A Few Good "Policemen"

2021 - 2022 Rideau Rockcliffe Stats..a little light on detail. Look over here...not over there stuff.

https://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/annual-report/resources/Crime_Stats/Ward_13-Rideau-Rockcliffe.pdf

The Club of which - We are Not Members

Society enforces its rules through force. Countries enforce theirs through armies. 

We accept that bargain: a small percentage of the population gets legal authority to detain, restrain, and if necessary kill, while the rest of us navigate daily life with nothing sharper than good manners. 

We don't get to escalate. They do.

Here's the part nobody likes to say out loud: there are bad actors already inside that system,

There are dangerous people who haven't been identified yet, moving through our institutions like free radicals. Some of them wear a badge. 

That's not a slander against the profession, it's just math. Any group large enough, given enough unchecked power, will contain people who abuse it. 

The question was never whether that's true. It's what we do about it.

What we've done about it, historically, is very little, and the structure of policing makes that almost inevitable. 

Police unions exist to protect officers, which is reasonable, but it breeds a brotherhood reflex that doesn't distinguish between protecting a good cop from a bad accusation and protecting a bad one from a fair one. Add nepotism, seniority politics, and good-old-boy loyalty, and misconduct doesn't need approval to survive, it just needs tolerance. 

Meanwhile the public gets none of the oversight that would let us check the work. Confidentiality and privacy protections, meant to protect victims, end up protecting the institution from its own people. It's a club. We pay its dues. We're not members.

It has ever been thus. But for the first time we have a tool that doesn't care about brotherhood or seniority: data.

This isn't theoretical. Researchers at the University of Chicago, working with the White House's Police Data Initiative, built a predictive model from over a decade of Charlotte-Mecklenburg's own records.

 The strongest predictor of an officer having a problem next year turned out to be that officer's own history of problems this year, information the department already had, just never connected, because connecting it depends on a colleague flagging a colleague. 

Charlotte piloted the system anyway. LA County and Knoxville built their own. Miami, Minneapolis, and New Orleans already run versions of an "early intervention system." 

This isn't science fiction. It's a maturity problem, not a technology problem.

That's the opening AI widens. 

An algorithm doesn't get invited to the Christmas party of the guy it's flagging, and it doesn't owe anyone a favor. 

It looks at complaint histories, use-of-force reports, body-cam metadata, and lawsuit records, and turns "everybody sort of knew about that guy" into a documented, time-stamped flag that someone has to answer for.

I'm not naive about the failure mode. A system is only as honest as the data fed into it, and departments have already been caught gaming exactly this kind of oversight, softening reports, even misreporting details to make problems disappear on paper. 

AI doesn't fix a culture determined to hide its own evidence. But it raises the cost of hiding it. A quiet word in a locker room leaves no record. A flagged pattern that a supervisor chose to ignore leaves a very inconvenient one, for the supervisor.

We accepted the bargain that gave police authority the rest of us don't have. 

We never got the other half: real visibility into how that authority gets used. AI won't deliver bias-free policing, nothing will, because people still run it. 

But it can start dragging the receipts into the light, where the rest of us, the people who aren't club members yet fund it and live under its rules, can finally read them.

Real leadership means demanding that kind of transparency even when it's uncomfortable, especially from your own people. Rideau-Rockcliffe watched someone walk away from that fight instead of having it.

This is why King's resignation is so infuriating to me. He took credit for his work on OPS yet quit when the going got tough. He had an opportunity to make changes but went to the Buffet instead.

Who even bothered to watch? This is the only debate Rogers removed from its library.

https://youtu.be/5ruPIt2fzXw?feature=shared

This time around, inform yourselves, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau Rockcliffe

Me and Neil

I attended a meeting with the Overbrook Community Association with Neil.

He is my recommendation for Ottawa's mayor.

He said:

“The big spending decisions are lining up with the priorities of powerful developers, not ordinary residents,” said Saravanamuttoo. “These [Tewin and Lansdowne] are both investments that I see very few people in the community asking for, whereas I see a lot of demand for better transit, for community recreational services, for frankly just getting the roads fixed and keeping up with basic services.”

I agree with all of his policy planks. I also advocate for more and better open and easily accessible data whether financial, statistical or social.

