Twitter and Facebook have both been pretty clear about last night's debate: there has yet to be a real summary of what was said and what went on from anyone. While I did a Live Tweet of the debate, there is no solid write up of what was said and how people reacted short of Tim Wieclawski's article about the wetlands issue. So, rather than my Ward 8 summary, I'll begin this blog with an editorialization about last night's debate.
The Environmental Debate was hosted by Ecology Ottawa (as well as a slew of other community groups) at St. Paul University. In attendance were Cesar Bello, Clive Doucet, Robin Lawrence, Mike Maguire, Larry O'Brien, Jane Scharf, Charlie Taylor, and Jim Watson. Not on the candidates list, but attended were Joseph Furtenbacher and Andrew Haydon.
Before the debate could begin there was some confusion and frustration. The moderator, Patrick Quealey, introduced the candidates that R.S.V.P for the event, but Haydon was not a part of the group nor was their a chair for him to sit in. However, he acquired a microphone and explained who he was, why he was not sitting and what he stood for. Moderator Quealey informed Mr. Haydon that there wasn't time for opening remarks and set out the ground rules. Prior to the debate, Ecology Ottawa held a poll which they would use to determine the temperature of the questions to be asked. Immediately Ms. Scharf took offence to the questions and exclaimed that the questions were "loaded". Moderator Quealey explained that the questions were not given in advance to help quell the confusion, but Ms. Scharf may have been referring to the polling questions and as such she chose to leave the debate. Joseph Furtenbacher took Ms. Scharf's seat which later caused an issue when moderator Quealey did not know who he was and asked him to give up the seat to Haydon who was informally invited to join the debate. We also had a disruption from the overflow at the front door as the venue was too small, but regardless, the debate proceeded without too many hiccups. Since it was a debate about the environment the hot button topics were around alternative transportation options (cycling, bus, LRT), waste management, land and urban sprawl.
Pedestrian and cycling routes within the City of Ottawa have always been a topic. Where I live in Ward 8, I do not experience the same issues as those living downtown experience. I have many options to walk and cycle around my area without many issues. However, I will not cycle down Baseline Road. It's dangerous with the number of speeders and dangerous drivers already. Throwing a bicycle into the mix just seems insane to me. That said, Doucet had the most passionate position. I suppose because he is an avid cyclist himself, but he wants to see the city build more bridges like the Corkstown bridge. He also wants to bring together Ottawa with Gatineau, OC Transpo, STO and the NCC to increase alternatives to driving around our city. Candidate Taylor is also an avid cyclist, but took aim at the newly minted uPass for ruining the cycling option for students. Alas, Taylor missed the mark with the uPass and should have went for the price tag which nets the city over $20-million.
Waste management was another topic that hot a lot of buzz around it. Everyone agrees that waste in the city of Ottawa is an issue from our main streets all the way to our dump facilities. Doucet wants to see a return to recycling options along the main streets and additionally wishes for businesses to be involved in alternative waste strategies with regulations. Maguire, however, is dead against the Green Bin initiative because it mixes household scraps with animal byproducts, which should not be sent to local farmers (as O'Brien states the city does) to be fed to livestock being bred for human consumption. This is a pretty heavy allegation that Maguire is making that has legal ramifications if in fact our green bins are being used to feed livestock for our consumption. Watson was, for the most part, was looking to pat himself on the back for bring Plasco to the Ottawa area, but took heat for the sewer spillage during him term in 1998 from O'Brien. This was one of the issues where the two of them grandstanded quite a bit and it became a silly muddled debate. The concensus was we will have a dump for a long time running, but we need alternatives like solar and wind (Taylor), Plasco (Maguire) and recycling options increased (Doucet).
With the topic of waste management also came the topic if public land. This was a topic that centered around Lansdowne Park for Doucet and Taylor, with Taylor referring to Lansdowne as a 40 acre parking lot. True, at the moment, there is ample parking there, but development of Lansdowne Park is fast approaching. Doucet, as councillor, has been opposed to closed-door development of the area and does not support building up commercial space on the property. The one thing people forget about Lansdowne Park is that the land was designed as a central gathering space in the city following the Central Canada Exhibition. It was designed to have park lands and sports fields together. But, the city decided to build on it and turn this downtown green-space into a paved lot. O'Brien wants to continue forward because it's the right thing for the city (his words, not mine), but the crowd denounced this sort of action. In other land topics, Doucet repitched his land bank idea where the city would buy up available lands and protect them for city interests. Watson also pitched the land bank idea which Doucet took exception asking "where have you been for the last nine months" referring to Watson's plans on land banking and freezing recreational fees sounding a lot like Doucet's own already known platform topics.
On the topic of urban sprawl, there were interesting discussion. O'Brien wants to extend the urban boundary and to continue with the Ring Road plan. Maguire cautioned against the environmental impact and explained quite well that pushing out the urban boundary might be an issue we cannot foresee in the future. Haydon (I know, I have not said much about him... primarily because most of what he had to say were detractions, much the same with Lawrence) warned of the infrastructure cost of feeding these new boundaries. Taylor, as my wife believes, had an interesting idea of vertical zoning. In a city like Ottawa, that would not work... We have a huge land mass and everyone wants a lawn.
Finally, what about transit? I know I speak of it a little in means of cycling etc, but public transit was a very hot button topic. It was the only topic that had me vocally shout something. Haydon suggested we had the second best transit in the country which had be blurt out "how would you know? When was the last time YOU took the bus?". Doucet wants to scrap the tunnel and put in light rail transit and integrate the transit like Vancouver. More ambitious is he wants it done in four years, not ten or more. O'Brien wants to take buses off the surface streets and put them underground in a tunnel that is, according to Lawrence, dangerous (re: earthquake in July). The issue of transit had only one clear winner... Doucet. Yes, I know I am bias, but let's be fair; the city deserves something now, not another decade from now. The transit-way opened under a busted idea and now we're sitting in a city with a sub-par system that can take up to 2 hours to cross the city because of badly designed and managed bus routes.
All in all, the candidates were interesting to listen to. O'Brien was slick as ever giving his feedback on how amazing he has been as mayor (killing LRT, raising taxes 14%, etc.); Watson was walking the line and taking other peoples ideas; Maguire was the rural based candidate with rural ideas (believe me, I admire that), Haydon piped in and made little sidebars but really never said anything new; Doucet railed against land issues, Lansdowne development, offered interesting solutions to transit and land issues and took the heat for it from the stage, but cheers from the crowd; Lawrence had his little sidebars and stories, but attacked O'Brien more often than not; and Taylor displayed youthful enthusiasm, though I doubt will win anything this go around, but I see him in politics for a very long time.
W.
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