Capital Xtra! - History

History

Xtra Ottawa was launched by Pink Triangle Press in 1993, shortly after the organization learned that Ottawa's existing LGBT publication, GO Info, had largely collapsed and was publishing irregularly with only a skeleton staff. Brandon Matheson, then a freelance journalist working in the Parliament Hill Press Gallery, was chosen to launch the project in conjunction with George Hartsgrove, then an administrator at the University of Ottawa. GO Info briefly tried to beef up its content in the face of its new competition, but folded in early 1994.

In 2007, Ottawa City Council attempted to pass restrictions on the paper's distribution in public facilities after a complaint was filed by Greg Evans. Evans, a father who sat down to read the newspaper while his eight-year-old son was participating in basketball practice at the Hunt Club-Riverside Community Centre, was reportedly offended by the sexually explicit nature of two advertisements in the publication. Evans stated that he was LGBT-friendly and that his complaint was not motivated by homophobia, but by a concern for the possibility of exposing children to sexually explicit material regardless of whether that material was gay or straight in nature.

In March 2010, Capital Xtra was rebranded Xtra Ottawa with the launch of a redesign of the Xtra papers in the Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver markets.