Photo courtesy of Dani_Girl on Flickr.
Ontario held two provincial by-elections last Thursday, one of which was in Ottawa. Former mayor Bob Chiarelli won for the Liberals in the Ottawa West-Nepean, while former Brockville mayor Steve Clark is now the Conservative member for Leeds-Grenville. While the win at first seems like positive news for the McGuinty government, the relatively small margin (43.46% vs. 38.99%) by which Chiarelli beat his little known rival, Beth Graham, might make the Liberals a bit nervous.
U.S. Ambassador, David Jacobson, and federal Transport Minister John Baird announced Saturday that the ‘Jersey’ barriers will be gone in little more than a year and replaced with “a visually appealing” compromise. The project, which will cost a little over $3 million, will be split between the federal government (2.5 million), the City of Ottawa ($125,000) and the U.S. Embassy ($500,000).
The paralympics are getting underway next Friday in Vancouver. This meant that another Olympic ceremony was held at at Parliament last Wednesday. Multiple paralympic gold medallist Arnold Boldt became the first torchbearer for the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games, taking up the flame from the Olympic cauldron at a lighting ceremony on Parliament Hill.
Canada’s getting plastic money! No, not an influx in credit cards. Rather, the Bank of Canada announced last week that Canada’s paper-cotton banknotes would be replaced by newly designed plastic ones next year. The new notes made from a polymer material, will be harder to fake, recyclable, and two to three times more resistant to tearing.
