Reader favourites: 14 of the most-read Ottawa Citizen stories of 2024

Published Dec 24, 2024  •  Last updated 1 day ago  •  7 minute read

After the festivities at Escapade were called off on Sunday, electronic-music fans flooded the ByWard Market. Many were hoping to get into 27 Club, where the official after party was scheduled to take place. Photo by Lynn Saxberg /POSTMEDIA

The Citizen published thousands of stories in 2024 — but some stories just catch lightning in a bottle, and are read by everyone in town. Themes that captured your attention this year included quirky news oddities, tragic breaking news, and Citizen scoops. Here’s a look back at the year as curated by you, dear reader.

The Fall: My once-vibrant dad emerged broken from the hospital. Then he was gone.

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Allan Payne is pictured at the long-term care home where he lived the last seven months of his life. FAMILY PHOTO POSTMEDIA

A longtime health reporter, Elizabeth Payne thought she understood Canada’s failing health-care system. Then her dad fell. Sitting at her father’s bedside, hoping he will rest after what has been a long day for a 90-year-old, or for anyone, really. But there is no rest here. He is agitated and wants to go home. Who could blame him? His bed is in a fluorescent-lit room whose walls are curtains that are seldom closed. He is hooked up to monitors that beep while he is secured to the bed after an earlier escape attempt.

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Layoffs on the table for permanent government employees as part of spending review

Treasury Board President Anita Anand responds to a question during a news conference in Ottawa, Tuesday, June 18, 2024. Photo by Adrian Wyld /THE CANADIAN PRESS

The federal government has been looking for ways to tighten its budget and curb the size of the public service, which has swelled in recent years. While the Liberal government has said it would do so through attrition and hiring freezes, cutting the jobs of permanent government employees wasn’t on the table. But Canada’s biggest public sector union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), says that no longer seems to be the case.

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Deachman: Ottawa woman living in a canoe says it’s the safest place for her

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Frances DeSilva has been living in a canoe on the Rideau Canal since late May. Photo by Bruce Deachman /POSTMEDIA

Frances DeSilva almost jumped down my throat when I asked her how she got her canoe, suggesting that if I were talking to someone else, someone of means, I would have first asked where they got it, not how. My question, she implied, was actually about how a homeless person could possibly be in possession of a canoe. Which, I confess, was pretty much true, although what I really wanted to know was why she was living in one, and whether there was a way to help her into more stable housing.

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‘It has been a difficult ten years not to say anything’: Kevin Vickers shares his story of Parliament Hill shooting

“To be involved in taking another person’s life is something that just sticks with you,” Vickers says from his home in Trout Brook, New Brunswick Photo by Ron Ward /OTTAWA CITIZEN / POST MEDIA

A decade removed from his confrontation with a jihadist gunman in the halls of Parliament, former Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers is ready to offer his full account of that day’s deadly drama. Vickers, now 68, has never before given an interview about the events of Oct. 22, 2014, when Michael Zehaf-Bibeau stormed through the front doors of Centre Block after shooting Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in the back as he stood sentry at the National War Memorial.

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Adam: Here’s what the pay of an Ontario family doctor looks like

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Dr. Salesh Budhoo, shown in his clinic, the Pearl Family Practice in Mississauga, provided a breakdown of family doctor costs and expenses to the Ottawa Citizen. Photo by Nick Kozak /POSTMEDIA

By any measure, Ontario is in the midst of a full-blown family doctor crisis as a growing number of physicians flee the practice, leaving millions of people without access to primary care. There are multiple reasons for the exodus, but doctors say the key ones include poor pay, the rising cost of business, burdensome paperwork and high workloads. But there is more to it than that. Family doctors say everything about the practice today is so stressful that the job is no longer as fulfilling as it once was. “Even though I really love it, I can see how if I was at the other end of the spectrum as a graduate, I may not choose it knowing what I know now,” says Ottawa family doctor Michael Yachnin, a 40-year veteran.

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The suicide of an Ottawa social justice advocate sparks calls for compassion, change

A photo posted by Erin O’Neil to Instagram, May 22, 2023 INSTAGRAM

CONTENT WARNING: This article mentions topics related to suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, please look for the resources at the bottom of this article.

An Ottawa social justice activist who lived with mental health and physical problems died by suicide in July as she faced eviction from her Hintonburg apartment. A certified teacher, Erin O’Neil had a sizable following on X, where she was known as veganlovebunny, and on Instagram, where she was known as madness_unhoused.

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What happened at the Barrhaven killings, according to the father’s friend and local monk

A memorial at Palmadeo Park in Barrhaven dedicated to the six people, including four children, who were found dead at a home a in Barrhaven. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA

Lying in a hospital bed nursing physical wounds and unimaginable mental trauma, Dhanushka Wickramasinghe is trying to come to terms with the horrifying deaths of his young family and a good friend.

