L’ONE reconnaît toutefois des effets environnementaux importants du projet sur une population d’épaulards menacés sur les côtes de la Colombie-Britannique.
Ce rapport, salué par certains et décrié par d’autres, met toutefois la ministre fédérale de l’Environnement, Catherine McKenna, dans une situation inconfortable.
En entrevue à l’émission 24/60, Mme McKenna a eu bien du mal à expliquer sa position comme membre du gouvernement par rapport à ce rapport d’un office de l’énergie qui a pris le parti de l’oléoduc, alors qu’elle est censée défendre l’environnement.
Mme McKenna a répété que son gouvernement a pris beaucoup de mesures pour protéger les orques.
La ministre a également précisé que le rapport de l’ONE n’est qu’une étape. Des consultations doivent être entamées avec les peuples autochtones avant de prendre une décision.
« Nous devons faire cela d’une bonne manière », a répété Catherine McKenna.
L’apport économique
Reprenant l’argumentaire de son gouvernement, la ministre de l’Environnement a fini par admettre qu’il y a « beaucoup d’emplois liés à ce projet à travers le pays ».
Ils [les Canadiens] veulent qu’on soit ambitieux, mais qu’on soit conscients des emplois, qu’on doit accroître notre économie.
« C’est une transition énergétique », a ajouté Catherine McKenna. « Nous éliminons le charbon, nous faisons des investissements dans l’énergie renouvelable, nous investissons dans le transport en commun et les technologies propres ».
Répondant à ses détracteurs, la ministre a reconnu que son rôle est difficile.
« Il y a des gens d’un côté qui ne veulent pas de développement; il y a des gens de l’autre côté qui ne veulent pas de progrès sur les changements climatiques », a-t-elle souligné.
La ministre, qui déplore les tentatives de polarisation du sujet, a affirmé qu’elle parlait aux Canadiens chaque jour des petites et grandes entreprises, aux fermiers en passant par les universitaires. « Ils veulent qu’on fasse ça d’une manière intelligente », a-t-elle insisté.
On Thursday, Nov. 14 at 9:30 a.m., the City of Ottawa’s planning
committee votes on an application to approve a subdivision for a unique
property at 21 Withrow Ave.
Kilmorie, a unique historic property,
is situated in the middle of the city, a block off busy Merivale Road.
This piece of land is the last remaining evidence of the early
settlement of Nepean. It is a landmark for the City View and Nepean
community dating back to the 1840s. It is one of the area’s most
cherished heritage properties.
Kilmorie house is the second-oldest
stone house in Ottawa. The property still contains more than 100 mature
trees in a variety of species. To enter this property is a touch of magic in a whirlwind of traffic just a block away.
In
1915, the house was bought by William Wilfred Campbell. Campbell was
known as one of Canada’s renowned Confederation Poets. Some famous poems
of Campbell’s that were studied in our school days and continue to be
enjoyed today are: “Down the Merivale Road,” “Indian Summer” and “The
Woods at Kilmorie.” “The Mother,” acclaimed internationally, was read
out loud in Parliament. Campbell himself, related to the Royal Family,
wrote poetry in these gardens, entertained future prime ministers and
coached the young militia preparing to serve in the First World War. He
was a fervent Canadian patriot and a renowned artist.
Kilmorie
house is the second-oldest stone house in Ottawa. The property still
contains more than 100 mature trees in a variety of species.
The City View Community Association and the Kilmorie
Heritage Society have been working to save this property as a community
hub and an arts and cultural centre. Other educational undertakings
could be held in the gardens of heritage flowers and where citizens are
welcome to sit to enjoy the surrounding natural beauty.
What does
the City of Ottawa think of this idea? It thinks that a subdivision of
élite homes that would sell for close to $1 million each, located on a
private road, would be better use of this land. And what will happen to
the Kilmorie heritage house? It would be tucked away on a private road,
where only this small group of élite homeowners would see it. This
house has been a focal point of this area for almost 200 years. Are we
just going to let it be hidden forever?
Joan Clark is shown at the estate on Withrow Avenue in 2016.
Wayne Cuddington /
Postmedia
There are many people who support the preservation of this
heritage site. Is the administration of the City of Ottawa acting in a
short-sighted manner? Is City Hall more concerned about profit and the
taxes to be gleaned from a few more high-priced houses? Has it lost its
vision of the future for our young people, who are promoters of green
spaces and ecological settings?
Our councillor is currently not
active. Who will advocate for us? As citizens of Ottawa, we currently
have no representation at City Hall. Councillors have been assigned to
help us but do not have the background needed. Our councillor, MP and
MPP are all supportive. Many people at City Hall are quietly supportive.
