Wrapping around the city of Ottawa is a horseshoe-shaped green space taking up 20,000 hectares of land. Known as the Ottawa Greenbelt, it’s been managed by the National Capital Commission, a federal Crown corporation, since the 1950s.

As with the rest of Ottawa, the Greenbelt is on unceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory. It’s host to all sorts of outdoor recreational activities, seeing more than 3.5 million visitors each year. It also contains sensitive natural areas like wetlands, forests and streams, as well as rural farms and even a sand dune. The Greenbelt is also home to an array of species including the golden northern bumble bee, northern goshawk, muskrat and cattail sledge plant.

“The climate and ecosystem services that an area like the Greenbelt provides are huge for a city like Ottawa in terms of flood mitigation or drought mitigation, climate resiliency in terms of adapting to any number of things and just temperature regulation,” John McDonnell, executive director for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Ottawa Valley Chapter, said.

“I mean, there’s huge value in that.”

But unlike a national park or the Greenbelt in southern Ontario, Ottawa’s Greenbelt isn’t covered by legislation that protects it from development. There are already schools, churches and golf courses within its borders, and more than 1,000 people live there on land leased from the government. There’s also the Nepean Sportsplex, the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre and the Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport — and Ontario’s growing population means that development pressures are only increasing.

Right now, Ottawa is undergoing its biggest public transit project ever, with the building and expansion of a light-rail transit system. There’s also a proposed expansion of a road and the building of a bus transitway in the city’s east end, through a wetland bog. These projects have convinced conservationists of the need for more solid environmental protections for the Greenbelt, and some are clamouring to designate the land as a national urban park.

Here is everything you need to know about the Ottawa Greenbelt and what is at stake for its future.

How did the Ottawa Greenbelt come to be? 

The Ottawa Greenbelt was established in 1950 in the Gréber Plan, named after Jacques Gréber, the Parisian architectural planner of the national capital. It set out development of the capital region for the next 50 years. The Greenbelt was meant to act as a limit on urban expansion, protecting natural areas and designating lands for agriculture. According to the National Capital Commission, the Ottawa Greenbelt is one of the largest and most contiguous greenbelts in the world, and the only one that’s (almost) entirely publicly funded.

The Gréber Plan established the limits of the Greenbelt to include space for institutional buildings, then and in the future. At the time, the federal government did not have enough local support to officially zone the Greenbelt, so it began buying land in 1958. Most of the lands were purchased for about $40 million in 1966, with roughly 40 per cent acquired through expropriation.

By 1970, the Greenbelt’s environmental significance had been recognized, and steps were taken to protect Mer Bleue Bog, a 3,500-hectare natural wetland, and Stony Swamp, one of the most ecologically diverse areas in the region. But Gréber’s idea that the Greenbelt would act as a check on urban growth bumped up against a burgeoning population: as the communities of Kanata, Barrhaven and Orleans grew on the outside of the green horseshoe, roads and services were built through it, including Highway 417 east towards Montreal and Highway 416.

In 1985, the National Capital Act gave the National Capital Commission federal authorization to manage the Greenbelt and in 1996 the commission created the first Greenbelt Master Plan. It’s most recent plan, from 2013, is set to be reviewed this year. 

Don Herweyer, interim general manager for planning, real estate and economic development at the City of Ottawa said the city works in cooperation with the commission, taking its lead on management and development in the Greenbelt. 

He said the city’s official plan reflects the federal Greenbelt plan: while both outline the area’s legal boundaries, a description of its actual physical boundaries is hard to find. Herweyer describes the Greenbelt as “a u-shaped area that extends south from the Ottawa River in the east and west separating the oldest part of the City of Ottawa from its suburban communities and rural area.”

Today, the commission owns and manages 75 per cent of the land, or 14,950 hectares, in the Greenbelt. Most of the rest is managed by other federal agencies, with five per cent being locally or provincially managed roads.

The Ottawa Greenbelt is important for protecting endangered species, wetlands and bird migration paths

The Ottawa Valley Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, or CPAWS, acts as a community-based voice on wilderness issues in the national capital region. McDonnell said the group’s main role is to be the Ottawa Greenbelt’s advocate to the city and National Capital Commission.

“The Greenbelt is interesting because not only does it provide access to nature for a lot of people, but it also provides important linkages for the movement of species through the region and particularly in and around Ottawa,” McDonnell said.

“During a time of climate change, we know that species will need to migrate to adapt to changing conditions, and so having these connections are vital.”

Users of the nature app iNaturalist have logged sightings of nearly 3,000 species in the Ottawa Greenbelt. The commission’s biodiversity monitoring program has documented 35 species at risk there, including snapping turtles, monarchs, bobolinks and least bitterns. Shirley’s Bay on the northwestern edge of the Greenbelt is a significant route for bird migration, with over 270 bird species being spotted over the years. In particular, the commision notes, the bay is an important migration gateway for arctic and boreal birds.

On the eastern side, the provincially significant Mer Bleue Bog is home to abundant plants, birds and wildlife. “It’s the most biodiverse area in eastern Ontario,” McDonnell said. “It’s a representative of the type of peat bog that you would find in northern Canada and it’s a remnant of the retreating of the glaciers,” making it a very rare, functioning wetland.

Since 1995, Mer Bleue has been recognized as a “wetland of international importance” by the United Nations Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The bog mitigates both floods and droughts and harbours several species at risk, including a population of endangered spotted turtles.

“It’s diverse, it’s very rich, but it’s very fragile as well,” McDonnell said.

Road and transit expansion are currently the Ottawa Greenbelt’s most pressing threats

The Mer Bleue Bog is especially threatened by current proposals for transportation infrastructure: the extension of Brian Coburn Boulevard and the building of the Cumberland Transitway, a dedicated busway. 

Both projects date back to 1999, when a growing population led to an environmental assessment of the bog as a site for a new transit corridor and a new road. Sections of Brian Coburn Boulevard, previously known as the Blackburn Bypass, were constructed just outside the Greenbelt, finishing in 2013, while the transitway has yet to be constructed. In 2017, after receiving permission from the National Capital Commission, Ottawa began a new environmental assessment for both projects, which would go through the Greenbelt.

In 2019, four out of seven potential locations were short-listed. The city then used four criteria — transportation, natural environment, social/cultural environment and cost —  to make its final choice. The route it picked ranked first in all criteria except for “natural environment:” originally option seven, the route had the lowest cost but would have a significant impact on the Greenbelt, requiring the most widening of an existing road and the extension of two existing watercourse crossings. Ottawa presented this option to the public in June 2021.

But the commission prefers two different options — options one and four, both of which would have relatively low impact upon the Greenbelt’s core natural areas and require only one new watercourse crossing, but were of moderate cost. Option four also had more impact on the local community. Maryam El-Akhrass, a spokesperson for the National Capital Commission, told The Narwhal the commission is currently working with the city “to find suitable measures to limit the environmental impact on the Greenbelt.” 

Heweyer also said discussions between the city and the commission are still ongoing. He said that all route options would impact the Greenbelt to some degree, since to avoid it entirely, “you’d have to go south — you’re talking a long way south — and it really wouldn’t service that area anymore if you did that.” 

The Ottawa chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society has been an avid opponent of the Brian Coburn Boulevard and Cumberland Transitway projects and its online petition against the project has over 5,000 signatures. McDonnell said the Mer Bleue sector of the Greenbelt is already heavily fragmented by roads and is unable to support another.

“At the end of the day, it’s a six-lane highway, and it would cause irreparable harm to Mer Bleue, just given the proximity, with things like road salt, impact on wildlife movements,” he said. “If there were ever to be a spill of a tanker or something like that on that road, that would be a disaster.”

Even the wilderness society accepts that the Greenbelt’s u-shape around the city means that some construction through it is unavoidable. But McDonnell would like to see better protection for wildlife in the area. He said the National Capital Commission has done such protective measures in the past: when Hunt Club Road was expanded around Stony Swamp, for example, it mandated underpasses and fences to keep animals off the road.

The wilderness society has also recommended the city make use of existing roads, like the Blackburn Hamlet Bypass about 100 metres north of the proposed route, which is what would be widened if one of the commission’s preferred routes were chosen. 

The group would also prefer the city add on to the light-rail transit expansion crossing the Greenbelt in the west, east, and south ends of the city rather than building a new bus corridor. The approved light-rail expansion is in phase two of construction and will add 44 kilometres of new rail and 24 new transit stations. The southern extension to the airport is set to be finished later in 2023 and the total project by 2025.

“The city is spending a whole lot of money on [light-rail transit] and so it doesn’t make sense to be building roads at the same time,” McDonnell said.

Natural disasters, such as last year’s derecho, are another worry

Urban development is not the only threat. The derecho that ripped through southern Ontario last May, with winds clocked by Environment Canada at over 130 kilometres an hour, caused significant damage to the Ottawa Greenbelt’s forest canopy and natural areas. The National Capital Commission said the storm was at least as severe as if not more so than the 1998 ice storm, which killed 35 and injured over a thousand people throughout eastern Ontario and southern Quebec.

“Hundreds of thousands of trees were impacted, especially in the Pine Grove, Southern Farm and Pinhey Forest sectors of the Greenbelt,” El-Akhrass said. “We estimate that we have lost approximately 70 per cent of the upper canopy layer in these areas, which cover about 2,700 hectares of land. The storm also left its mark on large parts of the Mer Bleue and Stony Swamp sectors.”

El-Akhrass said mature trees were uprooted and will take years to regenerate, affecting their ecological benefit, “including carbon storage, moderating local climate by providing shade and regulating temperature extremes.” She added the storm’s profound impact on the Greenbelt will be felt for years to come and numerous species will need to “adjust their behaviour and demonstrate their resiliency.”

McDonnell said the storm demonstrates the impact of climate change on a fragile ecosystem like the Greenbelt and more violent storms of the same nature are likely to occur in the future.

“It demonstrates the need for large conserved areas because a storm like this can wipe out a fairly substantial section of it,” McDonnell said. “Nature’s great, it will recover on its own, but in the meantime, species will be told to relocate elsewhere.” He added it is fortunate there was not more fragmentation to the impacted areas otherwise wildlife would have had nowhere to go.

The National Capital Commission is at the beginning of its process for the natural restoration of the Greenbelt, preparing long-term recovery plans that include debris management and tree planting. However, “it will take time to see a significant difference in the landscape,” El-Akhrass said.

El-Akhrass said there have already been signs of recovery, like a population of specialized woodpeckers that appeared after an increase of native insects ate dead or dying coniferous trees.

