Citizen representatives get boot from transit commission

Unelected residents will no longer be part of Ottawa's transit commission but rather sit on anadvisory committee, one of a slewof changes council voted onWednesday on how the city governs itself over the next four years.

Council voted 18-6 against a motion by Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Sean Devine and Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Jessica Bradley that would have kept citizen representatives on board for two years and deferred reworking the commission until the middle of the term.

Changing things up now, Devine argued in his motion, would mean there was no "formal citizen representation on transit matters" until at least next June.

"It does feel like we are crafting this replacement body on the fly, which I do not believe is respectful to the citizens who are most concerned," he said.

Coun. Devine calls removal of citizen representatives from transit commission a 'hasty decision'

2 years ago

Duration 1:09

Coun. Sean Devine said the removal of citizen representatives from Ottawa's transit commission will "absolutely be seen as a hasty decision," at a time when rebuilding community trust should be top of mind for council.

The commission, which is charged with overseeing OC Transpo, had eight council members last term and four citizen representatives.

One of those citizen representatives, Sarah Wright-Gilbert, was a vocal critic of the way the transit network and the floundering Confederation Line in particular was operating.

During the LRT inquiry, private chats revealedthat former mayor Jim Watson wanted her removed from the commission and former OC Transpo head John Manconi believed she was "destroying us with misinformation."

Another citizen commissioner, Michael Olsen, came under fire for suggesting strange smells at Parliament LRT station in late 2019 may have been "a gender equity thing" as it was "a scientific fact that women have more developed senses of smell than men do."

Severalcouncillors argued they themselves were best suited to respond to transit complaints, not unelected residents and that they're also the best people to be held accountable when transit fails.

City solicitor Rick O'Connor also told council the original goal of citizen commissioners was to make use of their technical expertise with operating a transit system, but those types of voicesnever came forward.

Hybrid meetings, salary reviewsand more

The citizen commissioner motion was just one of manylooked at during Wednesday's big city governance review.

Motions and recommendations that were carried included:

• Forginga light rail sub-committeeto give oversight on non-operational matters of the Confederation and Trillium lines.
• Ensuring the future transit advisory committee hasan OC Transpounion member and a Para Transpo rider, and includes at least 50 per cent women andgender non-binary members.
• Finalizing the names of the seven council members who will recommend who ends up on city committees.
• Renaming thefinance and economic development committee the finance and corporate services committee.
• Requiring thatcommittee's chair gives updates on the number of housing units approved and building permits issued, so residents can see how well Ottawa is meeting the goals set in the controversial Bill 23.
• Raising the built heritage sub-committee to full committee status.
• Continuing to allow people to take part electronically in council, committee and sub-committee meetings.
• Recommending the police board increase itshonorarium for a non-councillor chair from $12,000 to $54,000to account for the job's workload.
• Hiring an independent third party to reviewcouncillors' salaries,their office budgets and pay scales for their staff.

Councillors also debated amotion from Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stphanie Plantetoset a firm 5 p.m. end time for theirmeetings.

"If we're going to encourage people with young families to run for office, we should try to model some kind of work-life balance," arguedSomerset Coun. Ariel Troster.

Otherssuggested that might send the wrong message to residents, including West Carleton-March Coun. Clarke Kelly, who's juggling being a first-term councillor with raising a three-month-old daughter.

"I don't want to stop at five if we're not done this," he said, pointing at the council agenda. "I want to finish it and then go home."

In the end, Plante'smotion was deferred until the mid-term governance review two years from now. Wednesday's council meeting ended at 5:07 p.m.