Today's letters: Why can't the city clean up violent crime downtown?
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My uncle, 80 years old, in good shape, just sometimes confused about days of the week, went downtown to celebrate Canada Day on July 3. He ended up in the hospital with bruises, a broken hip and a smashed-up face because he was violently attacked, beaten and kicked. He was also robbed.
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I am wondering how in this day and age we can welcome visitors to the downtown core and trust that such violent acts won't happen to them. This government promised to look at crime but obviously it has seeped through the cracks again.
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The City of Ottawa encourages people to visit the ByWard Market area to help businesses. No way would I do such a thing. I knew it was unsafe but not to this extent. How about possibly cleaning up the downtown core like you used to prior to COVID? This area has obviously turned into a crime show, between the drug addicts, the homeless and whatever else.
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It seems that additional police services have been provided to the Market, but I wonder how much security is needed to make it safe for us and our visitors. It seems to be out of control.
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When will the Doug Ford government think beyond quick base appeasement and actually study the possible outcomes of its populist decisions? Its ideologically driven choices have: favoured privatization of our health care, resulting in a battle for limited resources to the detriment of public medicine; a rush to sell alcohol on every corner, resulting in the loss hundreds of millions of dollars, and the loss of facilities to return recyclable empties; and now, the closing of safe injection sites that had been housed in well-resourced community health centres.
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