“For the first time since 2014, American three-toed woodpeckers have been seen in the Greenbelt,” she said.

Will the policy changes in Ontario’s Bill 23 affect the Greenbelt? 

Last November, the provincial government passed Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, making sweeping changes to development policy across Ontario, including the weakening or elimination of much environmental oversight of development applications. Bill 23 has a number of provisions that will likely make future encroachments on Ontario’s protected green spaces easier — the legislation that protects wetlands such as Mer Bleue Bog at the provincial level was also significantly weakened.  

The Doug Ford government has also made the controversial decision to open parts of the provincially managed Ontario Greenbelt in the southern part of the province to development.  

But, as Heweyer pointed out, Bill 23 does not have any direct impacts on the Ottawa Greenbelt because of the lands’ federal status. Still, there is the possibility of indirect impacts on the Greenbelt from future construction of provincial infrastructure, such as transit corridors or road widening. Heweyer said he is unsure how the municipal, provincial and federal governments would handle it if the province were to move to use Bill 23 to develop any part of Ottawa’s Greenbelt. 

Canada is the “landowner and a superior level of government,” he points out: it could use its muscle to impose its will, just as the province is using Bill 23 to override municipal governments’ planning and zoning choices. “I’d like to think that wouldn’t happen but who knows what could happen in the future,” Heweyer said, adding that the city and federal government have a good relationship when it comes to figuring out zoning for building infrastructure and services.

The National Capital Commission told The Narwhal that the National Capital Act means Bill 23 will have no impact on its mandate to “prepare plans for and assist in the development, conservation and improvement of the National Capital Region.”

Would national park status give the Ottawa Greenbelt better protection? 

McDonnell and the rest of the Ottawa Valley Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society have been pushing for the federal government to designate the Ottawa Greenbelt as a national urban park. McDonnell said this status would provide greater protections against development, creating more requirements to manage the area for ecological integrity and biodiversity.

“Right now, it’s just a big piece of federal land. Nobody really knows where the boundaries are … it’s just sort of empty land,” McDonnell said.

“So, it makes sense that people would wonder, well, why aren’t we developing that?”

The society raised the issue during last fall’s municipal election and has also had meetings with the commission, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault and Parks Canada. It is circulating a new petition with its suggestion.

In December 2021, Guilbeault’s official mandate letter set the objective of creating a network of national urban parks across Canada, one in each province and territory “with a target of 15 new urban parks by 2030.” 

Nadia Khaireddine, a spokesperson for Parks Canada, told The Narwhal the federal agency aims to designate six parks by 2026 and is developing a new national urban parks policy to guide their creation. She said the agency has heard from many people about potential sites across Canada, “including in the national capital region, but an official intake process has not yet begun.” She added that the agency would consider “the site’s potential for protecting nature, connecting Canadians with nature and advancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.”

Having a national urban park 10 minutes from Parliament Hill, McDonnell said, would “demonstrate [Canada’s] conservation leadership to Canadians and to people visiting from other parts of the world.”

“The status of national urban park would help elevate the Greenbelt, give it the importance that it deserves.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

As Doug Ford looks to break ground on new highways, Ontario’s financial watchdog is warning that extreme climate events will drive basic maintenance costs on transportation infrastructure drastically higher. 

In a new report out today, the Financial Accountability Office projects that extreme rainfall, heat and freeze-thaw cycles caused by the warming of the planet will increase the costs of maintaining roads, highways, bridges, sidewalks, transit and rail by an average of $1.5 billion per year in this decade. 

By 2030, Ontario’s provincial and municipal governments could be spending an average of $13.3 billion every year on infrastructure upkeep, let alone new projects. This is a 13 per cent increase in provincial and municipal transportation costs even if climate was stable — and that rise could be much more in a future of higher emissions, as much as 32 per cent.

The Financial Accountability Office’s role is to inform elected officials about present and future trends that could affect government spending. It doesn’t offer advice or instruction. Since 2019, the office has focused its calculations on one thing: the cost of climate change impacts on public infrastructure. 

The office’s analysis is unprecedented, the first in the world to study climate change impacts on infrastructure in granular financial detail. It has already put out six reports on the issue — on the potential impacts to essential services and buildings such as hospitals, schools, fire stations and more — with a final one coming towards the end of the year.

“The infrastructure that we’re building today will be around till 2080 or longer, so the infrastructure we design today needs to be able to withstand everything,” Peter Weltman, the financial accountability officer, told The Narwhal.

The takeaway of this report is that if you’re going to build 413, build it smart

Peter Weltman, Ontario Financial Accountability Officer

The provincial office is releasing its stunning numbers at a time when Canadians are already struggling to keep up with inflation on day-to-day expenses — driven by a variety of worldwide events, including global heating, economic slowdowns linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But the projected increases in costs are still modest when compared to a 2017 study published in Global Environmental Change, which found that the cost of repairing damage from heatwaves, floods and droughts on critical infrastructure in Europe could triple in the 2020s and multiply by 10 times by the end of the century.

The new Ontario report assesses the costs related to maintaining existing infrastructure as of 2020. Doug Ford’s proposed highway projects, like the Bradford Bypass or Highway 413, aren’t included. 

“The takeaway of this report is that if you’re going to build 413, build it smart,” Weltman said. “Build it while being mindful that it will become subjected to climate damage and build it to withstand that damage.” 

Ontario’s 444 cities, towns and other municipalities own 82 per cent of roads, bridges, transit lines and other transportation infrastructure, with the remainder owned by the province, says the report. Right now, Ontario’s entire transportation infrastructure is valued at $330 billion. If the climate remains stable, the province would spend an average of $12.9 billion every year to maintain it by 2030, the target year for climate commitments set by the Paris Agreement.

But the climate won’t remain stable — even if we were to drastically reduce emissions now, about 1.5 degrees of warming is almost certainly baked over the next two decades before any potential plateau or drop, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

The financial watchdog is projecting an increase in Ontario’s annual number of hot days as well as its annual rainfall intensity. In recent months and years, Ontario has borne the impacts of several severe climate events, such as this summer’s derecho storm and subsequent flooding and heat waves. These events have put trains out of service and closed down major arterials. 

The financial watchdog’s report focuses largely on extreme heat and extreme rainfall, as those weather events are tracked closely and directly impact public infrastructure.

The report finds extreme rainfall can overwhelm drainage functions on roadways, erode and break arterials and bridges, and destroy pavement. 

Extreme heat can soften asphalt and create cracks that turn into potholes. Heat can also cause stress on steel rail tracks that prevent trains from running. Freeze-thaw cycles, or quick fluctuations between freezing and non-freezing temperatures that alternately melt and solidify water, can also damage road surfaces.

The costs of repairing all this infrastructure could be lowered if the government spends now on preventative tactics. The report outlines what this adaptation would require. For roads, it means using temperature-resistant asphalt. Increased water levels will require roads to have larger drainpipes and for waterways to be reinforced with large rocks. Buildings will need deeper foundations, while railways need more supports to keep them stable. 

The report finds that emissions will drastically increase how much provincial and municipal governments spend on infrastructure repair — but the sooner we act, the more affordable it will be. Weltman was struck by “the sheer size of the dollars” in the latest cost analysis, but also by the return on investment the government could get with a strong infrastructure adaptation strategy. 

“We have examples of what happens when transportation fails,” Weltman told The Narwhal. “B.C. flooding last year, we saw what happened…that’s the big risk that makes a strong business case for adapting now.”

“Governments and everyone else should use [this report] as a starting point to figure out how to build smarter going forward in a climate crisis,” Weltman said. 

Notably, according to the report, the amount of emissions Ontario produces will have a significant impact on the money spent on public infrastructure upkeep. In a medium-emissions scenario — which sees Ontario reduce some greenhouse gas emissions — the financial watchdog finds an adaptation strategy will increase costs by 13 per cent, or $1.7 billion, every year. In a high-emissions scenario — which sees Ontario take little to no emissions-reduction measures — the same costs increase by 23 per cent, or $2.9 billion, every year. Those costs decrease by a few billion dollars if the government acts proactively sooner to adapt all infrastructure. 

 “It’s important that as we renovate and build new things that we keep the climate in mind and spend the money we need to spend to make sure everything is resilient going forward,” Weltman said. “If you’re going to build, build it out so it’s going to do the job you intend it to do between now and 2100.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In mid-July, the majority of the Ottawa Light Rail Transit (LRT) line was shut down for over a week after lightning brought down 900 metres of overhead wires used to power the trains.

A few days later, OC Transpo took several trains out of service after an operator felt the vehicle vibrating. Transit officials ordered an inspection which would reveal a faulty part in the wheels.

These are the latest incidents in the bewildering, confounding saga of the $2.1 billion, 13-station Ottawa LRT that has struggled to stay on track since before it went into service. From it’s conception, the rail line has seen two huge sinkholes, a tunnel collapse that trapped several workers, multiple lawsuits over construction delays, a series of breakdowns in good and bad weather, deformed wheels, failing computers, stuck doors and two derailments that were six weeks apart and shut down the entire line for nearly two months. 

In light of all this, the Ontario government called a public inquiry into the Ottawa LRT in November 2021 to investigate the decisions and actions taken in the lead up to and construction of the line. 

The commission collected more than one million documents — identifying more than 10,000 as relevant — and conducted more than 90 witness interviews ahead of public hearings held from June 13 to July 7.

“We serve you,” Justice William Hourigan, the Appeal Court justice leading the inquiry, told the public just before the hearings. “We need to understand what went wrong, who did what, and we’re going to get those answers for you. Absolutely we are.”

Over the course of three weeks, the public heard from Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, the companies involved in the construction and maintenance of the LRT and transportation authorities overseeing the line. One common thread was political pressure and the role it played in simultaneously constraining and rushing a train service into operation. 

The inquiry is a rare and detailed glimpse into the complicated bureaucratic process that saw huge sums of money committed by three levels of government to a project that is theoretically designed to slash emissions and make movement easier. A report is due at the end of August, with a possible deadline extension to the end of November.

Here are 11 things we learned from the evidence and testimony presented at the Ottawa LRT public inquiry.

1. There is a lot of finger-pointing

In its opening statement, French train manufacturer Alstom said both the city and Rideau Transit Group, the consortium of companies building the rail line, knew there were issues with the system before it launched in 2019 — over a year (or 456 days to be precise) after the city was meant to take control of the line. The hearings revealed that date was promoted by Ottawa’s mayor and council to coincide with Canada150 celebrations, but was never met. 

