Shaking up council no easy task

By Mohammed Adam
Ottawa Citizen
Monday, December 28, 2009

With a defining municipal election looming this fall, the clamour for change will grow louder as the campaign heats up.

Already, former politicians from Nepean's Mary Pitt to Ottawa's Jacquelin Holzman along with prominent academics say the city government needs a shake-up to plot a new direction for a city that has been treading water for too long.

"A lot of people feel Ottawa has been standing still for the last 10 years or so, and we are falling behind other cities," says University of Ottawa political scientist and governance expert Caroline Andrew.

"With the track record of the current mayor and council, the public will be looking for change again. We need some fresh blood in there," adds former regional councillor Frank Reid.

But the big questions are, where are the dynamic new leaders going to come from and, if they emerge, will voters back them?

Andrew acknowledges that in a government town such as Ottawa, the talent pool in both civil society and business is not large enough, and finding new blood is much harder. But it must be done.

However, others like Ottawa businessman and former regional councillor Brian McGarry say the talent pool is deep enough, "but the problem is whether we can convince them to give up four or eight years of their lives for politics."

For mayor, McGarry believes local business titans such as Minto's Roger Greenberg, former Ottawa Senators owner Rod Bryden, businesswoman Shirley Westeinde, developer Paul Hindo and many others like them would fit the bill perfectly.

In particular, he says Bryden, a former law professor and senior federal public servant, would make an excellent mayor. He also believes that Walter Robinson, the former chief of staff for Mayor Larry O'Brien, has potential for the top job. Robinson, however, would benefit by running first as councillor to gain experience. McGarry acknowledges that his private-sector candidates are longshots because they are unlikely to give up their business interests for the rough-and-tumble of politics.

Other names that have come up include United Way president Michael Allen. Katherine Graham, former dean of the faculty of public affairs at Carleton University, is also seen as someone with the knowledge and capacity to be mayor. When the Citizen mentioned it to Graham, she said it sounded like an April Fool's joke and had a good laugh.

Former Nepean mayor Mary Pitt says no matter how smart people are, they shouldn't be mayor if they lack political experience, and know nothing about how the city works.

"A mayor can't be someone who is sitting in council for the first time," Pitt says. "Yes, you need somebody who is smart. But you can't just pick anybody, a businessman or -woman because they are smart or think they can run the city like a business."

While most attention is focused on the mayor's race, many commentators believe what needs a real shake-up is the council. That may be wishful thinking.

With Alex Cullen having declared for mayor and Peter Hume certain to run, two council seats would be open. If Diane Deans runs -- and it is a big if -- and Clive Doucet retires, as some believe, there would be four open seats. Beyond that, it is difficult to see which other councillors would be vulnerable enough to make the races competitive, let alone winnable.

Still, several names have been heard on the grapevine as potential candidates this fall. They include Tim Tierney, president of the Beacon Hill North community association, Fred Sherwin, a journalist who runs the Orléans Online news website, and Blake Batson, who operates a computer software company and ran in 2006. As well, the likes of Nick Masciantonio, president of the Ottawa East community association, Bob Brocklebank, who heads the Glebe community association, and Catherine Lindquist, executive director of the Glebe Business Improvement Association, have come up as people with the credentials to become councillors.

Dianne Pritchard, a former senior bank executive who runs a small business in Manotick, has been mentioned as someone with considerable leadership potential, but when the Citizen posed the question, she laughed it off. Some academics say someone such as Jeffrey Dale, the former head of the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation, (OCRI), could bring a fresh perspective to council.

There may indeed be enough smart people out there, but those with high ambition just don't see city politics as the ticket to glory. Political parties recruit good talent to run federally or provincially, and they often succeed because those jobs have a higher profile and are more glamorous.

No one recruits anyone to run municipally, and even if they do, it is difficult to see a former bank president, law professor or big-name lawyer spending their political life on the council floor. Left with slim pickings, some commentators say, voters tend to stick with the devil they know by voting for incumbents.

Reid says many incumbents do a good job, but they win routinely because of their considerable advantage in money and profile. He points out that running for council requires not just raising about $20,000, but finding experienced campaign volunteers, most of whom tend to go with incumbents. It is often disheartening for new candidates, many of whom are very smart and dedicated, to put in the effort and be swamped time and again by incumbents. In the end, the good candidates just don't think it is worth it. The numbers back them.

In the 2006 municipal election, 68 candidates ran for 23 council seats. The 19 incumbents who ran all won. The other four seats were won by candidates in wards that didn't have incumbents. It wasn't much different in the 2003 election.

"I don't think this election is going to see a big change at City Hall," says the University of Ottawa's Caroline Andrew.

"If you are going to have limited change, the best hope is change at the mayor's level."