets to the concert are $20 for general 

admission, $15 for students and are available 

at St. Matthew’s Anglican Church office (217 

First Avenue, 613-234-4024), CD Warehouse 

and Compact Music. The Men, Women, Boys 

and Girls of the choirs hope you will join 

us May 15th for an evening of beautiful and 

uplifting Baroque music. 

decide between paying rent and paying 

their bills or purchasing medicines. 

Families will be able to ensure that 

their children have nutritious food 

and a safe environment to live. And 

national productivity increases when 

people are able to meet their basic 

needs (shelter, clean water, food, etc). 

Furthermore, research shows 

that neighbourhoods that are home 

to supportive housing, such as 

Cornerstone or the Sheppard’s of 

Good Hope, often see an increase 

in property value and a decrease in 

criminal activity. 

Canada is the only major 

industrialized country that does not 

have national housing but we are 

hoping to change that. My NDP 

colleague Libby Davis has introduced 

a bill that will ensure secure, 

adequate, accessible and affordable 

housing for all Canadians. Libby 

has my full support, and the support 

of all New Democrats and we call 

on the Harper government to throw 

their support behind a plan that will 

benefit Canadians from coast to coast 

to coast. 

Ending homelessness will 

take the combined efforts of 

federal, provincial, and municipal 

governments. I challenge all elected 

officials to make affordable housing a 

priority in Ottawa and across Canada. 

Paul Dewar, MP 

613 946-8682 

www.pauldewar.ca 





oscar@oldottawasouth.ca


Tasty Tidbits From Trillium Bakery 

Pearls of the Antilles Part 3 

By Jocelyn LeRoy 

Cont’d from April OSCAR.... 

Doctors diagnosed a host of ills and 

“conditions.” Dentists proclaimed 

there would be no teeth because of the 

malnutrition. 

They grew beautiful teeth. 

Most of their health concerns 

righted themselves after a year 

or two of good medical care, nutritious 

food and lots of love. That being said, 

the road ahead was not always smooth. 

A deep trauma from early childhood and 

serious deprivation leaves scars beneath 

the surface. These scars require years 

of patient love and the hard work of 

overcoming. 

There is no map for this journey. 

As they gained strength physically, 

the long walk to school became 

something the younger sisters wanted 

more than anything else. Finally, I let 

them walk with their brother and sister. 

I rode circles on my bicycle. far behind. 

What I saw became a daily routine, 

requiring double the time of a leisurely 

walk to school. 

After a few blocks they would 

stop to play. Then they’d take off their 

thin jackets, hang them on shrubs on 

someone’s front lawn, and sit down 

for a little rest. Sometimes they had a 

nice nap on the soft green grass. Their 

brother tried hard to bestir them, pulling 

at them, “Hurry up. The bell’s going to 

ring.” 

Neighbours called me saying “Your 

daughters are asleep on my lawn” or 

“Your daughters left their hats and 

Little Sister with her husband, adopted daughter (l), and 

two daughters. 

sweaters on my forsythia bush.” 

They were not strong enough for 

a full day at school, but were strong 

enough to nearly bring the house down 

with their protests at being left behind 

(staying home one or two days for rest 

and treatment). 

Then came a solution that was just 

perfect. 

The kindergarten teacher, who to 

this day I credit for probably the most 

valuable school year of their lives, said, 

“Just let them come into my class.” 

She taught most of the year with 

one or both on her lap. She let them 

sleep when they needed to. She put 

them in the “dolly corner” every day for 

some “free play.” They always lined up 

the dolls, and any other children who 

ventured into the pretend kitchen, and 

pretend fed them. 

Always feeding them, wrapping 

them up in blankets. Other children 

Big Sister with her son 

acted out some of their home dramas 

(spanking dolls and yelling at them, 

rocking them, throwing them around), 

but our Haitian girls seriously made 

sure all got enough to eat. They brought 

plastic plates with orange blocks on 

them (mango, sweet potato), batons 

(sugar cane) and imaginary cups of 

coffee. They were well acquainted with 

brown drinks (rum, coffee, polluted 

water.) 

At home our whole family had quite 

unconsciously developed a hybrid kind 

of language. There were stares in the 

grocery store while we were shopping, 

with four loquacious children helping 

to fill the shopping cart. First try was 

always Creole. When at a loss for the 

right word, a French word worked fine. 

If no one could find the correct French 

or Creole word, English did the trick. 

We all understood each other perfectly. 

No one else did. 

We tried to hang on to the Haitian 

songs and language by inviting all our 

Haitian acquaintances to our home to 

speak Creole. The girls’ interest in that 

waned, as all the fun in the street and 

schoolyard called to them. Car trips 

became a good excuse for us all to sing, 

including the songs we brought from 

Haiti. Eventually, they too fell by the 

wayside. 

But not everything did. Aha! 

The rice and beans, “malangues and 

chadek,” remained favourite foods 

for years. Our girls were never picky 

eaters, except for an extreme aversion 

to oatmeal – we never found out the 

reason. 

For a long time, whenever I opened 

a desk drawer, or fluffed up the sofa 

cushions after they’d been jumped on, I 

would find pieces of bread, a carrot and 

slices of apple, hidden in the drawer or 

behind the cushions. Food, just in case. 

