Rubin: A community action plan for the next convoy that rumbles into Ottawa

Ottawa needs a plan of action to respond to and heal from the assault we suffered last winter after the three-week trucker convoy occupation. We must be ready to tackle and prevent new disruptions that are bound to arise.

We cannot expect the federal inquiry on the Emergencies Act, led by Justice Paul Rouleau, to come up with much in the way of recommendations that will specifically benefit local residents. That inquiry hinges on whether the legal threshold to declare a national emergency was met or not. That’s not what Ottawa residents want answers to. They want to know whether the community threshold of care and prevention during the intensive convoy occupation was met.

The Rouleau Commission has heard little of what Ottawa residents went thorough or want. Many witnesses who appeared before it seemed to be engaged in exercises of self-justification. On the other hand, the Ottawa People’s Commission (OPC), through its hearings and community consultations, is helping give Ottawa residents a place to be heard. By next April, it will come up with a report and community recommendations.

Here is my suggested plan of action for the community, which I presented this week to the OPC. These ideas are meant to better prepare Ottawa for more occurrences threatening our safety, health, security and environment.

Community-based control:

• A permanent inner-city stakeholder committee run by local residents to discuss, organize and lobby for a safer and revitalized downtown Ottawa;

• A public community crisis forum to deal with disruptive forces like the convoy, or increasingly devastating floods, and ice, rain and wind storms;

• An accessible, community-wide working council to reach universally affordable and environmentally friendly goals in Ottawa;

• An area Indigenous-initiated reconciliation circle that offers a place where longstanding grievances of Indigenous peoples can be tackled and not ignored.

Protection and policing:

• An accessible civilian police commission board that both reviews police actions and acts as a community-police relations centre point;

• Downtown neighbourhood public safety committees attached to strong local community associations to act as neighbourhood watches — alerting area residents, through community media and word of mouth, to threats to their security. This will influence and complement law enforcement efforts;

• To that end, a liaison linkup of these community and safety committees with federal security and local police authorities to help ensure that adjacent downtown neighbourhoods receive protection.

Rights and Monitoring:

• A municipal human rights commission that reviews complaints about local discrimination, backed up by an enforceable human rights code;

• A re-emerged capital civil liberties and anti-hate association to advocate against discrimination and for our rights that can act as witnesses in times of community crisis;

• A revamped local journalist group that upholds media freedoms and dissects misinformation, while offering support to journalists and their independent reporting of crisis events;

• A reformed public access to information system that allows for full disclosure, not secret dealings, unrecorded events, and mixed and false messaging.

Economic Fairness and Renewal:

• A precedent-setting fair compensation packet for affected Ottawa residents for the disruption the convoy created. Three levels of government offered some compensation to the business community but not to affected workers and residents;

• A reinvigorated labour council that addresses problems workers face in times of community crises. along with a local chamber of commerce that can address problems businesses face in such times of crisis;

• Cooperative employment projects for the area’s disadvantaged and to help house Ottawa’s homeless people.

Ottawa badly needs leadership that places community residents at the forefront, working quickly towards implementing a locally inspired and agreed-to coherent plan of action.

Ken Rubin helped found the Ottawa Peoples Commission, but the views presented here are his own. He is a long-time community advocate and investigative researcher reachable at kenrubin.ca