Ford Pledges To Upload O-Train To Province
This is a release from the City of Ottawa:
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Wendy Stephanson
City Manager
Subject / Objet Provincial campaign announcement regarding uploading of O-Train
Date: February 4, 2025
The purpose of this memo is to inform the Mayor and Members of Council that, earlier today, Premier Doug Ford made an election campaign-related announcement in Ottawa, proposing an upload of O-Train assets to the Province of Ontario.
As previously shared with Members of Council, our existing transit system has a systemic funding deficit. In keeping with Council direction, the City continues to engage the federal and provincial governments in an effort to secure consistent and predictable funding to provide safe and reliable transit for the residents of Ottawa. Closing transit’s financial gap is a key focus of the Fairness for Ottawa campaign.
Should this announcement be implemented, it could align Ottawa’s transit delivery model with other major Ontario cities. As the Province has implemented with other municipalities, local transit entities continue to provide service locally while maintenance and oversight are under provincial jurisdiction. Maintaining local transit delivery ensures that services align with community ridership needs.
The announcement today was part of the provincial election campaign; the City of Ottawa has not entered into any formal negotiations with the Province. It would be premature to speculate on details at this time. At the Mayor’s request, City staff will provide Members of Council with an in camera information briefing about the potential financial and legal implications at the February 12, 2025 City Council meeting.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly. Sincerely,
Wendy Stephanson
City Manager
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An ‘in camera’ briefing? Standard Operating Protocol of a closed, opaque, unaccountable government.
“will be providing an in camera” to councilors… MORE examples of why residents DO NOT TRUST the staff nor politicos of OTTAWA. Both bodies treat the taxpayers as too stupid to understand or be able to rationalize what is going on. The truth is that many of the bulldog commentators and readers are much better versed in budgeting and economics than the whole of council put together! Ron Benn is but one example, the Voter another.
Wendy Stephanson and Renee Amilcar are becoming much more effective at using chatGPT, eh? If only they could do their jobs as well as this chat bot writes their memos. I guess AI hasn’t extended as far as job bots yet.
Why are Sutcliffe and Stephanson wasting Council’s time with this? It’s not a government announcement, only a campaign proposal – I won’t say ‘promise’ since we know how promising those ‘promises’ are.
For reference purposes, I’ll just mention that Sutcliffe had one of those elusive ‘promises’ when running for mayor that said he’d fix the LRT. There was another that he’d have 100,000 homes built in the first decade of which there would be 1,000 non-profit/rent-geared-to-income homes every year and yet another that he was going to reduce staffing at the City by 200 positions. How are those working out, Mark? Maybe you could brief us on where you are in implementing your ‘promises’. They appear to have gotten you elected, after all. We’ll wait.
Sutcliffe should know that campaign ‘promises’ aren’t worth much.
Where’s the urgency in briefing Council? What’s the basis of fact that the City Manager’s going to build her presentation on? Does she not understand that whatever information candidates may release about these ‘promises’ is unlikely to be what any final program would look like?
Is the City Manager going to brief Council on all the other campaign ‘promises’ that the various candidates and parties are putting forward? How did she decide that this was the one?
It’s not like this is a six-month campaign. Election day is the 27th, i.e. in 22 days. Why wouldn’t you wait until the dust settles after the election and then talk to the winners about their plans? Their actual plans, that is, not the fluff that they put out during an election. Does she not understand that, post-election, she’s going to have to re-brief them on the reality?
This is a total waste of time. But then we know Council probably wasn’t doing much of anything else and, whatever that might have been they were doing, we know it wasn’t likely to be very useful.
I agree with The Voter. Is it appropriate for the City Manager to be alerting the mayor and councillors of campaign promises made by one party? She should first find out what other parties are promising and provide a balanced view. Otherwise is sure looks partisan. And hey, should councillors be dependent on city staff for such news? Surely they are capable of picking up such important news without a news nanny.
Why does the headline on this refer to only ONE of at least three different pledges on the same day? I believe the Bulldog wrote this and did not intend it to be biased, but the city sure is!
I am a senior, this is the first time one “pledge” out of three gets preference in a city document that I have ever heard of. What is this city doing? Is this an ethics problem? (I say yes)
Can the bulldog compare the LRT promises so we can have some perspectives, I heard the PC (FORD) pledge is the least attractive.