Merry Christmas, everyone! I know 2018 has been a trying year for many people, so may you have a safe and happy Christmas season with family and friends and a prosperous 2019!

According to a CBC Ottawa story yesterday morning, the Rendezvous LeBreton consortium whose proposal was selected for the redevelopment of LeBreton Flats is in trouble. I am not surprised, and it seems I’m not alone.

Back in January 2016, the National Capital Commission announced two development proposals that were moving on to the next step in the evaluation process to redevelop LeBreton Flats. The proposals were put forward by two consortia: Canadensis: LeBreton Re-imagined by Devcore, Canderel and DLS Group, and Illumination LeBreton by RendezVous LeBreton Group, which is led by Senators owner Eugene Melnyk and Trinity Development Group’s John Ruddy.

The Illumination LeBreton proposal was ultimately selected. Personally, I thought at the time that was the wrong decision, something I still believe today. 

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Armistice — the end of the Great War, which was supposed to be the War to End War. While sadly that clearly hasn’t happened, we nevertheless pause to remember those people who have made the ultimate sacrifice over the years so that we have the peace, security and freedom that we enjoy today.

To them and their families I say “Thank you”.

So, unlike Morocco who just decided to opt out of daylight saving time, we are still changing our clocks in the Spring and Fall. That means that at 02:00 Sunday morning, we roll out clocks back an hour.

I’ve written about this many times in the past. The TL;DR is that setting the clocks forward and back isn’t saving us energy, actually costs money unnecessarily and results in more injuries and deaths in the week following the time change.

Here we go again… changing the clocks forward an hour at 2AM early tomorrow morning in a misguided attempt to save energy. While we’ll shift when we see the sunlight, it won’t actually save an energy.

Instead, we’ll see an increase in accidents for the next week or so because people are discombobulated by the change in their sleep pattern. As an added “bonus”, there’s a 10% increase the likelihood that you’ll experience a heart attack during the days immediately following the time change.

We really need to pick one (preferably the summer version) and stick with it. A whole provinces of farmers (i.e. Saskatchewan) can’t be completely wrong. (more…)