LANSDOWNE: Suburbs Still Back Sutcliffe: THE VOTER

Kosmo, as former prime minister Brian Mulroney once said, ya dance with the one what brung ya.

The outer ring of Ottawa is where Mayor Mark Sutcliffe got his election votes. The closer to Lansdowne, the worse he did. Same as Thursday’s council vote on Lansdowne.

Unfortunately voter apathy both during and between elections isn’t related to amalgamation. A lot of what we’ve been seeing locally is politicians who know there aren’t enough people who bother to watch what they’re doing for them to have to worry about anyone effectively holding their feet to the fire.

The behaviour we saw around the LRT was of people confident they would not be caught and could act with impunity. If provincial cabinet minister Caroline Mulroney hadn’t called the inquiry into light rail, where would we be now? Most of the public faces of that fiasco are gone but what about the people in the shadows, the ones who whether staff or elected officials either had a hand in it or stood by and knowingly let it happen? The majority of them are still active at Ottawa City Hall.

Some, such as city manager Wendy Stephanson, have actually benefitted from the mess. Does anyone really believe that the “great” Steve Kanellakos had a chief financial officer working for him who knew nothing about what was going on? It was very interesting that at the press conference after the Lansdowne vote, on one side of the aisle were city staffers and, on the other, the OSEG reps and Stephanson. Did that symbolize whose side she’s on and where she will go after her time at the city is done? Did nobody notice the visual of that juxtaposition beforehand?

Since there have been few consequences, other than the self-imposed departures of LRT players such as Jim Watson, Steve Kanellakos and John Manconi, why would we expect there to be any change of behaviour at city hall or lessons learned?

Other than, of course, don’t get caught.

The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.

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