Category Archives: Carleton assignments

Area around Bronson and Sunnyside Avenue saw a spike in parking tickets issued from 2015 to 2017: A student’s risk for free parking

Assignment 2, CarletonDataJournalism2018_3
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The number of tickets issued for parking exceeding three hours at the area across Carleton University’s main entrance has increased nearly 70 per cent from 2015 to 2017, according to an analysis on Ottawa’s parking-ticket violation data obtained through a municipal freedom-of-information request. The city collected $15,125.50 from fines in the area around Bronson and Sunnyside Avenue.

Parking exceeding three hours means parking beyond the time limit on a street with no posted signs between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. during weekdays, according to the City of Ottawa’s traffic and parking by-law.

Ian Miller, the City of Ottawa’s communication officer, said an email, although there has been an increase in tickets issued, the city is unable to say why.

Kevin Simas, a Carleton University student, is one of many who parks along this street for more than three hours.

He said he had always parked there and had never received a parking ticket until three weeks ago.

“Getting the parking ticket made me feel horrible,” Simas said. “I’ve gotten $20 tickets before for parking past midnight or whatever the regulations were, but $50 for exceeding one hour on a residential street in Ottawa is too much.”

Kevin Simas, a student at Carleton University, at one of the university’s parking lots said parking rates on-campus are too steep. Photo by Lui Xia Lee.

Tania McCumber, the city’s Parking Enforcement and the Licensing Compliance Unit program manager, said in an email, that parking tickets are meant to deter residents from violating the traffic and parking by-law. The prices for violation fines go through an application process, which will be approved by the Regional Chief Justice.

“Fines for parking violations are based on the severity of the violation. For example, a fine for parking in excess of the posted time limits ($60) is lower than the fine for stopping in a no stopping zone ($120), as the latter violation may pose an issue of public safety,” she said.

Simas said he parked in that area because he didn’t want to pay for parking at Carleton University.

“I didn’t want to spend money to park because I come to campus every day,” he said. “I just don’t want to pay four or five dollars an hour or however high the rates are.”

He said parking fees on campus should be around one or two dollars.

Parking rates at Carleton University range from $3.50 an hour with a maximum of $14 for four hours, according to the university’s website.

The city currently doesn’t have any garages or parking lots in the immediate vicinity of any post-secondary institutions, including Carleton University.

Scott Caldwell, the City’s area manager of transitway and parking, said in an email, there are conditions to designing parking spaces based on local conditions, environmental standards and the general layout of the facility.

Simas said he will continue to park off-campus unless he’s running late to class.

Controversial Château Laurier addition conjures heat similar to debates long past

Assignment 2, Masters2018_2
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After an architectural battle for private enterprise, the Château Laurier is constructed on public lands, in 1912. Source: Library and Archives Canada, PA-034088.

While recent Twitter comments condemned the re-designs for the Château Laurier addition as “the same ugly glass structure” that “birds might enjoy pooping on,” they also echo criticisms from the hotel’s distant past.

In fact, designs for the beloved Château itself were once seen as a “blot on our government,” and an “indignity” to Major’s Hill Park’s public space, as esteemed merchant Mr. Poulin told the Ottawa Journal from August, 1907.

Public lands for private enterprise

Similar statements from ‘leading citizens’ were collected by the Journal – Ottawa’s 20th century Twitter – after the Grand Trunk Railway company revealed their designs for the expensive hotel and train station, and left a citizenry divided.

Public opinion from ‘leadings citizens’ reflects how controversial the public site at Major’s Hill Park was for the proposed Château Laurier. Source: The Ottawa Journal, Aug. 15, 1907. City of Ottawa Archives.

The hotel would be built at the front of Major’s Hill Park, a public space many Ottawans valued for its heritage and scenic view of the Parliament buildings. Here, the developers felt it would have unfettered access to tourists using the adjacent railroad.

An unhappy Mr Ross, of the C. Ross department store, told the Journal it would “utterly destroy one of the finest pieces of natural scenery that Ottawa has.”

J.R. Jackson, in a dramatic letter to the next day’s issue, wrote that “every man, woman and child [. . .] would say let the Grand Trunk and its hotel (and station, too, for that matter) get out of Ottawa bag and baggage, rather than surrender the choicest public grounds [. . .] to be a private promenade…”

Not all Ottawans opposed the site, however. A Dr. Kennedy expressed that most park-goers weren’t actually from the city, and “would be more struck by a handsome hotel [. . .] than they are by the Park itself.”

