By Jeremy Chenier
Business and community leaders are embracing a proposal to amalgamate Ottawa-Carleton’s 11 municipalities into one big city.
They say the plan, if approved, will mean better international recognition, help with social housing and make it easier for citizens to understand local government.
“I would say, in the grand measure, having a restructured one-city by next December is good news for us,” says Somerset city Coun. Elisabeth Arnold.
Special adviser Glen Shortliffe presented a report recommending the amalgamation of the region to the provincial government on Nov. 26. His report calls for a new and restructured single city of Ottawa made up of the existing municipalities in Ottawa-Carleton.
The province has introduced legislation that closely follows the report, but there are three major changes.
Shortliffe proposed an 18 member council for a bilingual Ottawa, with equal taxation for the entire city. The province wants a unilingual city, a 20-member council and different tax rates for different parts of the city.
The propsed legislation will dissolve the current municipalities and replace them with the new city on Jan. 1, 2001.
Regional Coun. Diane Holmes also says the plan is good news for residents.
“I think it will make it easier for the public to understand that there’s just one government responsible for everything,” she says. “It’s very confusing for most members of the public to know who is responsible for what and this will simplify the matter and make the decision making more transparent and clearer for Centretown residents.”
Holmes also says a single city will be able to attract more international attention. She says that in the past representatives of other cities at international conferences simply could not understand what regional government was and this hurt the region’s representation abroad.
Meanwhile, the improved representation should help business in the region to develop as the unified set of bylaws brought about by amalgamation will create a level playing field says Bank Street Promenade Business Improvement Area executive director Gerry LePage.
“What it’s going to do for Ottawa, most importantly, is it’s going to speak with a single economic voice,” he says.
“That doesn’t only entail the images we’re going to be sending out to the global or national marketplace but also with respect to our own policies and by laws.”
The plan is particularly good news for the current city of Ottawa’s social housing programs, according to Raymond Sullivan, who represents Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, a non-profit housing group.
Sullivan says that each city in Ontario is responsible for its own social housing programs. This leaves the current city of Ottawa with the bill for housing that actually serves people from across Eastern Ontario who move to the downtown core. He says the broader tax base in the new city will spread the support of social housing in a more equitable way.
But Sullivan fears the power that will be given to a few people during the one-year transition period from the old municipal structure to the new.
Shortliffe’s plan calls for a transition team, made up of provincially appointed trustees, to assume the powers of council in order to ease the old cities into the new mold. Both Sullivan and Arnold worry that these trustees will have too much say.
“These appointed trustees . . . are going to be controlling and deciding what to do with all of the existing assets of each of the old municipalities and the larger new municipality,” says Sullivan. “That’s fundamentally undemocratic and the people of Centretown and the people of Ottawa don’t get a say in what happens with their own property.”
According to Arnold, this may undermine city of Ottawa’s proposed budget for next year. The budget relies on money that will come from restructuring Ottawa Hydro. But now it seems the provincial government may use the money for severance pay instead.
Arnold also has concerns about the workload for the members of the new council.
She says that in addition to their current workload councillors will be expected to sit on more boards controlling such things as police services, libraries and health services.
“That, quite frankly is just not really do-able if you’re going to keep as well-informed of the issues before you.”
The province’s act will be passed by the end of the year and will be in effect for the 2000 municipal elections.