This… could be interesting.
If the Conservatives split into two parties, that could completely change the complexion of Canadian politics. For one thing, everybody (except the Liberals) will be more amenable to electoral reform.
I wonder what the Bernier party would choose (beyond stricter border controls) as their unifying ideology.
Edit to add: It seems that supply management, unsurprisingly, is going to be one such issue.
Well, the days of me considering the Conservatives the party of racist assholes is certainly coming to a middle.
“Someone” 
Still, it’s a pretty genius way of getting the sinkhole fixed. Plant tomatoes, wait for their growth to be a really embarrassing indicator of how long the problem has remained unfixed, alert the media and frame it as a human interest story to ensure it gets coverage.
I, for one, am glad Bryan Link doesn’t work in PR…
I am shocked, shocked1 at the suggestion that Trump and his subordinates may not have been negotiating in good faith with Canada, with regards to the updates to NAFTA. Shocked, I tell you.
1Well, not that shocked.
Sooooo…
Entirely hypothetically, if one had access to a couple of acres near Ottawa and hypothetically bought some shipping containers and hypothetically used them to start an entirely hypothetical medical marijuana company, what would be the legal barriers to entry? Would it (hypothetically) be possible to start a company like that as a British citizen?
Asking for a friend…
Given how many foreign companies there already are here, I expect it would just be about the paperwork.
Ottawa would certainly be an excellent market for such an endeavour.
Feds regulate that now. Good starting point: What industry needs to know about cannabis. You’ll note that carrying it across the border is strictly illegal, and that they are implementing a supply line tracking system. That being said, the current regulatory setup (even before the Cannabis act takes effect) allows for export permits to licensed medicinal marijuana suppliers, with shipping fairly tightly regulated. I don’t see, provided the regulations are met, anything that precludes a UK citizen from entering the business here.
Might interest you.
It’s behind a paywall, sadly. Is there a free version of the article anywhere that you know of?
Does that work any better?
No, sadly; still asks for a full subscription without even letting me read an article 
Sigh.
There was an entire West Wing episode about just this, except in that case the fictional president noticed his mic was left on and used it to make an “off the record” swipe at an opponent, then claim he never meant to be overheard or recorded.
As opposed to whatever the hell Trump is doing.
This and the wandering Markham Moose are good reminders to urban Canadians that they’re, you know, in Canada.
Not the first time we’ve seen a bear within the city proper, although not right downtown like this. There are shallow spots on the river where it’s possible for animals migrating from the Gatineau Hills to cross (and downtown is right on the river). Haven’t seen any deer, coyotes or timber wolves… yet. We do, however, have entire colonies of raccoons right downtown.
Well heck, WE have entire colonies of raccoons (and regular coyote sightings) in downtown Chicago…and we’re not even in Canada!
Well, Liz, imagine the Ottawa River wending more or less Southwest to Northeast. On the South bank, you have downtown Ottawa - Parliament Hill, the Market, etc… Directly across on the North shore is downtown Hull, i.e., walking distance across one of the bridges.
If you follow the river where it takes a jog North, and cross the Alexandria Bridge between the National Gallery in Ottawa and the Museum of Civilisation in Hull, then keep going West on Allumettières (the 148), which more or less follows the Northern edges of downtown Hull while heading out to Aylmer and points West (Quyon, Shawville), you can often encounter coyotes on the bike paths along Allumettières, but timber wolves have been seen by my brother, who lives on that side of the river, around the Lac des Fées turnoff as well (about 4 km from the Ottawa side of the bridge).
You can take the Lac-des-Fées Parkway to St.-Raymond near the hospital, and from there, one can continue along Cité-des-Jeunes. Cité-des-Jeunes is interesting: residential on one side, schools (two CEGEPs, one high school and a government language training facility) and Parc Gatineau on the other. My bus to work used to pass by there: it’s a good place to see the occasional deer down by the road.
A picture being worth a thousand words and all, here’s a map:
The small purple star in the lower right is roughly where I am. We share a driveway with our neighbour: their garage opens into our backyard and hosts a small clan of raccoons. We get skunks and rabbits visiting as well, and used to see a mated pair of Mallards on our front lawn every summer.
The red oval is where my brother has spotted timber wolves. The blue star North of it is where I have seen deer (several times). The Royal Ottawa Golf Club you can see at the left is home to Canada geese, red foxes, and (much to the club’s chagrin) beavers. (Geese are seen all over both shores of the river when they come through.) The Rideau River at Billings Bridge is about 2 km South of where I live (the river loops West a bit): it’s home to Mallards, black ducks, the occasional blue heron and the occasional loon.
And that traffic island near Chinatown I’ve circled in pink? It’s been home to a colony of raccoons the entire time I’ve lived in Ottawa, some 30 years.
So, you can see, we get a lot of wildlife very close to downtown. To give the scale, the distance between Parliament Hill and the Royal Ottawa CC is about 6 km. I think the only thing keeping wolves and deer on the other side is that they’d have to pass through heavily populated heavy traffic areas even before they make it to the river, and they are more retiring than bears.
You can see the Byward Market, where the bear came to visit, Northeast of Parliament Hill - it’s a 5 minute walk to Parliament. I’m a big city boy originally from Montreal, so I have a fair idea of what you likely encounter in Chicago, but I have to say that Ottawa’s wildlife is more pervasive than I’m used to. I rather enjoy it.
I didn’t remember this when you first reported it, but now that you’ve given the lay of the land…
Several years ago a friend of mine wound up chatting with some Japanese tourists visiting Toronto. One asked where was the best place to photograph a bear around here. My friend explained bears don’t go into cities.
Now I know to advise they should wait until their tour gets to the national capital. And yeah, rather nice to think the national capital has all those non-human critters in it.