The Château’s architect, a New Yorker named Bradford Lee Gilbert, mirrored these claims in an urgent letter to Grand Trunk’s general manager, Charles Hays, that month. “Judging from the number of benches provided, [the park] is not used to very great extent by the citizens of Ottawa,” he wrote.

Gilbert’s letter, obtained from the Library and Archives, argued the Château’s gothic structure would “harmonize” with the Parliament buildings, and wouldn’t pose any threats to the park’s usage.

Public lands for government-gain

But the designs would have to win the federal government over before construction could begin. An archival letter to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier reveals the government wasn’t keen to have the hotel in a space that could be used for new government buildings instead. After Laurier suggested that Napean Point be a more suitable location, Hays argued otherwise.

“Its distance from the centre of business would make it difficult to earn its fixed charges. [. . .]For the first few years at least, an hotel on the Napean Point would be run as a loss,” he wrote to Laurier.

Grand Trunk General Manager Charles Hays tries to persuade Sir Wilfrid Laurier to choose the Major’s Hill Park site, for its economic benefits. Source: Library and Archives Canada, Laurier Papers, p. 127741.

Laurier then contacted the Grand Trunk’s Vice-President William Wainwright three days later, claiming the hotel’s height would compete too much with Parliament. “You should ask your architect if it would not be possible to take off one or two storeys,” he suggested.

Architectural Upheaval

Architect Bradford Gilbert’s miserable fate heightened the controversies. His designs for the hotel and station to cost a combined $2.5 million were approved by the government, but six days before City council examined them, Gilbert received a distressing order from Hays to re-design the building to cost $1 million less.

A distraught editorial claims that Ross & Macfarlane’s designs (bottom) are far too similar to Gilbert’s (top) to be truly original. Source: The Architectural Record, July, 1908. PressReader.

Gilbert refused to take responsibility for the re-designs the City didn’t approve of, and was fired in February, 1908. The new firm Ross & MacFarlane soon unveiled designs that an angry editorial in the Architectural Record claimed were “identical” to Gilbert’s.

“If this be ‘architecture,’ a supply of tracing paper and a brazen front are the main requisites for [. . .] that noble art,” it haughtily states.

The hotel became controversial again when designers proposed its first expansion, in 1929.

Château historian Kevin Holland said in an email that throughout history, any changes to the hotel “reflect the respective owners’ confidence in their property and its market,” and “any controversy reflects the passionate and protective views held by Ottawans for what has long been an iconic landmark in the capital.”

And if history repeats itself, today’s new ‘disdain’ might just become tomorrow’s old icon.

See document descriptions here.

Cutting Down the Kaiser: How Canadian Lumberjacks Helped Win the First World War

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“”A well-made road runs through deep forest woodlands … [where] you would swear you had wandered in a day dream to a Canadian lumber camp. In fact, you have. It is a unit of the Canadian Forestry Corps at work in an English forest.” -The Observer, April 28, 1918
Image Source: The Daily Mirror, May 20, 1916
One hundred years ago, 500 Canadian lumberjacks swapped their axes for rifles. They were part of a military division originally tasked with felling and milling timber in Great Britain and France to fuel and build the First World War. They were the Canadian Forestry Corps.

BUILDING A WAR

By 1916, Great Britain was burning through its timber supply, and sourcing 70 per cent of its lumber from Canada had become unsustainable. Cargo space was nonexistent onboard transport vessels that were busy dodging German U-boat attacks on the trans-Atlantic journey. In February 1916, Great Britain demanded help from Canada, and two months later, 1,600 cross-cut-saw-wielding Canadian lumberjacks were sailing to Europe. By Armistice Day in 1918, nearly 24,000 men made up the Canadian Forestry Corps.

With trenches and tunnels drenched and rotting in the French rain, the demand for lumber seemed as perpetual as the war itself, says Maj. Michael Boire, historian at the Royal Military College of Canada. “You just don’t build something once on the Western Front, you rebuild it every other week.” 

TIMBER TO TRENCHES

When the call came from command in March 1918 for 500 additional Canadian soldiers to join the front line, 1,300 Forestry Corps men volunteered.  Meanwhile at home, Prime Minister Robert Borden struggled to muster the same enthusiasm, and had resorted to  a severely unpopular conscription law to fulfill his promises to Great Britain.

