Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Report is worth a read

Last week the Mayor's Task Force on Governance released its report. Their recommendations went over like a dead cat bounce. This was predictable given their direct aim at city council.

Yes, some of the recommendations are unworkable but the work of this group drawn from all political backgrounds -- led by former Chretien transition team head David Zussman -- is not easily dismissed. Indeed enterprising candidates for office in November 2010 may actually wish to read the report and incorporate some ideas into their own platforms.

For me, governance equates to the structure and processes that lead an organization -- public, private or not-for-profit -- to make decisions. And even a casual observer of Ottawa City Hall would admit that by this measure, there is room for improvement.

The Zussman report recommends an executive committee of council to deal with the big picture. Ah, shades of the old board of control model. Sadly this recommendation is going nowhere fast. Neither with this council nor the next one. And don't look for the province to be changing the City of Ottawa Act any time soon either. So it will remain a group of 24, reaching decisions, sometimes painfully, by consensus or coalition.

Where the task force strikes gold is in its observations around the council-staff dynamic. And reading between the lines, their criticism of council is damning. What the task force did not state (but sure infers) is that staff has become the government with council playing the role of official opposition; it's bizarre.

Even in my brief stint at City Hall this was self-evident. From the budget to transit fare policy to comprehensive zoning, council repeatedly gives staff direction to develop policies and when these directions are dutifully followed and brought back to committee, staff are too often subjected to unwarranted criticism of their work or worse, their broader professional competency.

And in the weeks or months between receiving direction and reporting back, council can sometimes reverse its policy course or simply drop an issue. This goes to the core of council's challenge, with some seeing their role as direction setters while others more comfortable in the weeds of daily city administrivia.

The Zussman group laments the parochial ward focus of councillors. Perhaps I'm too close to some of this group, but I found that most of council tries to balance local and city-wide concerns. However, in a system where local ward voters hire and fire you every four years, do the math; ward concerns rule.

A potential solution is to re-district the city's electoral map by federal riding boundaries (or close to them) and then elect three councillors per riding to council which would yield 21 councillors and a mayor.

The recommendation for a finance and audit committee is a no-brainer and not new. It should be implemented as soon as possible; ideally this spring so it can be up and running for the 2010 budget process. The annual December begathon where community organizations come pleading their case for their pittance of taxpayer funding in the broader scheme of the city's $2-billion budget is a civic embarrassment.

A small slice of city funding enables our vibrant civil society and third sector; let them flourish and let's have the finance and audit committee focus on big-ticket items like transit, procurement policy and infrastructure management.

But don't take my word for all this, the report can be found at www.governance-ottawa.ca. It's worth a read.