| Issue in Question | Stance |
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| Climate Change | Yes, Increase amounts to the bigger problem of climate change but more cautiously. It is urgent, it is important, but is not an emergency. The Climate change priority is addressed by public transit and the new East End Crossing. ________________________________________________________
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| Free Transit | Transit will be free to the students and seniors - those who can least afford it. Roads are paid through taxes... and so should be transit. Transit users are like the people who use roads to get around - only transit is better for the climate and ecology. Do we have a climate emergency? Affordability is the issue. Charge tolls on bridges, especially the bridges coming into Ottawa. Implement a toll for cars and trucks coming in from Quebec. Those people are not Ottawa voters. ________________________________________________________
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| Affordable housing | Allocating slowly increasing amounts to address affordable housing. Change the zoning to allow more housing options and different building standards. I support cooperative housing. I discourage ghettoized housing. How white is Rockcliffe, how black are the Southern projects? ________________________________________________________
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| Child Poverty | Allocating slowly increasing amounts to children in poverty. The main issue is providing secure and safe housing, educational prospects, addressing the systemic discrimination against poor POC. This means better services and housing - and not ghettoized housing for Ottawa's marginalized populations. The problem? Affordability. ________________________________________________________
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| Election spending | The bigger problem? how election campaigns are financed. Disallow campaign signage, encourage more public meetings, especially debates during campaigns - cap spending. Candidates need to represent both urban and rural citizens. This means ward boundaries need to changes. Everybody needs skin in the inner city and rural areas ________________________________________________________
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| East End Crossing | By now, and after 60 years of planning, we understand why we need to get the big trucks out of the downtown. I support the kettle island bridge option, which the incumbent does not. It extends the current aviation parkway across the Ottawa river across Kettle Island to Mont Paiement in Gatineau. Planning must be engaged now to secure sound barriers, sound deadening vegetation, overpasses, underpasses and other local improvents. Do not accept NIMBY posturing.
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| Community Focus
| The secret is to build community at every option. The city is about its people. Teach people how to build community and cultivate the leaders of tomorrow. _______________________________________________________
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| Civic Hospital
| It is not just a big parkade. Make it accessible to people ________________________________________________________
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| Developer influence on council
| Developers influence council through their donations. Limit donations from developers. Restrict donations to candidates. Encourage public meetings, debates and forums. ________________________________________________________
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| Public Washrooms | People need them, we must provide them - and when we provide them we must keep them clean. This is such a basic service we need to understand why it has not been provided. ________________________________________________________
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| Big Promises | There are three levels of government: municipal, provincial and federal. Most candidates confuse exactly what their responsibilities are. Focus on municipal services: that is the responsibility of the councillor. ________________________________________________________
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| Main Issues in Overbrook | The city is growing fast and so is Overbrook. There is tremendous pressure to get things done, take shortcuts, and many people will be unhappy with the pace of change, but it is essential. Stop dragging feet and speed up the pace of change. Some mistakes will happen but the time for hesitation has past as the social and economic problems are too pressing now. It is extremely important to get the right administrators in place and then get out of their way. If the governance is sound, with adequate checks and balances, let good people do what they have been paid to do - manage the city.
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| Rural versus Urban vote splitting | We have been spinning our wheels as an urban ward - on every substantial issue the urban issues of transit, affordable housing, bike active transport, communiry equity and poverty issues, and others, have been subjugated to rural issues due to the impact of amalgamation. The solution is committee structures and appointments but also ensuring that rural councillors have skin in the urban game. ________________________________________________________
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| LRT Development | Transit is costing the city billions. To pay for it some people will be taxed right out of their homes. What is the alternative? At this point the LRT is a sunk cost. It is going to happen. The best we can hope for is to run it efficiently. Ensure the management team is capable of doing that essential job. ________________________________________________________
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| Preparing for climate change and environmental degradation | The infrastructure needs to be hardened against the environment. Our electrical grid needs to be substantially upgraded against wind damage. Expect more ice storms, more flooding, more heat waves. How we prepare as a city and as individuals will mitigate the adverse impacts of unpredictable weather events. ________________________________________________________
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| Voter Partcipation and civic engagement | We have learned to work remotely and now we have to engage remotely and vote remotely. We need to use the new zoom, Teams, and Youtube live stream technology to make civics a workable option for our citizens. 38% voter turnout is not acceptable.