“Sure, the volunteering was oversubscribed [compared to that in Canada],” says Boire of the overwhelming response amid the Forestry Corps. “But that’s a typical reaction of the boys up front,” he explains. “They had to go home someday to answer the question, ‘What did you do in the war, Daddy?’” Volunteers compelled by notions of duty and honour spurred the surge in enlistments.

Tall, brawny foresters … marched into the vineyards [of France], pitched their tents on the fringe of a forest, and the next day the ring of their axes echoed among the tall pines.” – Sheffield Weekly Telegraph, Dec. 7, 1918
Image Source: Archive of Ontario, War Poster Collection
TOO MANY HEROES IN ENGLAND

Working deep in forests away from the front lines, the lumberjacks were not necessarily considered brave soldiers, says Boire. By 1918, many had resolved to prove their compatriots living and dying in trenches wrong.

Still, some saw the Forestry Corps as a means of avoiding battle. In a letter to his mother, front-line soldier John Row wrote of his uncle in the Forestry Corps: “he is a wise guy alright but it would look better if he took a spell at the front. There are too many of these heroes who stay in England.”

Meanwhile in Canada, some politicians doubted their usefulness. “It is felt the Forestry Corps staff is a refuge for personal friends of those in higher command,” argued opposition MP Rodolphe Lemieux in a parliamentary committee in April 1918.

Lemieux wasn’t alone in seeing a poorly functioning Corps. Newspapers in Great Britain reported it too. “A tremendous number of administration problems have to be worked out—from the handling of a special hospital service for the Corps to the proper handling of the discipline for the men, who are not trained soldiers, and a thousand other questions,” reads the Dec. 28, 1917, issue of The Scotsman.

FOREST FICTIONS 

Despite negative reviews, the Canadian Forestry Corps kept chopping, cutting, milling and sawing. In one day at a La Joux mill in France, workers produced enough timber to build 11 modern-day three-bedroom homes.

The Corps’ unbelievable productivity was praised by government and media alike. The same critical article from The Scotsman wrote that “[The Corps’] monthly output, if it could be published, would read like fiction,”echoing the words of the British Secretary of State for the Royal Air Force, who suggested that 170 Canadians could easily do the work of 600 Britons.

 

The First World War ended nearly 100 years ago in November 1918 and the mills in France, England and Scotland lurched to a halt. Trees regrew and forests renewed, and though saws and gears rusted in the camps, they would be raided again 20 years later by the return of war and with it, the Canadian Forestry Corps.

 

Pipeline politics: Kinder-Morgan dispute is a tale as old as TransCanada

Assignment 2, Masters2018_2
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The signing of the TransCanada Pipeline Bill, June 7, 1956. Source: Duncan Cameron / Library and Archives Canada. No restrictions on use.

The embers of a fiery conflict between B.C. and Alberta over the Kinder-Morgan pipeline are still smouldering.

In early February, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley levied a province-wide boycott on B.C. wines after her counterpart, B.C. Premier John Horgan, proposed restrictions that would put the brakes on the pipeline project. Though the wine ban was lifted less than two weeks ago, the war wages on in court. On February 22, Horgan said his NDP government would seek an official ruling on the legality of halting diluted bitumen flows through the province.

The drama encircling Kinder-Morgan is far from unprecedented. In fact, Canada’s earliest major pipeline project started off with one of the biggest rows in Canadian parliamentary history.

In 1956, the smooth-sailing Liberal government hit the rocks for the first time in over two decades.

The government made plans in May of that year to allow the recently founded (and at that time American-owned) TransCanada Pipelines to move natural gas from Alberta to Quebec via what would then be the world’s longest pipeline.

But as Parks Canada recounts, the opposition parties were vehemently against the project, which in their view would subject Canada’s economy to the will of American capital. The Liberals needed a strong parliamentary showing through the spring months in order to stave off the oncoming windstorm of dissent in the house.

C.D. Howe at an official ceremony in Highwater, Quebec at the joining of the Portland-Montreal pipeline to a U.S. oil tanker, August 1, 1941.
Source: Library and Archives Canada. No restrictions of use.

Enter Clarence Decatur Howe. The Liberal Party’s Minister of Trade and Commerce was well seasoned, hard-nosed and unabashedly resourceful. In a 2008 blog post, Calgary-based oil historian Peter McKenzie-Brown explained Howe’s unofficial title, “the Minister of Everything.” He was the right-hand man of then Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, and had sway over much of the Liberal government of his day.