School was a challenge after 

that first excellent year. The tests 

that determined which “stream” was 

suited for my girls were so culturally 

biased it was impossible to gain a true 


MAY 2010 

By Mary Anne Thompson 

The wider world has discovered 

what a gem Old Ottawa South 

possesses as The Mayfair 

Theatre hosted most of the 2010 Spring 

Edition of the Ottawa International 

Writers Festival. 

The opening day, Earth Day, began 

with a discussion of the movement 

toward local food with Sarah Elton, 

author of Locavore: How Canadians 

are Changing the Way We Eat. She 

discussed the need to understand the 

true cost of the industrial food system 

we have been supporting for more 

than 50 years. She also highlighted 

the difference between organic and 

sustainable farm practices. To counter 

the critics who say that local food is an 

elitist movement for the wealthy, Sarah 

spoke of the many local initiatives 

across Canada working to provide local 

food at low costs, with some programs 

for Food Banks. She underlined the 

need for the creation of infrastructures 

to link growers and consumers. 


The Mayfair Theatre Hosts Ottawa International Writers’ Festival 

Jeff Rubin, former Chief 

Economist and Chief Strategist at CIBC 

World Markets and author of Oil and 

the End of Globalization, spoke with 

some urgency about the soon to come 

high oil prices. He pointed out that our 

life style of cheap goods is maintained 

by cheap labour costs in China and 

other countries and this is propped by 

cheap transportation, aka oil, costs. A 

staggering 90% of all oil sold is used in 

transportation -- plane, ship, truck, and 

cars. Even while the sale and use of 

cars is falling in North America, sales 

are rising rapidly in China and India. 

As the world is running out of cheap 

oil the appetite for it is rising. 

Rubin argued that as the price of 

oil rises we will have to change and that 

might not be such a bad thing. As an 

example, we now ship raw materials, 

like iron ore from Brazil, to China, 

where cheap labour makes steel, which 

is then shipped back across the world 

to North American markets. Rising 

oil costs from expensive methods of 

extraction like the tar sands and ocean 

Pearls of the Antilles ... Cont’d from previous page 

reading on their capabilities. Year after 

year, I struggled to get the “experts” 

to envision my daughters’ brains as 

a place filled with lightbulbs, not yet 

turned on. I explained that it was all our 

responsibility to inspire, to find all the 

ways and means to turn on the lights, 

not to label or to limit them. It was so 

frustrating. 

The “authorities” tried hard to 

pigeonhole the older of the two sisters, 

No learning disability could be found. 

Six years of starvation doesn’t go 

unnoticed. I wanted to scream, “Don’t 

use that fact to limit her potential, the 

potential that we do not know.” 

The lightbulbs eventually turned 

on. And lit up the immediate world 

around them, in so many ways I cannot 

count the colours. 

They not only survived. They 

flourished. 

A year or so after our family 

doubled, we all went to a Haitian art 

exhibit at Les Beaux Arts in Montreal. 

I was not prepared for the drama that 

occurred when my Haitian daughters 

saw the paintings. The subject was 

voodoo. 

Both girls became so excited, 

pointing at the “houngan,” shrieking 

and giggling nervously. They looked 

frightened. Then they danced around 

each other just like the people in the 

picture were dancing in circles. And 

they sang in Creole. 

On a couple of occasions when 

I had to deny the youngest sister an 

unreasonable request, she rolled her 

eyes back, stared hard at me, pointing 

two fingers in a V straight at me. Hex! 

Voodoo clearly was part of their 

life. 

As time passed, the older sister 

gradually let go of her feeling of 

responsibility for looking after her small 

sister, who had been in her exclusive 

care for two years. First, she alerted 

me, and waited to see if I would take 

care of the requests, all the little needs, 

untied shoelaces, unbuttoned sweaters, 

wet beds, hunger, tiredness, tears and 

“hexs.” 

One day, near the end of the first 

year in Canada, all the girls were playing 

together and having a little tussle. Baby 

sister had snatched the tea party away 

from the others. “I hate you!” said the 

older sister. I could hardly believe my 

ears. Most mothers would be horrified 

to hear these words. But I sent up 

a “Hallelujah” in thanks for such a 

normal sentiment coming from a sixand-a-half 

year old “little mother” 

who had finally become able to just 

be a child, playing, getting angry and 

not concerned for every moment-tomoment 

need of her sister. 

It’s amazing how much the human 

body can endure. It’s amazing how 

well it can heal. Wounded hearts and 

spirits, not always as straightforward 

or complete. 

Today, I see that my children have 

created fulfilling lives. Not always 

easy. But rich. They have big hearts 

and are very much alive. 

floors will return manufacturing to 

North America. This will change our 

travel habits, the distances we drive, 

and where we live and the way we 

organize our homes. Rising oil prices 

will also impact the food we eat: 

buying local will not only be healthier 

but cheaper than imported food. 

To make the future playing field 

fair, Rubin insists that China must have 

the same carbon penalties that western 

producers might face, otherwise China 

would be able to greatly increase its 

dependence on dirty coal and keep their 

costs relatively low, thus competing 

unfairly with a carbon taxed west. 