“All the parties were aware that the system was not ready” to open to the public, Alstom’s statement said, but the city and Rideau Transit Group “pressed ahead anyway.” It continued that, rather than delaying the opening, the city pushed for the September 2019 open date, “no matter what.”

The City of Ottawa denied this in its opening statement, saying it was “not in a rush to open the system.” It added that “at no time” did any of the construction companies say the system wasn’t ready. 

In his testimony before the public inquiry started, Mayor Watson said that while he had concerns about construction delays and technical issues during pre-launch testing, the staff “were satisfied” with the line and believed it to be “substantially complete.” Watson told the inquiry he was “not an expert in running a train system,” and relied on the professional expertise of staff and consultants during the construction and launch of the system.

John Manconi, the former head of Ottawa’s public transit agency OC Transpo who oversaw the launch, told the inquiry the city had a panel of 40 experts managing the whole system that “exceeded what it theoretically and technically and contractually could have and should have done.” 

Meanwhile, the Rideau Transit Group said the city didn’t do its part to properly “sensitize” the public for a new rail line and challenges that may come with using it. The group also said it was “let down” by Alstom, which was “late in delivering the vehicles.” 

Former Rideau Transit Group CEO Peter Lauch admitted there “probably was” political pressure to launch the LRT in 2019 because of “a huge advertising campaign and a lot of commitments, and it is important, you know, the politician doesn’t want to lose face.”

“That might have led into it, but as I said, I mean, it did not take away from all the peripheral systems, all the support systems. I mean, if we failed the safety issue, if we failed something, we wouldn’t have passed.”

2. Ottawa LRT’s public-private partnership made decision-making difficult

The Ottawa LRT was built through a public-private partnership, or P3, where government agencies and private-sector companies collaborate on a major infrastructure project. The winning company (or companies) build and maintain the project, helping to finance it, and generally hand over ownership to the government after a set period of time and repayment. 

In the case of the Ottawa LRT, Rideau Transit Group — a consortium of companies including ACS Infrastructure Canada, EllisDon and SNC Lavalin — took on $300 million in private financing, which the city would pay back in monthly installments over the 30-year contract that began once the system was up and running. If the consortium was late in hitting that target handover date, they wouldn’t get their much-needed funding.

At the public hearings, the commission lawyers suggested this contract arrangement was detrimental to the development process. Rideau Transit Group “was under enormous financial pressure because of the model,” said John Adair, co-lead counsel for the commission. 

Rideau Transit Group CEO Nicolas Truchon said financial pressures became more strained as deadline day approached. 

“Is it your view that, on the [Rideau Transit Group] side, that better decisions should have been made and would have been made were it not for the desire to achieve the financial component?” Adair asked Truchon. 

“Yes,” Truchon replied. 

3. The city refused to test the Ottawa LRT with a soft launch

In its opening statement, the Rideau Transit Group said the City of Ottawa’s “misguided decision” to start the LRT without a soft launch, which would have required testing a section of the rail line at full passenger capacity for several days. 

Many people told the commission that a soft launch is “best practice” to ensure a rail line is working well and sort out any issues that may occur. 

But, Matthew Slade, a member of the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Constructors and Rideau Transit Maintenance, told the commission the idea of a soft launch was “shut down vehemently.” 

“I would never contemplate opening a rail system without a soft launch,” Slade said.  “There are just too many moving parts and unknowns, and you can test and test, but until the system is actually being used, you don’t know how it is going to react or behave.”

“We should have taken more time to ensure, in retrospect, that the system was severely tested or stressed to flush out any issues. The more time you have to test and stress and communicate with all the parties on how to resolve issues, the better off the system is going to be …”

Mario Guerra, CEO of Rideau Transit Maintenance

Slade said he raised concerns about launching the full system on two separate occasions. He was turned down both times. City officials told him it would cause too much disruption for transit riders who would have to use a combination of buses and the LRT for their commute. 

“I would describe it quite simply as political,” Slade said. “The level of attention from the media and the politicians was quite immense, not something I have experienced before.”

4. ‘Cancellation was not an option’ for city officials in the days before the launch

After some prodding, former rail director John Jensen admitted on the first day of public hearings that the decision to move up the launch of the LRT in 2017 — in time for Canada 150 celebrations — was “not coming from the experts.”

“If you could please just confirm that where it was coming from was the mayor and council,” Adair asked. 

“That’s correct,” Jensen said. 

The city’s director of rail operations, Michael Morgan, denied there was any political pressure ahead of the LRT launch, rather confusion and miscommunication between the various parties bringing it in service. 

“We would look at the state of the stations, the state of the fleet and none of it was ready,” Morgan said. “And so it became this kind of conflict where what we saw on the ground wasn’t matching what they were telling us. And so that was probably the biggest challenge for the project was just the lack of understanding of when the project was going to be finished.”

But two days before the 2019 launch, in a WhatsApp group he set up in mid-July 2019 for a number of city officials to monitor progress of the LRT, Manconi wrote “cancellation of launch is not an option.”

“I need everyone to think of Plan B, C, and D,” Manconi said in the message. 

“I don’t know what caused him to send this note but he’s always planning for a contingency scenario,” Morgan said. A few days earlier Manconi messaged that issues with radio resets and late trains were “stressing me out.”

5. Ottawa mayor unleashed barrage of orders around LRT on private WhatsApp group

Manconi’s WhatsApp group was first revealed at the public hearings, and became a key and repeated source of information throughout. It was the main communications channel for several city officials, including transit chair Allan Hubley and members of Mayor Watson’s staff. The mayor himself didn’t join the chat until October 2019.

City officials would use the chat to get daily updates about the trains during the 12-day trial run, as well as information about the LRT’s performance and issues.  

The transcript of the chat paints an image of a chaotic time, as public servants and consultants workshopped the day-to-day mishaps. Through various messages, the commission was shown an agitated mayor who, according to Manconi, was “loosing (sic) his mind” and constantly giving orders that seemingly ran contrary to safety and technical standards. Public servants complained about maintenance staff and described them as “idiotic” among other unflattering descriptions, and there were observations of an axe-wielding vandal one day and a spilled box of blueberries another; all of this among an avalanche of technical challenges. For the most part, the chat shows public servants and consultants patting themselves on the back, with emotions tensing largely when politicians or media got involved.

Watson testified that the WhatsApp group was “not a decision-making body” but a “communications tool to try to make our job more efficient, when we’re asked to make decisions — probably several dozen over the course of any couple of hours — on a wide variety of issues.”

“Any issue of substance would not go in a WhatsApp,” the mayor said. 

But there are a barrage of messages from the mayor demanding updates about every aspect of the LRT, sending out orders and worrying that “our reputation is in tatters.” He even sent minute-by-minute thoughts while using the LRT and asked for help to shut off the announcement system for “calling all wrong stations !!!!” and requested a red-vest support staff to ask passengers to remove their backpacks so more people could use the train. 

In one instance, Watson worried why the OC Transpo Twitter account was presenting different information than what was in the chat. “Why is the twitter account still saying delays?? It’s been 20 minutes yet you tell me it was fixed in five minutes,” he wrote.

In another instance, Watson was concerned about multiple train faults. “This is ridiculous. I want parallel bus service ready to run all next week as a backup. We have zero credibility at this point,” he wrote.

“I am furious I start the morning with a break down and end the afternoon with another one,” he wrote two months into the LRT being operational. A few days later, after a series of door and brake issues that stopped trains from working, he said, “I don’t think things are getting better. We now seek (sic) to have a wider array of problems.” 

Watson even sent orders to set up meetings with Rideau Transit Group and Rideau Transit Maintenance officials. “Hold all payments to them and they are not to receive a cent until I personally give you permission,” he wrote. 

Five days after adding Watson to the group chat, Manconi wrote, “Mr. Mayor I beg you please I am getting so many messages from you on multiple channels and your staff. I will answer every one of them. All being actioned. We are drowning in message overload.”

Manconi used multiple WhatsApp groups to give instructions and analysis. At several instances he calls Alstom and Rideau Transit Maintenance staff “clowns,” “morons” and “idiots.” In another chat with public servants organizing the launch, he asked colleagues to put out tweets with updated information about the train service because the “mayor is upset.” 

6. The testing of the Ottawa LRT was rushed; the criteria for approval was lowered

Originally, the idea for testing the Ottawa LRT was to ensure it worked perfectly with a full set of 15 trains for 12 consecutive days. But the trial was plagued with failure after failure, so the criteria was changed to just 12 days of near-perfect operation, no longer consecutive and with just 13 trains. 

Former Rideau Transit Group CEO Peter Lauch told the commission that Manconi was the one who proposed to weaken the criteria. Manconi now does consulting work for STV Inc., the firm that advised the city throughout the development of the project. Lauch said the new criteria was proposed to help the consortium pass and start getting paid. 

Lauch told the commission, “With respect to our board, everyone agreed with that.”

Other evidence at the commission indicated that Manconi and his team wanted to use their discretion in making pass/fail decisions for some days of testing. The commission was also told the independent certifier team leader wasn’t present for the testing, leaving oversight to a colleague who had graduated only four years prior. 

I am furious I start the morning with a break down and end the afternoon with another one.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson

The commission also heard from a train system engineer who said the final testing of the Alstom trains was “compressed.” Testing only started a few weeks before the system became operational. Any issues identified were not fixed, including things like trains losing power, the train shutting down if someone stopped the doors from closing and the glass door in the operator’s cab cracking. Addressing such issues could have taken months and were waived by the city. 

“Through trial running, we had an unacceptable failure rate and we had trouble getting technical support from the vendor (Alstom),” Lowell Goudge, the train system engineer and train safety certifier, said. 

For its part, Alstom was meant to have four kilometres of double tracks along the line to test its trains but was only given a short piece of track in the railyard. It was also behind on its testing schedule due to delays in assembly.

7. The maintenance director was on the Ottawa LRT before it derailed in September 2021 and ‘didn’t think he was going to make it’

On the last day of public hearings, the commission was presented with a video of the derailment last fall. It showed Steven Nadon, the maintenance director of Rideau Transit Maintenance, getting off the train moments before it veered off the tracks. 

Guerra, of Rideau Transit Maintenance, told the commission Nadon had “heard a clank sound beneath him and he thought a cable had come loose or that something was dragging and as such he told his wife to get off because he didn’t think he was going to make it.” 

Guerra said Nadon had no way to know the train would derail, and that he followed protocol by informing maintenance crews about the sound. 

The video shows clouds of dust and gravel from the tracks visibly hitting the train, which Guerra agreed should’ve been visible to anyone watching the train. 