Having introduced a bill to authorize the pipeline, Howe swiftly gained the support of his fellow Liberals. Parliamentary Hansards show that Progressive Conservative opposition leader George Alexander Drew took exception to what he perceived to be a hyper-partisan display. “The anvil chorus is following instructions. The trained seals have now learned to make a sound in unison,” he said in parliament on May 8.

On May 15, Liberal finance minister Walter Edward Harris addressed the ‘trained seals’ label that had become a steady refrain in parliament. Rather than deny the accusation, Harris evoked the classic ‘takes one to know one’ rebuttal.

“Everyone in this house knows that all parties practically invariably follow a single party line,” he said.

In the end, partisan politics would win the day. On June 7, 1956, the bill was signed. While the ink dried, the house mourned the death of Liberal MP Lorne MacDougall, whose death the day before marked the end of the final debate before the deadline.

The pipeline was extended – all the way to Montreal by 1958 – but the Liberals’ term in office was not. Howe’s hardball tactics were topped off by the rarely used closure provision that served to cut short the debate. The move proved to be too forceful, if not undemocratic in the eyes of many Canadians, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. St. Laurent suffered a surprise defeat to John Diefenbaker’s Conservatives in the 1957 election, ending 22 years of Liberal leadership.

A lesson can by drawn by today’s Liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who has stood steadfast behind the Kinder-Morgan project. With the national public split in half on the current pipeline debate according to the latest poll by Ipsos Global Public Affairs, too much force either way could mean falling off the tightrope in between.

If nothing else, the events in 1956 proved that Canadian pipelines are about more than the flow of bitumen or natural gas from one province to the next – they also tend to transport votes from one party to another.

 

Document 1: ‘Ottawa Letter’ by George Bain in The Globe and Mail, 30 May 1956 

Document 2: ‘Opposition Charges Guillotine Methods’ in The Globe and Mail, 16 May 1956 

 

Aboriginal groups holding management positions in the Canadian workplace

Assignment 2
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Source: StatCan
http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&id=2820165&&pattern=&stByVal=1&p1=1&p2=31&tabMode=dataTable&csid

The data on this chart illustrates which of the Aboriginal group held most of the management positions across the Canadian workplace in 2017.

This chart includes both Aboriginal males and females aged between 25 and 54 years old.

The two Aboriginal groups analyzed on this chart are the First Nations and the Metis.

Why are some areas seeing a rise in common law couples?

Assignment 2, Investigative2017_4
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Teri Boates and Alex Stover have been living together for two years – officially, that is. They’ve been on the same lease for the last two years, but spent the year before that sleeping over at each other’s places.

“Just packing a bag and staying there for a few days and really spending most of my time there,” said Boates of her habits in her first year dating Stover. “So that’s when the next year we thought maybe we should just get one together instead of paying two rents for two different places.”

Boates and Stover spent the past academic year living at 5960 Spring Garden Road, along with two of their close friends. As unmarried romantic partners living together continuously for over 12 months, Boates and Stover qualify as a common law couple. And as a common law couple, they contributed to a growing trend in their neighbourhood.

Boates and Stover lived in a census tract with boundaries from Robie to South Park to the west and east and from South Street to the Commons and Citadel to the south and north, respectively. Between 2011 and 2016, the incidence of common law couples in that area increased by 36%.

A map showing the various census tracts in Halifax, colour-coded by percent increase in the incidence of common law couples. The darker the colour, the higher the increase. Click on an area to see its statistics.

 

Even though that statistic seems telling, Martha Radice, an associate professor of anthropology in Dalhousie’s department of sociology and social anthropology, warns not to read too much into it.

“It’s quite difficult to know what’s going on in the area without comparing that to other changes in family dynamics and household composition,” she said.

Between 2011 and 2016 there was a 15% increase in the number of families in that census tract, and only a 5% increase of married couples. Those increases are contrasted by a drop of over 30% in the rate of married couples with children in the same.

Those stats provide a clearer picture, but they still don’t tell the whole story.

“It all depends what the change is reflecting,” said Radice. “You might have a change in the kind of housing tenure in the census tract. So maybe it’s just that there’s a whole bunch of apartments built that offer great young couple accommodation.”

It’s a plausible theory, but according to this study on the history of condos in Halifax, the number of condos in the tract hasn’t changed since last census (map on page 38/72). So what are some other possible contributing factors?

