Question: First of all, congratulations on over 30 years on council. I wanted to start out by asking if you had a favourite memory on council. Is there anything you’re particularly proud of?
Answer: I think one of my favourites was winning the vote for the pedestrian bridge over the canal to Ottawa university. We won that by one vote so it was very close and it was Mayor (Bob) Chiarelli at the time so we were trying to get votes around the table to ensure that we got that bridge built. That was a clean, difficult decision and it was a squeaker.
On the flip side, is there anything that you experienced in council that you were disappointed over, or something that you wish had gone differently?
Oh, lots of those. Lots of very tall buildings, 27-storey buildings that the community was very strongly opposed to. The zoning was 12 and they could have lived with something like 15 or 16 but to go to 27 was very difficult for everybody. And council didn’t care. Council was plowing ahead with 27 storeys in the downtown of Ottawa, in Centretown, and the community has just finished an Ontario Municipal Board hearing on that same subject. So that’s gone on for quite a few years. The other councillors don’t want much intensification their own wards, so they’re very happy to see it all happening downtown..
Moving forward, what do you think are some of the biggest issues facing Centretown?
I think investment in the downtown is one of the biggest issues. The federal government is leaving downtown and the office buildings are emptying and we are building a wonderful LRT system to bring everybody downtown. So, sitting down with the federal government and trying to get them to see that we need a green solution to transportation, we need a system of public transit and they need to be part of that. They need to realize that they have to keep workers in the downtown where we have public transit to access.
Given your extensive experience, do you have any advice for your successor, Catherine McKenney?
Oh, I’m sure she’s going to do well. She has to stay tied in to the local residents, make sure she’s listening to them. They want slower traffic, they want wider sidewalks, they want well-lit roads. And the business community is very strong – the businesses on Elgin, Bank, Somerset, Preston. She will be sitting on all those boards and they’re very active, very interested. You know, we have very nice, strong, vital commercial streets and she’ll be a part of that.
Is there anything you’d warn her about?
Well, everybody wants money. The fact that two per cent tax increase is quite limiting, because that means that the city will be continue to be cutting services. Inflation is more than two per cent. If you look at whatever the city is buying, it’s more than two per cent and we’re a growing city so we need some growth money. So that’s been a big problem for about the last 10 years, that in fact, we’ve been cutting every corner that we can.
In the recent election, the ratio was 20 men (including the mayor) to four women elected on council. In this city and this ward, how can we get more women involved in the issues facing Somerset Ward and Ottawa as a whole?
Well, I think that the city is doing very poorly on public consultation. That takes time; it takes money and it takes staff investment. The city, in the near past, has not been very interested in getting the public involved, but that’s the way you grow a population that is knowledgeable and interested. They come out to public meetings, they hear about things, you’re asking for opinions, but people need to be educated in order to give their opinions. So the more the city cuts back on all that public consultation, the fewer people there are who are knowledgeable and feel an interest. So that’s a big problem, but plus, women have to know that they have to start two years in advance. They have to start thinking about it, gathering a team, getting out and going to meetings and finding out all about that ward two years in advance.
On Oct. 27, the voter turnout in Somerset Ward saw a bit of a drop from about 44 per cent to 40 per cent back from 2010. Why do you think that is?
I think we have some younger people living here and young people don’t vote, in my experience. Young people don’t vote, they’re just not interested yet, they’re not involved yet. Plus, we have lots of people who are in very low incomes, too, living in some of our buildings and those people have trouble getting out. They have children or they’re not well, there are all kinds of problems and so (voting) is very low on the list of people who have low incomes. They’re having trouble getting food on the table.
So how can we get more people interested in both the issues that Somerset Ward faces and getting them out there to vote on election day?
Well, that takes having public meetings, having public gatherings and getting people knowledgeable. For example, the budget’s coming up and it was going to be done in one day as in the past, but luckily the new council seems to want more public consultation. So you have to invite people to the meeting and tell people that there’s no money for pedestrians or whatever the subject is that we know people in this ward are interested in and these are the people you need to talk to, so email everybody. So it really is a training of the population in how to become involved, how to lobby, how to get their points of view across – so that takes time and effort.
Over your career, you talked a lot about the rural-urban divide on council, as you have today. Do you feel this has improved at all?
This council may be an improvement. It hasn’t improved since the region was amalgamated when all 11 municipalities joined to be one city. The rural areas were given twice the representation, so there were 20,000 people in a rural ward and there were 40,000 people in other wards. They have twice the representation, which I never felt was fair.
So 13 years later, what is your impression of the decision to amalgamate? Do you think that was a mistake?
It was sold as a way of saving money, but every study that’s been done on amalgamation has proven that it doesn’t save money and this one did not save money. So even though we amalgamated legal departments and planning departments and saved staffing costs, when we amalgamated the fire departments, it became one union and all those firefighters came up to the level of the Ottawa union, that wiped out all the savings. And that’s true everywhere, so the Harris government said we’re going to amalgamate to save money. That never happened, it hasn’t happened, it never will happen. But, getting one area as an economic development engine has been useful, so the cities don’t compete against each other. It’s all one big city that’s out, trying to bring economic development.
As I’m sure you’re aware, Ms McKenney has proposed the idea of having an urban caucus on council. What are your thoughts on that?
I think that’s a great idea. I tried last time around to do that but Coun. (Katherine) Hobbs wasn’t very interested and so there wasn’t terribly much buy-in, but I think the councilors that we have there now, there are four, five or six of them that could really work together.
What would be the benefit of an urban council?
I think there will be more discussion around the table about the needs of the people who live in the downtown areas, explaining that to other councillors and coming forward with sort-of joint platforms. So if the budget has nothing for pedestrians in it, there’s more than one person talking about that, there may be five or six or seven that want to see more pedestrian infrastructure built.
For the new council, what do you feel is their biggest challenge moving forward?
There’s so many new ones. I think learning how to do things is a problem – learning the staff, the right person to go to. If you want something done, you have to sit down with staff and talk about it and get your residents involved. It’s a lot of work to bring in new things, so I think that will be a major challenge. It’s unfortunate that they’re doing the budget so soon. Previously, the budget for a new council would be postponed a couple of months so that they could actually learn about the budget and have meetings with their staff and have meetings with their residents. But things happen at top-speed now. It’s too rushed.
Is there anything you hope council does, or issues they tackle, in the next four years?
Well, there are lots of things . . . like the Elgin Street patios. (They) are a problem that needs to be resolved. There are still way too many intersections that the pedestrian doesn’t have the right of way, all kinds of work in the transportation field to get pedestrians and cyclists moving up the ladder, and trying to take control back from the automobiles.
In terms of your own plans for yourself then, what does that look like in the immediate or even the long-term future?
Oh, more exercise. I’m going to be at the Plant Recreation Centre exercising, cross-country skiing, playing golf, doing some travelling, and seeing much more of my grandchildren and my kids as I haven’t been able to in the past. Taking care of my cottage, and joining volunteer groups.
How will you stay involved in the Centretown, Somerset Ward scene?
I’ll be doing some very grassroots stuff like little guerilla gardening, where you go and plant public lands without telling anybody you’re planting them. Get some trees planted.
Well, thank you so much for speaking with us.
Okay, thank you. My pleasure.