Here’s What Ottawans Are Concerned About

06/21/2023

These are the two issues that are of the most interest to tweeps in The Bulldog Twitter Universe.

Pretty safe to say that this is what Ottawans are interested in now. The Bulldog is probably the most-read website in the city by people concerned about municipal public policy:

twitter.police

The Ottawa Police Service has really come to the fore in municipal public policy by its botching of the Freedom Convoy protest which gained the OPS and Ottawa much unwanted local, national and international coverage.

It appears Ottawans are still very interested in substantial police reform but the response of the mayor’s office and council has been silence. The response of the Ottawa Police Services Board has been much worse and rather frightening. They have closed meetings because of threats that never materialized (just as the police and bylaw stepped up downtown enforcement on the anniversary of the convoy).

That response resulted in a wave of parking tickets for visitors, business people, taxpayers, tourists and your garden-variety Ottawan. The police are very good at issuing traffic violations (unless you’re riding a bike) and simple things you can measure (such as speeding). Beyond that, the OPS is hopeless. It spends much time covering the posteriors of its brothers and sisters rather than cleaning itself up.

That’s the sorry legacy of former mayor Jim Watson. He ran a sloppy administration but rather than do the job well, he told the public everything was just fine. As we see from LRT, it’s not fine. You can only cover-up for so long before it hurts you.

That sad legacy carries on at the municipal communications department (Happy Town News).

What we have here is a police service that is out of control, a stand-pat chief and a city council that doesn’t care.

From what we see here at The Bulldog, the only people who care are worried about this police issue are residents.

That will come back to bite the OPS, OPSB, the mayor and council in the butt.

NCC Stops Traffic During Champlain Bridge Rush Hour

Perhaps to make the point clearer, why aren’t the mayor and council addressing this issue because it matters to the public. People, not just in Ottawa but around the world, can see the problem yet where is Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and Ottawa City Council?

Are they hoping the issue goes away or are the scared of the political turmoil that will result from addressing the issue?

Are they hiding under their desks? The public wants action and council and the mayor are doing nothing.

To read this post, click here.

twitter.gougeon

Auditor general Nathalie Gougeon promised action on this light-rail issue and we’ve received nothing.

The public cares about this question but Gougeon appears to be trying to put the most pressing area of LRT that needs investigating on the back-burner.

The credibility of her office, badly damaged by her probe of the police during the Freedom Convoy, is desperately in danger.