Glad-handing to gladden hearts as feds and city work together

This love-in runs deeper than politics, despite obvious influence of election

April may have disappointed the gardeners in this city, but for those of us eyeing the oftenfraught relationship between the city and the federal government, this chilly month has delivered in spades.

At the start of the month, the senior minister for the capital region, Pierre Poilievre, announced the funding for the Ottawa River Action Plan, which has been a long time coming.

Let’s put aside for a moment that neither the feds nor the province are actually paying one third of the eligible costs of the project, and that the costs of this particular part of the action plan have increased by more than 60 per cent in five years.

In terms of city-federal relations, the ORAP announcement was a welcome harbinger for multi-level government cooperation, with all the senior folks from the city, province and federal government attending the news conference and slapping each other on the back, even if that back was of a different political stripe.

If you think that sort of gladhanding is par for the course among elected officials, consider that a few short years ago, neither Mayor Jim Watson — nor any city manager — was invited to news conferences held by former minister John Baird about the future redevelopment of Tunney’s Pasture.

On Tuesday of this week, the federal budget delivered promising news on the transit front for this city. The Conservative government, which hasn’t shown much enthusiasm until now for Ottawa’s plans to expand lightrail beyond 2018, announced permanent funding of $1 billion a year for public transit projects starting in 2019.

The federal government’s schedule works well for Ottawa, which hopes to be building the second phase of LRT by 2018 or 2019. The Public Transit Fund isn’t aimed only at Ottawa, of course — indeed, the transit investment is more likely meant to woo Toronto-area voters — but our city is still likely to benefit. And that makes for much more friendly ties between the city and the feds.

Finally, on Wednesday, the board of directors of the National Capital Commission unanimously approved the so-called “100-Day Solution.” That’s the agreement the NCC and the city hammered out over the contentious western LRT route that’s to run through federal lands on the south side of the Ottawa River in the Westboro neighbourhood.

What to make of the recent love-in between the city and the feds?

The easy and obvious answer is the upcoming federal election.

Although Baird had voiced his public support for ORAP for years, the money was only confirmed a few weeks ago and may very well be linked to this fall’s voting day. And the 2015 federal budget transit fund — the first time the federal government has earmarked money specifically for public transit — shows the Conservatives understand that they cannot ignore the plight of cities, nor can leave the question of infrastructure funding to the opposition parties in this upcoming campaign. Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives did just that in the 2014 provincial election with disastrous results.

But this new softening of the city-federal relations isn’t only about the election. It doesn’t account for cozier feelings between the city and NCC, for example. Whatever complaints or criticisms we may sometimes have about the NCC, for example, few people likely cast their federal election vote based on the actions of the agency.

It’s not that the NCC is devoid of politics. The directors are all political appointees, and the board all-too-often must answer to their federal masters.

Still, there’s no denying the tone between the two entities is friendlier, more respectful. The fact that Watson and Baird buried the hatchet last November, after years of public sniping, paved a path for smoother public relations. It also can’t hurt relations that the minister in charge of the NCC has been a local politician who has a personal stake in what Ottawa residents think about the NCC’s actions.

And perhaps there’s also a growing understanding that the problems of cities — congestion, health of waterways, housing — are everyone’s problems and can’t be solved by municipalities alone. And that increasingly residents are demanding that all parties work together to address them.

Most of us feel like Aditya Jha. He’s the newest member of the NCC board who said little at Wednesday’s meeting where the western LRT route was approved. He admitted he didn’t realize his appointment would entail thinking about “the boundaries of the city and the NCC,” but approved of the 100-day solution. He then went on to suggest the NCC and city council hold an annual halfday session “to talk about what we think we want to do for this capital.”

It sounds like such a commonsense proposal, and yet no one has ever suggested it. The NCC of yore would have thought themselves above mere municipal issues, while city councillors would have been skeptical of the NCC’s motives. Now, there’s reason to believe this sort of open dialogue is not just the fanciful idea of an NCC newbie, but the way for Ottawa to flourish.

There’s no denying the tone between the two entities is friendlier, more respectful.