An investigation report looking into this derailment identified inattention as a contributing factor, as well as a “human waste smell.” In fact, the LRT operator that day testified that he was communicating with the control room about the smell of human feces on the train before it derailed. 

The cause for this derailment was later identified as loose bolts. 

8. Alstom had just two weeks to repurpose its trains to carry the volume of a subway train on the Ottawa LRT

The trains used on the Ottawa LRT line are the longest light-rail trains in North America and had never been used before, according to testimony from Yves Declercq, an executive with Alstom. The city gave the company two weeks to upgrade its design to meet Ottawa’s requirements, which included making the train even longer than proposed in order to serve 24,000 passengers an hour. “That is the size of a subway train,” Declercq said. 

To do that, Alstom had to increase the number of doors from eight to 14 and use a different engine, one that is similar to the New York City Subway system. 

“We were pushing the limit,” Declercq said. “And that does explain, in part, the problems that were incurred later. So we were at the limits of the concept and came across new problems that we don’t usually come across.”

When pressed for examples for these troubles, Declercq said “like derailments” and other technical problems. 

Declercq also revealed that Rideau Transit Group came to Alstom after it had already lost its initial bid, and after the consortium’s first choice, Spanish company CAF, was disqualified by the city. This was a “very rare” occurrence, he said, adding that his company made it clear to the city that the trains they wanted didn’t yet exist but could be developed. 

The trains were eventually manufactured in Ottawa because the city had a 25 per cent Canadian content rule in place to qualify for federal and provincial funding. But this wasn’t easy: the commission heard that Alstom, which didn’t have a large North American presence before its Ottawa contract, struggled to find skilled workers for the task. It didn’t have an overnight maintenance supervisor at the time of the September 2021 derailment. 

As for the derailments, Declercq said the Ottawa LRT tracks are “non-compliant” with its trains.

9. The two companies that made the trains and their computer systems worked in silos

While Alstom made the trains for the Ottawa LRT, Thales Canada Inc. created the computerized signalling system that would control the braking, propulsion, doors, track sensors and other movement-related functions. This was the first time a Thales train communication system was being used in a light-rail vehicle. 

Thales project manager Michael Burns told the commission his company and Alstom were working in silos and not collaboratively. 

Rupert Holloway, the SNC-Lavalin vice-president who oversaw the building of the train system from May 2018 to May 2019, agreed. He said the construction leads spent a lot of time building the tunnel (“a world-class piece of civil engineering”) but didn’t focus enough on “the integration challenge” — making sure several systems worked in sync in the case of an emergency. 

“We certainly failed in regards of tackling that challenge as effectively as we could have done,” Holloway told the commission.

During pre-launch testing, for example, Burns said his company discovered Alstom had put in a safety measure that would force the train to stop if the emergency brake was applied too many times. Thales already had its own safety measure for emergency braking. 

When the trains were operational, there was an instance of a woman getting caught in a door that closed early, though no serious injuries occured. Burns said the Thales system would have re-opened the door if something blocked it from closing. An investigation into that instance showed Alstom had a different command in place. 

10. The budget for the Ottawa LRT did not take into account true costs of construction, transportation and inflation 

Former city treasurer Marian Simulik told the commission the $2.1 billion budget for the first stage of the LRT — a number Watson campaigned heavily on — didn’t account for more than $400 million in inflation and $177 million in construction and transportation costs. These costs would be absorbed by the city, which tried to save money wherever it could to make room for this: the downtown tunnel wasn’t built as deep as planned and the University of Ottawa station was switched from an underground stop to an aboveground one. 

When asked if there were ever discussions about the budget being insufficient for the city’s LRT plans, Simulik said, “I don’t remember any discussion of it being insufficient.” 

“We basically trusted the private sector to act reasonably and produce a document or a bid that reflected what they thought the cost was going to be,” she said, adding that $2.1 billion was the absolute cap for the city’s expenditure on the LRT.  

When asked if there were concerns about whether this cap may have “introduced or increased a risk that the private sector might overpromise in order to get under the cap or meet the budget,” Simulik said, “No.” 

Others, however, expressed concern at the hearings that the budget wasn’t sufficient. Rob Pattison, who headed the LRT division for provincial agency Infrastructure Ontario, told the commission “the budget was not up for debate” and worried at the time it was proposed that it may lead to “a failed procurement.” 

11. Everyone knew the Ottawa LRT would not provide reliable service 

The City of Ottawa willingly accepted an LRT system that it knew was unreliable. 

The commission was told the system was never tested in its entirety before it was opened. At no point were 15 double-car trains tried on a normal service schedule before passengers stepped aboard. In fact, the commission was told there wasn’t a single railcar that didn’t have a reported and unaddressed issue when the LRT opened to the public. 

“We should have taken more time to ensure, in retrospect, that the system was severely tested or stressed to flush out any issues,” Guerra, of Rideau Transit Maintenance, said. “The more time you have to test and stress and communicate with all the parties on how to resolve issues, the better off the system is going to be” when it’s being used by passengers. 

Rideau Transit Group CEO Nicolas Truchon told the commission there was no discussion during the construction phase about how the entire system would work in real life, that everyone was just trying to meet their conditions and get sign-off from a number of independent certifiers. 

“At the end of the day, there’s very little discretion,” he said. “I think the question should be whether or not those conditions should have been a little more all-encompassing … There was little room for anybody to raise their hand and say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, I don’t think we’re ready.’ ”

Updated on Aug. 9, 2022, at 10:56 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to correct that the Ottawa LRT launched more than a year after it was meant to start up under the city’s control, not two years.Updated on Aug. 10, 2022, at 5:03 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to correct a photo caption that suggested the train pictured was built by Alstom, when in fact it was built by a different manufacturer for the second phase of the Ottawa LRT.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

It’s become a running joke in Canada’s capital city: come rain or snow, the Ottawa Light Rail Transit (LRT) system won’t run smoothly — or at all. 

The $2.1-billion, 13-station light-rail line was meant to solve issues of traffic congestion and overcrowded buses on Ottawa’s streets. It was meant to showcase the efficacy of tri-level intergovernmental funding agreements and public private partnerships. As a bonus, it would also demonstrate how transit can serve as a huge emissions-reduction measure for a city. 

But since it launched in September 2019, the Ottawa LRT has been off the rails — both figuratively and literally.

Construction was dogged by major problems, including two huge sinkholes and a tunnel collapse that trapped three workers. The city and the construction companies it hired are now suing each other over a series of problems that range from trains not working in extreme weather, both cold and heat, to multiple derailments, to delays and closures that have left riders disappointed and angry.

There’s been very little transparency or accountability from public officials throughout the decade-long saga. But this month marks the start of a provincial inquiry into the entire project — from the process of choosing the companies to build it to ongoing disruptions — led by the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Commission. Public hearings will run from June 13 to July 8, 2022, and 41 witnesses are scheduled to speak. A final report will be submitted to the Ontario Minister of Transportation on or before August 31 — maybe.

The Ottawa LRT debacle is a complicated, chaotic story about the tension between politics and public transit in Ontario and Canada, and the opaque public-private relationships such projects involve. Here’s what you need to know. 

I don’t live in Ottawa — why should I care about the LRT saga? 

Transportation is one of the largest sources of carbon pollution in Canada. Better public transit could significantly help the country meet its international commitments to slash the emissions that are causing the planet to heat up.

The freshly re-elected Doug Ford government has pledged to honour its transit projects, which include the Ottawa LRT. The question for riders and residents is how to ensure these projects are built efficiently and well. While each city needs its own specific transit solutions, all big transit projects tend to be subjected to a complicated bureaucratic process that sees huge sums of money committed by three levels of government to private companies, often with very little transparency. The Ottawa LRT public inquiry is mandated to shed more light on that process and share recommendations on how to improve it. 

In 2014, Ontario’s auditor general said the system of scoring proposals put forward by companies wanting to take part in public-private partnerships, like the ones that build transit, “places more weight on a low bid than on technical merits.” It essentially gives the lowest-cost proposal “a decided edge.” 

But is a cheaper transit project really that beneficial if it is plagued with problems that make it useless for riders — and wind up costing much more down the road? This inquiry may offer some thoughts. Certainly, the transit riders of Ottawa will welcome a chance to share their own.

So how did the Ottawa LRT come to be? 

In December 2012, Rideau Transit Group — a consortium of companies including ACS Infrastructure Canada, EllisDon and SNC Lavalin — was awarded a $2.1 billion contract to build the LRT line. The consortium won the bid primarily for its low-cost proposal, and agreed to  maintain the LRT for 30 years after it opened. At the time, this contract was called the “deal of the year.”

That same month, Ottawa City Council unanimously approved the first stage of construction: a 12.5-kilometre east-west transit line to replace the city’s rapid bus lane system, known as the Transitway, where the volume of buses had become unsustainable. The new LRT line would transport over nine million passengers annually across 13 new stations, three of which would be in 2.5-kilometre-long tunnels.

This line was the first step in Ottawa’s Transportation Master Plan, which proposed more than 40 kilometres of new light rail over the next two decades. This includes a 30-kilometre north-south line and a 12-kilometre extension of the east-west line. 

Construction on the first stage began in April 2013 and the east-west line was supposed to be up and running by 2018. 

Who funded the Ottawa LRT?

Like most mega transit projects in Canada, this one was jointly funded by the federal government, the provincial government and the municipality, in this case the City of Ottawa. 

The first stage of construction in 2014 was funded in part by $600 million from the federal and Ontario governments. The City of Ottawa allocated up to $161.5 million of its federal gas tax transfers and $287 million of provincial gas tax transfers to the project. The remainder came from development charge revenues — fees collected from developers to help pay for the cost of providing municipal services, such as transit, water and emergency services, to new development — and transit reserves.

When did the problems with the Ottawa LRT start? 

During construction.

In February 2014, a sinkhole opened during the construction of a tunnel on Waller Street, the planned site for Rideau Station. Rideau Transit Group found the cause to be an old construction pit that hadn’t been spotted during testing. Another huge sinkhole opened in June 2016 at Rideau Street and Sussex Street, one of Ottawa’s busiest intersections, after the construction disrupted the roadway: a van fell in, a gas leak occurred, businesses were evacuated. The two streets were closed for six months and construction was delayed. 

Notably, the city didn’t hire an independent investigator to find the root causes of these sinkholes. Instead, it chose to ask experts from Rideau Transit Group to examine what happened.

