Hold A Provincial Inquiry Into Lansdowne: WHOPPER WATCH

“Asked how the city could reassure the public the second round of Lansdowne upgrades would indeed be revenue neutral, given how greatly the calculations have shifted over the years on the first phase, (the municipality said) the city was doing a sensitivity analysis.”

Ottawa’s deputy treasurer Isabel Jasmin as translated by the CBC

Sensitivity analysis?

Does this mean the City of Ottawa and Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group are going into counselling?

Will they be getting in touch with their feelings? Will this be an episode of Dr. Phil?

It actually is a business term. It is, as I understand it and that understanding might not be complete, how current realities respond to changing circumstances.

For example, the city has tried to understand (rather says that it is trying to understand) how circumstances such as the pandemic affected Lansdowne. Sorry but I don’t believe that. Lansdowne didn’t work before the pandemic and won’t work post-pandemic. The sensitivity analysis is just something to give the project some legitimacy. Such an analysis isn’t necessary because there’s no benefit to the taxpayers of Ottawa.

Sometimes business or projects aren’t that complicated. I knew a marketing expert who said the best way to discover whether something sells is by selling it. If it sells, it works. If it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t work. Then if it doesn’t sell, stop selling it. Accordingly, stop selling Lansdowne. It wasn’t even designed to work for the city.

Lansdowne doesn’t succeed because there is really no partnership (except for the deceptive term itself). Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group controls the things that make money such as real estate. The city builds infrastructure with no hope of getting a return on it except property taxes which the city gets from any project. So that’s no extra benefit for a municipality laying out close to a half billion dollars at Lansdowne.

Instead what should have happened was the city could have sold it (or find a good non-profit use for it to benefit residents) at a huge profit and then collect the property taxes from private developers. Now the situation is that the city is laying out half a billion dollars to lose money.

LANSDOWNE: Elevator, Elevator, We Got The Shaft

Why spend that money with absolutely no hope of recovering it? What’s the community benefit? What’s the pecuniary benefit? What’s in it for taxpayers or residents? Nothing.

And how does such a enterprise fall into the mandate of the city? Lansdowne is not what cities were created to do.

OSEG makes the money. The city puts up the capital to allow it to make the money but gets no return.

If you follow that, the screaming question is why. Why pay out huge amounts of money to get nothing? And that’s where the rubber meets the road at Lansdowne. This is why Lansdowne is horribly wrong.

I know what’s going on and if you surmise a bit, you’ll come to that same conclusion. This is about money for some and political power for others.

And taxpayers are forking out huge amounts of money to finance that unfortunate relationship.

There is little or no benefit for taxpayers at Lansdowne.

Bulldog Approaches 100,000 Page View Plateau

If there were, Lansdowne would be easy to explain to residents. Instead the issue is clouded by waterfalls, air rights and a sensitivity analysis. The participants use these complicated terms to make it seem that the project is serious about making money for taxpayers.

It isn’t. If you can’t understand the waterfall, or the sensitivity analysis, or the air rights, guess what? There’s a very good chance someone is trying to snow you. So why do it? It’s done because there’s something in it for the private developers and something in it for politicians. There’s nothing in it for taxpayers. It is democracy that has gone wildly astray. Benefits for private individuals and for politicians but nothing for the people who pay the bills.

The challenge for private interests and the city is to create an illusion that’s there’s something in the project for taxpayers when there’s not a thing.

Remember the marketing analyst above? If it sells it works. If it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t work so stop it.

Easy to understand. Forthright and true.

Lansdowne works for one partner handsomely and the other pays for it. Rather an unhealthy relationship. A partnership is where both parties share the profits and benefits.

That doesn’t happen at Lansdowne. So why do individuals so wholeheartedly support it? What’s in it for the people who support it? And is their support tied to the benefit of taxpayers or something else?

Again, why doesn’t the city and OSEG produce a simple list of fiscal benefits to taxpayers for their investment.

They don’t because there isn’t one. And in the unlikely event they do produce such a document, experts will rip it to shreds in the blink of an eye.

Now think for a moment … why is Lansdowne proceeding?

It’s time for the civic auditor general to produce an investigation and a report on Lansdowne. And it’s time for another provincial inquiry … this time not on light rail, but on Lansdowne.

We know how the light-rail inquiry turned out. Want to see it again at Lansdowne?

Ken Gray

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