By Sara Ditta
This month, residents will be able to engage and impact public policy from the comfort of their home computer.
The city has launched Beyond Ottawa 20/20, an initiative to review the city’s official plan and transportation and infrastructure master plans that were adopted in 2003. City staff have put together nine white papers dealing with separate issues, ranging from transportation to climate change.
They are consulting the public in a variety of ways, including using the Internet for the first time, through an online discussion called Ottawa Talks.
“It’s a big step for the city, in regards to using Web 2.0 technology to listen to residents,” says Nik Nanos, a developer and moderator of Ottawa Talks. “We need to engage residents on their own terms.”
Extending the consultation online effectively establishes the city as a leader in democratic engagement and modern technology, he says.
Leslie Patterson, a program manager for city planning, calls the online forum a “virtual town hall” and hopes the tool will lead to greater public participation and engagement.
She says the city has never before used this technology to reach the public, but expects more than 1,000 responses to the online forum, compared to about 200 people who would likely attend the busiest town hall meeting.
Nanos, a well-known pollster, describes the online forum as a combination of Facebook, blog and research platform.
Beyond the convenience, there are advantages to going online to discuss policy, he says. Users can rate conversations and identify comments they agree or disagree with, all of which will be entered into the final report by city staff.
“When you have a regular consultation meeting, it’s hard to know what proportion of people in the meeting actually agree or disagree,” Nanos says. “(Ottawa Talks) is not just a conversation, there is actually information that is shared through the dialogue.”
However, he says only researchers will have access to this information due to privacy.
The forum provides a handful of questions about each white paper, to which residents can respond and discuss.
The mayor and city councillors are also getting in on the action.
Bay Coun. Alex Cullen has already started posting on the online forum.
He commented on the state of the bus system, which sparked an opinionated discussion.
“You start the ball rolling and watch the debate take a life of its own,” he says. “It’s clear that there are people who are interested in these issues and have opinions to express.”
E-governance expert Thomas Riley says using the Internet for debate has become a hot trend for policymakers because it makes it easier for people to engage with government. But he says it is currently more common at the national level in Canada. However, some other places, such as Britain, are already using similar technology in every major municipality.
“It’s a useful tool because it’s a way of getting people to interact with the government beyond formal briefs amongst professional stakeholders,” Riley says. “It facilitates more responses.”
But Luddites should not fret. Riley says it is unlikely that online forums will replace face-to-face interactions with constituents anytime soon.
Patterson says Ottawa Talks should complement to face-to-face interaction. A variety of other tools will be used to connect with the public including meetings, letters, phone calls, focus groups and even street surveys.
She says she wants to see as much dialogue as possible about these issues, no matter the methods residents choose.
The white paper format is also new for the city, but Nancy Schepers, deputy city manager of planning and environment, says it provides an opportunity for the public to debate issues without having recommendations already provided to them.
The consultation is a renewal of the original plan from 2003 because the core objectives are still the same, Schepers says.
“People aren’t saying to throw it all out and start over again,” she says. “Generally, they agree . . . and it’s now about implementation and how we can do it better.”
Schepers says the main issues for Centretown residents are transportation and residential intensification.
Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes says improving transit and making sustainable ways of travel more competitive will be of major importance as well.
Public consultations run until Dec. 9 and will include a public meeting at Lansdowne Park on Nov. 24. The Ottawa Talks forum is available at http://ottawa.econsultation.ca/.