Joe Laur, the last speaker of the 

first day and one of the authors of 

The Necessary Revolution, repeated 

once again that the status quo was 

unsustainable. In order to change he 

said that we need to change the way 

we think. Right now, we have a worldview, 

or paradigm, where the economy 

encompasses everything else, including 

society and the environment. In order to 

usher in change, we need to have a more 

rational view where the environment 

encompasses the economy and society. 

Without the environment there is 

no society and no economy. Laur 

is involved in programs to usher in 

infrastructures in the US that would 

see the reuse of everything that is 

produced. As Laur asked, when we 

throw something away – where is 

‘away’? 

Saturday’s event included Harvey 

Cashore with his book, The Truth 

Shows Up, a presentation of his fifteen 

year voyage investigating the links 

between Brian Mulroney, Airbus and 

Karlheinz Schreiber and the media’s 

complicity in keeping it secret. 

On Saturday afternoon, The 

Mayfair Theatre was completely full 

of people listening to Andrew Potter, 

author of The Rebel Sell, who presented 

his views on authenticity from his new 

book The Authenticity Hoax: How We 

Get Lost Finding Ourselves. 

There are more events scheduled 

at The Mayfair Theatre as part of the 

Post Festival Special Events. Go to 

writersfestival.org for complete details. 

OSCAR invites readers who 

attended any part of the Writers’ Festival 

to submit to oscar@oldottawasouth.ca 

your discussion, reviews or comments 

on any of the speakers, their topics or 

their publications. The deadline for the 

June issue of OSCAR is May 14. 





oscar@oldottawasouth.ca

Page 42 The OSCAR - OUR 37 MAY 2010 

th YEAR 

By Karen Kelly 

There are memories from 

childhood that we all cherish. 

Perhaps we remember a 

favorite toy, a special corner of a 

classroom, or a game played outside. 

For 15-year-old Lauren Kniewasser, 

many of those memories were from 

the Rainbow Kidschool, a preschool 

and after-school program located at 

Lady Evelyn Alternative School. 

She spent five years there, so 

when she began to think about 

completing her community volunteer 

hours required for graduation, she 

knew immediately where she wanted 

Rainbow Kidschool Where I Met Friends for Life 

to go. 

“I’d been wanting to come back 

to Rainbow since the day I left, they 

were like my second family,” recalls 

Kniewasser, who’s now a student 

at Canterbury High School. “As a 

volunteer, I was excited to have a 

reason to visit.” 

When Kniewasser returned, she 

says she was immediately transported 

back to her preschool days. “It looked 

almost exactly the same – familiar 

toys, the same songs.... The first thing 

I did was start playing with the toys 

again,” she says with a laugh. 

She had lots of company, of 

course. The school’s preschool group 

was excited to have a “big kid” there 

to join in their playtime, and the afterschool 

students, aged 5-10, tapped into 

her artistic and creative knowledge to 

pursue art and sewing projects. 

Kniewasser says the structure and 

consistency of the Rainbow program 

was important for her when she was 

growing up, and she sees it helping 

the children who are there today, as 

well. 

“There are some kids who barely 

talk at first,” says Kniewasser. “But 

as they get to know the routine, they 

really become comfortable and open 

up.” 

And there may be benefits down 

the road, too. Kniewasser pulls out an 

old yearbook and points to three close 

By Bob Jamieson 

friends she met at Rainbow a decade 

ago. 

“This is where I met friends for 

life.” 

Rainbow Kidschool offers a 

morning preschool program for 

children 2½ - 4 years of age, as well 

as an afternoon program for 4 & 5 

year old kindergarten-age children. 

At the end of the school day, schoolage 

children, 6 – 9 years of age, join 

the kindergarten-age group for the 

afterschool program. Please call 

Nancy, the Director, at 613-235-2255 

for information. 

When Can You Retire? 

You may greatly enjoy your career and be in no hurry to retire. Or you 

may be looking forward to retirement so that you can pursue your 

hobbies, travel or even open your own business. But whatever your 

plans may be, you’ll need to ask yourself this: “When can I retire?” 

To answer this question, you’ll need to take three steps. First, you’ll have 

to identify your potential sources of retirement income. Second, you must 

determine if a gap exists between the financial resources you can expect and 

the amount you’ll need to retire comfortably. And third, you’ll have to decide 

how to fill that gap. 

Let’s look at these three steps in a bit more detail: 

Identify your potential sources of retirement income. Your retirement 

income is likely to come from three main sources: the government, your 

workplace and your personal savings. From the government, you might be 

entitled to assistance in the form of Old Age Security (OAS), Guaranteed 

Income Supplement (GIS) and the Canada Pension Plan/Quebec Pension 

Plan (CPP/QPP). Depending on your employer, you may receive workplace 

pension coverage or participate in a company retirement plan. As for personal 

savings, you’ve got your Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP), Tax- 

Free Savings Account (TFSA) and other savings and investment accounts. 

Typically, government and workplace programs provide about 25% to 40% of 

retirement income, so you can see how important it is to build your personal 

savings. 

Determine if a “retirement gap” exists. You may have heard you’ll need 

between 70% and 90% of your pre-retirement income to live comfortably in 

retirement. While this figure may be generally accurate, it doesn’t take into 

account different retirement lifestyles. In other words, how you choose to 

live in retirement will determine how much money you’ll need. If you can 

develop a good estimate of your retirement income needs and then compare 

this figure to your estimated retirement income from all sources, you should 

be able to determine your retirement gap. Of course, these calculations 

can be challenging, so you may want to work with a professional financial 

advisor who has the tools and expertise to help you identify any gaps. 