In November 2016, three workers with subcontractor Hardrock Construction were trapped in the downtown tunnel after a section collapsed. All three were rescued with minimal injuries. 

Did the Ottawa LRT open on time? 

Nope. It opened 456 days late with a myriad of issues.

Rideau Transit Group was meant to hand the line over to the city for inspection by May 2018. The consortium told the city this deadline was “risky” and said the line would be ready for  inspection in November 2018 — six months after the original deadline. 

Contractually, the city had the right to impose a $1-million fine for this missed deadline. At that point, no penalty was imposed. 

Then Rideau Transit Group missed the postponed deadline and two subsequent deadlines, incurring  $2 million in penalties. It was penalized once more in August 2019 for missing a deadline again because it couldn’t complete the city’s safety benchmark: 12 consecutive days of testing without issues.

The delays weren’t just due to construction issues. That same August, the city’s then-head of transportation, John Manconi, wrote to the Rideau Transit Group that “things are not going well … The vehicles require attention more often than they should.” The public wouldn’t learn about this until late 2021, after CBC News obtained Manconi’s letter through access to information legislation. 

The rail line opened on September 14, 2019 with just 12 days of testing. These days were not consecutive. 

Was the Ottawa LRT able to withstand its first days in winter weather? 

No, and city officials knew that was likely before it opened.

In February 2019, a report by city inspectors “expressed concern on the effectiveness of switch heaters to prevent ice and snow from building up and immobilizing the switch points and switch rods.” The inspectors also found issues with heaters on the main line. 

The trains that had been bought for the line were designed by Alstom Canada specifically for North American winters, but had never been used before. In March 2019, CBC News obtained a series of internal reports that showed parts of the train froze or broke in the cold. One report from February 2019 said the “vehicles are currently unreliable to the point that it has not been demonstrated that operations can be sustained during a winter weather event.”

In April 2020, a city report revealed the trains were tested for winter reliability in a laboratory simulation rather than real-world conditions. 

What happened after the Ottawa LRT finally opened? 

Transit users were disappointed and frustrated. Chaos ensued.

To start, there were only 13 trains on the line instead of the promised 15.  Poorly aligned bus routes made for longer wait times between the connections. This all made commuters late and resulted in overcrowded platforms. Door faults also shut trains down for up to an hour, forcing Ottawa mayor Jim Watson to instruct city staff to “solve this damn door issue once and for all” during a meeting. At the time, the train computers were also failing repeatedly.

There were 12 consecutive days of delays in October 2019, a month after opening. Around 40 buses were put back on the road to help relieve LRT congestion and a three-month fare freeze was put in place to appease transit users. 

In 2021, a local distress centre started promoting their services specifically for LRT users. Even Watson said that riding the multi-billion dollar LRT was an “awful experience.”

In January 2020, four months after the LRT started running, the entire system went down for 18 hours after an electrical wire broke and fell on the tracks. That same month, five trains were pulled out of service because their wheels were “not perfectly round.” No other explanation was provided by the city. Cracked wheels were also discovered on other trains months later. The cause: protruding screws. All wheels on all trains were ordered to be replaced; this took over a year to accomplish.

In February 2020, debris on the tracks — later identified to be a part of another train — took six trains out of service. That same month, six trains failed during rush hour. By this point, there were only seven functional trains, down from the promised 15. 

All of this happened in just the first six months of the LRT’s operations. 

There was also this sewage thing … 

Three months in, two downtown Ottawa stations were overcome with the smell of sewage. The construction team had learned of a sewer puncture during an inspection in August 2019 but didn’t inform the public until November — yet another setback on a very long list of mishaps the public was not told about. 

Even though the sewer was repaired, the smell persisted for a while. 

Did a train actually derail? 

Yup, this happened twice in six weeks. 

In August 2021, a train carrying no passengers derailed after its axle came off on the track. The incident put the whole LRT system out of service for a week. An investigation by Rideau Transit Group found 10 other trains had the same issue and would need repairs. 

In September 2021, another train derailed after a wheel broke off. No one was injured. All trains were taken out of service for 54 days while the cause was investigated.

A report released in November 2021 found the cause of the September issue to be “inconsistent and incomplete maintenance following the August derailment:” the first train was inadequately repaired and caused a serious accident a mere five days after its release. 

Who is to blame for all this?

Depends on who you ask. 

Ottawa’s transit union, Amalgamated Transit Union 279, blames “the city’s continued use of public-private partnerships that place profit ahead of safety” — a sentiment shared by many. Mayor Watson has repeatedly defended the city’s choice as being “good value for taxpayers.” But Ottawa is now suing Rideau Transit Group, and Watson has decided not to run for re-election this fall.  

Just as the pandemic began, the City of Ottawa issued a formal notice of default to Rideau Transit Group in an attempt to break its $2.1-billion contract, which gives the consortium the responsibility to maintain the LRT line for another 27 years. The company was given until March 31, 2020 to fix all the problems. 

That same month, Rideau Transit Group released a statement criticizing the city for this statement, calling it “an inexplicable decision to release a self-serving letter.” The consortium said the city hadn’t paid it at all since the line opened. 

The city had in fact withheld $59 million in construction payments, to cover the costs of the delay in opening. In its statement, the consortium said the delays were because of the city’s “acts and omissions.” 

The city filed a second notice of default last fall, at which point Ottawa’s rail construction director told council the consortium had failed to meet its responsibilities to create and maintain a safe and efficient LRT line. 

Ottawa’s notices of default are just two of the lawsuits pending in the wake of the LRT debacle.

The city is also suing its own insurers for $361 million in costs associated with the 2016 sinkhole. The Rideau Transit Group is suing the city for $230 million for the same sinkhole; the city is counter suing. 

Meanwhile, several businesses impacted by construction issues are suing both the consortium and the city. One hotel sued both $100,000 for costs incurred because of the sinkhole evacuation. Many other businesses joined this lawsuit later. 

Several subcontractors filed lawsuits worth roughly $33 million against the consortium for missed payments and costs incurred from the delays. The employer of the three workers who were trapped in the tunnel is also suing the consortium for negligence and costs incurred from delays. That suit is for $12.8 million. 

What is the public inquiry into the Ottawa LRT about and who is leading it? 

In October 2021, city councillor Catherine McKenney proposed a judicial inquiry into the LRT. Council didn’t vote on the motion, instead moving to have the city auditor, Nathalie Gougeon, investigate the contract with Rideau Transit Group. There were limitations to that investigation: the city auditor would not be able to hold public hearings and wouldn’t be able to investigate the mayor or council members who were decision-makers throughout the saga.

McKenney filed their motion again in November; it was defeated. 

In November 2021, the Ford government announced a public inquiry into the LRT saga, and that it would hold back $1.2 billion in provincial funding for the expansion until the inquiry is complete. Before the announcement, Watson wrote a five-page letter to then-transportation minister Caroline Mulroney asking for “a fair opportunity” to brief her on the city’s “due diligence work” before she called for an inquiry. Mulroney chose to call an inquiry without speaking to him. 

The province appointed Justice William Hourigan, a judge who specializes in commercial litigation, to head the inquiry now called Ottawa Light Rail Transit Commission. The mandate is to investigate what led to the breakdowns and derailments, as well as the city’s oversight of the project and its adherence to safety standards. 

In advance of the inquiry, the Commission has already gathered over a million documents, of which 10,000 were deemed relevant, and interviewed 90 witnesses, 41 of whom will testify during the public hearings that begin June 13. The list includes everyone from Watson and former transportation general manager Manconi to executives of Rideau Transit Group and city officials that were part of the 2012 contract negotiations. 

The city auditor paused her investigation so as to not duplicate the inquiry’s work. A report is expected in late August, though the inquiry has an option to extend that deadline till November if needed. 

What happens next with the Ottawa LRT? 

In March 2019, Ottawa City Council voted in favour of a $4.66-billion expansion of the LRT that would add 24 new stations around the city. The vote was rushed because the bids from companies wanting to to build the extension were expiring. Councillors complained about not having enough time to read all the reports.“Today for the first time, I’m going to be making a decision without having all the facts or being able to describe to residents exactly what the implications of my decision are,” Councillor Jeff Leiper said at the time. He still voted for the expansion, which awarded the building to some of the same companies that are part of the Rideau Transit Group. And it doesn’t look like the city has learned from its mistakes: documents that have been made public show the new consortium of companies chosen for Stage 2 of construction, which will expand the east-west LRT line, do not have the technical capabilities to execute it. SNC Lavalin, for example, failed to achieve the required technical score for this stage but offered the lowest cost. 

The construction of the north-south line is already facing a nine-month delay. 

Updated June 11, 2022, at 4:26 p.m. ET: This article was updated to correct the spelling of the name of construction company EllisDon.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Standing on a tree-lined hill in a grassy corner of Ottawa’s Central Experimental Farm, Stephanie (Mikki) Adams recalled how she would cherish every chance to go camping, fishing or hunting when growing up in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.

“Here in the great outdoors, where we’re connected to the land, we’re connected to the environment, we have the air, we have the wind, we have the land right beneath us, right around us,” she explained on a warm, breezy April day, as her light blue jacket glinted in the sun.

“Being able to be on the grass, and smell the nature around you, to hear the birds around you — that itself is healing, and that itself can do a lot for an individual’s mental health.”

Adams now spends her time in Ottawa as the executive director of the Inuuqatigiit Centre for Inuit Children, Youth and Families.

The centre offers recreational, educational and cultural services, many of which draw upon the natural environment, like encouraging young children to use twigs or moss during play time, or engaging in outdoor activities like pulling sleds or building canvas tents.

The centre is one of 10 Indigenous organizations that make up the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition, which Adams co-chairs. The organizations offer services like housing, daycare, support for survivors of residential schools and other violence, after-school programs and youth employment training. Together they serve roughly half of the 40,000 Indigenous people they estimate are in the Ottawa area.

Several programs use outdoor greenspace, like this spot, for on-the-land, culture-based activities that involve healing, teaching or knowledge-gathering. These activities are critical for moving forward with reconciliation, Adams said. For Indigenous people, “to work on healing yourself, which is accepting what has occurred, really helps when you’re in an environment that is safe and that has nature around you,” she said.

Just then, her voice was drowned out by the roar of excavating equipment several metres from where she was standing.

It was a visceral reminder that the trees, the birds and the grass, and the peace that comes with them, may not be around for much longer.

