THE REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY
OF
OTTAWA-CARLETON
COUNCIL MINUTES
A Special Meeting of the Council of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton was called to meet at Haydon Hall, Regional Headquarters, 111 Lisgar Street, Ottawa on Wednesday, January 10, 1996 at 9:00 a.m. for the purpose of considering the 1996 Council Operating and Capital Budget and related documents.
The meeting was called to order at 9:13 a.m. and opened in prayer.
The Regional Chair, Peter D. Clark, presided.
ALL MEMBERS WERE PRESENT EXCEPT COUNCILLOR PRATT.
COMMUNICATIONS*
A. Mr. Willy Bagnell, President, The Ottawa-Carleton Board of Trade advising he has spoken to hundreds of members of the community with respect to increasing taxes or cutting services, programs and staff. He feels that the only acceptable solution to the present budget dilemma is to reduce services, programs and staff, as well as reduce taxes. A separate correspondence from Mr. Bagnell advises a resolution was unanimously passed by the Board of Directors "that the Board of Directors send a clear message to Regional Council that there is no mandate to raise taxes".
B. Mr. David Goodfellow forwarding a copy of a letter he submitted to the City of Ottawa regarding their proposal to eliminate snow removal from bus stops. He is opposed to this proposal and sites safety hazards and other negative impacts if this service is eliminated. He is asking the Region to support a request to the City of Ottawa to reconsider this proposal.
REGRETS
The following members of Council advising that they will be absent from Council and Committee meetings during the dates indicated:
Councillor D. Pratt 8 - 17 January 1996
CHAIR'S REMARKS
As we close the book on 1995 and expectations for the new year begin, I would like to take the opportunity to review the year just past and to look to some of the themes for 1996.
YEAR IN REVIEW
1995 saw many significant yet positive changes in Ottawa-Carleton. While 1995's achievements may appear to be somewhat overshadowed by the difficulties this region and this Council are facing in dealing with a significant provincial funding shortfall, I think we should be reminded of the following major achievements- achievements made possible in large part by this Council:
GOVERNANCE
1995 was also the first year of an entirely directly elected Council. While it is really too early to hype the results, I believe we have made significant strides in the past year. The debate on the structure of municipal government in Ottawa-Carleton was brought back to life in 1995 by several local politicians. I believe that - if the province looks at the issue of governance again- after all it is its responsibility, it will look to the Ottawa-Carleton experience as a model for other jurisdictions -a model that, after only a year, has produced extremely positive results.
Already other regions are looking at a similar model of governance. Recently, commissioners of studies in both Waterloo and Halton have recommended a directly elected regional chair and directly elected councillors. Both cite better cost management for service delivery and better accountability as the main reasons. The Regional Chairs of the province produced a report entitled "In Pursuit of Better Government.". The main thrust of this report is that the services delivered to the public throughout the province and throughout the various regions must be delivered in the most cost effective manner possible, and at the level where economies of scale can be demonstrated. In Ottawa-Carleton, we can demonstrate it and we have demonstrated it.
It is clear that services delivered on a region-wide basis are more cost effective than when they are fragmented. For Ottawa-Carleton, the economies of scale in new regional services of garbage and police are already noticeable in our 1996 budget. We will continue to see even more savings in the years to come.
Il est évident que les services offerts à l'échelle régionale sont plus économiques que ceux offerts de façon fragmentaire. Dans le cas d'Ottawa-Carleton, notre budget 1996 fait déjà état des économies qu'on réalise dans les domaines des services de collecte de déchets et de services policiers depuis qu'ils sont offerts à l'échelle régionale.
We should recognize that the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton is not an instrument of the local municipalities nor is it a contract agency delivering services on their behalf. The Region is responsible for a range of services including police protection, 911 services, welfare assistance, homes for the aged, child care, home care, public health and health promotion, conservation, regional roads, transitway, OC Transpo, garbage collection, recycling, landfill, regional planning, water supply and waste water treatment. The basic fabric of our community is built from the provision of regional services. To provide these services in an efficient, effective and accountable manner, it is critical that there be a political structure; a structure directly accountable to the people.
Regional Council must be responsible for discussing, debating and setting policies within its jurisdiction of responsibility. The lines of accountability from Regional Council to the electorate must be disentangled from the lines of responsibility from local councils to the electorate. Regional Councillors represent people, not other governments, and must be responsible for their actions to the electorate, not to other politicians. This way, the voters within the Ottawa-Carleton region will be able to exercise their judgements of and communicate their needs to the regional council, independent of any expressions they may wish to make to their local councils.
