A FAILED OTTAWA: A Formula For Success Lost

Published 04/26/2023 · Updated 04/26/2023

A Failed Ottawa is a multi-part series looking at how the municipal government has failed this city. Parts 1 and 2 look at the foundation of this community and its growth by meeting the needs of a country and its capital.

It’s no news to Ottawans that this city’s driving economic force is its role as capital of Canada.

And while there was a fair amount of luck that came with Queen Victoria’s choice, it was also based on a number of important political, geographic and cultural factors. There is a logical reason for the choice of Ottawa as Canada’s capital.

That decision resulted in a national capital region that has grown to 1.4 million people since 1957.

Why is that? Well, the federal government needed people to develop and conduct public policy and the tasks that are associated with that. The public service grew, particularly after the Second World War when the federal government took on a number of social policy roles. In fact, government became a huge force in shaping the Canadian economy.

That took people, lots of people. Those people needed places to live and so the development and construction industry became very powerful locally. They needed places to shop so retail grew accordingly.

A FAILED OTTAWA: The Forgotten Origins

Those two parts of the economy developed logically out of the growth of government. Entrepreneurs spotted an opportunity in a market niche that had to be filled and profited admirably. Some of the most successful developers in Canada came out of the Ottawa retail and housing establishment and they hold a huge influence over the municipal government which has jurisdiction over those industries. In fact the development sector is so powerful in Ottawa that it looks as though it has jurisdiction over the civic government.

With a capital come the national institutions that are an outgrowth of its designation. The list is mind-boggling in its size and scope. They range from the Central Experimental Farm to the National Capital Commission to the National Arts Centre to the Bank of Canada …

With those institutions come gifted specialized people who make up the most educated populace of a major city in Canada and among the most learned in North America. Some people say Toronto doesn’t believe in Thank God It’s Friday but Thank God It’s Monday. Those people have not been to Ottawa where many people devote their lives to their chosen fields. This is a serious and gifted populace that should be the envy of many world cities and must be treated with respect.

That educated population morphed into our quickly improving post-secondary educational institutions that are beginning to make their marks on the world.

The enormous number of employees and their needs in the federal government required a rapid adoption of computerization in the national capital. What started with selling computers to the federal government became a local industry that has been a world leader in the field. Like most high-tech sectors, it sees its great successes and its great demises. For all the Nortels and Corels, there have also been Cognos and Mitel. And now in an interesting amalgam of two basic Ottawa economic sectors, computerization and retail, we see Shopify.

Another interesting amalgam is that of education and the large medical service sector. They come together in the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. Some people say Ottawa is without a heart but we certainly know how to fix them.

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Finally we have tourism, a big employer in this town. It is an outgrowth of all the fine federal institutions in the community from the Parliament Buildings themselves and their interesting spinoffs such as our museums and arts facilities. Ottawa tourism is not that of Venice, though we have a canal, but the three-day weekend for a family in their car from around central Canada and the northeastern United States. Start looking beyond that and you get past needs and into wants, which is dangerous ground indeed.

What all of the above is about is how success is the result of rationally looking at needs and serving them in Ottawa. Move too far away from those and the character of Ottawans and you will fail. Ottawa is a distinct place in Canada based on needs centred on government, politics, geography, culture, language, societal requirements and necessary services.

Queen Victoria picked Ottawa because she needed a capital of the Province of Canada that served the needs of the country’s inhabitants. Out of that came a city … once a successful city.

Stray too far away from basic Ottawa requirements and you get into dangerous territory.

This series hopes to show that using our municipal government as a sorry example.