Premier Doug Ford and Minto Group developer are backing the new Ottawa Hospital campus

Ottawa is built on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. The particular parcel Adams was standing on is being developed into a brand new, $2.8 billion hospital, the new Civic campus of the Ottawa Hospital network. The 230,000-square-metre complex on Carling Avenue, southwest of downtown Ottawa, is expected to hold 641 beds, employ more than 5,000 people and serve a wide swath of eastern Ontario, western Quebec and part of Nunavut.

The more than 20-acre site (about twice the size of Parliament Hill) will sit on a portion of the experimental farm, a National Historic Site of Canada. Developing the hospital will mean replacing much of the greenspace in the immediate area with two high-rise towers with an atrium in the middle. One tower would be 11-storeys tall with a helipad and the other would be a seven-storey tower. An adjoining city park is set to be turned into a four-storey, above-ground garage with 2,500 parking spaces.

The current Civic campus, just down the street, first opened in 1924 and was declared 15 years ago to be too old and too difficult to rebuild. The hospital network says the new campus will be “one of the largest and most advanced” in Canada when it opens in 2028, complete with a new trauma centre and a neuroscience research program, and will “help to drive the regional economy.”

The search for a new location has taken years. In 2014, the former federal Conservative government offered land across the street from the current hospital campus. But that location, an agricultural research area, received blowback from residents amid complaints the decision was made without public consultation. That plan was scuttled in 2016. The same year, another potential site owned by the federal government was rejected by the hospital’s board of governors.

Two years later, the federal government signed a 99-year lease with the Ottawa Hospital for the current site near Dow’s Lake, an artificial lake on the Rideau Canal. On Oct. 13, 2021, City Hall approved the master plan for the Dow’s Lake site. The mayor expressed relief that day.

“After 14 years of planning, we’re finally able to help bring this new world-class health care facility to Ottawa that will serve our residents for the next 100 years,” Mayor Jim Watson tweeted.

Powerful figures are backing the development: Watson has been a big booster, while Roger Greenberg, the executive chair of prominent real estate developer Minto Group, is leading a $500 million fundraising campaign. His family, who are company shareholders, donated $25 million to kickstart the effort, earning public praise from the mayor.

The project also has the support of Ontario Premier Doug Ford. His Progressive Conservative government is committing $2.1 billion for the hospital’s construction, through a public-private partnership model. Ford travelled to Ottawa in March to champion a portion of that funding, saying the new hospital has been “desperately needed for decades.”

On Sept. 30, 2021, the Ottawa Hospital held a ceremony to “honour the land” and “respectfully offer thanks” to all Indigenous people. At the event, Ottawa Hospital President Cameron Love said the hospital was “committed to building meaningful partnerships with Indigenous communities, patients and their families.”

Yet some Indigenous communities still feel left out of the conversation.

‘Take your trees, and your freaking parking lot, and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine’

Despite all the high-ranking support, members of the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition have felt sidelined as details about the hospital’s location and design were signed off on by city officials.

For one, an environmental impact study in 2021 found that 523 trees will be removed from the site to allow for the construction of buildings, something that has horrified some Indigenous organizations which consider the trees to be significant for the health and wellbeing of all people and important symbols of spiritual beliefs and traditions.

“Trees are our teachers and healers, givers and providers,” Adams said.

The city government told The Narwhal it has heard the concerns of residents on the loss of greenspace, and is considering initiatives to incorporate natural elements into the design and to include transit, cyclist and pedestrian access. The parking garage, a city spokesperson said, will have a green roof with two hectares of greenspace, including what they referred to as an “Indigenous garden.”

At the same time, at least one city councillor, Jan Harder, has sharply dismissed concerns around the loss of trees. She suggested that the people in her suburban ward of Barrhaven are not interested in the issue either and that City Hall has more important things to deal with.

People who are “still talking about trees” are in the same group as those who “make excuses” not to support any large city projects, Harder argued during a May 11 Ottawa city council meeting, where councillors approved a framework for dealing with a funding request from the hospital.

“I represent over 70,000 people; I have had not one person call my office, I have received not one email, about the parking garage,” she said.

“So take your trees, and your freaking parking lot, and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”

In February, coalition members became alarmed after the city’s planning committee gathered to endorse the hospital’s plan for the parking garage — in the middle of a far-right occupation of Ottawa that shut down major streets, and subjected locals and retail workers to incessant harassment and intimidation.

The timing of the decision caught Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition members off guard. Support staff, already exhausted from the stress of the pandemic, had been fully preoccupied dealing with the impact of the occupation on the health of its clientele. Adams said none of the Indigenous service providers in the coalition were asked to provide any input during this period.

Along with fellow coalition co-chair Allison Fisher, executive director of the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, Adams penned a letter to the mayor and city council on Feb. 14, requesting a “moratorium” on the decision and a “full and meaningful engagement” with Ottawa’s urban Indigenous population “at a time where our responsibilities around climate change has never been more clear and immediate.”

The two expressed their concern “around the entire decision-making process around the hospital.”

“It is still unclear why decisions that will have such a significant change to the Ottawa Indigenous community, and the broader community, are not as transparent and well understood as required,” they wrote.

“We did not realize that in the midst of the occupancy, the city committee still needed to proceed with this decision.”

Coalition members were able to meet with representatives of the Ottawa Hospital on March 7, but the city and the hospital pressed ahead with plans. That month, work began to prepare the site for the new parking garage, which will be built first to accommodate workers building the main hospital grounds.

The hospital has now removed approximately 159 trees from the site, a city spokesperson confirmed on May 17. Of those trees, the city and the hospital said 100 were “invasive species” and six more were considered “dead.” At the time of writing, the city said a further seven “notable trees” were expected to be “relocated to another area of the site” that week.

The city and the hospital say they are working together to preserve as many mature trees as possible and minimize the disruption to birds’ nesting and migration. After the parking garage is built in 2024, the city spokesperson said, “more than 850 trees will be planted on this section of the site.”

The coalition, however, is frustrated with what it considers to be insufficient engagement. On March 18 it put out a press release, reiterating its position. “We were not consulted with at all,” Adams said.

“They’re all hoping it will kind of go under the table and just wash away.”

The hospital says the parking garage is necessary because of its large service area: patients who live hours away will need somewhere close to park after a long drive into town.

But the coalition wants to see the land for the parking garage, and for the entire hospital, used instead as a “Reconciliation Space” for Indigenous people in the city, and to remain an open, public area.

Adams said they would consider such a gesture to be a “symbol” of the city’s commitment to the urban Indigenous people who call Ottawa home.

Ottawa Hospital won’t name Indigenous advisory council members, says coalition was ‘invited’

The city and the hospital both say a wide range of Indigenous groups have been consulted. They say the coalition and its members, as well as other organizations, were “invited” to participate in an Indigenous advisory body for the hospital, but did not confirm which, if any, actually joined.

The mayor’s office and the Ottawa Hospital both declined requests for an interview from The Narwhal. 

The hospital “engaged directly with community partners,” including “Indigenous communities,” throughout the planning process for the new campus,” Ottawa Hospital spokesperson Rebecca Abelson wrote in a May 4 emailed response to questions.

The hospital had “worked closely” over the past year with the advisory body, called the Indigenous Peoples Advisory Circle, Abelson wrote. She described it as a “group of organizations that represent or serve the needs of First Nations, Inuit, Métis and urban Indigenous communities.”

According to the hospital’s newsletter, the advisory circle’s inaugural meeting was held in May 2021, and chaired by Marion Crowe, who is the vice-chair of the Ottawa Hospital board of governors and a member of the Piapot First Nation. The body is meant to ensure that “cultural awareness, inclusion and safety are integrated in planning and design of the new hospital,” the newsletter indicated.

Few other details about the advisory circle’s makeup or the agendas of its meetings appear to have been published. Crowe did not respond to a request for comment.

The Narwhal asked the hospital which Indigenous organizations or representatives it had engaged directly with during the planning process, and if it could list the members of the advisory circle and provide its meeting agendas.

In a May 6 emailed response, Abelson said several groups were invited to join the advisory circle, including the Government of Nunavut, the Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, Kitigan Zibi First Nation, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council.

“We look forward to expanding the [advisory] circle as more organizations and attendees are able to join,” she wrote.

A spokesperson for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne said they have been included in discussions with a different Ottawa Hospital committee, but did not confirm that they were part of the advisory circle.

“We respect the position of the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition, but we will rely on the Algonquin Nation to take an official consultation position,” wrote the Mohawk Council spokesperson in an email. Algonquins of Pikwàkanagàn representatives did not return requests for comment before publication.

While the hospital may have reached out to Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization for Inuit did not engage with them, a spokesperson for that organization explained, as they are not technically an Ottawa community group.

Charmaine Forgie, a city manager, wrote May 6 that the city had notified two of the same nations that Abelson listed, as well as Algonquins of Ontario and Métis Nation of Ontario, as part of the site plan control application.

She also noted that there are dedicated locations on the city’s website for public engagement and information about the project applicant, and the city also posts information signs at the site.

In addition, the city’s planning services department “will reach out to the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition to seek input on which files the community may wish to receive notifications,” Forgie wrote.

Abelson said the advisory circle has held four meetings to date, sharing input about the hospital’s “sustainability strategy” as well as “what culturally safe care and respectful care should look like.”

The hospital is “committed to continuing the journey to reconciliation by strengthening its relationships and engagement with the Indigenous communities it serves to ensure that Indigenous patients and families feel welcome and safe at all (hospital) campuses,” Abelson wrote.

First Nations, Inuit and Métis people have long faced anti-Indigenous racism and discrimination in health care facilities in Canada.

Groups focused on disability rights, cycling also feel shut out of decisions around new Ottawa Hospital campus

Coalition members are not the only ones feeling ignored. A citizens group called Reimagine Ottawa continues to oppose the site of the new hospital, citing “concerns about developer influence at City Hall.”

Disability rights groups, cycling advocacy groups and resident community associations have all felt shut out of the plan at one point or another, said Joel Harden, the local MPP, in a May 3 interview.

“A very small amount of unaccountable decision-makers lobby our local institutions,” said Harden, an Ontario New Democrat who is running for re-election in the Ottawa Centre riding on June 2.

Harden is opposed to the parking garage. He said the issue of tree removal remained front and centre for Ottawa voters when he canvassed a neighbourhood near the site of the new hospital recently.

“If the NDP is elected to government, or if we’re part of a coalition government with another party, I will not be quiet until the government of which I’m part knows that the residents, and the ancestral titleholders in many cases of the land, do not want an airport-sized parking garage in a climate emergency,” he said.

