Ottawa police say they are responding to a tornado that touched down in a suburb in the city’s south end. Police are advising residents to seek shelter. They say officers are responding in Barrhaven and the surrounding areas. Reports of injuries or structural damage have yet to surface. Ottawa Fire Services says firefighters and structural…

Ottawa police say nearly two dozen people suffered drug overdoses over the weekend in the country’s capital city. The Ottawa Police Service says it responded to 19 drug-related overdoses on Saturday, and another three on Sunday morning. Police say emergency responders and civilians administered naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, in many of the…

Hundreds of people gathered on Parliament Hill Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy protest against COVID-19 restrictions last winter. The day was festive, and reminiscent of the atmosphere when the convoy first arrived in the nation’s capital at the end of January 2022. Music was played, and people were seen waving…

Ottawa police were so concerned about leaks from Freedom Convoy sympathizers in their ranks that they proactively shut off the email accounts of members on leave, but now the force has little to say about how real those fears turned out to be. The Public Order Emergency Commission investigating the federal Liberal government’s use of…

Following the Nov. 2 revelation by a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission that law enforcement intelligence was leaked to the Freedom Convoy during the protest, Ottawa Interim Police Chief Steve Bell said an investigation is underway. “We’ve already, as of last night, initiated an internal investigation,” Bell told a parliamentary committee on Oct….

Brenda Lucki not only lost confidence in the leadership of former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly over the “Freedom Convoy” protests, the RCMP commissioner was so concerned she was prepared to go directly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a public inquiry learned Thursday. Lucki’s comments were released in the form of notes taken during a…

The former chief of the Ottawa police says his officers couldn’t have done anything materially differently during the response to the “Freedom Convoy.” A summary report of an interview with Peter Sloly has been submitted as evidence at the public inquiry investigating the federal government’s unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act in February. In it,…

The former chair of Ottawa’s police board says the chief of police told her in late January that he would be very surprised if the “Freedom Convoy” protesters stayed for longer than one weekend. Former police board chair and current city councillor Diane Deans is speaking at the federal inquiry into the government’s use of…

The City of Ottawa has promised strict enforcement of new, hefty fines as it heads into Canada Day weekend. A tweet from the Ottawa By-law account on June 29 publicized the new $1000 fines for things such as “unusual noise,” shouting, public urination or defication, encumbering a highway, or idling. Please be advised, a number of…

Ottawa Police said they identified two persons of interest but no public safety concerns as they continued to investigate an incident that briefly led to the evacuation of Parliament Hill. Police said in a news release that they received information Saturday about a potential threat near the parliamentary precinct, prompting them to close some surrounding…