Hello Ottawa
In Today’s Edition
→ Knoxdale-Merivale's new splash pad is ‘inspired’ by Dr Seuss
→ Get smart at an evening of lectures and drinks when the Tipsy Scholars visit Beyond the Pale’s George St Taproom tomorrow
→ Made-in-Canada Deal of the Day: socks from The Great Canadian Sox Shop
✡️ Yom Kippur
G’mar Chatima Tovah, Jewish Ottawa.
Yom Kippur began last night and concludes at nightfall tonight.
– Martha and Darren
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STATISTICS OTTAWA
NUMBER
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7,912
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The record-breaking attendance the Ottawa Titans drew last Friday to see the team take its place in the Frontier League championship after beating the New York Boulders. The Titans increased the previous record by 2,000 tickets.
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Ottawa will meet the Evansville Otters tomorrow in the best-of-five series.
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— William Eltherington at CTV
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QUOTE
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It’s not fair. If I can’t go to the food bank, what am I going to do?
– Resident of Smiths Falls seniors home Shardon Manor, Loretta Ranger, who says that the meal portions are small and she is often hungry. However, the Smiths Falls Community Food Bank says those living at her residence and another seniors home, Victoria House, will no longer be permitted to access food from the organization.
— Sabrina Bedford in the Ottawa Citizen
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SPORTS
🏒 NHL Ottawa Senators at Montréal Canadiens
Sunday
⚽ NSL Calgary Wild 1 at Ottawa Rapid 3
⚽ CPL Supra du Québec 0 at Atlético Ottawa 2
Saturday
🏈 CFL Ottawa RedBlacks 38 at Calgary Stampeders 40
2026 Wheelchair Basketball World Championships Canada 76 USA 77
Friday
⚾ FRONTIER New York Boulders 2 at Ottawa Titans 3
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WHAT’S GOING ON AT CITY HALL
No meetings tomorrow
Meetings and Agendas
Whose flag is flying at City Hall today? Armenia, Belize, and Malta
City Hall flies the flags of embassies and high commissions on their national days.
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WHAT OTTAWA IS TALKING ABOUT
🎩 Knoxdale-Merivale is getting a new splash pad ‘inspired’ by Dr Seuss. After consulting with the community to choose a concept, residents went for the ‘Seuss’ concept, a ‘colourful splash pad with themed spray features like the Tulip, Parasol, and Fun-Brella’. Says Knoxdale-Merivale ward councillor Sean Devine, ‘I’d much rather have a pool, but the cost … is easily $10 million. From an affordability point of view, it’s quite hard in the City of Ottawa to get new pools’.
While the splash pad is ‘inspired’ by Dr Seuss, it’s not in any way licensed by Dr Seuss’ people, so don’t expect any Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham references. – Justin Campbell at Capital Current
🚌 A Fisher Glen woman found a four-year-old boy wandering around her apartment building after the school bus dropped him off at the wrong stop. The woman was unable to communicate with the child as he only spoke French, but she discovered that he attended École élémentaire catholique Laurier-Carrière by looking through his bookbag. The Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est says it is looking into the incident. The Ottawa Police Service reunited the boy with his parents, who had called the school when their son was not dropped off. – Jenna Legge at CBC
⚕️ The Royal’s new mental health urgent care clinic opens today. The clinic is the first of its kind in eastern Ontario, an ‘emergency room’ for people who are in mental distress. Offered are ‘psychiatric assessments, crisis counselling, medication recommendations, system navigation support, and connections to community and hospital-based resources’. The clinic operates Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. – Ted Raymond at CTV
🚜 The second Rural Business Services Showcase in North Gower tomorrow is for anyone thinking about starting a business in rural Ottawa. Visitors can:
- Learn about permits, approvals, and City requirements
- Explore funding opportunities and available business supports
- Connect with organizations that help businesses start, grow, and succeed
- Ask questions and receive guidance tailored to their business needs
Find the Rural Business Services Showcase at Alfred Taylor Recreation Centre, 2300 Community Way, North Gower, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. – City of Ottawa
🗳️ Ottawa Civic Election
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THE DAILY POLL
Tomorrow is the first day of autumn. To what are you looking forward?
