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The following is the text of a speech sponsored by the Community Foundation of Ottawa that Citizen editorial board member Ken Gray gave at the auditorium of the Ottawa Public Library, main branch, on Tuesday.
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We newspaper types are a devious lot. Last Christmas, with lots of newspapers to publish and few days to do it during the holiday period, we were busy.
Still, each week my column space relentlessly requires filling. So I needed something fast. This is where the devious part comes in. In the column, I asked Ottawans to write in about what kind of city they wanted. Seemed innocuous enough. No interview, a bit of spelling and I’m done. Furthermore, if five or six readers respond, why they’ve written my next column. Perfect … an old newspaper trick.
So what happens? We get an avalanche of letters to the Citizen. Blind luck. It seems this little missive resonated with Ottawans. Despite their outer reserve, residents really care about their community. You wouldn’t know this from their low voter turnouts at municipal election time, but there it was. So I had columns for weeks. It was like angling for perch and landing a marlin. Fish for dinner.
Not only did I catch a school of letters, I also hooked the Community Foundation of Ottawa. When the good people there asked me to make this speech, they said they wanted me to talk about “The Ottawa you want.” With pleasure.
So what did our readers want? A person by the name of Luke White said it well: “A place where we are all encouraged to be whatever we want to be.”
Michael Allen of the United Way dwelled on community collaboration and partnerships, where the beliefs and interests of citizens are recognized, where the humblest residents have value no matter their background. A place where everyone thrives and shares.
Others responded, very eclectically. They wanted emphasis on arts and culture; a car-free city; more bike racks and paths; a vibrant downtown; more cafés, bars and nightclubs with later opening hours; better transit; sexual and ethnic tolerance; retention and improvement of national institutions; more parks; more people places along our rivers; more representative democracy; and a place that cherishes its creative people.
The list goes on and on. But more than anything else, Ottawans wanted a green community.
Now that I have fulfilled my commitment to the Community Foundation to speak about “The Ottawa you want,” I would like to take this idea a step further, which is “The Ottawa You Get.”
In that regard, I had friends from Tennessee who visited Ottawa a few years ago. When I returned the visit in Knoxville, another Tennessean asked them: “What is Ottawa like?”
“It’s beautiful,” they responded.
And it is … physically. But from our 21st-century environmental perspective, sadly, this is a dirty city in ways that matter. In keeping with my fishy theme, I will quote the title of a song by the old Saskatchewan rock group The Northern Pikes in reference to Ottawa, “She ain’t pretty. She just looks that way.” And in that regard, I will speak to the basic elements that make up our city: water, earth and air.
First, water. When Leeds-Grenville MP Gord Brown met with the Citizen editorial board, of which I’m a member, he told us he was concerned that sewage systems in his riding outside Ottawa were so bad that he feared that effluent from his area would flow down the Rideau past the Parliament Buildings. Sheepishly, I had to tell him that the City of Ottawa had beat him to it.
We’re quite good at this. As of late this summer, this city had poured 964 million litres of sewage and untreated storm water into the Ottawa River, more than double the year previous because of heavy rainfall, something we should expect more of as global warming continues. In old parts of the city, storm and sanitary sewers are not separated, so heavy rain overwhelms the Pickard water treatment plant in Gloucester. Officials must open the gates and allow untreated sewage into the river. Thus we spoil one of the greatest resources of fresh water in North America. We are not alone. Most cities on the continent, due to a lack of infrastructure money, must do the same. Still, we are the national capital and should set an example for others. We must preserve the Ottawa River, its beaches where we play, and the critical water that we drink.