Ontario Liberal Party candidate Katie Gibbs, who is running to unseat Harden in Ottawa Centre, also raised concerns about the loss of greenspace and the extent of consultations in an interview.

“This is a perfect example of why we need a broader strategy around protecting our greenspace and our urban tree canopy,” she said in early May.

At the same time, Gibbs said Ottawa residents deserve access to modern health care infrastructure now, and she hasn’t seen alternative location proposals that would allow for the same construction timelines.

“This was obviously not a decision that I was a part of, but going forward, if I was elected, I am committed personally to a process of openness and transparency and public consultation, especially Indigenous consultation, on any decisions, especially when it comes to big projects like this.”

The Narwhal reached out to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario requesting contact information for their Ottawa Centre candidate, Scott Healey, but they did not respond. Healey lists “supporting the redevelopment of the Ottawa Hospital” as one of his promises on his campaign website.

Larga Baffin, which serves Nunavummiut receiving health care in Ottawa, is facing local opposition

For Adams, who is Inuk, it has been upsetting to see the city move forward with paving over a piece of land that Indigenous organizations have said is important to them.

And it’s happening at the same time that another organization serving Nunavummiut receiving health care in Ottawa is facing local opposition.

In May, some residents pushed back on a proposal for a new location in the city’s south end for Larga Baffin, which runs a boarding home for patients from Nunavut travelling to Ottawa for medical care. During a public meeting to discuss the proposal, one resident complained about the impact on the neighbourhood’s water pressure.

“I bought this house here and I spent a lot of money on this house. I can’t move anywhere else,” she said, according to a report in Nunatsiaq News.

“So I’m just saying it’s not fair that the city will amend the zoning without considering the existing residents … we were here first.”

Area councillor Diane Deans, who is running for mayor, also raised her own concerns that the development was oversized.

The irony of local residents rejecting a proposed Indigenous site on unceded territory, while taking away land currently being used for Indigenous healing, was not lost on Adams.

“It would really show a lot of faith on non-Indigenous people to show commitment and acknowledgement of the atrocities that have occurred to Indigenous people in the past, in the present and that is still currently ongoing,” she said.

“It would be excellent to see them act in good faith, to provide this space not only to Indigenous people, but to keep it open to the citizens of Ottawa as a greenspace for healing.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

"The lobbyist" and "the lobby" are terms we often hear in political discourse and in the media.

I don't know how many times I have listened to, or been involved in, a conversation around a hot-button issue that has ended in something like: "Well, it all doesn't really matter because the lobbyists will just end up getting what they want anyways."[view:in_this_series=block_1]

This floating, nondescript spectre of "The Lobbyist" has served the lobby industry well, because the last thing a lobbyist wants is to have their name public. Better to remain an unknowable entity than, as Donald Rumsfeld put it, be a "known-known."

But once you realize a lobbyist is just another person out there in the world trying to make a paycheck, the abstract idea of lobbying becomes more understandable and relatable. 

It also becomes much more easy to keep in check.

Take for instance this lobbyist for TransCanada pipelines, Phil von Finckenstein of PVF Consulting. 

I found Mr. von Finckenstein by doing a search of Canada's Registry of Lobbyists, where anyone defined as a lobbyist by law must register their name, the corporation(s) they represent, who they have communicated to within government and on what issues. 

Mr. von Finckenstein's most recent lobbying report in the Canadian lobby registry looks like this:

As the lobby registry shows, von Finckenstein lobbied on behalf of TransCanada in its efforts to construct the recently cancelled Keystone XL pipeline project.

Von Finckenstein also focuses his workday on TransCanada's proposed Energy East pipeline and "discussions regarding the status of the government's overall climate change plan and the approach to future greenhouse gas regulations in respect of quotas that affect the energy and pipeline industries."  

A more general search online finds that von Finckenstein is a founding partner in an Ottawa-based lobby (also called "public affairs") firm Maple Leaf Strategies and formerly played senior advisor and communications roles for the office of the Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 2001.

No doubt Von Fickenstein's seven years as a political staffer during the tumultuous transition of the Reform Party under Preston Manning to the Conservative Party led by Deborah Grey and then Stockwell Day gave him valuable insight into the internal machinations of the Conservative Party that would eventually assume government. 

Now I am not picking on von Finckenstein here, but instead I am using his publicly available information to illustrate what a bit of transparency can do to make something daunting and confusing like  "lobbyists" much easier to understand.

If von Finckenstein is like most other lobbyists in Ottawa, his work on behalf of TransCanada consists mainly of monitoring government activities related to the company's pipeline projects and then trying to communicate TransCanada's concerns and issues to the appropriate elected officials and government department employees via normal avenues like face-to-face meetings and e-mail. 

There are hundreds of people just like von Finckenstein working everyday in Ottawa on behalf of corporations (and, to a much smaller extent, on behalf of non-profits and charities). The lobbyist and the corporations they work for have every right in a free democracy to communicate their concerns to government and try to shape new laws, or reshape old ones, to help increase their profit margins. 

It is also the right of a free media and civil society to monitor and report on the activities of corporations and the lobbyists they hire. There is a major lack of disclosure when it comes corporate influence in Canada but lobbyists are required by law to register their activities both provincially and federally.

I propose we research and name these folks far more often, to demystify "the lobby" and show lobbyists are just people trying to make a buck like anyone else.

A much more systematic and sustained effort to put a face on the lobby sector in Ottawa would be a big step forward in maintaining a healthy balance between the influence of corporations and the influence of citizens over the decisions government makes. 

With things like the Registry of Lobbyists, government has helped the public scrutinize corporations and the lobbyists they hire, but this is only a first step. As it operates today, the lobby registry is not easily to navigate for the average user. It is also not very well known.

The task of making government data more accessible is often left to civil society and the media but it should also be seen as the responsibility of government itself.

In the next part of my series on the lobby bubble I will lay out some of the things Prime Minister Trudeau can do in the next four years to pop it.

Image: Joisey Showaa on Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In Ottawa there has always been a level of disconnect between the issues that really matter to Canadians and the issues that seem important to Canadian politicians working on Parliament Hill.  

In the United States this phenomenon is called "beltway politics" where the issues being debated by politicians within the boundaries of Highway 495, which forms a beltway around Washington, D.C., have relatively little importance to anybody outside the beltway.

Spend too long in the beltway and strange things can happen. For instance, a president can speak passionately on the issue of climate change, but hem and haw over whether to approve an oil pipeline that will lock in massive amounts of new greenhouse gas emissions. 

Nobody knows more about this inside political game than the lobbyists. Lobbyists are the people paid by corporations, and to a much lesser extent non-profit organizations, to ensure government policies and decisions by politicians are of the most benefit to those paying them. Lobbyists (at least the good ones) know that their most powerful strategy is to control the flow of information politicians receive on important issues. 

If you control the information, you control the questions that are raised and debated and ultimately you have good odds of controlling the final outcome.[view:in_this_series=block_1]

So for instance, if a story comes out in the popular press questioning the safety of new oil pipelines, lobbyists for the oil companies will work their tails off to ensure that political representatives and government staff are provided the "real facts" on pipeline safety in the country. Outside of reactive type work like this, it is the job of the lobbyist to meet as often as possible with politicians and government staff to provide an ongoing stream of new and "helpful" information.  

This constant barrage of information over time can actually create what myself and many others call the "lobby bubble" — a soundproof barrier of information created around politicians and government staff that is almost impenetrable to outside influence. 

Canada's new Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau has just come off the election trail where he has spent hundreds of hours talking to Canadians about what is important to them. Trudeau has also made many promises that reflect the needs and wants of the electorate. Trudeau right now is more in touch with Canadians than he will likely ever be in his term as prime minister, because the moment he steps into the PMO the lobby bubble will begin to form. 

The flow of information to Trudeau is about to shift from things he heard in the streets of Halifax, Vancouver and Montreal, to things he heard at a meeting he just had with representatives from the oil industry, health industry, insurance industry, agricultural industry and so on.

If you think I am over dramatizing the situation, think for a second about the logistics alone. How often does the average Canadian get to fly to Ottawa and sit down face-to-face with the prime minister to discuss their concerns about a new pipeline planned to run through their backyard? 

Now how often do you think the lobbyist with the office down the street from Parliament Hill, whose well-compensated full-time job is to lobby Members of Parliament, will get to meet with Trudeau and his staff over the coming years?

Heck, I would be happy to bet that most Ottawa lobbyists will have more drinks with Liberal government staffers in the next year than the number of everyday Canadians who will get to sit down face-to-face with the prime minister to voice their concerns over the next four-year term. That's a bet I would happily lose if this didn't turn out to be the case. 

Take for instance TransCanada Pipelines, the main proponent behind the Keystone XL and the Energy East pipelines. According to the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, TransCanada has 18 company officials currently registered in the lobbyist database. And then there is the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, an association supported by oil companies like TransCanada to also lobby the government. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers currently has a whopping 32 registered lobbyists.

This is just a small sample of the corporate lobbyists that work everyday on Parliament Hill to help fill the lobby bubble with new information. You can go here and take a look at the lobbyist registry yourself to get a better idea of just how large the lobby sector is in Ottawa.

As the old saying goes: "If you don't like what your government is doing you have the opportunity to vote them out every four years."

And that is of course a very true statement, but for the other 1,459 days between elections, if the lobbyists and the companies they represent don't like what their government is doing, they can just meet face-to-face with whoever is in charge.

That's a pretty raw deal for voters and it does not have to be this way.

Next up in this series, I will discuss ways Trudeau can avoid the lobby bubble, or even pop it if he felt so obliged.  

Image: Justin Trudeau via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Never swim in the Ottawa River if it has rained during the previous 48 hours, recommends Meredith Brown, the executive director of Ottawa Riverkeeper.

The non-profit group is raising public awareness about raw sewage pouring into the popular recreational river after rainstorms or snow melts. Making matters worse, on the Quebec side of the river, there is a lack of adequate testing for fecal coliform bacteria levels at beaches, Brown said.

The problem is combined sewer overflows — pipes that carry both storm water and untreated sewage. These systems were built in many Canadian cities between 1880 and 1960.

Usually the liquid goes to treatment plants, but, when volumes threaten to swamp plants, the untreated mixture is diverted into the river to prevent flooding and sewer backups.

[view:in_this_series=block_1]

“Some combined sewers rarely overflow, while others overflow every time it rains, “ says a City of Ottawa information sheet.

It is a problem that is gaining increasing attention from those who kayak, swim, sail or paddleboard in the river, Brown said.

“Once people find out, they are disgusted,” she said. “People are starting to think of this as a moral issue.”

