"Residents need to understand that if you do see wildlife and you want that interaction to be successful, you need to do what you can to leave it alone. Sometimes we get caught up in getting a photo or, telling our neighbors and sometimes the best thing to do is to leave it alone so that it can return to the forest," said Johnson."
The City of Ottawa released the results(opens in a new tab) of its Wildlife Strategy Survey showing the majority of people are in favour of protecting wildlife and want the city to take a more proactive, instead of reactive, approach to human-wildlife conflicts.
"Residents appear to be more concerned about making sure that the wildlife is protected versus protecting property," said city councillor, Laine Johnson.
"Which I think is a shift from what we saw, perhaps in 2013 when the original policy was released."
The city concluded Wildlife Strategy Review surveys last year and released the results to the public this week. The city is in the process of updating its 2013 Wildlife Strategy(opens in a new tab), which has been delayed twice now.
"We are going to see it this spring which is great, but I think the delays have been somewhat inevitable as resources have been stretched," said Johnson.
The current wildlife strategy has been met with significant controversy over the years.
Last year, police shot and killed a black bear in Kanata. Several other animals including moose, beavers and elk have also been killed since 2010.
"There is a role for obviously city bylaw, for police, for the National Capital Commission. The National Capital Commission has really well trained conservation officers so we want to see more of a collaborative approach," said Donna Dubreuil, president of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre.
It’s an approach the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre would like to see in the updated strategy, but it says so far the city hasn’t responded to its position papers.
"I think implementing any kind of strategy is going to take partnership. It's not going to be done by simply the city sort of electing to do certain things or not do certain things on their own," said Dubreuil.
In addition to wanting to see large animals like bears protected, survey respondents also expressed concern over the city’s approach to beavers, trapping and killing approximately 150 a year.
"I think it’s outrageous to most people. We really need to protect our wetlands and beavers are probably the most influential species in maintaining our wetlands," said Dubreuil.
In 2013, it was also recommended the city hire a dedicated wildlife officer. But that hasn’t happened, stirring up frustration among residents who have wildlife concerns.
"If you are interested in seeing that happen, I think the pressure has to be on your own city councillors and make sure that they vote in the right way," said Johnson.
Johnson says education for residents is key when it comes to co-existing with wildlife.
“Residents need to understand that if you do see wildlife and you want that interaction to be successful, you need to do what you can to leave it alone. Sometimes we get caught up in getting a photo or, telling our neighbors and sometimes the best thing to do is to leave it alone so that it can return to the forest," said Johnson.
The survey found that residents are highly concerns over the risk of coyotes, despite statistics showing dogs pose a higher risk.
According to the city’s current wildlife strategy, there are approximately 350-400 injuries to residents by domestic dogs each year. But in the 46 years between 1960 and 2006, there were 142 documented coyote injuries, mostly in the western United States.
"We need to take some perspective on this and just understand. But people do need information. They need to know when to react and when not to react, or what's a threat and what's not," said Dubreuil.
The updated wildlife strategy is expected to come to council in June.
Today, the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee unanimously approved my motion to improve road safety across Ottawa. Here's my motion:WHEREAS speeding continues to be one of the most significant road‑safety concerns raised by residents across the City of Ottawa, particularly in residential neighbourhoods and school zones where vulnerable road users, including children, are at heightened risk; and
WHEREAS recent City data has shown a substantial increase in speeding in school zones, with compliance dropping from 87 percent to 41 percent within a 12‑week period following the removal of Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) cameras, and high‑end speeding increasing from 0.3 percent to over 4 percent during the same period; and
Whereas speed data is an important input in understanding risk related to more serious collisions; and
WHEREAS the city’s current approach to collecting speed data is limited and does not provide a full picture of speeds across the roadway network, and
WHEREAS other jurisdictions across Canada and internationally are increasingly incorporating innovative, technology‑enabled, and data‑driven approaches—including, predictive analytics, and AI‑supported monitoring systems—to inform their road safety programs; and
WHEREAS the City of Ottawa is currently undertaking work to update the Road Safety Action Plan, which will guide the road safety priorities for the next term of Council; and
WHEREAS this work presents an opportunity to modernize and strengthen the inputs used to make informed data-driven decisions about road safety;
THERFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT staff, through the update to the City’s Road Safety Action Plan, leverage advanced data analytics, predictive modelling, and AI‑supported technologies, where appropriate, to enhance the City’s ability to identify, monitor, and respond to speeding trends and inform road safety priorities
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT staff consider speed management as a focus area when developing the Road Safety Action Plan that will be presented to Council in 2027.
Read the Year Three Progress ReportDear Neighbours,
I am pleased to provide you with the College Ward Annual
Progress Report, showing the work that we did in 2025. I work hard every day to represent you on the
issues that are important to our neighbourhoods.
I hope this Progress Report is informative of the projects we
took on last year, and that it demonstrates my continuing
transparency and accountability to you. There is still more
always to do, and I list some future areas of interest.
Warm regards,
Laine
The news this week wasn’t good. Thousands of bus trips cancelled again in February. LRT down to one train for the foreseeable future. When it comes to Ottawa’s public transit, it seems there’s never good news.
Even the announcement of progress on the LRT East project was met with cynicism, given that the trains that Line 1 uses continue to have “spalling” issues with the wheel assembly.
When will it end? And what am I – one of the members of OC Transpo’s governance body – going to do about it?
Since 2022, I’ve been wrestling with myself over a feeling of powerlessness about OC Transpo, in conflict with my ability as a decision maker to affect change.
I have residents who are suffering immeasurably from a lack of service. Algonquin College students have the biggest uptake of the U-pass of all of Ottawa’s post-secondary institutions, but they can’t get to and from classes reliably. Bells Corners’ routes were cut during the pandemic, and the subsequent elimination of the 200 series through the New Ways to Bus changes have completely isolated that community from transit.