“It might just be people are choosing not to get married. If it was a decrease in solo households, then you might start thinking about housing costs have risen. Instead of living alone, people are moving in with their partners,” said Radice.

That last reason seems to hold true for Boates, who has lived with up to 6 roommates at a time in an effort to reduce her rent.

“If you’re going to be sharing with roommates anyway, and you’re partner is also looking to find a place – besides just having that mushy someone’s always there for you, and you cuddle someone every night – it does unfortunately come down to money,” she said.

Boates is a Nova Scotia native while Stover is from Oakville, Ontario, but they’ve managed to spend the last few summers together; Boates would stay with Stover at his parents’ house. Now, for the first time in three years, they will be living apart. Boates is staying in Halifax this fall while Stover is still in Ontario trying to become a paramedic.

Boates talking about the pros and cons of living with Stover, her boyfriend

Halifax Census Single-Parent Families

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This map is from the Statistics Canada 2016 Census, which measures the growth of single-parent families the Halifax-area census tracts. The darker colours represent areas with the highest increase. The lighter areas, the lowest increase. Click on each census tract to see the result.

Source: Statistics Canada

Federal funding for water advisory crisis is questionable

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  • The topic: Funding to eliminate water advisories on First Nation reserves.
  • What’s new: The provincial break-down of funds.
  • Why it’s important: The funding strategy’s effect hints that there might be an imbalance in the province’s allocation of funds that may mean missing the five-year target.
  • What the government says: The government stands by the funds the allocated last year. The minister of health said in a statement earlier this year that there’s still a lot of work to do.
  • What others say: Emily Lui says the way the government is distinguishing long-term advisories from short-term advisories being overlooked while the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the government should be spending more money on this issue.
  • What’s next: The government is sticking to their planned targets.

Manitoba’s provincial government has been allocated an estimated $356.4 million over five years as part of a federal strategy to end long-term drinking water advisories on First Nations reserves.

Approximately 19.8 per cent of the federal government’s 2016 pledge of $1.8 billion has been allocated to address the water supply issues. According to an access to information request, the percentage of funding allotted to Manitoba reflects the share of Canada’s Indigenous population that lives in the province.

In the year since the announcement, several communities are still plagued with long-term advisories. According to the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada’s own website, 71 of the 76 long-term advisories across Canada are still in place despite the plan to lift all drinking water advisories by 2021.

In Manitoba, only one of two long-term drinking water advisories is slated for funding so far. The advisory for this project affecting the Pauingassi First Nation has yet to be removed despite the province having significantly less advisories to address compared to other provinces.

Little can be determined on the impact of the government’s 2016 investment based on the way the government is publically tracking improvement. For example, neighbouring provinces Ontario and Saskatchewan had 62 long-term advisories between them during the funding announcement. However, the government site provided by a spokeswoman from Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada indicates that nine have been removed since 2015—disguising that only five long-term advisories across the country that have been removed.

The designation of long-term and short-term advisories as determined by the government is a topic of concern for Emily Lui, a spokeswoman for the Council of Canadians who says she uses her position to raise awareness on water issues in First Nation communities.

She shared what she believes is an overlooked aspect of the government’s approach to the investments in an email exchange which read: “A review of the long-term advisories (in place for one year or more) versus the short-term advisories (in place for less than a year) raises questions about whether the dates set for the DWAs show the full picture.”

Last March, the government released a statement addressing its continued commitment to the five-year plan to remove all long-term advisories despite achieving less than ten per cent in the first year. The written statement quotes the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, Carolyn Bennett, as saying “Many First Nation families are just now able to drink their water and we have a solid, achievable plan to end the remaining long-term drinking water advisories affecting INAC-funded public systems on-reserve within our promised five-year timeframe.”

Meanwhile, the Minister of Health, Jane Philpott, said: “while there is still much work to be done, I am pleased to see progress is being made to lift long-term drinking water advisories.”

On the same day the statement was released, the national think tank “Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report which included a reimagined federal budget called The Alternative Federal Budget 2017: High Stakes, Clear Choices. They assigned $1.9 billion per year over the next three years to deal with the water advisories nation-wide—more than three times the current funding.

The federal spokeswomen weren’t available to address any specific questions regarding the situation in Manitoba, the federal funding strategy, or the rationale behind allocating funds to provinces based on the percentage of their Indigenous population as opposed to the condition of their facilities or the number of communities affected.

Helpful documents:

ATIP requests: