Councillor Clive Doucet sponsored an excellent forum, “Governing Ottawa Better”, last evening in the council chamber at City Hall. It was very well attended; there was a well informed panel of speakers; and there was lots of opportunity for individual citizens to speak and make their views known.
I think that a majority of people attending were likely in favor of some form of re-amalgamation of the city from its present structure. However, we also learned that getting the mission accomplished might not be easy.
There a couple of ways that a re-amalgamation (sounds more positive than de-amalgamation!) could be pursued by:
- local referendum or
- direct legislative change initiated by City Council.
Both options have pros and cons, but either way the provincial government has to buy in. The past history of attempts to de-amalgamate in the Province of Ontario shows that the government has rejected past attempts on the basis of uncertainty regarding fiscal sustainability, adverse property tax shifts (property tax fairness) and lack of council endorsement. Any proposal to change the present municipal structure would have to address the first two issues effectively. This requires a lot of effort.
If this initiative moves forward Clive and his team will need a lot of help and support.
If you are willing to help lobby your local MPP for municipal reform in Ottawa, or participate in working groups looking at alternate governance structures, please visit Clive’s web site. Electronic copies of a governance questionnaire are also available at Clive’s web site: http://www.clivedoucet.com/.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
A great public forum on city governance
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Hard to believe
I was amazed to learn that Ottawa City Council was unable to debate the issue of the pilot project for a transit pass for University of Ottawa students (24,000 of them) on what appears to be a rules of procedure technicality. So there will be no pilot project even though council’s transportation committee had voted unanimously in favor of the program.
According to Patrick Dare (Ottawa Citizen, Councillors vote against waiving rules for debate, March 12, 2009) city solicitor Rick O'Connor said council should waive the rules of procedure because the university pass issue was already debated on in December 2008 and he was supported on this issue by the mayor. The required three quarters majority required to waive the rules was of course not there, good going Mr. Mayor!
To my recollection this debate was never completed, because council agreed to resume debate on the issue after the budget was passed and this indication was certainly given to students attending the council meeting back in December. And of course the transit strike has further delayed resumption of any discussions.
It is now unlikely that a student pass will be available in the City of Ottawa for several years. This is particularly unfortunate at a time when the city is trying to recover ridership figures again after a long and inconvenient transit strike.
According to Patrick Dare (Ottawa Citizen, Councillors vote against waiving rules for debate, March 12, 2009) city solicitor Rick O'Connor said council should waive the rules of procedure because the university pass issue was already debated on in December 2008 and he was supported on this issue by the mayor. The required three quarters majority required to waive the rules was of course not there, good going Mr. Mayor!
To my recollection this debate was never completed, because council agreed to resume debate on the issue after the budget was passed and this indication was certainly given to students attending the council meeting back in December. And of course the transit strike has further delayed resumption of any discussions.
It is now unlikely that a student pass will be available in the City of Ottawa for several years. This is particularly unfortunate at a time when the city is trying to recover ridership figures again after a long and inconvenient transit strike.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Signs of Spring and Municipal Elections in the Air
Although there are still twenty months to go before the next municipal election in Ottawa, there’s lots of talk about council leadership. This results from speculation around the possible outcome of mayor Larry O’Brien’s upcoming trial as well as public concerns regarding council performance as a whole.
There are calls for new candidates to come forward and challenge incumbent councillors, many of whom have been in place, virtually unchallenged, for far too long. Along with this some are suggesting political parties at the municipal level, and term limits for councillors.
Term limits might not be needed if voters have more than one viable candidate to select from at election time. It is costly to run an effective campaign, making it increasingly difficult for newcomers to run against incumbents. A party approach might help here as the party organization can work on fundraising and community issues more effectively between elections.
Changes will also be needed in the area of funding of political parties and financing of municipal election campaigns. Right now the province’s municipal elections act permits funding for candidates from corporate sources and this has led to perceptions of conflict of interest for many candidates and incumbents. This will become even more pronounced if political parties are involved. Either way, changes to the elections act similar to those enacted at the federal level are needed urgently.
Changes of this sort will not come easily as similar campaign funding rules are also in place at the provincial level. It would be a tall order to get necessary changes in municipal elections act enacted before the next election. It has been suggested that political reform should come from within the community and cities (Problem of Leadership, Ottawa Citizen, March 5, 2009) but current provincial laws and regulations prevent this from happening.
There are calls for new candidates to come forward and challenge incumbent councillors, many of whom have been in place, virtually unchallenged, for far too long. Along with this some are suggesting political parties at the municipal level, and term limits for councillors.
Term limits might not be needed if voters have more than one viable candidate to select from at election time. It is costly to run an effective campaign, making it increasingly difficult for newcomers to run against incumbents. A party approach might help here as the party organization can work on fundraising and community issues more effectively between elections.
Changes will also be needed in the area of funding of political parties and financing of municipal election campaigns. Right now the province’s municipal elections act permits funding for candidates from corporate sources and this has led to perceptions of conflict of interest for many candidates and incumbents. This will become even more pronounced if political parties are involved. Either way, changes to the elections act similar to those enacted at the federal level are needed urgently.
Changes of this sort will not come easily as similar campaign funding rules are also in place at the provincial level. It would be a tall order to get necessary changes in municipal elections act enacted before the next election. It has been suggested that political reform should come from within the community and cities (Problem of Leadership, Ottawa Citizen, March 5, 2009) but current provincial laws and regulations prevent this from happening.
Ontario’s Proposed New Green Energy Act
Following is the original text of a letter to the Ottawa Citizen from Dick Bakker, CEO of the Ottawa South Green Party EDA. The letter published March 4, 2009 was edited because of space limitations. The full original text is included here.
Re: McGuinty’s mighty wind.
Randall Denley, Sunday March 1, 2009
The proposed Green Energy Act (GEA) is the start of a fix to Ontario’s electrical albatross. Rather than focus on hot buttons like home energy audits, windmills and bureaucratic deregulation the public should be looking at the intent of the Act and where similar efforts have been successful.
As a Green Party member I am quite pleased to give credit where credit is due and put partisan views aside for a moment. I am not great supporter of Messer’s McGuinty and Smitherman, but I am fully behind them on this.
What is the state of our present electrical system? Taxpayer subsidized consumers, nuclear overruns/underproduction, never-ending debt retirement charges, centralized power generation ensuring 10-20% transmission power loss, and dirty coal plants. What to do? How will Ontario get reliable estimates for new nuclear or coal plants in this climate of tight credit? Who will deal with any cost overruns? The taxpayer of course! Again!
The GEA is an omnibus Act intended to tilt Ontario’s energy production from big centralized power facilities towards a decentralized model. The Act calls for a plethora of Renewable options; bio-mass, bio-gas, geothermal, bio-fuel, tidal, run-of-river hydro, co-generation, wind and solar. It encourages Co-ops, native bands and property owners to become generators. Municipal, building and environmental regulations are to be streamlined, enabling speedier development of Renewables. Conservation will finally be a core objective of all government.
Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) are a key component. FIT’s are a method to kick-start the Renewable sector on a ‘performance only’ basis; no money is paid without delivered energy! Fixed rates are guaranteed for up to 20 years and tailored to the generation technology, with guaranteed grid access for the producer. This encourages smallscale production, the development of a distributed grid and localized employment. As of 2007 over 44 jurisdictions had implemented FIT’s; Ontario is the first in North America.
The GEA is based on Germany’s Green Energy Act and Feed-In Tariff success. Over 8 years Germany added 31,000 MW of NEW Renewable Energy to their electrical grid. This in a country with a higher population density and fewer natural resources than Canada! The sector employs over 280,000 and is the world’s leading renewable technology exporter. The incremental cost of this capacity has added only 36Euro/year ($50Cdn) to the average German consumer. In 2000, Germany’s renewable energy share was 6%, growing to 15% in 2008; and growth is accelerating FIT rates are regularly lowered to reflect industry learning curves and cost reductions.
Germany has introduced more new renewable power production in 8 years than Ontario generates from all of its nuclear stations, which were built (and refurbished) over the last 40 years! Renewable costs drop every year, input costs are near zero!
Wind and solar now deliver less than 1% of Ontario’s production. What was it 2 years ago? World wind production has been growing at an annual rate of 30-40% for 20 years? Solar has been growing at a rate of 50-70% over the same time! It is time for North America to catch up.
Wind is intermittent, but it is always blowing somewhere and the cost of wind power has been dropping for years. Hydro is a natural partner technology to wind and Quebec’s hydro grid should be interconnected with Ontario’s to provide the natural backup. Solar of course, is only available when the sun shines, this happens to match the point in the day when we have peak energy demand. Therefore, every new solar electric capacity reduces the need for expensive peak time production. The other technologies mentioned have different production profiles, and can each add to the electrical mix in different ways.
Smitherman is probably wise to back off on the house Energy Audit requirement. This is not the time to get realtors and house sellers upset when they are focused on dropping home values. The Audit provision is an excellent means to get home owners to take energy conservation seriously. There are other ways to get this done that will not directly raise the hackles of a stressed out Realty industry. In order to get this law passed the government may need to placate widespread political opposition, they can give in a bit, but not on the core intention of the Act.
Otherwise, I do not see significant changes needed. The bylaw, building code and environmental regulations must be tailored to favour small localized energy production, rather than the present indirect reinforcement of large centralized and expensive plants.
The alternative to small renewable projects scattered across the province would be more large Nuclear/Coal/Gas facilities with government guaranteed insurance and taxpayer funded cost overruns. The Ontario Government is still planning to proceed with nuclear expansion. This is wrong, expensive, dangerous and inefficient.
The Green Energy Act is the start of necessary improvements to the Ontario electrical system. Let’s give McGuinty and Smitherman credit for this move. There is a lot of work and opportunity before Ontario as this Act gets implemented. More ‘Work’ and ‘Opportunity’ is what Ontario needs today.
If we can get a few years of good growth similar to Germany’s experience, the justification for nuclear expansion will wither.
Re: McGuinty’s mighty wind.
Randall Denley, Sunday March 1, 2009
The proposed Green Energy Act (GEA) is the start of a fix to Ontario’s electrical albatross. Rather than focus on hot buttons like home energy audits, windmills and bureaucratic deregulation the public should be looking at the intent of the Act and where similar efforts have been successful.
As a Green Party member I am quite pleased to give credit where credit is due and put partisan views aside for a moment. I am not great supporter of Messer’s McGuinty and Smitherman, but I am fully behind them on this.
What is the state of our present electrical system? Taxpayer subsidized consumers, nuclear overruns/underproduction, never-ending debt retirement charges, centralized power generation ensuring 10-20% transmission power loss, and dirty coal plants. What to do? How will Ontario get reliable estimates for new nuclear or coal plants in this climate of tight credit? Who will deal with any cost overruns? The taxpayer of course! Again!
The GEA is an omnibus Act intended to tilt Ontario’s energy production from big centralized power facilities towards a decentralized model. The Act calls for a plethora of Renewable options; bio-mass, bio-gas, geothermal, bio-fuel, tidal, run-of-river hydro, co-generation, wind and solar. It encourages Co-ops, native bands and property owners to become generators. Municipal, building and environmental regulations are to be streamlined, enabling speedier development of Renewables. Conservation will finally be a core objective of all government.
Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) are a key component. FIT’s are a method to kick-start the Renewable sector on a ‘performance only’ basis; no money is paid without delivered energy! Fixed rates are guaranteed for up to 20 years and tailored to the generation technology, with guaranteed grid access for the producer. This encourages smallscale production, the development of a distributed grid and localized employment. As of 2007 over 44 jurisdictions had implemented FIT’s; Ontario is the first in North America.
The GEA is based on Germany’s Green Energy Act and Feed-In Tariff success. Over 8 years Germany added 31,000 MW of NEW Renewable Energy to their electrical grid. This in a country with a higher population density and fewer natural resources than Canada! The sector employs over 280,000 and is the world’s leading renewable technology exporter. The incremental cost of this capacity has added only 36Euro/year ($50Cdn) to the average German consumer. In 2000, Germany’s renewable energy share was 6%, growing to 15% in 2008; and growth is accelerating FIT rates are regularly lowered to reflect industry learning curves and cost reductions.
Germany has introduced more new renewable power production in 8 years than Ontario generates from all of its nuclear stations, which were built (and refurbished) over the last 40 years! Renewable costs drop every year, input costs are near zero!
Wind and solar now deliver less than 1% of Ontario’s production. What was it 2 years ago? World wind production has been growing at an annual rate of 30-40% for 20 years? Solar has been growing at a rate of 50-70% over the same time! It is time for North America to catch up.
Wind is intermittent, but it is always blowing somewhere and the cost of wind power has been dropping for years. Hydro is a natural partner technology to wind and Quebec’s hydro grid should be interconnected with Ontario’s to provide the natural backup. Solar of course, is only available when the sun shines, this happens to match the point in the day when we have peak energy demand. Therefore, every new solar electric capacity reduces the need for expensive peak time production. The other technologies mentioned have different production profiles, and can each add to the electrical mix in different ways.
Smitherman is probably wise to back off on the house Energy Audit requirement. This is not the time to get realtors and house sellers upset when they are focused on dropping home values. The Audit provision is an excellent means to get home owners to take energy conservation seriously. There are other ways to get this done that will not directly raise the hackles of a stressed out Realty industry. In order to get this law passed the government may need to placate widespread political opposition, they can give in a bit, but not on the core intention of the Act.
Otherwise, I do not see significant changes needed. The bylaw, building code and environmental regulations must be tailored to favour small localized energy production, rather than the present indirect reinforcement of large centralized and expensive plants.
The alternative to small renewable projects scattered across the province would be more large Nuclear/Coal/Gas facilities with government guaranteed insurance and taxpayer funded cost overruns. The Ontario Government is still planning to proceed with nuclear expansion. This is wrong, expensive, dangerous and inefficient.
The Green Energy Act is the start of necessary improvements to the Ontario electrical system. Let’s give McGuinty and Smitherman credit for this move. There is a lot of work and opportunity before Ontario as this Act gets implemented. More ‘Work’ and ‘Opportunity’ is what Ontario needs today.
If we can get a few years of good growth similar to Germany’s experience, the justification for nuclear expansion will wither.
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