Ken Bowering was happy to chat with a public opinion pollster. Then he was told he didn’t qualify with his rural Ottawa postal code.
Ken Bowering is a civic-minded and engaged Ottawa resident. He’s the kind of person who, when he’s too busy to take a phone call from an opinion pollster, asks them to call back later — and actually means it.
That happened recently when a representative from the social research firm Advanis called, conducting a survey on behalf of the City of Ottawa.
The “survey,” though, didn’t last long.
After confirming that he was indeed a resident of Ottawa and over 18, Bowering was asked his age (83) and the first three digits of his postal code (K0A).
“With that, the lady told me they only wanted to talk to residents of Ottawa,” he recalls of the Jan. 3 call. “So I repeated that I was a resident, living in Woodlawn. I can’t remember what her exact words were, but the gist of them was that the city wasn’t interested in hearing from people out here.”
It’s a sentiment Bowering says he and other rural residents have long felt, especially since amalgamation in 2001. Before that, he says, Woodlawn — between Dunrobin and Constance Bay — was part of Torbolton Township, a municipality that knew about and took care of its residents’ needs.
“They looked after us. Things were taken care of, like roads, ditches and garbage. We never asked about it. They just came around and did it right.”
Understandably, his exchange with Advanis left a bad taste. Why, if the city’s coffers are as threadbare as it claims, is it doing such surveys at all? Councillors and their staff, presumably already in touch with their constituents, could surely do much of that work. And if the city was interested in hearing from residents, why not all residents? After all, they’re all paying for it.
Evening Update
So he started a couple of email exchanges, one with 311 and the other reaching out to the city’s Community Safety and Well-being team, for whom the survey was being conducted. He asked questions, including one about the cost of the survey. His queries went unanswered. Then he was encouraged to go online to answer a quick survey “in order to assist with continuous customer service improvement.”
“I think it’s all to do with the fact that we’re rural and we shouldn’t be part of the city,” Bowering says.
That’s a commonly heard sentiment, and whether or not it’s true, there’s clearly a chasm between residents like Bowering and those who are supposed to serve them.
As a youngster, one of my favourite pastimes was racing sticks in the ditch in front of our house in Lincoln Fields following rainstorms. That, to my young mind, was what ditches were for; I had no idea that there existed ditches which, if blocked and overflowing, flooded fields and ruined crops and livelihoods. I suspect people working for the city similarly don’t understand ditches, or simply haven’t given them a thought.
Clarke Kelly, the city councillor for West Carleton-March where Bowering lives, says that rural residents often feel ignored. He blames poor communications on the part of the city.
“The problem is, no one ever gets a straight answer,” he says. “The biggest problem at the City of Ottawa that I’ve seen is communication, both with councillors and with the public.
“It’s not surprising to me, given what I’ve experienced trying to get answers, that the public is having trouble with it as well. They often reach out to me, frustrated, with the reasonable expectation that we will be able to get quick and thorough answers from staff. And it’s far from always the case.”
Even if it isn’t strictly a rural issue, Kelly understands the perception that it is, and how perception becomes people’s reality. Back when many of his constituents lived in the township of West Carleton, it was a small operation. “You could call somebody, and 20 minutes later, you’d have an answer because people talked to each other.
”At the City of Ottawa, there are 20,000 people in the directory. Trying to get an answer from anyone is very, very difficult.”
He’s hoping that some of the commitments made by Mayor Mark Sutcliffe at last fall’s Rural Summit, including designating rural experts for city departments, an updated and expanded ditching policy, and shifting away from one-size-fits-all models and regulations, will help.
“It’s a start,” admits Bowering of the summit’s recommendations. “A designated rural expert for each department,” he adds, “is utopia.”
Hopefully a utopia that, if the city must survey residents, recognizes that Ottawans of every postal code should have a voice.
Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
