Oh Ottawa, how I miss thee...
Anyway most people have noted the highlights. If you only have one night, I'd say wandering around downtown - Parliament, Byward Market, Elgin Street and Bank Street (if you like independent shops) are probably pretty good for an evening. Check out Parliament if you can get a tour and/or the light show is on, maybe wander around a bit and check out the views (I can't remember the street/bridge right now, down by the hotel, but you can easily walk over that bridge to the Gatineau side and get a gorgeous view looking back of Parliament Hill and Ottawa downtown), and then finish off with a later bite to eat and drink in the Byward Market (basically very near to Parliament).
As others have noted, the War Museum is fantastic. We also LOVED the Museum of Civilization (big curved type looking building just across the river from Parliament) in Gatineau. Very well done and fantastic museum.
The National Gallery is also great. Even if you are not "into" art, it is great to see and is quite nice. Also easy to combine doing with any of the above.
Kind of depends what you are into. You could also walk the canal from downtown out to Landsdowne (whatever its called now?) Park, where is where the Red blacks play. Not too far of a walk, and you see the canal and random embassies of countries as you walk along. I used to live about a 5-10min walk from Landsdowne (old ottawa south), great, great area.
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