Health and general reporter Ottawa Citizen. Story idea? 613 219-6632 or [email protected]

Ottawa
Joined December 2010
Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
The self-described most transparent administration has restricted specific journalists from major mainstream news outlets from attending the G20 finance meeting in N.C. next week nytimes.com/2026/08/29/busin…
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
We are aware that Lake Ontario is being incorrectly labeled on our outage map. The issue originates from a third-party mapping service. We are working with our vendor to correct the issue as quickly as possible and restore the proper geographic reference. We regret the error and apologize for any confusion it has caused.
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
I’m on a VIA train that just collided with a car at Fallowfield - just west of the station. We came to a sudden stop but no injuries on the train. Occupant of the car apparently survived, according to VIA employees. Chaotic situation in a neighborhood that has seen this before.
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
We’ve been covering settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank for years. But yesterday, we found ourselves on the menu. A group of masked settlers beat our team and pummelled the 51 year old woman we were interviewing unconscious. We’re all ok now - and Aida is out of the hospital - but this is just one incident among an unprecedented surge in settler violence across the West Bank. Here’s out story on yesterday’s attack on Sunday Today on @NBCNews. #Israel #WestBank @TODAYshow
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
The US has become lazy and apathetic. Not every one there, of course, but collectively. It is committing superpower suicide. It has elected a criminal who is governing like a mobster. He is destroying US democratic norms, losing a war against Iran that he has epically bungled, destroying the alliances that have helped make the US so powerful, all the while enriching himself and his family. While he is openly doing all that, and more, many Republicans are standing by (some approve, of course, and actively help Trump; others disapprove, but scared and cowed, they only care about keeping a low profile and surviving) while the Democrats mostly squabble and fail to mount a serious opposition.
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
Love this!!
Robert De Niro stands with Canada. 🇨🇦✊ When Trump attacks our neighbors, silence is not the answer. Stand up for Canada. Stand up for democracy.
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
For over a year, Canada has worked intensively and in good faith with the United States to negotiate a new comprehensive trade deal. We have been pragmatic, patient, and persistent. Our goal has always been to get the best deal for Canadians, never a deal at any price or on any time frame.   Late last evening I instructed our negotiators to return to Ottawa. We cannot accept what the U.S. has offered, and we will not give what they have asked.    Canada will match the U.S.’ new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses. We take this step confident that it is in the best interests of Canada.    In the coming days, we will release the details of these new tariff measures, which will come into force the Tuesday after Labour Day.
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
What the NATO intern spy charges say about public service security screening ottawacitizen.com/public-ser…
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
"A was the case during covid, Trump’s main concern is not to actually fix problems, but to prevent anyone from pointing out that they exist. He divides the world into good people who flatter him and evil people who don’t. Whatever irritation he expresses with Hegseth in private, he knows his sycophantic defense secretary is fully on team flattery, and that’s all that really matters." publicnotice.co/p/us-munitio…
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
New: Hospitals have started to submit cost-cutting plans at the behest of the Ford government. The government is promising there will be no service cuts — but won't share the plans publicly, saying that doing so could be bad for the economy. #onpoli thetrillium.ca/insider-news/…
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
Emily Wilson after watching the Odyssey: ‘The film presents an Odysseus who feels very bad about things that he's done in war, and is struggling to process them in a very modern, psychiatrised way – and needs drugs to do so! He seems to feel bad about being a warrior, and we never actually see him get to do much warrioring ... Nolan makes the protagonist a likeable, all-American hero; Homer's Odysseus wants glory, and he wants to get spoils from the sack of a city! I kept looking in vain for a sense that this was a film about glory. This is a film that has an interest in shame, but I don't think it has any interest in glory.’
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
There are currently 838 wildfires burning across Canada. More than 100 are in northwestern Ontario, sending thick smoke to the Great Lakes and Northeast U.S.
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
I live in Northwestern Ontario. Right now, the Boreal forest is burning. I'm writing this beneath the dark orange plume from the Quetico wildfires. These are some of the reports coming out as communities fight to survive: "No fire crews left for new fires." "We had no warning." Families are self-evacuating by private boat across lakes because they didn't receive evacuation information. They're fleeing towering flames with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This is unacceptable in a province as wealthy as Ontario. I'm calling out Doug Ford. His government has underfunded Ontario's wildfire management capacity by tens of millions of dollars. @fordnation you want our Ring of Fire, our water, our forests. You want to store nuclear waste in our bedrock and run an oil pipeline through our watersheds. But you won't work with northern communities. You make decisions for us without us, and then fail to provide the basic public services we PAY FOR and rely on: wildfire protection, health care, education, safe highways and social services. Northern Ontario deserves better than this feckless leadership. #onpoli #onted #70KIsNotOK #cdnpolitics #DontLookAwayOntario #ABC
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
"Detained Gaza doctor almost unrecognisable after injuries in Israeli jail. Hussam Abu Safiya faces ‘tangible danger to his life’ following 18 months in prison without charge or trial" theguardian.com/world/2026/j…
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
Trump, Musk and Rubio slashed aid and scoffed that it was woke nonsense. Now they're seeing that it not only saved one life every 10 seconds but also protected us from diseases like Ebola. Their actions constituted a security failure as well as a moral one. More broadly, their fecklessness contrasts with the courage and humanity of doctors and aid workers in Congo and Uganda, lacking adequate PPE but still risking the virus to care for fellow humans. Trump, Musk and Rubio might learn something from them. nytimes.com/2026/06/03/opini…
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Elizabeth Payne 🇨🇦 retweeted
From this date six years ago. This many still die from covid per year in the US but I guess it isn't an incalculable loss now.
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