Decide how to fill the gap. If you have indeed identified a retirement gap, you 

can attempt to bridge it in a few ways. You could, for example, decide to scale 

down your lifestyle in retirement so that you’ll need less income. Or you could 

work more years than you had originally intended. But if you want to stick 

with your initial plan in terms of your desired retirement lifestyle and preferred 

age at retirement, you may need to invest more to your retirement and other 

investment accounts. But just boosting your contributions isn’t enough — you 

also need to own an appropriate mix of investments to help your money grow 

over time. Your financial advisor can help you choose the investment mix 

that’s appropriate for your risk tolerance and time horizon. 

But in any case, don’t wait too long before you tackle the “When can I 

retire?” question — because the sooner you start working on it, the better the 

answer you’ll get. 

To get more information, or to attend the upcoming May 19th seminar on 

Planning for Retirement, please call my office at 613-526-3030. 

Bob Jamieson, CFP 

Member – Canadian Investor Protection Fund

MAY 2010 


Kaleidoscope Kids’ Books 

All Hail the Queen! 

Well, it’s May – that special month where 

we spend a solemn few moments 

contemplating the glorious reign of 

Queen Victoria while camping, watching fireworks, 

or just generally enjoying a sunny long weekend. 

What better season to celebrate the commonwealth 

than by spending time immersed in some of the 

great books by British authors? 

In the picture book world, it’s difficult to select 

just a few Brits, but I’ll do my best: 

Jez Alborough writes about a specific duck 

you may know – he’s called “Duck”? His popular 

titles include Fix it Duck, Super Duck, Duck 

in the Truck, and Ssssh! Duck Don’t Wake the 

Baby. Duck likes to think he’s an expert hand at 

everything, which will leave you and your young 

reader chuckling at his predicaments! 

Julia Donaldson is well-known for her classic 

picture book The Gruffalo. With titles like A 

Squash and a Squeeze, The Snail and the Whale, 

and The Fish Who Cried Wolf, there are a lot of 

options to choose from, with most stories written 

in charming rhyme and humourously illustrated by 

Axel Sheffler. For those looking for something a 

bit different, have a peek at her book The Magic 

Paintbrush, where vibrant verses bring fresh life to 

a traditional tale of how a little girl’s integrity can 

withstand the corruption of power and greed in her 

hungry village. 

Lauren Child may be most associated with 

creating those lovable characters, Charlie and 

Lola, but her picture book adventures all started 

with the irrepressible Clarice Bean as she started 

her search for a little peace and quiet amid the 

wonderfully wacky chaos of a large extended 

family in Clarice Bean, That’s Me. With her 

unique collaged illustrative style and generous use 

of different typefaces and sidebars, these books are 

a great way to keep young readers engaged, with a 

dry sense of humour that allows adults to read them 

again and again. 

For me, Emily Gravett has a way of creating 

simple yet mischievous illustrations and spare text 

that really resonate. My new favourite is Dogs, 

which is all about the different kinds of dogs to 

love, but that’s followed closely by Meercat Mail 

(with postcards attached inside!), The Odd Egg, 

and Monkey and Me. Timeless. 

In our kid fiction section, there are many titles 

to choose from – here’s a sampling: 

Enid Blyton’s wonderful works of fiction are 

always in demand. Anything that can maintain 

popularity for over 70 years is worth a read, don’t 

you think? We’ve got the Mallory Towers and 

Twins at St. Clare’s school books, as well as a threebook 

set of the Magic Faraway Tree Collection. 

Those who are Harry Potter fans might be 

interested in having a look at Jenny Nimmo’s 

popular Charlie Bone series. The stories centre 

on Charlie Bone, a descendant of The Red King, 

who reluctantly possesses a powerful “endowment” 

(he seems to be able to communicate with people in 

photographs and pictures), along with many of his 

friends who he meets at a special school he attends 

called Bloor’s Academy. His family, the Yewbeams, 

have many dark secrets and Charlie Bone embarks 

on a series of mysterious adventures to find out the 

truth about his past. 

Some of you may be familiar with Cressida 

Cowell’s clever series, which she has “translated 

the stories of Hiccupp Horrendous Haddock III 

from the Old Norse”. Recently released in movie 

theatres, How to Train Your Dragon is just one 

title in this popular series. According to her official 

web site, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was an 

awesome sword-fighter, a dragon-whisperer and the 

greatest Viking Hero who ever lived. But it wasn’t 

always like that. Why not take a peek at some of 

his hilarious adventures the next time you’re in the 

store? 

Who wouldn’t want to read about a 12 year 

old millionaire, genius, and above all, a criminal 

mastermind? Add in a fairy kidnapping, a 

LEPrecon unit to police an underground world, 

and a butler/bodyguard named Butler, and you 

have an Artemis Fowl adventure. Irish author Eoin 

Page 43 

Colfer has many titles in this series, as well as 

some younger reader chapter books. Funny and 

fantastical, with loads of adventure thrown in for 

good measure! 

