Ottawa, like many cities, has enacted bylaws to restrict that practice, but there is no way of knowing if that is working or how the short-term rentals are affecting the rental market.

Yup. No way to know. Unknowable. It cannot be known.

Didn't Ricochet do an audit of Airbnb that helped Quebec pass their pretty awesome law?

EDIT: shouldn't the city of Ottawa collect stats on the apartment effectiveness of their new legislation?

I read a story a couple weeks ago about a single mother who went back to Ukraine, rather than stay in Canada. She felt her odds of living a stable life were better in a literal warzone, with bombs falling from the sky, than they would be in unaffordable Canada.