Ottawa Riverkeeper has teamed up with Mountain Equipment Co-op this summer to raise awareness of the issue and encourage outdoor enthusiasts to join them in calling on the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau to report every time untreated sewage is released into the river.

Many people do not realize that recreational fun in the river has made them sick, Brown said, but swimming in polluted waters can cause numerous health problems, from ear infections to gastrointestinal illnesses.

Gatineau lags behind Ottawa in replacing combined sewer system

An added complication is that the Ottawa River separates Ottawa and Gatineau, Quebec, and the two municipalities are replacing their combined sewers at different paces.

Ottawa is in the fifth year of an Ottawa River Action Plan and a recent report to council said the sewer separation program is about 90 per cent complete, with an 80 per cent reduction in sewage spills from combined sewers. The city is also looking for matching funding from the federal and provincial governments for a $195-million plan for a combined sewage storage tunnel.

Progress has not kept up on the Gatineau side of the border, Brown said.

“They still release millions of litres of sewage into the river,” she said. “In Gatineau it happens almost every time it rains. It doesn’t even have to be heavy rain.”

Gatineau spokesperson Alain d’Entremont said the number of overflow events decreased to 992 last year from 1,500 in 2006. There are now 92 points where sewage can enter the river from combined pipes, down from 110 in 2009.

“We are replacing and redoing (pipes) in some of the old neighbourhoods and the new neighbourhoods don’t have combined sewage,” d’Entremont said.

Gatineau is proactive in ensuring it gets matching funds from other levels of government for infrastructure replacement, but they are expensive projects, he said.

For her part, Brown understands that money-squeezed municipalities are forced to chip away slowly at infrastructure replacement, but, especially as the contamination is ongoing, recreational river users need up-to-date information on beach pollution, she said.

SwimGuide app tracks beach pollution levels

Ottawa Riverkeeper, with sister riverkeeper organizations from across Canada and the U.S, have created the free SwimGuide app, which tells people about beach pollution levels — but information about Gatineau’s three city beaches is not always current.

Water at Ottawa’s five beaches is tested daily by the city’s public health department, but, in Quebec, provincial rules require water testing only three to five times during the summer.

Gatineau was already exceeding provincial rules by testing every second week and is now moving to weekly testing for the three beaches, d’Entremont said.

“This summer it seems to be a very sensitive issue and we are going over and above the regulations,” he said.

Unlike Ottawa, the Gatineau beaches are not downstream from a large sewage plant, he said.

Based on the test results, Quebec gives each beach a letter grade. An A grade means there are between zero and 20 coliform units per 100 ml of water. When water deteriorates to a D grade, meaning there are more than 200 coliform units in 100 ml of water, swimming or other recreational activities are not recommended and warning signs are erected at beaches.

In 2012, when Gatineau beaches were tested 12 times, the Parc Moussette beach received a D rating three times. In 2013, with eight test dates through the summer, the same beach was posted as unsafe for swimming once and this year, with seven tests completed so far, there have been no beach closures.

Health Canada estimates that, at the D-grade level, one or two per cent of swimmers will become ill from contamination. That means about 100,000 Canadians a year get sick from swimming in polluted waters.

Brown is hoping that the growing awareness of sewage contamination in the river will mean more public pressure, both for daily testing and for measures to stop the contamination.

“You can’t fix what you haven’t measured. That’s the first step,” she said.

Even if the health concerns don’t push governments to action, there is also a strong economic argument for cleaning up the river and ensuring people are kept informed about pollution levels, she said.

“The Ottawa River is the economic engine of the region. It’s a fantastic recreational river,” she said. Water quality also affects the tourism business in small communities around the Ottawa River, Brown said.

“People spend a lot of money to go places where they can swim in the water. If that is jeopardised, they start to lose business.”

This story was made possible through support from Mountain Equipment Co-op as part of its Homewaters campaign, which is dedicated to preserving Canada’s fresh water from coast to coast.

Image Credit: Ottawa Riverkeeper

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The Harper government is sending several of its cabinet ministers and bureaucrats to BC starting next week to try and appease opponents of its plans to build oil pipelines to the West Coast.

Chris Hall writes for CBC News, that "Prime Minister Stephen Harper is signalling he intends to make progress on proposals to connect Alberta's oilsands with ports in British Columbia and the lucrative Asian markets beyond."

According to Hall, this initiative is in response to a report last month from Douglas Eyford, Harper's special pipelines representative in British Columbia, who indicated that negotiations with First Nations on pipelines weren't going well.

Eyford's report will not be made public, but sources told CBC News that "Eyford urged the federal government take the lead role in dealing with Indian bands on both the Gateway project and the proposed expansion of Kinder Morgan's Trans-Mountain pipeline."

First Nations leaders are to meet with Harper's delegation on September 23, in Vancouver. The delegation will include deputy ministers from Aboriginal Affairs, Natural Resources, Environment and other departments with direct oversight of the proposed pipeline projects.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, said the request to meet came on Thursday, with no preamble or agenda, and no clue as to what Ottawa's going to put on the table.

"I have a sinking feeling that perhaps they're covering their backsides in terms of a consultation record,'' Phillip said in a Vancouver interview. "And looking towards laying the groundwork that will be necessary when the decision is finally made by Prime Minister Harper and the cabinet, regardless of what the joint review panel comes forward with in terms of an approval or a rejection of these proposed projects.''

Other key ministers have also been directed by Harper to promote the pipeline projects in BC, starting Monday. They include Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, and Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, who will be in the province all week. Transport Minister Lisa Raitt and Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq are reportedly planning trips to BC before Thanksgiving.

All of the above have requested to meet with the First Nations, according to Phillip. In addition, Premier Christy Clark also wrote to request a sit-down with them.

Phillips said he found it "very disturbing" that there was such "an urgency attached to both letters." He noted that this is the first the chiefs have heard from politicians in months.

Federal sources told CBC that "the objective is to work proactively to convince First Nations, community groups, and B.C.'s government that moving oil through the province is good for the economy, and good for them."

This new conciliatory approach from the federal Conservatives is the latest in a fall campaign to help achieve Harper's vision of Canada as an energy superpower by unlocking the country's oil deposits in Alberta for international trade.

On another front, Harper wrote a letter in late August to US President Obama, proposing joint standards for reduced greenhouse gas emissions in both countries in return for approval of the proposed $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

Ottawa has also been trying to court BC Premier Clark's approval on the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline. Clark rejected the project in May, but has since outlined new conditions for its approval, including improved cleanup and prevention methods for oil spills and a larger share of revenues for the province. The federal government has responded to some of the demands, announcing new safety regulations for oil tankers and higher corporate liability for offshore oil spills.

But the upcoming meeting shows that Harper still sees First Nations opposition to the pipelines as one of his most significant obstacles. Hall writes that federal sources "acknowledge that Enbridge did a poor job in dealing with bands along the proposed [Northern] Gateway route," and at least three First Nations oppose US-based Kinder Morgan's proposal to triple the capacity of its Trans-Mountain pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver.

The Coldwater Indian Band will be going to court in October seeking a judicial order that would prevent Ottawa approving the expansion without their consent. Coldwater Chief Harold Aljam said that he has met with Eyford, but no one from the federal government has contacted them.

What the September 23 meeting between Harper's delegation and First Nations leaders will achieve has yet to be seen. But as Hall points out, for First Nations "the fear is the Harper government intends to push through both pipeline proposals no matter what."

Image Credit: Prime Minister's Office / Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This opinion editorial by Ken Neumann of United Steelworkers and Gillian McEachern of Environmental Defence originally appeared in the Hill Times.

TORONTO—From July 24-26, premiers from across Canada will gather in Niagara-on-the-Lake for the annual Council of the Federation (COF) meeting. Though health care and transportation are expected to be at the top of the agenda, the Canadian energy strategy will also receive some attention.

The federal government isn’t part of the COF, and as such will not be party to the conversation. And the truth is, many of the provinces prefer it this way. Energy is in provincial jurisdiction and provinces don’t want the federal government meddling in their affairs.

Be that as it may, there can be little doubt that the federal government has a role to play in crafting a Canadian energy strategy. After all, it’s the federal government that harbours the aspiration for Canada to be an energy superpower.

The good news is there is a lot that Ottawa can do without stepping on the toes of the provinces.

Having Ottawa contribute constructively, however, necessitates that the federal government starts to take climate change and the environment more seriously.

Canada cannot advance our energy interests by simply claiming to have an exemplary environmental record, when the opposite is obviously true. Actions speak louder than words. 

To be sure, given the treatment the environment has received in recent federal budgets, there may not be much appetite for action on carbon emissions in Ottawa. But perhaps, the floods in Alberta and record-breaking rainfall in Toronto, or the recent words by U.S. President Barack Obama about the urgent need to address climate change will inspire the government to take another look at this file.

We hope so, and if Ottawa is ready to get serious about Canada becoming an energy super power, we have some suggestions as to what the federal government can do.

First, renewable energy and energy conservation need to receive priority support from Ottawa. Right now, both get a cold shoulder while $1.4-billion in taxpayer money is doled out to the oil and gas industry each year. We did some number crunching on this recently and found that 18,000 more jobs could be created in low-carbon industries if the whopping oil and gas subsidies were redirected.

Second, we need a federal plan to tackle climate change that makes sure all jurisdictions and sectors do their fair share. Some provinces, like Ontario, are doing their part to reduce pollution, but the planned increase in oil sands production over the next decade will wipe out those gains. It’s a recipe for inter-provincial strife to ask some provinces to shoulder greater burden for cutting greenhouse gas pollution so that other provinces can pollute at will and the country still meet its stated climate goals. It’s up to the federal government to sort this out.

Third, there needs to be a strategy for good jobs in the energy sector across the country. We need to take a hard look at the impact of rising oil production on the manufacturing sector in provinces like Ontario and Quebec, and decide how much oil production is good for the country and how to minimize the negative impacts on other sectors. And, we need to chart a path for building healthy industries that create jobs in a low-carbon economy, and proactively transition workers.

Finally, we need to have a serious conversation about the stakes and choices ahead of us. Canada has an abundance of energy resources—both renewable and non-renewable—and that means we have an abundance of options. To develop a Canadian energy strategy that is in the interests of all Canadians, we need to have a grown up conversation about those options, and assess which choices make the most sense for our country, now and in the future.

Ken Neumann is the national director for the United Steelworkers. Gillian McEachern is the campaigns director for Environmental Defence. The United Steelworkers and Environmental Defence are the founding members of Blue Green Canada.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.