Apartment613

Courtesy of www.ottawa.ca

Living in Ottawa – it’s tough not to recognize the name Clive Doucet. He’s known for his tough stance on Lansdowne, his strong opinions on the role of cities and his outspoken opposition to the status quo at city hall. Apartment613 did a quick virtual “sit down” with councillor Doucet and got his take on some of the issues facing our city. We hope to continue this series with other Ottawa city counselors. If you’re reading this Larry, email editors@apt613.ca to set up an interview.

What are some of Ottawa’s strengths relative to other Canadian cities? What are our weaknesses?

CD: Ottawa’s strengths are that we have a higher proportion of well educated people, preserved green space courtesy of the NCC, and abundant fresh water. Ottawa’s weaknesses include a unique amalgamation of vast rural areas with suburban and urban areas (Ottawa is the largest Canadian city by surface area but only fourth and just barely so by population) which inherently do not share similar needs/wants where once-size-fits-all solutions don’t work well . The City continues a firm pattern of spending proportionally more on roads at a rate which surpasses our population growth while deferring investments in lower operating cost modes of transportation. Lastly a perception that we are environmentally responsible while we lag behind other municipalities in recycling, composting and properly treating all our sewer waste.

Your 2007 book Urban Meltdown argued that “politicians who deviate from the car-based sprawl model cannot get elected.” However, this year City councils in Toronto and Vancouver approved plans to close down a busy lane of traffic in order to create more space for bike paths. Do you think that bikers are gaining more political influence in city halls across the country? Is this happening within Ottawa as well?

CD: Yes to the first question and no to the second. Cyclists have made political gains in other Canadian cities . Montreal has also seen car lanes converted to segregated bike lanes in the last few years. This hasn’t happened in Ottawa because the political cohesion required to overturn the cars-first planning and cars-first spending at City Hall hasn’t happened. Advocates in Ottawa’s cycling community have been fighting amongst themselves between those who favour bicycle lanes and those who favour cyclists sharing travel lanes with cars. This divisive dispute in the cycling community has been very public at times and undermined changing the car-based status quo. It took us years to create the city’s Cycling Plan. This represents progress albeit slow but we are not yet funding implementation of that plan at a rate which will see the 5-year targets met. Our Cycling Plan remains less ambitious in its implementation than what you see in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

If you had had the chance to be mayor for a month, what would you do?

I would reset the city’s Transportation Master Plan priorities to what they should be: investing light rail, dedicated cycling lanes and pedestrian infrastructure now while deferring investment in the less sustainable and higher maintenance cost of buses and car infrastructure. This would set us on a course of healthier, lower energy and lower operating costs for the entire city. It would mean starting on surface light rail to the suburbs now as opposed to a far off dream of a downtown tunnel. Ottawa is already decades behind comparable or smaller cities in this regard.

You’ve dealt with municipal issues at all three levels of government – the Federal Ministry of Urban Affairs, the Ontario Municipal Affairs Ministry’s local government reform section and now as a local city councilor. In your opinion, what is the single most important reform that could be undertaken to improve the lot of cities in general or Ottawa in particular at either the federal, provincial and municipal level?

Tax reform. The municipal tax system is unfair to residents, unfair to cities and wholly inadequate to fund the level of government that provides the most vital services to 80% of the population. The current market value assessment system we have is a subsidy to sprawl and unsustainable development. The property tax system should encourage more sustainable living arrangements and not be tied to market speculation about property values. A share of some combination of GST or income taxes should be diverted from federal and provincial governments directly to municipalities to lessen the burden on the property tax base.

What’s your take on the results of the O’Brien trial? will it effect the way the city runs from now until the next election?

For a politician who was elected on tax freeze agenda there’s an irony that he’s done the most to put upward pressure on taxes: his voting record or major capital projects like the Congress Centre and new roads in every annual budget, the $260 million lawsuit from the light rail cancellation, the disastrously costly transit strike, the downtown tunnel. Now that he’s back we can expect more of the same such as $150 million towards a stadium and shopping centre at Lansdowne.