Trillium Line
The LRT Trillium Line remains under construction while the City of Ottawa’s finance committee determines the amount of time and funding needed for its completion. Photo taken at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ont. on Tuesday, November 1, 2022. [Photo by Matthew Robertson/The Charlatan]

Disclaimer: This article is published under the Charlatan’s satire section, the Partisan. All quotes and names have been fabricated.

You could say sh*t genuinely hit the fan for Ottawa’s O-Train Line 2 (Trillium Line) expansion Sunday night, when the lead project co-ordinator felt more than just a drop of rain splash his forehead.

“You want to keep whining about how much bad luck this LRT has caused Ottawa?” asked Trillium Line executive, Peter de Lays. “Imagine getting pooped on the head point-blank by a migrating goose at 10 p.m. in the f*cking dark—that’s the worst bloody luck I’ve ever had.”

De Lays, a Sprott graduate who majored in how to make construction take longer and cost more, quickly informed staff on site that the the Trillium Line project would be postponed until further notice—or until death, if that comes first. 

His recovery from the feces-inflicted blunt force trauma would require at least a lifetime of rest, he told the Charlatan while sipping on a “black coffee” the Bridgehead barista secretly filled with milk, brown sugar and green canal water.

Construction supervisor Hans van Guard says he wishes de Lays an LRT-speed recovery over the next 50 years but looks forward to a much-needed “eternity leave” from the project himself after spending 40 hours a week pretending to write important things in a colouring book every time students walked by.

“As a Carleton engineering graduate, I honestly never could’ve imagined doing something that useful and productive with my Frosh-fringed lazy ass,” he said.

With de Lays now also in long-term recovery after ingesting fish poo in his coffee, van Guard spoke on the executive’s behalf to estimate a revised Trillium Line reopening date of September 3005. He clarified this decision to reschedule further isn’t at all influenced by his love for Childish Gambino, though his construction credo is.

“If Donald Glover really has the power to just say, ‘This is America,’ then screw it—this is f*cking Canada and we’re going to take the rest of the millennium to finish this damn project once, and once only,” asserted van Guard, who then spent three days trying to find an exit from the Mackenzie Building.

Besides, he added, the plan was obviously never to let generation Z use the O-Train in their lifetime anyway.

“I mean, everyone already knows what ‘LRT’ really stands for: Late-Running Tricks.”


Photo by Matthew Robertson/The Charlatan