Mountain of plastic at Tulip Festival
Editor, Glebe Report
Walking through Commissioners Park each morning at dawn during the Tulip Festival, I was appalled to see every garbage bin overflowing with plastic drink holders, the sum of which would amount to a mountain of plastic. Paper containers are readily available in the fast-food industry. Why has the NCC not mandated use of paper only in the park? Where is the leadership? Wake up NCC! Let’s have paper only at the festival next year.
Dorothy Speak
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Outdoor rink at Sylvia Holden
Editor, Glebe Report
I am very much in favour of an outdoor rink at Sylvia Holden Park, as announced by Shawn Menard recently. It is time that this rink gets a new permanent home, and this location makes perfect sense.
However, I think there is a good case for making it covered and refrigerated.
The Canterbury outdoor rink, a jewel for the neighbourhood, is extremely popular and well utilized. With climate change, there will be fewer days that allow for nature to build the ice. Every neighbourhood should have the luxury of beautiful outdoor ice for hockey and ringette players to enjoy from November to April. Kids and adults come out of hibernation when a rink is available. Well-being and community are strengthened.
By covering it, the sun will be less impactful and the rain will be a non-issue. As at Canterbury, there will be opportunities to play basketball in the off season.
No doubt this represents a big expense. If Canterbury could achieve this, we should be able to as well.
The opportunities for free play outdoors in the winter in our neighbourhood are very few. The downtown core, including the Glebe, needs infrastructure to balance all the increased growth. Now is the best time to achieve this.
Donations could be sought for this endeavour. It would be a great legacy.
Christie Diekmeyer
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Leave the man be
Editor, Glebe Report
I have become aware of a situation. A man is feeding the squirrels and birds. His name is Luke. He’s a hard worker and a good man. Luke’s a little rough around the edges, like a porcupine. He walks through the back area of Lansdowne. After years of this, he’s still getting told off and yelled at for feeding the squirrels and birds. Francis of Assisi was sainted for that kind of action. So, let’s give the man some respect and leave the man be. After all, Luke said it best: “It’s the only thing that makes me happy.”
Sterling C. Young
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Why you should read the Glebe Report
Editor, Glebe Report
Re: “Hope for the abandoned Benin embassy,” Glebe Report, May 2025
After reading the article by Alan Freeman about the abandoned Benin Embassy (Glebe Report, May 9), I noticed the Diplomatic Parking sign in front of the derelict building was put up again after Glebe Avenue was renovated recently. I guess the powers that be with the City of Ottawa don’t read the Glebe Report.
Ben Syposz
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Tulip Festival needs a major rethink
Editor, Glebe Report
I don’t know what the NCC thought the narrative was for the Tulip Festival, but it has clearly lost the plot.
This year, crowd volumes were so out of control and visitor experience so unsatisfactory that CBC Ottawa, on the Friday before Victoria Day weekend, advised people not to attend. Is this what the NCC calls success, or has it in fact created a monster?
Every year, the number of junk food vendors increases, with long lineups blocking the walking paths and trash left everywhere, including plastics. The tulip beds themselves are eclipsed by the proliferation of junk in the park. The icing on the cake this year was a garish row of phoney trees in phoney colours of lime green, purple and orange installed right beside Dow’s Lake, with giant ladybugs, giant bees, giant flowers. What is the point of all this fakery? Who is the genius behind the Tulip Festival’s “design?” Is the NCC running the show, or has the festival been contracted out? Either way, there does not seem to be any oversight or application of logistics, crowd control, thematic consistency or even a modicum of good taste suitable to represent our national capital.
Our urban population is growing, and tourism is burgeoning. When the maximum number of people are encouraged to linger in the park for a maximum length of time, you have a serious problem on your hands. Are tour buses, which are allowed to spill hundreds of clients into the festival as well as to park at length on Carling Avenue, being charged for the privilege? There are 300,000 tulips blooming in Commissioner’s Park. Who decided that the public would not come to enjoy this spectacle unless they could also buy fudge? Thus, the very purpose of this, the most beautiful park in Ottawa, is destroyed every spring for three weeks. The lawns are wrecked, and no attempt is made to rehabilitate them.
The NCC needs a major rethink about what the festival should be because it has become an unmanageable fiasco.
Dorothy Speak