Ottawa council backs pitch for new LRT committee at first meeting after public inquiry report

Ottawa city council is getting a new sub-committee dedicated specifically to the light-rail transit system, following the tabling of a public inquiry report last week that raised concerns about how the troubled Stage 1 project was stickhandled at city hall.

Council members also decided, after considerable debate, to not include citizen members on its transit commission in this new council term, and instead have staff work to establish a civilian advisory body.

Questions of public trust, citizen engagement and accountability when it comes to the city’s transit system dominated the early discussion at council Wednesday, which was the first meeting since the LRT report was released. Council members were deliberating on a hefty report called the governance review, with sets out structural and procedural changes for this term of council.

Before discussion got underway, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe told his council colleagues that he’d spoken with Interim City Manager Wendy Stephanson “about the critical importance of improving accountability to the public in everything we do.”

Stephanson was tagged to take on the role that former city manager Steve Kanellakos abruptly walked away from last week, resigning two days ahead of the unveiling of the report that would find an “egregious” violation of the public trust in the lack of information shared with council by senior city staff and former mayor Jim Watson about the trial running of the Confederation Line.

Stephanson made some remarks of her own to council Wednesday, saying the city’s senior leadership team “is taking lessons from the inquiry to heart.”

They are actively looking at “practical ways to enhance our processes, change any parts of the culture that lessen accountability and to take council’s direction to show the public that their public service is trustworthy and transparent as we move forward,” said Stephanson.

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Riverside South-Findlay Creek Coun. Steve Desroches brought forward a motion, seconded by Sutcliffe, to establish a sub-committee of councillors to provide oversight over “non–operational matters” related to the existing Confederation Line (council’s transit commission handles operational oversight) and the construction of Stage 2 in the east, west and south.

City Clerk Rick O’Connor said he expects he could come back to council with draft terms of reference for the sub-committee in the first few months of 2023. Council directed that its domain includes regular staff reporting on how they’ve used their delegated authority when it comes to light rail, reporting by an independent safety commissioner monitoring the Confederation Line and issues related to the public inquiry.

The chairs of the transportation and transit commission would sit on the sub-committee, alongside three other council members.

Sutcliffe told his colleagues the rationale is to have a committee “that has accountability for the light rail projects going forward, to create oversight and to take one step toward rebuilding the public’s trust in the light rail project.”

The motion passed with no objections. It was a different story for the proposal in the governance review to have the transit commission consist only of elected officials, after three terms of civilians sitting and voting alongside council members appointed to the commission.

Instead, the public members would sit on a transit advisory body, which Sutcliffe has directed staff to get moving on as quickly as possible, reporting back to council on specifics to come no later than the second quarter of next year.

The group is to include at least one Para Transpo user, as well as an active member from an OC Transpo union, and have a membership that is 50 per cent plus one non-male. Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper also directed staff to look at some kind of role for the advocacy group Ottawa Transit Riders. 

Sutcliffe confirmed with O’Connor that this type of change was something the majority of members of the last council supported.

O’Connor told councillors that when the civilian membership on the commission was set up, staff recommended it based on “successful bodies” such as the built heritage sub-committee, where heritage experts, planners and architects sat alongside elected representatives, who could benefit from their expertise.

The proposal for transit commission had been to do the same thing with engineers and transportation experts, said O’Connor, but what they found was that people retiring from these positions were not putting up their hands to join, and were instead becoming transportation consultants. What they ended up with, said O’Connor, was shifting the model for civilian transit commissioners from experts to transit riders — and the thought now is to put those citizen members on an advisory body instead.

Most councillors ultimately supported this proposal, following a robust debate.

“With respect to governance itself, it’s the officials that are elected to represent the citizens that should play that role,” said Carr.

Somerset Ward Coun. Ariel Troster said she thinks the advisory body is a better choice from an equity perspective, allowing meetings to be held at times that work for families with young children or transit users from low-income backgrounds, as transit commission typically meets during weekdays.

Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Sean Devine led an unsuccessful attempt to postpone the decision to eliminate citizens from transit commission until later in the term, warning that to do so now would be a blow to public trust at a critical time and create a gap in citizen engagement until the new transit advisory body is stood up.

A majority of councillors ultimately voted down Devine’s motion, with councillors Shawn Menard, Stéphanie Plante, Jessica Bradley, Laine Johnson and Rawlson King voting in favour of Devine’s proposal.