It's time we make council accountable. No incumbent should simply sleep walk back to their seat on council.

This time around, inform yourselves, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau Rockcliffe

Hockey Night in Rideau-Rockcliffe

Some are bemoaning that CBC's beloved Hockey Night In Canada is going off the air after decades.

But this has been in the works since soccer achieved parity in participation numbers in the early 80's.

 Soccer , NOT HOCKEY  is Canada's most popular participatory sport, especially among youth and diverse communities such as Rideau Rockcliffe.

Canada's appearance in the 2026 FIFA World Cup is only its third time:
1986 (Mexico),2022 (Qatar):
2026 is the first time the men's World Cup has been played in Canada.

Soccer is already Canada's top participatory sport (nearly 700,000 registered players, ~50% of youth), having surpassed ice hockey in registration numbers since the 1980s–90s.

It is accessible, inclusive, and popular across immigrant communities. The World Cup amplifies this growth, inspiring the next generation and showcasing Canada's multiculturalism.

Expectations are high Canada will secure its first-ever World Cup win(s), and advance from its group stage and possibly reach the knockout rounds.

What is the significance to Ottawa's hockey facilities and soccer fields?  You do not need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing!

We need to improve and expand soccer facilities!

Hockey gets more money. Soccer has a clear cost advantage: Families spend roughly $325/year per child vs. ~$1,400 for hockey.
This drives the higher participation (soccer now tops hockey as Canada’s most-played youth sport, with roughly twice as many kids involved).

For example,  there's no single authoritative "ward facility inventory" I could pull a hard utilization number from, so this is built from community association sites, league listings, and the city's general parks info rather than one official source.

**What exists in Rideau-Rockcliffe:**

New Edinburgh Park, along the Rideau River between Beechwood and the river, has playing fields and a fieldhouse that's been the neighbourhood's hub since 1998. 

Rockcliffe Park Public School's field and The Rockeries (Hillsdale Park)

 These host the Rockcliffe/Lindenlea children's soccer league, which draws kids from Rockcliffe Park, Lindenlea, Manor Park, and New Edinburgh together — meaning multiple communities are already sharing a fairly small number of pitches. 

Overbrook Community Centre and Manor Park Public School 

These turn up as bookable fields in city-wide adult league location lists. 

Carson Grove Park is used similarly.

**Are they enough?** 

Compared to other parts of Ottawa, the ward looks thin. 

Millennium Sports Park in Orleans alone has 15 dedicated soccer/football fields on one 34-hectare site — there's nothing remotely comparable in scale within Rideau-Rockcliffe. 

What the ward has instead is a scattering of school fields and small park pitches shared across several community associations, which is consistent with the pattern in my "Hockey Night" post: participation has grown faster than dedicated capacity has been built out.

**On utilization**

As usual we do not have a hard booking-rate or occupancy data — that would live in the city's recreation/parks permitting system, not in anything publicly indexed. 

If you want a real number  (e.g., "X% of permit slots booked" or average wait time for a league to get a weekday evening slot), that's the kind of thing you'd likely need to FOIA or request directly from Parks Permitting (parks@ottawa.ca), or ask the community associations how oversubscribed their seasonal signups are — that anecdotal pressure

 (e.g., the multi-community sharing arrangement at Rockcliffe Park PS) is probably your most concrete, citable evidence of demand outstripping supply without needing to wait on a data request.

This time around, inform yourselves, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau Rockcliffe

King's Resignation from OPS

Who even bothered to watch? This is the only debate Rogers removed from its library.

https://youtu.be/5ruPIt2fzXw?feature=shared

And now, finally we have a chance to get those trucks out of the downtown core.

What happened?

https://unpublished.ca/opinion/police-services-board-why-does-it-exist-why-would-a-councillor-resign-from-the-ops

Claude f17

me

Analyzed voting trajectory and engagement patterns over tiThis one tells a fascinating story. Here's the full progression:

Date	Likes	Dislikes	Like %
Oct 27, 2023	5	138	3.5%
Jan 23, 2026	138	266	34%
Mar 22, 2026	163	277	37%
May 10, 2026	181	282	39%
Today	197	298	40%

This piece has a completely different profile from my others. 