For Ottawa-Carleton, the governance issue has been decided and we are already beginning to see cost savings. I do not wish to re-enter that debate. Rather, I would prefer to let our actions speak for themselves as they have in this past year.
I would like to turn to a theme that will become even more critical to this region in 1996 and that is ... economic development.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Ottawa-Carleton is well positioned in the new economy. We are well represented in the major industries that make up a base on which the future will be built. Our centres of excellence are in the competitive growth industries, and we must maintain our confidence that this fiscal crisis will not impact our ability to do business on world markets and to compete internationally in respect to attracting the best and the brightest.
Nous devons être confiants que cette crise économique n'affectera pas notre habileté de faire concurrence avec les marchés internationaux ainsi que notre capacité d'attirer les grandes entreprises et de demeurer compétitif.
The route has been paved with the development of transportation linkages and air services and control of our north south access routes in the overall regional transportation system. We still must work on the concept of Team Metro so that we are presenting a focused effort, a type of one-stop shopping to external entrepreneurs interested in Ottawa-Carleton. A major obstacle to our success in retaining and attracting businesses in the trade sectors is the fragmented nature of the region's existing economic development efforts. Unlike many competing regions, Ottawa-Carleton has no single champion to protect and promote the region's interests both internally and externally.
The economic prospects of the core and the rest of the region are inextricably linked. Suburbs may benefit initially from outward migration but eventual decline of the core leads to decline of the suburbs. Conversely, growth of the core spawns growth in the suburbs. Truly, we are all in it together. We have the tools to develop strategic partnerships with the private sector and with academic institutions so that we can leverage all of theirs and our resources to exploit the efforts of the entire region. We need to exploit those tools more aggressively. We must have a more focused and efficient private-public partnership to promote the entire region.
This region is one of the world's best places to live and to do business. But if the economy is not nurtured it will not long remain so. Economic development in 1996 should be this council's number one priority.
La priorité de ce conseil en 1996 devrait être le développement économique.
Other priorities for 1996 include:
Before we can act on these priorities, we must address a very acute situation brought on by the province's reduction in transfer payments.
BUDGET CUTS
I have always sought a balance between programs at the Regional level, and have looked for enhancement of the quality of life of our citizens. Despite rumours to the contrary, the last few years of severe provincial restraint have been painful. Through our debt management strategy and our continuous service improvements of the past decade, we have been able to sustain most of this without major impacts on service. Doing more with less has become the watchword.
For 1996, we will look at solutions to the approximately $31 million of reduced revenue from senior governments, $29.3 million of that from the provincial government restraints. This is in addition to about $70 million in cuts to direct GWA social assistance recipients. This unexpected Christmas present will force us to dig even deeper; to ask ourselves once again what business we are in and what our core services should be. Faced with this shortfall, we now have an incredible challenge before us, a challenge many of us see as a painful pill for our community to swallow.
Ces nouvelles coupures annoncées par la province nous obligera d'étirer nos resources davantage; de se demander à nouveau quel est notre mandat et quels devraient-être nos services fondamentaux. Face à ce nouveau manque à gagner, nous aurons à relever un défi énorme, défi que bon nombre d'entre nous envisageons comme un remède amer à avaler.
During the course of our budget process, we have been reminded by numerous individuals and community groups, how provincial cutbacks have affected, and will impact the residents of this region. This makes the budget decisions we are faced with today as critical as they are difficult. If we were to try to replace this shortfall from the province, we would have to raise taxes by over 25%. A percentage that we all know, is astronomical, unaffordable and, more importantly, unacceptable. This clearly points out that income redistribution cannot be a function of property tax.
Nevertheless, we will be asked to make hard choices and to prioritize even more the services we provide. In 1996, we should also be mindful of the fact that we will have to address a further provincial cut for 1997. This will divide Council to some extent as to what levels of service we can protect and which services we should forego. I would remind you all that we have developed a very good support system, and many of us are not pleased that it has to be partially dismantled. But, we should accept that our staff has done an excellent job in consulting with the affected communities and made decisions based on that. Their professional judgment is important to us and, I believe they have done an outstanding job of dealing with very difficult and sensitive issues.
I am hopeful that the challenges I spoke of will also come in the form of opportunities for this region. We should look forward with confidence that the economy of Ottawa-Carleton is healthy and that our credit rating is superior to that of senior governments. We will manage our way through this and we can look forward to achievements and future developments in this region with some confidence. At the risk of repeating myself, I cannot emphasize enough that economic development should be Council's priority in 1996.
