Watchdog:
MPP argued relocation to west end would be unfair to francophone staff
Phil McNeely’s complaint about move falls on deaf ears,
The country’s language watchdog says he won’t investigate a complaint that alleges moving Defence department staff and military personnel to the former Nortel campus would harm Ottawa’s francophone community.
Liberal MPP Phil McNeely spearheaded an effort in April to try to stop the proposed move, arguing it would force large numbers of francophones who work for the Department of National Defence and currently live in Orléans to relocate to the city’s west end. He argued that they would have less access to French language services in that part of the city.
“The transfer of large numbers of civil service jobs to the predominantly Englishspeaking West End and western outer suburbs can be expected to undermine the vitality of the Francophone community — both in Orléans specifically and across the City as a whole — even though the total number of Francophones in the City of Ottawa or National Capital Region would remain unchanged,” McNeely wrote in his submission to language commissioner Graham Fraser.
But Fraser’s spokesman, Nelson Kalil, said the office has determined the complaint is “not admissible.”
“From our point of view we determined we won’t be investigating because it doesn’t meet our criteria,” Kalil added.
A letter detailing the specific reasons why the language commissioner will not be investigating the complaint was sent both to DND and McNeely. Kalil said he could not release the letter publicly or discuss its specific contents.
Defence Department officials said they could not comment.
McNeely’s spokesman Shawn Kalbhenn said the MPP is away on a family vacation and has not yet looked at the letter from the language commissioner. “He’s disappointed,” said Kalbhenn.
He said McNeely will decide later next week on what further steps might be taken.
DND and the Canadian Forces have 42 office locations in Ottawa and Gatineau. The department is hoping the move of personnel to the former Nortel campus will reduce that number to seven or less. No date has been set for the move and cabinet has not yet approved DND going into the Nortel location.
The federal government paid $208 million in 2010 to buy the Nortel campus at 3500 Carling Ave.
McNeely estimates around 6,000 people in Orléans are employed by DND, the Canadian Forces or RCMP. He is also concerned that the DND move to Nortel would deal Orléans a serious economic blow.
McNeely has also said it would alter transit patterns in the city, harm the downtown core and create more urban sprawl as people move to Kanata and Arnprior.
McNeely said the complaint was filed as a private citizen, and not as an MPP.
Some DND employees and Canadian Forces personnel have also voiced concern over the move, pointing out that many live in Orléans and the commute would be too long. A June 2011 briefing note for the department’s then-deputy minister Robert Fonberg described the Carling campus as a “relatively remote location.” That document was obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information law.
McNeely’s complaint to the language watchdog sparked anger among some in the city’s west end who pointed out that there are a number of key services available to francophones there. Those critics also noted that the Ontario government had committed itself to a new francophone community centre opening in 2014. The centre is around a five-minute drive from the Nortel site. In addition, they point out that according to the 2006 census 17 per cent of the families in Ottawa were francophone and 20 per cent of them lived in the west end.