Teen pix: 

Helen Dunmore writes the Ingo books, a 

popular fantasy series, set in a tantalizingly beautiful 

and dangerous world of adventure under the sea, 

where Mer people live. Through their quest for 

their missing father, Sapphire and Conor discover 

they have the power to enter the mysterious world 

of Ingo. They learn they have both human and Mer 

ancestry, and that as their Mer blood grows strong, 

they have powers they never knew they possessed… 

Spy story fans should check out Charlie 

Higson’s Young Bond series. File Note: Strictly 

Confidential - Authorized Personnel Only. Subject: 

James Bond. Description: Age 13. Dark hair; blue 

eyes; tall for age; surprisingly strong; fluent French; 

good German. Need we say more? 

Robert Muchamore has two great series for fans 

of action, adventure, and intrigue. The CHERUB 

series of books starts with James Adams joining the 

CHERUB organization in The Recruit and tells the 

story from the day his mother dies. You can read 

about his transformation from a couch potato into 

a skilled CHERUB agent, and meet Lauren, Kyle, 

Kerry and the rest of the cherubs for the first time 

and learn how James foils the biggest terrorist 

massacre in British history! The Henderson Boys 

series, which sets the stage for the modern-day 

CHERUB organization, occurs during World War II 

with Hitler’s army advancing towards Paris. Gritty 

and fast-paced! 

There are so many more British authors we’d 

love to tell you about – drop in any time and ask us! 

Kaleidoscope Kids’ Books is located at 1095 Bank 

Street, three doors south of Sunnyside.

Page 44 The OSCAR - OUR 37 MAY 2010 

th YEAR 

Alta Vista Branch Library 

Alta Vista Library Adult Programs 

2516 Alta Vista Drive 

Register online at: 

www.biblioottawalibrary.ca 

or call 613-737-2837 x28 

Book Banter 

Drop in to share the enjoyment of 

good books in a relaxed atmosphere. 

Thursdays, 2:00 p.m. (1 hr.) 

May 6: The House Gun by 

Nadine Gordimer 

Alta Vista Sleuth Hounds 

Share the enjoyment of good 

mysteries in a relaxed atmosphere. 

Title: A Certain Justice by 

P.D. James 

Thursday, May 20, 6:30 p.m. (1.5 hr) 

Infusions littéraires 

Partager une tasse de thé ou de 

tisane en discutant de livres. 

Les mardis, 14 h (1 hr.) 

18 mai : La création du monde 

de Jean d’Ormesson 

Home and Cottage Security 

Find out how to improve security 

at your home or cottage. 

Presentation by Ottawa Police 

Service representatives. 

Thursday, May 13, 6:30 p.m. (1.5 

hrs) 

Boat Pro 

Obtain your Pleasure Craft Operator 

Card at the 3-session course offered 

by the Ottawa Power and Sail 

Squadron. 

Participants must attend all 3 

sessions. 

Registration fee is $50 for adults and 

$45 for students. Register online at 

www.cps-ottawa.com. 

Wednesday, May 12, 19, 26. 

6:30-8:30 p.m. 

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE LIBRARIES 

Knit 2 Together 

Love to knit? Bring your needles, 

yarn and good cheer. No need for 

expertise, we knit for the pleasure of 

it. 

Saturday, May 1, 10:30 a.m. (1.5 hr.) 

Wednesday, May 12, 6:30 p.m.(1.5 

hr.) 

French Conversation Group 

Improve your spoken French in a 

relaxed setting. For those with an 

intermediate level of French. 

Tuesdays, Jan 12 - May 18 

6:30 p.m. (1.5 hrs.) 

Advanced Spanish Conversation 

Practice your conversational Spanish 

with other advanced learners. 

Alternate Wednesdays, Jan 13-May 

19 

6:30 p.m. (1 hr.) 

Computer Tutorials 

Gain computer skills and get answers 

to your questions. This one-on-one 

session will help you learn to use 

the internet and send email. 

Contact the library to make an 

appointment. 

Library Online 

Learn to use OPL’s online resources. 

Search for library material using 

BiblioCommons, find newspaper and 

magazine articles in our databases, 

and learn about our online 

audiobooks 

and e-books. 

Contact the library to make an 

appointment. 

English Conversation Group 

Improve your English and meet new 

Friends. In partnership with 

Somali Family Services. 

Mondays, 6:00-7:30 p.m. 

Tuesdays, Beginner 1:00-2:00 p.m. 

Elmvale Acres Branch Library 

CHILDREN/ENFANTS 

Babytime 

Stories, rhymes and songs for babies 

and a parent or caregiver. 0-18 

months. 

Tuesdays, April 13-May 25 (no 

session on May 4) at 10:15 a.m. (30 

min) 

Toddlertime 

Stories, rhymes and songs for babies 

and a parent or caregiver. 18-35 

months. 

Wednesdays, Apr 14-May 26 at 

10:15 am (30 min) 

Storytime 

Stories, rhymes and songs for 

preschoolers and a parent or 

caregiver. Ages 3-6. 

Mondays, April 12-May 24 (no 

session on May 3) at 10:15 a.m. (45 

min) 

Math and Science Tutorial Help 

E.A.G.L.E will provide tutoring in 

Maths and Science to grades 1-10 

(ages 6-15). Registration required. 

Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. (2 hr) - every 

Saturday (no sessions on April 24 & 

May 1) 

Frontier College Reading Circle 

Volunteers will help your child learn 

to love books and become a better 

reader through stories and games for 

ages 6-8. Registration required. 

Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. (1 hr) - every 

Saturday (no sessions on April 24 & 

May 1) 

TEENS/ADOS 

Game On! 

Challenge your friends to get 

Intermediate 2:00-3:00 p.m. 

PRE-SCHOOL/PRESCOLAIRE 

Babytime 

For babies and their parent or 

caregiver with stories, rhymes, songs 

and activities. Ages 0-18 months. 

Wednesdays, January 20-February 

24, April 14-May 19, 10:30 a.m. (30 

min.)* 

Toddlertime 

For toddlers and a parent or caregiver 

with stories, rhymes, songs and 

activities. Ages 18-35 months. 

Mondays, January 18-February 8, 

February 22, April 12-May 17, 10:30 

a.m. (30 min.)* and 

Thursdays, January 21-February 25, 

April 15-May 20, 10:30 a.m. (30 

min.)* 

Storytime 

Stories and rhymes for young 

children-parents and caregivers are 

welcome to join. Ages 3-6. 

(Bilingual) Tuesdays, January 

19-Feburary 23-April 13-May 18, 

10:30 a.m. (45 min.)* and 

(Bilingual) Wednesdays, January 

20-February 24, April 14-May 19, 2 

p.m. (45 min.)* 

Contes 

Contes et rimes pour les enfants. 

Parents et fournisseurs de soins sont 

les bienvenus. Pour les 3 à 6 ans. 

(Bilingue) Les mardis, 19 janvier-23 

février-13 avril-18 mai , 10 h 30 (45 

min.)* et 

(Bilingue) Les mercredis, 20 

janvier-24 février, 14 avril-19 mai, 

14 h (45 min.) 

SPECIAL PROGRAM FOR 

CHILDREN/PROGRAMME 

SPECIAL POUR ENFANTS 

gaming. Compete on the Wii for 

bragging rights. Ages 10-14. 

Wednesday, May 26 at 4:00 p.m. (60 

min.) 

ADULTS/ADULTES 

English Conversation for 

Newcomers 

Improve your English and meet new 

friends in a relaxed setting. This 

program is offered in partnership 

with the Conseil économique et social 

d’Ottawa-Carleton. Registration 

required. 

Tuesdays at 6:30 pm (60 min) (no 

session on April 27 & May 4) 

FSL Conversation 

Improve your French and meet new 

friends in a relaxed setting. This 

program is offered in partnership 

with the Conseil économique et social 

Frog party! 

Stories, videos and crafts. Ages 4-8. 

(Bilingual) Saturday, May 1, 2 p.m. 

(45 min.)* 

Les grenouilles en fête 

Contes, vidéos et bricolage. Pour les 

4 à 8 ans. 

(Bilingual) Samedi 1 er mai, 14 h (45 

min.)* 

N.B. Registration for winter 

programs starts on January 16./ 

L’inscription pour les programmes 

d’hiver commence le 16 janvier./ 

Registration for March break 

programs starts on February 10./ 

L’inscription pour les programmes 

du congé d’hiver commence le 10 

février./ Programs followed by an * 

require registration. / L’inscription 

est requise pour les programmes 

suivis d’un *. The address of the 

Alta Vista Library is 2516 Alta Vista 

Drive, Ottawa and the phone number 

of the Alta Vista Library 613-737- 

2837./ L’adresse de la bibliothèque 

Alta Vista est le 2516, promenade 

Alta Vista, Ottawa et son numéro de 

téléphone est le 613-737-2837. 

Program registration will be done 

on-line only. Ottawa Public Library 

cards are needed to register online. 

Children’s library cards 

are required for registration of 

children’s programs./ L’inscription 

des programmes est faite 

seulement en ligne. Les cartes de 

la bibliothèque publique d’Ottawa 

sont requises pour l’inscription en 

ligne des programmes et les cartes 

de bibliothèque des enfants sont 

requises pour l’inscription aux 

programmes d’enfants. 

d’Ottawa-Carleton. Registration 

required. 

Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. (60 min) 

(no session April 28) 

Mystery Lovers Book Club 

Share the enjoyment of good 

mysteries in a relaxed atmosphere. 

Join us for discussion. 

Registration required. Monday, May 

10 at 6:30 p.m. (60 min) 

Flower Arrangement 

Bring your own flowers and vase 

and learn how to make a beautiful 

arrangement. Get expert advice from 

Elmvale Florist and Gifts. Enter a 

prize draw. 

Wednesday, May 12 at 3:00 p.m. (45 

min)

MAY 2010 The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR Page 45 

CLASSY ADS 

CLASSY ADS 

are free for Old Ottawa South residents (except for businesses or for business activity) and must be submitted in writing to: The OSCAR, at the Old Firehall, 

260 Sunnyside, or sent by email to oscar@oldottawasouth.ca by the deadline. Your name and contact information (phone number or email address) must be 

included. Only your contact info will appear unless you specify otherwise. The editor retains the right to edit or exclude submissions. The OSCAR takes no 

responsibility for items, services or accurary. For business advertising inquiries, call 730-1058. 