For this reason, if and when council decides initiatives are sensible and cost effective, we can move forward with some capital projects over the next three or four years such as new trade and convention space, improvements to the downtown core and the expansion of the international airport.
CONCLUSION
I have taken a few minutes to review 1995 and to outline some priorities for 1996. I would like to take this opportunity to thank staff for an outstanding job of accommodating the new political structure of regional council. I would like to thank the management team and all of our employees and the unions for their collaboration in ensuring that this region continues to be the best place to live and work in the world.
Finally, I would like to thank Council for its work in the past year on all of the major issues we dealt with and the media for their faithful efforts at reporting it. 1995 was a good year. 1996, despite the fiscal pressures, will be a better one.
Merci de votre attention.
MOTION NO. 1
Moved by Councillor A. Cullen
Seconded by Councillor R. van den Ham
RESOLVED THAT the Chair's remarks form part of the record of this Council meeting.
"CARRIED"
MOTION NO. 2
Moved by Councillor R. Cantin
Seconded by Councillor L. Davis
RESOLVED THAT the Rules of Procedure be suspended in order that Council can reconsider Item 1 of Community Service Committee Report No. 18 (Canadian Mothercraft Funding Request), dealt with on December 13, 1995.
"LOST" with Councillor Hume dissenting.
MOTION NO. 3
Moved by Councillor A. Cullen
Seconded by Councillor A. Loney
RESOLVED THAT the Rules of Procedure be suspended in order that Council may receive and consider Planning and Environment Committee Report No. 22.
"CARRIED"
PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE REPORT NO. 22
1. REQUEST TO NCC FOR EXTENSION OF DEADLINE FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS
ON THE GREENBELT MASTER PLAN ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS
WHEREAS on May 24, 1995 the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton approved its response to the National Capital Commission's Draft Greenbelt Master Plan;
WHEREAS on January 2, 1996 a public notice published by the NCC appeared in the Ottawa Citizen (copy attached) declaring that an initial environmental assessment has been prepared for its Greenbelt Master Plan, that the NCC has determined that all potentially adverse environmental effects are mitigable with known technology;
WHEREAS it appears from the NCC document Environmental Assessment of the Master Plan for the National Capital Greenbelt (Jan. 1996) that many of the issues raised by both the public and the RMOC have not been addressed in this report;
WHEREAS neither RMOC Planning staff nor local community groups have been circulated with the NCC environmental assessment documentation;
WHEREAS the deadline for public comments to the NCC's environmental evaluation (according to the Jan. 2, 1996 notice) is January 17, 1996;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the RMOC request the NCC to extend its deadline for public comments on the Greenbelt Master Plan environmental evaluation to the end of February, 1996;
AND THAT Planning staff prepare a report for the first meeting of Planning & Environment Committee in February on the NCC's Environmental Assessment of the Master Plan for the National Capital Greenbelt report, to be submitted to the NCC as the RMOC's comments, following Council approval.
"CARRIED"
MOTION NO. 4
Moved by Councillor B. McGarry
Seconded by Councillor A. Munter
RESOLVED THAT the Rules of Procedure be suspended in order that Council may consider the following Motion No. 5 with respect to the naming of the new Palladium.
"CARRIED"
MOTION NO. 5
Moved by Councillor B. McGarry
Seconded by Councillor A. Munter
WHEREAS the Palladium opens on January 15, 1996;
WHEREAS the owners of the Palladium, the Palladium Corporation, has yet to name the Palladium;
WHEREAS Ottawa-Carleton's economy is characterized in part by a growing high technology sector;
WHEREAS Ottawa-Carleton's high technology sector is of critical importance to the region's future economy;
WHEREAS there is an ongoing need to promote the Region as one of the world's high technology centres;
AND WHEREAS the visibility of the Palladium transcends Regional Boundaries;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Regional Council encourage the Palladium Corporation to select a name for the Palladium which would promote Ottawa-Carleton's high technology character.
"CARRIED"
MOTION TO INTRODUCE COMMITTEE BUDGET DOCUMENTS
MOTION NO. 6
Moved by Councillor W. Stewart
Seconded by Councillor D. Holmes
RESOLVED THAT Community Services Committee Report No. 19; Transportation Committee Report No. 20; Planning and Environment Committee Report No. 20; OC Transit Commission Report No. 4; Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee Report No. 24 and Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police Services Board Report No. 1 and the 1996 Current and Capital Budget Documents be received and considered and that the Rules of Procedure be suspended in order that Council may consider a joint report from the CAO and Finance Commissioner dated January 9, 1996 entitled "1996 Draft Estimates - Required Adjustments.
