The Ottawa Citizen is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Established as the Bytown Packet in 1845 by William Harris, it was renamed the Citizen in 1851. The newspaper's original motto, which has recently been returned to the editorial page, was Fair Play and Day-Light.
The paper has been through a number of owners. In 1846, Harris sold the paper to John Gordon Bell and Henry J. Friel. Robert Bell bought the paper in 1849, and sold it to I.B. Taylor in 1861. In 1877, Charles Herbert Mackintosh became the principal owner, and he later sold it to Robert and Lewis Shannon.
In 1897, the Citizen became one of several papers owned by the Southam family. It remained under Southam until the chain was purchased by Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. in 1996. In 2000, the chain was sold to Canwest Global, which was taken over by Postmedia Network in 2010.
The editorial view of the Citizen has varied with its ownership, taking a reform position under Friel, and a conservative position (supporting John A. Macdonald) under Mackintosh. When the Liberals defeated the Tory government in 1896, the owners of the Citizen decided to sell to Southam, rather than face an expected cut in government revenue. In 2002, the Citizen's publisher, Russell Mills, was dismissed following the publication of a story critical of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and an editorial calling for Chrétien's resignation.
The Citizen published its last Sunday edition on July 15, 2012. This move meant 20 fewer newsroom jobs, and was part of a series of changes made by Postmedia. The Citizen stopped producing a print edition on Mondays as of 17 October 2022, due to the costs of printing and delivery, but it continued to publish a digital Monday edition.
The pre-2014 logo depicted the top of the Peace Tower of Canada's Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. In 2014, the newspaper adopted a new logo showing the paper's name over an outline of the Peace Tower roof on a green background.
In Spring 2022, the Ottawa Citizens unduplicated print and digital average weekday (Monday to Friday) audience was 231,000 and its unduplicated average weekly (Monday to Friday and Saturday and Sunday) audience was 490,000.