Commentary
▪️ “I have never used ‘AI’ and continue to refuse to do so. Eagerly awaiting the financial implosion of it all.”
▪️ “I use all of them. It’s good to try out a variety.”
▪️ “Most recently for Landscaping ideas, and for work.”
▪️ “Avoiding AI as I need to keep exercising my brain — use it or lose it!”
▪️ “Microsoft Copilot all day, every day.”
▪️ “Note — I am now seldom using Google Gemini and have recently disconnected my One Cloud account as well as Google Maps because of their groveling to Trump by changing the name of Lake Ontario on their US maps.”
▪️ “AI is not reliable. ChatGPT is programmed to tell you what you want to hear. If asked something that it hasn’t been trained to do, it hallucinates, ie makes something up.”
▪️ “As a writer who’s part of the Meta lawsuit because my work was used to train AI without my consent, I try very hard never to use it. Intellectual property means nothing since it graced the world with its presence.”
▪️ “C++ based game dev here, I find AI (Claude) is like an overly enthusiastic junior coder that creates decent code but needs thorough code reviews (and modifications).”
▪️ “So-called ‘AI’, which is anything but and is not on its way to it, has demonstrated a wide variety of dangers to the public and world at large. I refuse to use it in any and every context I am able to. I have never knowingly used it and never will.”
▪️ “I literally hate AI and will never use it. Taking jobs, our ability to think critically and data centre using precious resources cannot be a good thing for society! As they are now predicting. We need to pull back on all technology.”
▪️ “Nope.”
▪️ “I use Copilot a bit at work, it helps to brainstorm ideas.”
▪️ “Every day. At this point, asking whether I use AI is like asking whether I use Google. (This feedback was generated by ChatGPT).”
▪️ “I’ll keep my critical thinking and research skills, thanks! They’ve served me well enough thus far. Life pro tip: add ‘-AI’ to a Google search to avoid seeing the AI overview :)”
▪️ “My ’intelligence’ has always been questionable.”
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HISTORIC OTTAWA LOGO T-SHIRTS
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Ottawa Xpress T-Shirt
The Ottawa Xpress was Ottawa’s beloved alternative weekly, published from 1993–2012.
Help support THE OTTAWAN by buying one of our historic logo T-shirts.
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THE ROLLING THREE DAY CALENDAR
Is there an event we should know about?
Please use our easy event submission form
✳️ Means change from previous edition
MONDAY
Cinema
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ByTowne Cinema: Rédemptions, Staff Picks: The Worst Person in the World, 2026 Cat Video Fest
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Mayfair Theatre: The Samurai and the Prisoner, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Tony
TUESDAY
Cinema
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ByTowne Cinema: Exhibition on Screen: James McNeill Whistler, 🆓 Ottawa Architecture Week Movie Night (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), 2026 Cat Video Fest
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Mayfair Theatre: Tony, The Samurai and the Prisoner, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Gigs
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Dune Rats. 27 Club
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Living Hour. FONO
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ERRA. Bronson Centre
WEDNESDAY
Cinema
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ByTowne Cinema: Ottawa International Animation Festival screenings
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Mayfair Theatre: Tony, Trail Running Film Festival, The Samurai and the Prisoner
Gigs
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Celtic Celebration with Nerea the Fiddler. Red Bird
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Taproom Trivia. Stray Dog Brewing Co.
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Dave Plays Elton. The Robo Lounge
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Pavel Stroke, Fishmonger, glowveins. Rainbow Bistro
JUST ANNOUNCED
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DEALS OF THE DAY
BUT, ONE MORE THING ...
The City’s Built Heritage Committee will consider whether to designate two properties in Stittsville as heritage properties. Lesley McKay at Stittsville Central has a good history of the two buildings but, more importantly, has tons of pictures.
The two properties started out as one farm in 1851, when a stone cottage was built. In 1886, a large farmhouse was built by the Hartin family, who continued to own the property until 1967.
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RAPID RESPONSE QUALITY CONTROL
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THE END
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THE OTTAWAN is written and edited every weekday by Martha and Darren.
Is there something that Ottawa should know about? Email us at hello@theottawan.com. We read every single email.
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