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| Practical Governance | The councillors need to work together today but what happens when they disagree? Those people need to have civil discourse and hold respect for the value of dialogue. It is important to be assertive, state the point of view, object when necessary, demand answers to tough questions, have a thorough hearing and then let democracy do its thing. Governance is about leadership and allocation of resources. Governance reflects values by assigning dollars to the things the community values. The business of assigning resources requires constant review of dollars spent and those anticipated for the future using the best business analysis tools available in combination with an assessment of the practices of other successful communities. Artificial Intelligence must be adopted, open data and analytics must be enhanced. ________________________________________________________
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| Bilingualism in Rideau Rockcliff | I went door to door in the last election and whatever french I could muster was never called upon. English is the language of commerce but very many speak and prefer to speak in French. For those I say your need for french is a civic right which I will defend. Ici dans Ottawa nous parlons Francaise et Anglaise et Franglias aussi. Bon Chance.
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| Housing | Overbrook is an example of an area where there is privately owned low cost housing. If the city wants low cost housing it has to facilitate it like it might facilitate a hockey arena or an art gallery. Ottawa will be committing its own resources to create new affordable housing! ACORN members have been working tirelessly for over a decade for more affordable housing in our city. Investment in affordable housing will increase the affordable housing units currently being built by the City each year. The Mayor and your City Councillors need to support meaningful budget allocations for affordable housing! 1. Create and maintain a single 'byname' list of people who experience homelessness in the city, including when they enter the system, what services and supports they require and when they leave. 2. Coordinate system access. Implement a standardized process for access, assessment and referral to housing and support services across all homelessness-related organizations in the city. A standardized way of assessing people’s needs helps to match them with the right housing, addiction and mental health services. 3. The final step is prevention and diversion. The information gathered by the 'by-name' list will allow for better planning and intervention before individuals become chronically homeless. ________________________________________________________
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| Disrepair in social housing | We license dogs. Landlords are not licensed. Which does more damage, a bad dog owner or a bad landlord? There are a number of approaches including setting minimum standards for rental units. Another is to provide star ratings on rental units. Licensing is just one but not the only approach to ensure good landlord practices. During the last election I went door to door in the projects and found them in a poor state of repair. If the occupant had sufficient funds they may have done light maintenance but generally painting, screen repair, electrical repair of broken lights, door bells, landscaping of landing areas, replacement of rotted wood - these are beyond the means of those in social housing. They need help to keep their domociles neat and tidy and the city (OCH) must provide it. ________________________________________________________
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| How to run a campaign in Rideau Rockcliffe | It is almost impossible to run an effective campaign in the ward. If I can acheive 50% approval I will be thrilled. Half the people will disagree with your positions for their own very good reasons. As a result I understand that the approach is to fairly present your position and let the public decide.________________________________________________________
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| First past the post - is this a good thing | We need informed and motivated people to vote in a democracy. That gets real in a municipality. If more people voted - would that result in a better election? It shows that the community is engaged but does it result in a better government - I do not think so. Even if only two people voted, the result would be split. This is a very fractious neighborhood. There are the projects on the south, the castles on the north, the burbs on the east and the easy living on the west. How do you gain consensus? ________________________________________________________
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| Regarding the Incumbent | I was not impressed with Rawlson but there were times when I strongly agreed with his stances on council. My great concern was that he ran on certain issues and did not deliver - though it would have been hard no matter who you were.Housing, child poverty, climate change... did not manifest. King was a nothing burger. When the going got tough on the OPS.... he resigned. In general he panders to voters. The sidewalk issue is a classic example. I would not do it. Also..if elected, I will not run again! No pandering!
https://youtu.be/5ruPIt2fzXw CTV remarks regarding the performance of the incumbent
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| Community Councils - are they effective? | When I presented myself as a candidate for North Kanata to fill a vacancy I asked a councillor why they did not just appoint Wilkinson even though all community associations endorsed her... the response " community association recommendations aren't all that helpful" I was appauled but not surprised. You need to go to the associations to get the pulse of neighborhoods on issues but ultimately as councillor you make your own mind up... just as all the councillors in did in that case. ________________________________________________________
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| Why are you even running? | When I walk around my neighborhood I see things and ask "why" then I think of a solution to the various problems and as "why not" I am putting my ideas forward, that is what I do. I am not a pancake flipper, I am not a seat warmer and if I cannot get things done, I don't want to waste my time. I am running to get things done, to find work arounds, solutions, improvements , and make sure we have progress.
https://youtu.be/5ruPIt2fzXw?feature=shared ________________________________________________________
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| Who do you support for mayor | I was a Clive Doucet supporter but he is out of the picture. I originally support Watson but he turned out to be a big disappointment. The progressive McKenney was tempting but the problem is that everything is an emergency to her, no priorities. Worse, she was a player in the urban vote block which never gained consensus with the rural voters. STRONG MAYOR powers can break the impasse. I support the expert Savaramutoo. _________________________________________________________ |
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