The mayor recently supped with Mark Carney to press Ottawa’s case. But the prime minister and his foes may have other priorities just now.
The scene has probably repeated itself thousands of times: two middle-aged men sharing breakfast in a booth at John’s Diner and telling one another how they’d fix the world if only they were in charge.
But on this particular occasion, a week ago Monday, it was two men who CAN make big changes. One, Mark Carney, had been chosen a day earlier to lead the Liberal Party of Canada and thus was also prime minister-designate. The other was Mark Sutcliffe, mayor of Ottawa and, in a weird way, Carney’s landlord.
I don’t know what each chose to eat, but I do know something that was on Sutcliffe’s conversational menu: His “Fairness for Ottawa” campaign, a crusade that chiefly urges the federal and provincial governments to pony up more money for Ottawa’s public transit, and for the feds in particular to increase their “Payments in Lieu of Taxes” (PILTs) for the Ottawa properties they own.
It wasn’t the first time Sutcliffe has raised these issues with Carney. He brought it up when Carney was campaigning for the party leadership. And Carney isn’t the only prime ministerial hopeful with whom the mayor has met: Sutcliffe has also spoken with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about what Ottawa wants from the feds. One of those two men will likely be prime minister after the impending election; Sutcliffe needs to prime them both.
“There’s a benefit to being non-partisan in this job,” Sutcliffe told me recently. “I like the fact that there are no political parties at the municipal level; I was able to build a strong working relationship with a Liberal government on Parliament Hill and a Conservative government at Queen’s Park.
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“My job is to do what’s best for Ottawa, and what’s best for Ottawa is for me to have a great relationship with the provincial government and a great relationship with the federal government.”
More pressing concerns than Ottawa
Right now, though, will anyone federally be listening? By the time the year is out, Sutcliffe will have pitched his fairness campaign to no fewer than three federal governments. And the one that really matters is the government about which we know the least: the one Canadians will choose in the general election.
And that government, regardless of who runs it, is going to have more pressing and immediate issues to deal with than little old us.
The PILTs issue is likely already dead in the water, after a Federal Court of Canada judge last month ruled in favour of the federal government, saying it made a “reasonable” decision in paying a discounted rate for PILTs. Sutcliffe has vowed to continue fighting, but I’m not holding my breath that the feds will voluntarily change their tune. I mean, this isn’t likely to be an election issue.
Public transit, though, is different. Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised during the recent provincial campaign to upload much of the burden of Ottawa’s transit to provincial Crown corporation Metrolinx. That could provide massive relief to Ottawa taxpayers.
Sutcliffe appeared to be getting some traction on the issue with the federal government (Justin Trudeau’s, that is) when Kanata-Carleton MP, and until last week Families, Children and Social Development minister, Jenna Sudds announced in January that the feds would give the city $180 million over 10 years for capital spending on transit.
Whether that funding will materialize under a Carney- or Poilievre-led government remains to be seen. It’s unlikely to be a priority, though, with U.S. tariffs and other threats from south of the border commanding the political stage. If Canada’s economy suffers the sort of debilitating blows that many predict, expect there to be a nationwide, COVID-like need for relief that would certainly push Ottawa’s transit demands to the back of the bus.
Additionally, Sudds’s removal from this short-term cabinet under Carney isn’t a positive sign for Ottawans. She was Ottawa’s representative at the table, and the one actively involved in discussions with Sutcliffe. The only Ottawa MP in cabinet now is Ottawa South’s David McGuinty, who, as minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, may have his hands full with fentanyl dealers and border security.
Meanwhile, Sutcliffe has made Fairness for Ottawa his signature issue and will need some wins under his belt when he campaigns for re-election in a year’s time.
“A large part of the last two years has been fixing things and getting back on track,” he said. “When you think back to three years ago now, which was when the campaign was just about to begin, we’d just come out of the convoy. We’d just come out of COVID. Light rail was a mess. A lot of the job so far has been fixing things.”
There’s still plenty more fixing to do: the ByWard Market, Lansdowne Park and the downtown core, as well as an expected contraction of the federal public service regardless of which party assumes the reins. Sutcliffe says he’s only now turning his attention to some areas where the city can look forward and build for the future.
But with so many crises and distractions at higher levels of government, will we ever get to the dessert menu?
