Five-candidate mayoral debate on the environment sees lively clash of policy ideas

At a spirited but civil debate Wednesday night, the last in a series of focused on the environment, five mayoral candidates touted the unique climate-related policies they’re each putting forward and sparred over topics that didn’t have any obvious “green” connection but made for interesting listening for voters who packed the church venue and watched via livestream at home.

Bob Chiarelli, the political veteran of the bunch, got the digs started in response to the first question of the debate — moderated by Carleton University professor and former CBC Ottawa journalist Adrian Harewood — about how to get the city’s climate change master plan back on track.

After promising to move responsibility for developing a new plan to Hydro Ottawa, calling the current one “unviable” and based on “wishful thinking,” Chiarelli contended that “solving climate change by adding one senior bureaucrat is totally misplaced,” ostensibly a dig at Catherine McKenney, who has promised to create a chief climate officer position at city hall as part of their climate platform.

McKenney (who uses they/them pronouns) used the opportunity to highlight elements of that platform, scoring applause from the crowd for their pledge to end urban sprawl. The debate was held at Centretown United Church in Somerset Ward, which McKenney has represented for two terms.

Broadcaster and entrepreneur Mark Sutcliffe, switching between French and English as he would do a number of times throughout the night, also plugged his environmental plan — he was the first to release one, he reminded his competitors — and scored some applause of his own for his commitments on planting a million trees and significantly upping the number of local electric vehicle charging stations.

Taking the invitation from Harewood to contrast his plan with McKenney’s, Sutcliffe positioned his approach as a balanced one. “My intention is to do a series of things, not invest $250 million in bike lanes,” he said, referencing a campaign pledge of McKenney’s to pack 25 years of cycling infrastructure development into four years via a green bond that Sutcliffe took repeated aim at Thursday night.

“I don’t think there are balanced approaches when it comes to the environment,” retorted Nour Kadri, a uOttawa professor who released his own climate platform earlier in the day. Kadri did, however, describe the current city climate plans as “too ambitious” in cost for Ottawa taxpayers and stressed the need to build a green economy and look for funding from other levels of government and venture capital.

Brandon Bay, a software developer, fired up the crowd with an impassioned defence of the need to wipe out single-family zoning, a key part of his platform, and what that could mean, such as allowing duplexes where only a single detached home can be built now.

“It is essential that we remove that restrictive exclusionary zoning to build the important intensification we need in the city,” he said, to wide applause. “It won’t disrupt our communities at all.”

Sutcliffe had warned that removing R1 zoning across the city — something McKenney has said they’d champion — would mean “the people who live in neighbourhoods like Old Ottawa South and Alta Vista and others will see their neighbour sell their house and the new owner putting up a four storey building that has six units in it.” He vowed instead to pursue “smart intensification while respecting community design plans and without expanding Ottawa’s urban boundary.”

Sutcliffe also challenged his opponents on their approach to taxation, calling Chiarelli’s tax freeze promise “a political gimmick” that will lead to bigger tax increases later and sharing his thought that McKenney’s commitment to hold tax increases to three per cent each year of their term isn’t a credible one, given the spending commitments they’ve already made.

McKenney told the debate audience they’d be releasing their full financial plan next week (Sutcliffe said he would do the same) and that it can be fully funded within the current three-per-cent approach to property tax increases.

Citing their experience working on the budget at city hall as a staff member and councillor, “I know that the city budget is intentionally kept opaque and difficult so that we all have a hard time understanding it,” said McKenney.

“When budgets are made impossible to navigate, it is easier to give money to corporate partners like Porsche dealerships, while families and people like you pay your full property tax bill. Budgets are about choices and about priorities,” said McKenney, citing theirs as ending chronic homelessness, making transit reliable and affordable and “making Ottawa a world leader on climate.”

The debate closed with a question about public transit and whether candidates would support taxing vehicles coming into Centretown to reduce emission and encourage more transit use.

Chiarelli said the city has a “serious problem” with OC Transpo buses and the LRT system failing to properly serve the pubic. “We need to give them a real overhaul, a real assessment, and almost start all over again,” he said.

McKenney, Bay and Kadri were the only candidates to address the question about Centretown congestion charging, with McKenney arguing the best way to accomplish that is to increase downtown parking fees. Kadri opposed it “until we provide people with that affordability and reliability with public transit,” though Bay supported increasing parking fees to discourage driving and pay for significantly discounted transit fares.

The series of four eco-focused mayoral debates was organized by the People’s Official Plan coalition, which includes Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability, Ecology Ottawa and other local organizations. Recordings of previous debates are available online.

Thursday’s five debate participants were selected by surveying previous debate attendees about which candidates they most wanted to hear more from.