For Sale 

Handmade Baby Blankets: Crocheted. 

Prewashed and dried. Size 36” by 38”. 

Beautiful pattern. One-of-a-kind gift. 

Excellent price $35. Call 613-730-2411. 

----------------------------------------------- 

Moving Sale: Tons of stuff including 

beds, entertainment units, TVs, stereos 

and other electronics, toys, sporting 

gear, light fixtures, small appliances, 

gerbil cage, air hockey table and much 

more. Lawn and garden tools and even 

winter tires. Contact David at 613-697- 

4812 or montoyas@rogers.com 

----------------------------------------------- 

Pair of wheel rims (15” x 6”) Fits all 

1996 to 1999 Ford Taurus models 

$45. Tel 613 327 9080 

----------------------------------------------- 

Handmade Baby Quilts: 100% cotton 

fabric. Extra loft batting. Pre-washed 

and dried. Variety of sizes and colours. 

Prices $40.-$75. Call 613-730-2411 

Accommodation 

Private 3 Bedroom island cottage for 

rent. Cottage is located on Newboro 

lake (part of the Rideau canal system). 

Fully-equipped traditional-style cottage 

on beautiful, peaceful 8 acre island. 

Three bedrooms (sleeps six), screened 

porch, kitchen, BBQ, dining/living 

Around Town 

La Leche League Canada has a group 

in Old Ottawa South - Are you breastfeeding 

your baby? Are you pregnant 

and planning to breast-feed?A La Leche 

League meeting is a relaxed, supportive 

and non-judgmental place where you 

can: meet breast-feeding women, ask 

specific questions about breast-feeding, 

learn more about breast-feeding from 

accredited leaders who have breast-fed 

their own children and who volunteer 

their time, get tips for working through 

best breast-feeding challenges, find out 

more about getting ready to breast-feed 

(if you are pregnant), find out more 

about the benefits of breast-feeding 

for baby and you, borrow books about 

breast-feeding and related parenting 

topics.Meetings every second Tuesday 

of the month from 7:00 to 8:30 PM at 

36 Glen Ave. Next meeting May 11. 

For more information call 613-238- 

5919, the local La Leche League phone 

line. 

Join Joseph Cull and Kathy Godding 

and get down and boogie the night 

away in support of the YMCA YWCA 

- Strong Kids Campaign on Saturday, 

May 15 2010 from 8:30 p.m. to midnight 

in The Glebe Community Centre, 175 

Third Ave. Put on that Disco outfit, 

frizz out your hair and party with your 

friends. Be wowed by the disco decor 

authentically created by Event Design, 

enjoy the fashion show by Sukhoo 

room, 2-piece bath, and fire pit. Included 

with the cottage is use of canoes and 

Kayaks. Excellent swimming and 

fishing, close to the towns of Newboro 

and Westport, excellent hiking and road 

biking. Pets welcome. rental is Saturday 

to Saturday and 700.00 per week. For 

more information contact Stephen at 

swasteneys@hotmail.com 

----------------------------------------------- 

Longboat Key, Florida for sale. Simple, 

charming, house on quiet road, steps 

from loveliest beach on the gulf coast 

2br/2ba/pool easy to maintain must sell 

½ former price $489,000 US Florida 

Regional MLS #A3913831 or call: 613 

256 6522. 

----------------------------------------------- 

Accommodation: Meticulous retired 

gentleman from Germany coming to 

Ottawa for intensive English study, 

seeks accommodation in Old Ottawa 

South from June 14 to July 15. 

Could be house sit, or modestly priced 

room or apartment. Must have private 

bathroom. (613) 730-0906 

----------------------------------------------- 

Wanted one house to rent close to 

Carleton. We are a family of five with 

children aged 5, 8 and 10 and will be 

living in Ottawa for at least 9 months, 

from August 1 to April (or longer). We 

do not smoke and do not have pets. 

Please contact John at valentinej@ 

macewan.ca 

Sukhoo Couture, savour the fabulous 

light food from Thyme and Again, dance 

the night away to the music of Showtime 

Entertainment, special guest host 

Michael Bhardwaj of CBC’s In Town 

and Out. A special gift from Ottawa’s 

own Mistura Beauty Solutions. An 

evening of fun and frivolity for all, so 

get those dancing shoes polished! Prizes 

to be won! Tickets are $50.00 per person 

and are available at all YMCA YWCA 

Locations or by calling 613-788-5043, 

more info at www.ymcaywca.ca . Get 

a head start on exercising those “dated 

dance moves” with the Complimentary 

Disco Lesson Friday, May 7, from 

7-8 p.m. at the YMCA YWCA Metro 

location. 

Chorus Ecclesiae Spring Concert - 

On Sunday May 16, at 3:00 pm and 

8:00 pm, the Chorus Ecclesiae and 

the Symposium Choir, conducted by 

Lawrence Harris, present their spring 

concert of Gregorian chant and early 

renaissance church music. The concert 

will be held in the Cloister of the 

Dominican Convent, 96 Empress Ave. 

Tickets at the door: $15 / students $5. 

Information, 613-567-7729. 

Hawthorne Public School, 2158 St. 

