Civic hospital plan will not be revamped
Can we please stop pretending that the new Ottawa Civic hospital plan should be revamped to accommodate trees or even that the building ought to be redirected to another site? It's not going to happen, nor should it.
It's darkly amusing to see Ottawa Centre political candidates talking about something that is a micro- issue, at best. Liberal Yasir Naqvi supports the location of the hospital, but he has concerns about the design. He wants more trees planted than will be cut down to allow construction. It's a plan that's sure to become reality, since the hospital already intends to do it. The NDP's Angella MacEwen says she will seek federal funding to put the parking garage underground and she thinks that it might still be possible to build the new Civic at Tunney's Pasture.
Clearly, a review of the facts is in order, but first, a brief history.
People are absolutely right when they say the new hospital is on the wrong site, but the time to make that point was five years ago. The former federal Conservative government had approved the most logical site, on the Central Experimental Farm right across from the existing hospital.
Although the site was notably tree-free, developing the land would have meant sacrificing some soil studies, which apparently are more important than people's health. The new Liberal government, working on the theory that everything its predecessor did must be wrong, ordered the National Capital Commission to find a better site. The NCC displayed its wisdom and expertise by suggesting Tunney's Pasture, which happens to be covered with buildings and has poor road access. The hospital rightly rejected that idea.
Then the scrambling federal Liberals came up with a compromise, a corner of the Experimental Farm that has a fairly steep slope, a high water table and heavy tree coverage. It would have been too politically embarrassing to return to the site the Conservatives chose, so here we are today. Did people think the hospital could be built without cutting down trees?
At one point, the hospital suggested that the parking garage could go underground and be less intrusive, but reality intervened. The new site, which was once a swamp, is on bedrock and groundwater starts two to three metres below the surface. An underground parking garage would mean drilling and blasting to remove 150,000 truckloads of rock. In effect, it would create an open-pit mine near Dow's Lake.
This massive construction project would cost an additional $200 million, money that would have to come from local fundraising. The federal and provincial governments don't pay for parking garages. An underground garage would also take two additional years to construct, setting the whole hospital plan back.
The hospital isn't moving elsewhere, either. It signed a 99-year lease with the federal government in 2018. The provincial government has promised $1.8 billion to build the hospital. If the hospital were moved to another site now, it would mean restarting the provincial government's capital approval process, which would add even more years to the construction timeline and force the hospital to redo work already completed.
When it comes to finding creative reasons why something shouldn't happen, Ottawa is world-class. First we delayed and relocated the desperately needed new Civic because of soil science. Now some people want to delay or move it again because of trees.
If all goes well, the new Civic will open in 2028. We needed it years ago. The hospital and its engineering and design teams are doing the best they can with a site that was determined primarily by political stupidity. We're stuck with that. It's not like we aren't used to it.
People who want to represent Ottawa Centre federally would do well to make the case for a dramatically better hospital, not pander to a tiny group of tree enthusiasts.
When it comes to finding creative reasons why something shouldn't happen, Ottawa is world-class. First we delayed and relocated the desperately needed new Civic because of soil science. Now some people want to delay it again because of trees. Randall Denley