"CARRIED"
The Chief Administrative Officer outlined the challenge that Council had before them. After a brief presentation by the Finance Commissioner, staff responded to questions from Council.
MOTION NO. 7
Moved by Councillor J. Legendre
Seconded by Councillor M. Meilleur
RESOLVED THAT the 1996 Council Budget be tabled until 9:00 a.m. January 24, 1996, to allow Councillors time to reflect on the adjustments necessary to accommodate the latest provincial cuts to transfer payments.
"CARRIED" with Councillor Hunter dissenting.
IN ADDITION TO MOTION NO. 7 ABOVE, THE FOLLOWING NOTICES OF MOTION HAVE ALSO BEEN TABLED TO THE SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING OF 24 JANUARY 1996.
MOTION NO. A
Moved by Councillor B. Hill
Seconded by Councillor R. van den Ham
RESOLVED THAT there be a moratorium on staff training and development for 1996.
MOTION NO. B
Moved by Councillor R. van den Ham
Seconded by Councillor B. Hill
RESOLVED THAT the CAO and Finance Commissioner review pages 178 and 179 of the Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee Draft Budget, with the quest of improving the reallocations to the Region-Wide Fund for the January 24, 1996 Council Budget Meeting.
MOTION NO. C
Moved by Councillor G. Hunter
Seconded by Councillor R. van den Ham
RESOLVED THAT the allocation for Councillors' office budgets be reduced by $1,900. each, to reflect a level of cut roughly equal to that being experienced by other Regional departments.
MOTION NO. D
Moved by Councillor G. Hunter
Seconded by Councillor B. Hill
RESOLVED THAT the Arts Grants Budget be eliminated for 1996.
MOTION NO. E
Moved by Councillor R. Cantin
Seconded by Councillor A. Munter
RESOLVED THAT festivals which receive (Economic Development Grant) funding from the RMOC and for which Festival Plaza is suitable, have their funding withdrawn if they refuse to stage their event at the site which was built for them - Festival Plaza - at a taxpayer's cost of $1.8 million.
MOTION NO. F
Moved by Councillor R. Cantin
Seconded by Councillor H. Kreling
RESOLVED THAT the grant to the Ottawa Tourism and Convention Authority be reinstated to the $1,794,600 amount originally provided for on page 217 of the Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee proposed budget book presented to Council November 22, 1995.
MOTION NO. G
Moved by Councillor J. Legendre
Seconded by Councillor B. McGarry
RESOLVED THAT Council accept the staff recommendation of a 1.3% reduction from 1995 regarding the 1996 grant to the Ottawa Life Sciences Council.
MOTION NO. H
Moved by Councillor J. Legendre
Seconded by Councillor B. McGarry
RESOLVED THAT Council accept the staff recommendation of a 1.6% reduction from 1995 regarding the 1996 grant to Housing Help Corporate/Aide-logement Ottawa-Carleton.
MOTION NO. I
Moved by Councillor J. Legendre
Seconded by Councillor B. McGarry
RESOLVED THAT Council accept the staff recommendation of a 1.6% reduction from 1995 regarding the 1996 grant to Action-logement Centre d'information - Region d'Ottawa-Carleton.
MOTION NO. J
Moved by Councillor A. Munter
Seconded by Councillor R. van den Ham
WHEREAS the Region budgeted $5.4 million for police service in areas policed by the Ontario Provincial Police (O.P.P.) in 1995; and
WHEREAS a significant portion of the 1995 budget will remain unspent and the Region will receive a credit from the O.P.P. for this surplus; and
WHEREAS such surpluses are generated because the O.P.P. has not staffed the positions for which the Region has budgeted; and
WHEREAS residents wish to receive the level of police service budgeted and paid for;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT any surplus/credit be used to provide police service in the O.P.P. policed area and that the Region apply any credit received from the O.P.P. only towards service in Goulbourn, West Carleton, Osgoode, Kanata, Rideau, Cumberland or Rockcliffe Park, depending on where such credits originated; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT Regional Council express strong concern to the Solicitor General of Ontario and Commissioner of the O.P.P. that the Absence of a signed contract between the Region and the O.P.P. - more than one year after the Region began paying for this service - is unacceptable and that Council request the Solicitor General and Commissioner take immediate steps to remedy this situation.
MOTION NO. 8
Moved by Councillor G. Hunter
Seconded by Councillor H. Kreling
RESOLVED THAT By-law No. 2 of 1996 to confirm the proceedings of Council be enacted and passed.
"CARRIED"
By-law enacted and passed.
ADJOURNMENT
Council adjourned at 11:02 a.m.
CLERK CHAIR