Laurent Blvd., is celebrating its 111th 

anniversary this June 11. Former 

Hawthorne students and teachers from 

all eras in the school’s history are 

Child Care 

Caregiving: experienced and loving 

child-care worker available through the 

spring and summer on a part of full time 

basis. Home help such as light cleaning 

or yummy cooking also possible. 

References. Please call (613) 730-8098. 

----------------------------------------------- 

Wills baby-sitting services! Need a 

break or night off from your wee ones? 

You’ve come to the right place… 

I’m a responsible, athletic, musical 

and bilingual teen guy with lots of 

experience. Have OSCA babysitting 

certificate References available. 

Weekdays from 4:00pm – 10:00pm 

Weekends from 8:00pm – 12:00pm 

Now booking for the summer as well! 

Contact me @ (613) 730 5531 or (613) 

883 8436 will_kuijper.dickson@ 

hotmail.com 

----------------------------------------------- 

Summer Tutoring: Fill Gaps. Improve 

Skills. Raise Level. Retired Elem. 

Teacher will tutor student in your home. 

Grades 1-6. Literacy or Numeracy. Call 

613-730-2411 

Services 

Top-notch deep cleaner. Mon- Fri 

mornings. Currently employed in 

Rockcliffe as nanny/cleaner/cook 

afternoons. Available for weekend 

invited to join us for a day and evening 

of nostalgia and fun. There will be an 

open house 10:30-2:30, Reception at 1 

p.m. and Family Activities 4:00-6:00 

p.m. to celebrate not only Hawthorne’s 

50 years in its current building, but also 

to remember the school’s earlier life as 

a one-room schoolhouse built in 1899 

in the tiny rural village of Hawthorne. 

Contact Hawthorne111@rogers.com 

, call 613-733-6221 or go to www. 

hawthorneps.ocdsb.ca. 

Motor Coach Trip To Benedictine 

Monasteries Of Québec 

Saturday, June 19, 8:45 a.m. - 11:30 

p.m. This all-day trip will visit the nuns 

at the Abbey of Sainte-Marie des Deux 

Montagnes, outside of Montréal, and the 

monks of St-Benoît-du-Lac, between 

Magog and the Vermont border. We will 

hear services sung at the monasteries 

as well as brief recitals by the Chorus 

Ecclesiae and the Symposium Choir, 

conducted by Lawrence Harris. Two 

meals are included. For information 

and reservations, call 613-567-772 9 

Saturday, May 8th - The Ottawa 

Regional Youth Choir, directed by 

Kevin Reeves will perform at 7:30 p.m. 

with Kingston ’s Cantabile Youth Choir 

directed by Dr. Mark Sirett at Knox 

Presbyterian Church, Elgin Street and 

Laurier Avenue Tickets: Adults-$20; 

Seniors-$15 Students-$10 

evenings for childcare. I have a 

business degree in the Philippes; I 

am alert, caring, intelligent and hard 

working. Great OOS references. Please 

contact: Lally at 613 794-0916 or 

glitz_2007@yahoo.ca 

----------------------------------------------- 

Published OOS writer can help you 

meet your communications deadlines. 

Experience includes media relations, 

feature articles, editorials, andreports. 

Credits include: national journals, daily 

newspapers, chapters in threebooks. 

Reasonable rates: ooswriter@rogers. 

com 

Looking For 

Wanted: 4 Adult Bicycles In Good 

Shape For A Good Price. Two bikes 

frame size from 56 - 58 cm. Two 

bikes less than 56 cm.The buyers are 

newcomers from Equador and a student 

moving to Ottawa fromAlberta. Price 

range: $10-50. Please contact; 613 730- 

0033 or georginahunter@rogers.com 

Lost/Found 

Lost at Brewer Park around April 9 - a 

silver dog whistle with cap and chain. 

Sentimental value. Please call 613-736- 

5984 if found. 

WANTED: 

Part-time receptionist/office assistant 

for a large group psychology practice, 

located in a heritage office building in 

Centretown. 

Responsibilities include day-today 

office operations, including 

correspondence, telephone and 

public reception, liaison between the 

psychologists and their clients as well 

as public communications via the 

webmaster and promotional material. 

The suitable candidate must 

be a self-starter and able to 

work independently, have good 

conversational levels of French 

and English with demonstrated 

diplomacy and sensitivity, proficiency 

with MS Word, Publisher, Power 

Point and Excel. Familiarity with 

multipurpose business machines 

(printer/scanner/fax/document server) 

and phone systems would be an asset. 

Training will be provided and paid. 

Please provide references in your 

application. 

CONTACT: 

Ms. Penny Skelton - Email: gpsys@ 

magma.ca 

437 Gilmour Street, Ottawa, ON K2P 

0R5 

TEL: 613-230-4709 ext. 21


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MAY 2010 The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR Page 47 

Marion Jamieson, a volunteer who is a member 

at large of the Abbotsford Members Council. She 

volunteers weekly for the Day Away program at 

Abbotsford. She was rocking for the Abbotsford 

Council Team who had won the “most spirited team” 

prize in no small part because of Marion. 

Photo by John Flanders.

Page 48 

The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR MAY 2010

O•S•C•A•R© Fida's Pizza Changes Hands - Old Ottawa South

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