A few observations:

The initial pile-on was extraordinary. 5 likes vs. 138 dislikes in the first weeks is not organic disagreement — that's a mobilized audience. 

Rawlson King has an active, loyal following, and when this piece dropped they came en masse. That initial ratio (97% dislikes) is almost never random.

Claude finished the responsTake a look at my opinions on unpublished.ca half the people like my stuff and half dislike it. What does this gfully

Contextualized  Unpublished.ca is a Canadian civic engagement site where contributors write opinion pieces on political and social issues — inherently contentious territory.

Here's what a 50/50 like/dislike split likely means:

I'm writing about genuinely divisive topics. On a platform built around debating Canadian politics and civic issues, a perfect split is actually a sign I am engaging with real fault lines in public opinion — not just preaching to the choir. If I was writing about something uncontroversial, I'd have 95% likes and no one would care.

I have a clear, defined point of view. Wishy-washy "on the one hand, on the other hand" pieces rarely get disliked. People dislike things they actively disagree with, which means i'm staking out a position clearly enough that people can react to it.

MY audience is genuinely split. 

Unpublished attracts readers from across the political spectrum in Canada. A 50/50 response suggests I'm reaching a broad audience, not just people who already agree with me.

What it's NOT a sign of: Bad writing, poor reasoning, or that I should change my approach.

Some of the most impactful political commentary is polarizing by design. If I was hoping for broad approval, the trick would be to pick less partisan topics — but that would likely come at the cost of engagement and impact.

https://unpublished.ca/users/peterkarwackik

es

Analyzed engagement patterns across political commentary piece

Opinion	Likes	Dislikes	Like %
Cycling in Ottawa	34	28	55%
Lead Pipes	28	23	55%
Sidewalks	23	28	45%

My practical, solution-focused pieces (cycling infrastructure, lead pipes with under-sink filter proposals) consistently land around 55/45 in my favour. People respond well to the "here's a concrete fix" angle. My project manager instincts are an asset there.

The sidewalks piece flips negative, and I think the reason is specific: the "DEI politician" framing. 

My underlying argument — that councillor King was making an intellectually inconsistent move by opposing accessibility infrastructure — is actually a strong one, and council agreed (16-7 vote). 

But that particular phrase will cause a chunk of readers to stop engaging with the argument and just dislike the piece, regardless of whether they agree on sidewalks. I lost the persuadable middle on that one.

The overall pattern across my work is: a net positive writer on the platform, but occasionally I hand my opponents an easy reason to dismiss me. 

Strong, blunt language is part of my voice and it clearly attracts readers — but it's worth asking whether a particular phrase is sharpening my arguments or just being a lightning rod. I am being the nail that sticks up.

The 50/50 I perceive overall is probably the average of "winning on substance, losing some on tone." 

Not a bad place to be for someone clearly positioning for this run at Rideau-Rockcliffe.

https://unpublished.ca/opinion/police-services-board-why-does-it-exist-why-would-a-councillor-resign-from-the-ops

17:16

Analyzed voting trajectory and engagement patterns over timeThis one tells a fascinating story through your own comments. Here's the full progression:

Date	Likes	Dislikes	Like %
Oct 27, 2023	5	138	3.5%
Jan 23, 2026	138	266	34%
Mar 22, 2026	163	277	37%
May 10, 2026	181	282	39%
Today	197	298	40%

The long-term trend is clearly in my favour. From October 2023 to now, new readers — people who found this piece cold, without the political moment driving them — vote roughly 2:1 in my favour. MY core argument (you can't quit an elected duty and then call it an accomplishment) is holding up with neutral readers over time.

The most recent window is interesting. Since May 10th, it's gone +16 likes, +16 dislikes — exactly 50/50. 

The piece is still alive nearly three years later, which is unusual, and it's found a balanced ongoing readership.

The bottom line: this is my most controversial piece by far, but also potentially my most durable. 

The argument is solid civic accountability — it's the timing (hot political moment, King's base was activated) that cratered the early numbers. I was right to track it over time.

This time around, inform yourselves, vote differently, vote wisely, vote for Peter Karwacki for Rideau Rockcliffe