An ode to Russ Mills and the light-rail squabble
Ottawa’s light-rail network will cover about 40 kilometres, but all the squabbling this summer is over a 500-metre stretch of open track along the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway.
The National Capital Commission opposes the city’s proposed route because this piddly 500-metre stretch obstructs public access to NCC land. NCC chair Russell Mills is prepared to steamroller the entire LRT project into the ditch rather than compromise.
Mills, a former Citizen publisher, is a famously flinty negotiator, but I know how to end this impasse between the city and the NCC. Mills’ Achilles heel — or cloven hoof, depending on your point of view — is music. The man is wild about his tunes. That’s why I’m writing a song for him.
“Songs are made by fools like me but only Mills can block the LRT,” it begins. The next line rhymes “pigheaded” with “forget it.”
OK, so it’s not Candle In The Wind. But it might work on Mills. Music brings out his softer side.
Last year, a smiling Mills was featured in one of the those clever “I’m going to the opera” ads that Opera Lyra came up with to promote its production of La Bohème.
“I’m going because a night at the opera is like sex — without all the sweating,” Mills says in the ad copy.
He’s wrong, of course. Going to the opera is nothing like sex. The average opera lasts about nine hours, except the German ones, which are longer. Having sex doesn’t take nearly as long, even if you factor in dinner and a movie first. As for the sweaty part, I read somewhere that the dye ran in Pavarotti’s beard because he was sweating so much while bellowing Nessun Dorma at the masses attending the 1990 World Cup in Italy. And you can’t tell me those chunky opera babes don’t sweat like a canal horse while onstage.
Mills wasn’t always an opera buff. Years ago, there were legendary Citizen parties at which he’d play the piano and sing Elvis’ Blue Suede Shoes and, if memory serves, some Little Richard numbers.
Given the Opera Lyra promo, it seems Mills has moved on to hightoned classical stuff. You could call this musical upgrade the Cosi Fan Tutti-Frutti transition.
Beneath all the arias, there’s also an acoustic side to Mills. There are indications that he’s going back to his roots, musically speaking. On the Citizen’s society page a while back, I noticed Mills was among the performers at a celebrity cabaret fundraiser.
He played guitar and sang a few folksy songs he had written himself.
“Who knew he had this hippie protest singer in him?” reported Citizen music writer Lynn Saxberg, a judge at the event.
I wasn’t there, but I expect Mills sang something like this: “Come gather ’round people wherever you roam, and admit that the LRT deal is blown …”
Mills is a lot like the folks in Iowa Stubborn, a song from The Music Man. “We can be cold as the falling thermometers in December, If you ask about our weather in July,” the songs goes.
“And we’re so by God stubborn, We could stand touchin’ noses for a week at a time, And never see eye-to-eye.”
Politically speaking, Mills has more guns than the city. The NCC owns the
Authenticity and integrity are Mills’ trademarks, so his opposition to the city’s plan is genuine. This isn’t just the NCC being a pain-in-the-butt whenever possible — their ageold mission statement.
parkway land. If the city wants to build on the site, it must have NCC approval.
Authenticity and integrity are Mills’ trademarks, so his opposition to the city’s plan is genuine. This isn’t just the NCC being a pain-in-the-butt whenever possible — their age-old mission statement.
Mills likes to talk about how the NCC wants a capital “All the people of Canada” will be proud of. The implication is that council is too short-sighted to care how the city will look for future generations.
But “All the people of Canada” aren’t waiting at the bus shelter on a frigid January morning. The ones out in the cold are “People Who Live Here.” The same bunch — us — take buses in the downtown core, buses that move nose-totail through 14 traffic lights in rush hour.
Mills should give “People Who Live Here” a break and rethink the NCC’s position on the western leg of the light-rail project.
To help change his mind, I’ve got a killer chorus for the song: “Council has failed us, only Mills can save us, When we just can’t take another LRT delay.”