Who Really Runs Ottawa?

City Hall is broken. Fixing it means taking on the cronies and power brokers who think they own this city.

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I’m running for Mayor if 1,000 people are ready to work with me to win back our city. Follow this newsletter to understand my values, priorities and thoughts on how we get Ottawa back on track.

1,000 People Can Take Back Ottawa
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The cronies and power brokers

It feels like our city is slipping away. Homes are increasingly out of reach, transit barely works and streets are in disrepair. A few powerful developers cash in while so many struggle to get by.

To understand who controls Ottawa, look at how City Hall spends our money.

Ottawa’s $5-billion budget mostly rolls over from year to year. The real test of priorities comes in the few discretionary spending decisions that Council makes each term. This Council has made three big ones:

• $419 million to bail out the failing Lansdowne partnership

• $595 million to open up Tewin — a new satellite city the size of Barrhaven in the south east

• $95 million to buy land for a dump — land that Taggart bought for $8 million and which the City had appraised at $23 million.

The Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group is behind Lansdowne 2.0. The Taggart Group are behind Tewin and the dump land sale.

That’s over a billion dollars for developer schemes, when City Hall can’t even find the money to keep libraries open on Sundays.

A handful of powerful developers

A handful of powerful developers make sure the big decisions at City Hall align with their priorities. These are the cronies, who benefit from favouritism at City Hall.

The cronies’ work is done through lobbyists and power brokers. They support the machine that gets amenable politicians elected.

(And to be clear, I’m not talking about the many small and mid-sized developers we rely on to build our homes. I’m sure they find City Hall as challenging to deal with as many of us do.)

Crony capitalism

People around the world call this oligarchy. Ottawa has its own version of that story.

I believe in free markets, the sort that Adam Smith, the father of economics, talked about.

But I reject the crony capitalism that now defines Ottawa City Hall. Crony capitalism is when business and politics get too chummy, and profits flow from government favouritism. Sole source contracts. Planning changes that make certain parcels of land more valuable. Public works that support certain lands but not others.

Over the past twenty years, it has meant expanding Ottawa’s urban boundary more than we needed and faster than any other Canadian city, because that is the type of growth the cronies find most profitable.

Today, it means Ottawa taxpayers footing the bill for Lansdowne, Tewin and a grossly overpriced dump site.

Development should happen on a level playing field, not through privileged access and preferential treatment for a select few cronies.

Unrig City Hall

For two decades now, Ottawa has been in slow decline. City Hall has been rigged to serve major developers first and everyday residents second.

Ottawa’s future is at stake. If we stay silent, a few cronies will keep calling the shots. Ordinary people pay the price, with growing gridlock and a city that becomes less and less affordable.

Mark Sutcliffe has become little more than a puppet for the major developers, and the power brokers who support them.

People like us

Change is possible. 1,000 of us working together can unrig City Hall and overcome the status quo.

The Thousand. Committed individuals who love this city, expect better from City Hall and are prepared to do something about it. We can fix this city.

Will you be one of The Thousand?

Next: Blueprint for a Better Ottawa