The NCC’s party planning is now territory of the Tories
How will Canada Day and Winterlude change under direct ministerial control?
The National Capital Commission has been a favourite punching bag of this city for a long time. And certainly, the unique agency that’s in charge of planning and promotion of the capital region is far from perfect.
So some might be delighting in the news in this week’s federal budget that the NCC’s party-planning functions will be handed over to Heritage Canada. That means Canada Day celebrations and Winterlude — which the NCC invented — will be handled exclusively by the government department that’s heavily overseen by the minister’s office.
Think that’s an overstatement?
Consider that Heritage Minister James Moore scooped the NCC last month when he tweeted late one Sunday evening that Carly Rae Jepsen would be headlining the Canada Day concert this year. The NCC usually announces its headliners in May, keeping the lineup secret until then in hopes of making a big splash.
No such luck this year. Seems the minister wanted that perk for himself.
So maybe that’s all there is to this reshuffling of bureaucrats from the NCC to the government proper. Maybe it’s about politicians wanting to bask in whatever glory and glamour is associated with the capital’s iconic parties instead of leaving it to a faceless government agency.
This will be especially true of the sesqui-centennial celebrations of confederation in 2017.
After all, John Baird, the minister responsible for the NCC, promises that the move isn’t a cost-cutting measure — all the NCC folks who handled the capital’s events will simply move over to heritage.
As Councillor Rainer Bloess pointed out, the NCC’s continuing role in land-use planning is far more important than planning celebrations, or the summer and Christmastime sound-and-light shows, or running the Parliament Hill tours — all responsibilities moving to the heritage department.
He’s right, of course, that managing the greenbelt, inter-provincial bridges, and the rest of the 10 per cent of local land owned by the NCC is serious business.
But it’s not negligible that the NCC’s most public, most visible events are now completely in the hands of politicians. The fear, of course, is that what are supposed to be national celebrations will now become branding vehicles for the government of the day.
How do you feel about a War of 1812-themed Canada Day? At last year’s celebrations, there were commemorations of the cross-border battles, including 1812 flags along Wellington Street. But considering the undue attention the Conservative government has given the two-century-old event — not to mention the $28 million spent to mark the occasion — imagine the prominence the war might have had if the government was completely in charge?
Will the tone of the Parliament Hill tours be changed to reflect the government of the day’s view of our national history? What about the message in the summer light show on the Hill?
As residents of Ottawa the city, as well as Ottawa the capital, we have many reasons to be skeptical of this Conservative government’s role in how it handles files that affect our hometown.
There was the cancellation of the portrait gallery planned for U.S. Embassy in 2007. Yes, the costs were escalating under the Liberals, but the architectural jewel right across the street from the Parliament Buildings still sits empty, and our portrait collection is largely hidden from view of the citizens who rightfully own it.
Will the tone of the Parliament Hill tours be changed to reflect the government of the day’s view of our national history? What about the message in the summer light show on the Hill?
Then there are the pop-up memorials and monuments erected with little to no public consultation.
The vernissage for the shortlisted War of 1812 monuments (those Tories really love that war) was abruptly postponed by the government, with the NCC pushed out of the high-profile project it was supposed to be partnering on with Heritage Canada. When the public finally got a sneak peek at the finalists, they had already been whittled down to two from the original six on the shortlist. And the government gets the last word on the winner, not the jury.
Last summer, the feds put up a huge memorial to commemorate the assassination of a Turkish military attaché 30 years earlier. Although the semi-spherical monument, already showing signs of serious weathering, was being erected on NCC land, the agency couldn’t answer any questions about it. And the government refused to, even while it was being installed on the southeast corner of Island Park Drive and Ottawa River Parkway.
Oops! That’s the John A. Macdonald Parkway. That name change, which wasn’t a bad idea in and of itself, was also made secretly and unilaterally by this Conservative government, despite the fact that the NCC is supposed to be in charge of the road.
The name change was so sud- den, folks like the RCMP, the city, firefighters and paramedics had no idea it was coming.
If the federal government doesn’t bother to tell the RCMP it’s changing the name of a major roadway in the capital, think it’ll care at all what you have to say about anything it might have up its sleeve?
The public consultations to revamp Tunney’s Pasture were a joke. And the feds refused to pony up cash for a flagship LRT station at Confederation Square, apparently not deeming it to be an important enough addition to the parliamentary precinct.
The single paragraph in the budget document that mentions the changes refers to the NCC as “locally based,” as if that’s a bad thing. It’s not even completely accurate, as board members on various committees are drawn from across the nation.
Considering the disdain the Conservative government appears to have for us locals, surely it’s understandable if we’re a little apprehensive about the government’s supposedly benign plans for our most beloved events, worried that they’ll be heavily draped in Tory-blue bunting — literal and metaphoric.