Do Nothing. That’s How Ottawa Deals With Violence (1)

A person was shot and killed around 2 p.m. Sunday at Sussex Drive and St. Patrick Street.

You might recognize the intersection. It’s down the street a bit from one of Canada’s landmarks, The National Gallery of Canada.

The shooting occurred during the afternoon on one of the busiest gallery attendance days of the week. No shortage of witnesses to the shooting should be available. That’s where visitors gather to look at the Maman sculpture or wait to go into the gallery on a summer Sunday during the height of tourist season. Kind of a hopping place that gallery square. So too the ByWard Market next door where visitors congregate for a meal or a drink after a heavy day of sight-seeing in one of the country’s top tourist destinations.

You know, a place where many of the iconic symbols of the country are located. Now one of those symbols is subjected to shooting people in broad daylight in front of the nation’s capital’s visitors. What’s a trip to Ottawa without seeing a killing? Sort of like travelling to Churchill, Manitoba but missing the belugas and the polar bears.

Just a note to our police, justices, administrators and politicians. Shooting guns around the National Gallery is a health hazard. Much worse than the smoke that has plagued the capital of a G7 nation this spring. That said, concern seems to highest about smoke and climate change rather than the chance of lead poisoning around the gallery.

This, just in case you need reminding, is a vicious and cruel ending to a person’s life. Ottawa is very fortunate that the bullets just hit one person. The shooting is a tragedy. A small tragedy perhaps, but a tragedy nevertheless. The Ottawa Police Service has promised not to address the shooting, a stance at which it has great experience unless it’s a good Samaritan helping an Ottawa officer in an altercation because the force is so well loved. Yes, in this instance the Special Investigations Unit, another part of the police club, will probe  with the same vigour as the OPS professional standards unit or the Ottawa Police Services Board or, for that matter, the justice system. Doubtful anything will be investigated further because the police are invariably correct, or the public doesn’t know about it or the justice system slaps them on the wrist for thieving and sexual assault. They must be right. All the tall foreheads involved are smarter than residents of the second-best-educated population on the continent. Yes, the Ottawa establishment, stupid but so much smarter than the peasants. Patronizing is us.

Here’s What Ottawans Are Concerned About

Let’s face it Ottawa. When it comes to justice, you’re on your own.

But that’s not all.

Around 4:30 p.m. that day at Besserer and Waller streets, two hours after a someone was shot dead near the gallery, a person was badly stabbed but alive, apparently in stable condition in hospital. That location isn’t far from the Rideau Centre or the ByWard Market or the National Arts Centre or the war memorial or the Chateau Laurier or the Rideau Canal or the Parliament Buildings and, perish the thought, walking distance from Ottawa City Hall.

So what have our city hall betters over the last 12 years done to address the guns and gangs violence in the capital. Next to nothing except a sternly worded letter backing the police force and saying that gun shooters are really bad people and they should stop. That’ll teach ’em. Nothing puts the fear of god into a gang banger like a tough letter.

So where do we go from here? How does that work? Well the police will continue to deal with persons shooting guns and the city will hire more officers, some of whom will be suspended with pay for some alleged misdeed or other. The police will continue to keep the elementary school miscreants under control when they decide to take advantage of their god-given and Charter-protected right to flip the bird at an officer. And that just after the chief wanted to get uniformed officers back in schools so that youngsters don’t hate the police for the rest of their lives. Perhaps this is accomplished by traumatizing students on a school bus and taking them to the principal’s office. That should work out.

Nevertheless, the police appear to be damn good parking attendants given their help during the Freedom Convoy protest. Perhaps the clear-and-present danger was not having trucks positioned in orderly lines. Look, you’ve got to take what you can get.

And as an aside, one wonders how much money taxpayers would save in staffing if the police who are being paid while suspended were actually on the streets (sorry, in their cars) after some foul deed. Maybe Mayor Mark Sutcliffe wouldn’t have to fund hiring more officers for a force that doesn’t work. Then Sutcliffe could put even more money into Lansdowne which already is getting its official plan amendments before council has voted on the issue. You can’t beat that for efficiency.

No, city hall continues to just continue steady as she goes. Tell everybody that everything is all right even when it’s not. Like light rail or, wait for it, the police. Twelve years of neglect of guns from city hall has produced the hyper-dangerous situation we have downtown today … in broad daylight which threatens residents and tourists alike.

Freezing Police Budget Will Get OPS Attention

Want to vacation in Ottawa? Nah, we’ll go to the Bronx where you are safer. Want to buy a condo in the market? Uhhh, no.

Will anything be done to end this situation? Probably not. Nothing to be gained by rocking the boat on city council.

No Ottawa taxpayers get their services much like a bull services its herd. Well … except developers. There’s much more love in that relationship.

Ken Gray

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