We know that they see the merit in what we are trying to accomplish on
behalf of our community and our city. Do we really need another
subdivision with 14 detached dwellings shoehorned into a unique plot of
land that has the potential to be a special setting which values our
historic heritage?
Let’s keep Kilmorie in its whole and natural setting.
Much like baking, business can be a lot of trial and error before you get it right.
Six years and many sweets later, Jacqui Okum, owner of Strawberry
Blonde Bakery, continues to tinker, even though the concept remains much
the same.
More than a decade ago, the new vegan had been working in television
in Toronto, however, she quickly ran into a problem: when it came to
baked goods, she was left to make her own, as vegan-friendly options at
that point were few and far between.
“I found myself making stuff at home because I still wanted to eat
everything, but I couldn’t really find it,” Okum said in an interview
with OttawaMatters.com.
Wanting to make a change from TV and with her new acumen for baking,
Okum decided to enroll in a pastry program at George Brown College, one
that included a focus on entrepreneurship.
Okum’s husband then got a job at the University of Ottawa, so she
moved to the city and began to make offerings to the public, mostly
through market stands like the ones at Lansdowne Park.
While her vegan offerings were popular, she began to get feedback
about other products customers were looking for, including gluten-free
and nut-free products.
The wheels slowly started turning.
After getting a job at Rainbow Natural Foods, Okum met her original
business partner who was baking similar things, and the two decided to
“go for it.”
At first, Rainbow allowed the two to bake out of its kitchen for a
reasonable rate, but within six months the pair had already outgrown it,
with orders surpassing space.
In 2013, the two opened their first shop on Grange Avenue in
Hintonburg, which would include vegan-friendly, nut-free and gluten-free
products to accommodate all dietary needs — something important to
Okum.
“Being vegan myself, I knew what it was like to go somewhere and not
have anything, or to have one option and it’s a sad looking option, or a
piece of fruit,” Okum said.
“I’m still the person who wants the delicious cupcake or whatever it
may be, so I really empathize with people who are celiac or maybe have a
nut allergy. I took it really seriously.”
The challenge of making everything “just as good” as other offerings
also drove Okum and she takes great pride when someone enjoys something
from the bakery and doesn’t realize the limited ingredients.
“There’s nothing better. We get customers all the time where say
they’re husband and wife and the wife comes in because she doesn’t want
to eat gluten and the husband’s like ‘I don’t want it,’” she said. “And
then he comes back and says, ‘My wife forced me to try this,’ but now he
wants to come back because it’s so good. That’s the whole point of this
business, is to make sure things look and taste similar to conventional
bake goods.”
The passion and work to build up the offerings at the bakery has
taken on a life of its own since the opening of the Grange Avenue
location, which moved to Richmond Road as of two weeks ago, to include a
coffee and sitting space. The business has now extended to the suburbs
as well, with a Kanata location that opened this past June, with
possible lunch offerings on the docket for 2020.
Okum said she couldn’t have dreamed that the venture would have been successful as it’s been so far almost seven years on.
“We have 40 employees, which is crazy to me and to think it was just
me and business partner six years ago. It’s been a huge learning curve.”
When it comes to running a business, Okum offered to those looking to
go down the same path to keep their minds open and to be flexible.
“What you think might happen isn’t what actually is going to happen
but don’t be rigid,” she said, noting the original thought was that the
bakery would mostly for wholesale use.
“Be kind to yourself, you’re going to make mistakes,” she said.
For creators living in under-served Northern
communities, geographic isolation and a lack of resources present a
barrier to success. But the Nordic Lab — a new initiative at the SAW Gallery in downtown Ottawa — is hoping to empower these artists by offering them a mainstage platform to showcase their craft.
The
newly expanded space in downtown Ottawa now hosts artists in residence,
showcases Nordic art and provides educational programs geared toward
Inuit youth — all the while promoting cultural exchanges between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Canada, Norway and other
circumpolar nations.
The
SAW Gallery’s curator, Jason St-Laurent, says the Nordic Lab is both a
program and a set of physical spaces, though the public will have to
wait until the spring of 2020 to view it. St-Laurent says the physical
spaces will consist of “screen printing spaces and an artist residency
space, which we’re naming after Annie Pootoogook,” the legendary Inuk
artist who passed away in 2016.
“We’re all about being the social lubricant of the art world,” says St-Laurent. “We’re not your grandmother’s art institution.”
