Wednesday, Feb. 8: It's not just the weather that is affecting the ice, says one reader. You can write to us too, at letters@ottawacitizen.com
Pollution affects Rideau Canal too
We now know that the opening date for skating on the Rideau Canal in 2023 is the latest it has ever been. Why is this happening and what, if anything, can be done?
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Two factors are at issue. The most obvious is that the weather is generally getting warmer in this part of the world. The second, more local, issue is pollution in the Rideau Canal water. As any first-year university chemistry student knows, the more impurities in the water, the lower the freezing point.
There are two things the National Capital Commission can do. First, clean up the canal. Second, do not lower the water level as much as at present. Although I cannot prove it, my strong suspicion is that the lower the water level, the higher the concentration of pollutants.
G.W. Buchanan,
Chancellors Professor of Chemistry Emeritus
Carleton University, Ottawa
A big thanks to Air France
Finally — Air France will be serving the national capital with flights (after three years of isolation) to Europe. Air Canada has still managed to ignore the capital’s needs and is inconveniencing passengers who must connect via (God forbid!) Toronto or Montreal, or even Halifax.
So, rescued by the French. Merci bien!
Mardi Armstrong, Ottawa
How about an abandoned unit tax?
The vacant unit tax (VUT) challenges every Ottawa property owner to annually disclose details of the occupancy of the properties they own. This idea, noble in theory, aims to maximize the number of housing units on the market. However, the implementation has been clumsy, complicated and invasive.
It sets a very low threshold to declare the property “vacant,” which then requires an extensive exemption process to mitigate false positives or otherwise legitimate use of the property. This process will also be very expensive to administer and adjudicate.
Except for the recent, exceptional housing market, which generated a temporary, speculative housing bubble, there will never be enough good, habitable, vacant housing units to justify such a program. This exceptional market has now all but disappeared and in a normal market, what property owner can afford to willingly hold properties vacant, while paying taxes, insurance and other expenses? A nonsensical premise.
We now hear that budgetary deliberations were extremely “tight” and required a whopping $54-million cut to OC Transpo buses and some city services. Here we are, now trading off vital city services while apparently maintaining this bloated, complex VUT program. The priorities are wrong. The VUT program needs to be cancelled.
Instead of the “vacant” unit tax, why not change the approach and focus on derelict and abandoned properties? Call it an “abandoned” unit tax (AUT) that could be enforced by bylaw services in the regular course of their duties, at no extra cost and without the intrusion into the personal habits of legitimate property owners. An AUT would encourage these property owners to either repair or sell these properties and ultimately change them from eyesores to habitable domiciles.
Alan Watkinson, Ottawa
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