“He is still in the shock level,” said Bhanthe Sumanarathana, a friend and resident monk at the Hilda Jayewardenaramaya Buddhist Monastery, who visited Wickramasinghe on Thursday. “I can feel it when he’s talking. He has like a dizzy mind. He can’t imagine the things that happened. It’s like a dream to him.”

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Controversial new Canadian Army logo approved at highest levels, documents show

National Defence said the Canadian Army released on May 3 was developed by the department’s internal graphic design team at no extra expense to taxpayers. Photo by Canadian Army /X (TWITTER)

A new Canadian Army logo that sparked an intense online backlash was approved at the highest level with no objections raised about the image that has since been likened to a bear having sex with a moose.

The senior level military approval process for the new Canadian Army logo started in March 2024 with a plan to roll out the image in May online, according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen.

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Why Ottawa built an LRT station in the middle of nowhere

Bowesville station for the O Train near Bowesville and Earl Armstrong roads. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA

Bowesville Station rises from the scrub and fields of south Ottawa like a shining city of steel and glass set amid a Costco-sized parking lot.

It’s the penultimate station on the Trillium Line. There isn’t a house in sight and there’s no development planned. Until further notice, it will remain mostly scrubland and cow pastures.

So when passengers are finally riding the diesel-powered trains on the long-delayed north-south route on the Trillium Line LRT, they might be forgiven for asking: “Why would anyone put a train station here?”

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Richard Smith is an award-winning French teacher. Anonymous complaints ended his 23-year career

Richard Smith, a former teacher within the Ottawa Carleton School Board for 23 years, is one of dozens of teachers being “investigated” by the board, which led to him leaving the profession in 2022, he says. His last position was a French teacher at Sir Robert Borden High School. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /POSTMEDIA

Richard Smith taught core French for 23 years. He won awards and travelled the world teaching the accelerated integrated method, a methodology for teaching a second language known as AIM.

AIM is a particularly kinetic way of teaching. It involves gestures and motions for every part of speech from nouns to verb tenses. Smith follows a script of gestures. He smooths his hair to indicate a feminine noun and twirls an imaginary moustache for a masculine noun, for example.

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Goalie goes the extra mile to serve as Senators’ emergency backup

Emergency backup goalie Zach Dietz poses with his girlfriend, Charley Healey, in Senators colours on Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024. PHOTO SUPPLIED BY ZACK DIETZ

Who was that masked man? It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it was the Ottawa Senators’ emergency backup goaltender (EBUG) trying to get to the Canadian Tire Centre to get dressed in case he was needed to face the Pittsburgh Penguins on Hockey Night in Canada.

The video of Zach Dietz, a 22-year-old goaltender with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, running with his equipment towards the rink on night of Saturday, Dec. 14 has gone viral on social media since it was posted and he’ll have a great story to tell his kids down the road.

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The mutiny at Buvette Daphnée

The restaurant Buvette Daphnée in Ottawa. Photo by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA

It was about two hours before the acclaimed ByWard Market restaurant Buvette Daphnée was to open its doors on a Friday night in late May. Servers were mopping the floor and setting up tables to conform with the night’s reservations. Chefs were scrambling at their stations, trying to assemble the ingredients they needed for the upcoming service.

Unexpectedly, according to staff who were present, Dominique Dufour — the restaurant’s celebrated chef and part owner — wanted a server to be fired. What made her decision all the more surprising was the allegation that it wasn’t because of the server’s performance, but rather because Dufour wanted to hire the server’s boyfriend, a cook. Dufour had told staff that the restaurant’s upper management had a rule that couples couldn’t work together.

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Jim Watson opens up about life after leaving office, public outrage over the LRT and Lansdowne 2.0

Jim Watson at Louis’ Pizza in Ottawa. Photo by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA

During a decade-long tenure as Ottawa’s mayor ending in late 2022, Jim Watson seemed to be everywhere. The joke he shared was that he’d show up to the opening of an envelope.

Now Watson’s profile is considerably lower, in part because he’s trying to adjust to life with colitis, the symptoms of which appeared during his final year in office. He’s on his third different medication and says it seems to have stabilized his symptoms.

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‘By far the hottest, sweatiest show of my life’: Here’s what happened when Escapade was cancelled

After the festivities at Escapade were called off on Sunday, electronic-music fans flooded the ByWard Market. Many were hoping to get into 27 Club, where the official after party was scheduled to take place. Photo by Lynn Saxberg /POSTMEDIA

Sunday, June 23 was an uncharacteristically busy night in the nation’s capital.

Thousands of people, glitter-clad and ready to rave — but with no festival to attend — flooded the streets of the ByWard Market, Centretown and surrounding neighbourhoods after one of Ottawa’s major music festivals was cancelled.

There were 45,000 attendees expected to see the sold-out festival’s final day, with the Chainsmokers and Armin Van Buuren among the biggest names set to perform.

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