Tam-Ca Vo-Van stands in her bright, document-arrayed office during our interview. (Joshua Soucie)
Tam-Ca
Vo-Van, the SAW Gallery’s director, says the Nordic Lab has been a long
time in the making: “We have collaborated often with different Nordic
embassies on special presentations. Things just came together, and our
curator, Jason St-Laurent, thought of putting in place this Nordic Lab,
which would bring together artists from Nordic countries and the North
of Canada, and also from Ottawa, in a sort of triangular zone of
collaboration.”
“We were involved, for about two years, in major
renovations — an expansion of our space,” says Vo-Van, referring to the
tripling of the gallery’s space to its current 15,000 square foot home
in Arts Court. “We didn’t have our programming spaces for about two
years, so we relaunched our facilities at the end of July, but the
Nordic Lab wasn’t ready at that time, so we delayed the opening.”
The
director describes the Nordic Lab as a research and production space
that SAW is making available to its visiting artists. The program is
also an educational space that the gallery hopes will invite
artists-in-residence to get involved with the local community through
initiatives such as community art projects or workshops.
The
gallery’s curator and director allowed us to get a shot of the Nordic
Lab’s contemporary artist-in-residence studio space while it is still
under construction. (Joshua Soucie)
“At
the moment, we’re working on a collaboration with an Inuit children’s
centre as well as the City of Ottawa, more specifically the Community
Arts and Social Engagement program, to put together workshops [for
various age groups] that are coming up in November,” says Vo-Van. “With
the Nordic Lab, we really wanted to involve the local Inuit community.
The Nordic Lab initiative has an artistic mandate but also an
educational one. We want to involve youth in artmaking. We really want
to contribute to the well-being of the community in which we live, and
we really believe the transfer of traditional knowledge is beneficial,
especially for youth that are marginalized.”
For its Nordic Lab,
the SAW Gallery will be installing semi-automated screen printing
presses, which St-Laurent describes as “octopus presses” because their
many arms make it simple to accomplish large-scale editions of projects,
such as the simultaneous production of T-shirts, bags or prints:
“Normally, when you’re hand-making it, it can take forever, but with
this semi-automated press, you can do 500 no problem.”
“We’re
launching a project called the SAW Art and Protest Initiative,” says
St-Laurent, explaining that the project will help elevate the visual
impact of political actions or protests by pairing organized social
movements with artists to devise visual campaigns through merchandise
that will be funded and produced by the SAW Gallery. “SAW, in its
beginnings in ’73, was a bunch of activists, feminists and queers coming
together to create something where people can see themselves reflected
all across the gallery. We kind of wanted to go back to our activist
roots, and normally, we can’t apply for funding for political anything,
so now we’re using the profits from the bar to invest in our projects.”
SAW Gallery curator Jason St-Laurent. (Joshua Soucie)
The
bar to which St-Laurent is referring is known as Club SAW, where
gallery-goers are invited to grab a drink to sip on as they view the
pieces laid out throughout the gallery.
Despite the delay in
the launch of the Nordic Lab’s physical spaces, the program is well
underway. In the fall of 2018, they welcomed their first
artist-in-residence, Sobey Art Award-shortlisted artist Joi T. Arcand.
Club SAW therefore features a neon sign that was commissioned by the
gallery over the course of Arcand’s residency.
During her
residency, Arcand took on a hybrid role with the gallery, becoming the
Nordic Lab’s first program director. Arcand says she looks forward to
seeing some of the international partnerships she has helped foster come
to life as she moves on to her next residency at Toronto’s Harbourfront
Centre.
Joi Arcand’s neon signs hang on the wall of Club SAW. (Joshua Soucie)
On November 7, SAW will be hosting an afterparty in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada for the launch of the Àbadakone | Continuous Fire | Feu continuel exhibition,
which will be showcasing the works of over 70 Indigenous artists from
around the world. At their afterparty, the Nordic Lab’s second
artist-in-residence, Norwegian Sámi artist Elle Márjá Eira, will be
performing Joiks, which the artist describes as Europe’s oldest singing
tradition.
“Joik is still a living art, and I always say that
Joik is my heart language,” says Márjá Eira. “I will perform a Joik, a
piece from the Norwegian feature film The 12th Man,directed
by Harald Zwart. I composed that piece together with film music
composer Christophe Beck. […] I hope that the audience is able to
capture my feelings and stories, and that they somehow come into my
world. My universe is completely different from yours.”
With its emphasis on community building and spotlight on Northern art, the Nordic Lab’s programming is sure to give its event participants chills.