| Issue in Question | Stance |
|---|---|
| Climate Change | I lean towards meeting the current fiscal challenges while allocating slowly increasing amounts allocated to addressing the bigger problem of climate change. Its urgent, its important, but not pressing. Ottawa's commitment to Climate change is demonstrated by the priority placed on public transit. ________________________________________________________ |
| Free Transit | I lean towards meeting the current fiscal challenges while slowly increasing amounts allocated to addressing the bigger problem. Transit will be free to the students and seniors - those who can least afford it. Roads are paid through taxes... why not 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 ... or not? What I favour, if affordability is the issue - and of course it is, are 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... yet. ________________________________________________________ |
| Affordable housing | I lean towards meeting the current fiscal challenges while allocating slowly increasing amounts to addressing the bigger problem of a lack of affordable housing. Change the zoning to allow more housing options and different building standards. ________________________________________________________ |
| Child Poverty | I am leaning towards meeting the current fiscal challenges while allocating slowly increasing amounts allocated to addressing the bigger problem of 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 for Ottawa's marginalized populations. ________________________________________________________ |
| Election spending | I lean towards meeting the current fiscal challenges while allocating slowly increasing amounts allocated to addressing the bigger problem of how election campaigns are financed. Disallow campaign signage, encourage more public meetings during campaigns - cap spending. Candidates need to represent both urban and rural citizens. ________________________________________________________ |
| East End Crossing | I lean towards meeting the current fiscal challenges while allocating slowly increasing amounts allocated to addressing the bigger problem of traffic on our bridges. By now we understand why we need to get the big trucks out of the downtown. I support the kettle island bridge option which extends the current aviation parkway across the Ottawa river.  |
| 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. _______________________________________________________ |
| Civic Hospital |
It is planned for the experimental farm.. it needs to go to Tunney's Pasture. Do not pave paradise to put up a parking lot. ________________________________________________________ |
| Developer influence on council |
How do developers influence council? through their donations. Limit donations from developers. Restrict donations to candidates. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. |
| 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. Bon Chance.  ________________________________________________________ |
| 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 one '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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. |
| First past the post - is this a good thing | Well 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? only in the sense that 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? ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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. ________________________________________________________ |
| 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 is 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. I think she would be a lame duck on a fractious council without the STRONG MAYOR legislation (which the entire incumbency has shunned.) As a result I must support the expert politician Bob Chiarelli unless he dies of old age before the election, in which case I will lean to Mark Suttcliffe. In my heart, I support the sympathetic McKenney but my wallet is saying "owie". _________________________________________________________ |
Address the escalating debt. The city has also developed a large “infrastructure deficit” because it hasn’t kept up with the maintenance. Fix the roads: The roads are like riding on railway tracks. On climate change- more resiliency, time has run out, save yourself - prepare!. LRT fiasco - Just keep it running Lansdowne Park, Start all over again - no option cut costs: begin with the bloated city bureaucracy. Ottawa has about 16,000 people working for it up from 11,000 employees at amalgamation. Cost-cutting has to be on the table. ________________________________________________________
If you weren't a candidate last election which of them would you have voted for?
I really liked the vivacious Jamie Kwong, and by far she was the easiest to look at but the one that had the most experience was Sheila Perry. Sheila has always been a strong community minded citizen - my kind of candidate. ________________________________________________________
What about the other candidates?
I commend all the candidates who stepped forward. There should have been a run off down to two or three but that is how our system works which is to say... it does not work. ________________________________________________________
What makes you qualified to be a councillor?
I have a careeer behind me of problem solving:Check out this blog and my business sites: I have been contracting for government and private business since 2013. Check it out. _________________________________________________________
What is the most under theorized issue facing Ottawa?
The world is on the edge of world war III and as you know, world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Ottawa must be prepared to be the number one target as Canada is in the NATO Alliance, Putin is a madman, and the whitehouse is more like a weekend at Bernie's. People have to prepare, as bizarre as it sounds. It will make the current disfunctional LRT seem like a quaint notion, and the recent spring storm? a casual breeze. As an honorable mention: Tic Tacs flying around San Diego and President Obama admitting that "there are things flying around out there that we do not know what they are" has more or less assured us that the aliens are already here. It is impossible to have a meaningful discussion about our meeting and interfacing with aliens when the official policy of governments is that they do not exist. Let's call this a tail event. Nuts? The doomsday clock is 100 seconds to midnight baby! TICTAKS? what are those? _________________________________________________________
Whats all this about OPS - Ottawa Police Services?
The amount allocated to policing needs to be evaluated along with any other municipal service. The proportion of the budget should be commensurate with that spent by other comparable cities. We give power, authority, and responsibility to the police to uphold the laws we put in place. They must be accountable for their actions. In the middle of the trucker convoy the OPS Board discharged chief Sloly (I think rightfully) and hired a replacement. The rest of the council objected and ousted Diane Deans and the remaining OPS members resigned in disgust .. all this in the middle of the greatest crisis in OPS history. I would not have resigned, I would have stayed on and continued to do the work. It was no time for a political grand stand that achieved nothing. Still OPS shall not operate with impunity. We give them the clubs, the guns, the tasers the uniforms, the cuffs, the tear gas and the right... and we pay them well. They had better do the job well, or not at all.
Watson said..
Watson himself maintains that stepping in helped end the convoy protest.
"When you're firing someone, which is in essence what we did with Diane Deans, it's not a pleasant experience, but at the end of the day it was the right decision," he told CBC.
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Bilginualism in Ottawa
Recall that back in February 1997 the Commission on Health Restructuring announced the closure of the Hôpital Montfort. Gisèle Lalonde, the former Mayor of Vanier, worked with the community to save this Francophone university hospital through rallies, print media, and political pressure. Finally it was the courts that decided that the Montfort was crucial to the preservation of the minority Franco-Ontarian culture as well as to the continued provision of adequate francophone medical services and medical training.” Later Alta Vista councillor Pierre Benoît requested clarification regarding Ottawa’s hiring policies and French language accommodations leading to the existing comprehensive policy on bilingualism. French services were left to the discretion of public servants until 2017 when a provincial bill made the City of Ottawa officially bilingual. Services are offered in proportion to the population declared as francophone. As a result, as candidate for Rideau Rockcliffe I recognize the city’s obligations to the Francophone population and commit to promoting the French language in Ottawa.The Political Job Interview? - A Youtube with Vincent Callo
Le français suit ci-dessous
Rappelons qu'en février 1997, la Commission de restructuration de la santé annonçait la fermeture de l'Hôpital Montfort. Gisèle Lalonde, l'ancienne mairesse de Vanier, a travaillé avec la communauté pour sauver cet hôpital universitaire francophone par des rassemblements, la presse écrite et des pressions politiques. Finalement, ce sont les tribunaux qui ont décidé que Montfort était essentiel à la préservation de la culture minoritaire franco-ontarienne ainsi qu'à la prestation continue de services médicaux et de formation médicale francophones adéquats. Plus tard, le conseiller d'Alta Vista, Pierre Benoît, a demandé des éclaircissements concernant les politiques d'embauche d'Ottawa et les mesures d'adaptation en français menant à la politique globale existante sur le bilinguisme. Les services en français ont été laissés à la discrétion des fonctionnaires jusqu'en 2017, date à laquelle un projet de loi provincial a rendu la ville d'Ottawa officiellement bilingue. Les services sont offerts en proportion de la population déclarée francophone. Par conséquent, en tant que candidat de Rideau Rockcliffe, je reconnais les obligations de la ville envers la population francophone et je m'engage à promouvoir la langue française à Ottawa. _________________________________________________________
All my main points are brought forward in this live interview. You may find Vincenzo Calla's work valuable in making your electoral decisions. Vincenzo CallaHere is the "discussion" between Rawlson King and I faciliated by Derek Fage of Rogers Video. Thanks to Rogers TV for this tremendous contribution to the municipal election. https://youtu.be/4uMVFGPpW3gTwitter, Instagram, TikTok: @vcproductions25 Website: vincenzocalla.com _________________________________________________________
What is the driving force that brought you to run?
I come from Kenora in north-western Ontario and I bring a frank, no-nonsense perspective to the issues facing Ward 13 and beyond. We need solutions to provide better life opportunities to bridge the gap between haves and have-nots. We have issues such as transit access, food security, and homelessness along with youth-based crime that require attention now. Also consider that I am NOT running to be re elected. This is my last kick at the can electorally speaking. I will engage to the best of my abilities and try and move the dial and the issues that I have indicated are important to me and the ward and that's it.
2. Describe an example of your past experience when you have driven an initiative to completion in a dysfunctional or challenging environment.
In Kenora, access to our home was by means of a gravel road maintained by the City. One time I complained about service only to find that mean-spirited City staff cut off all services since this was technically a common access road not owned by the Municipality. I did my homework; took the City to court; prepared and pled my own case against City legal staff. The result was a court order for Kenora to buy and maintain into perpetuity the road and congratulations from the presiding judge on my thorough case preparation.
3. What is your Vision for the City, and what needs to happen in Ward 13 to make it so?
I want to develop a broad-based new mindset for neighbourhood resilience. City Hall is full of cozy relationships that seem to make cooperation easy, but doing it differently can get messy and thick skin is required. In this, I want to continue the work of Tobi Nussbaum and to use him as a mentor to work through these complex issues. I fear that our indebtedness is leading to a day of reckoning where resilience will take the shape of self-reliance meaning new ways to provide essential services.
4. What are the obstacles to implementing your Vision for Ward 13, and how would you deal with them?
Tobi’s attempt to reform City Hall processes were largely rebuffed and he was intentionally sidelined. I will continue to ask the tough questions at Council; to hold politicians and City staff accountable for their actions and their inaction. Does anyone really think that $75,000 thrown at the Overbrook 4 corners issue will be enough to make young unemployed youth not see crime as an alternative to an unsuccessful job search?
5. What are three tools in your toolbox that will make you effective at City Hall, and how have you demonstrated their use in the past?
I have extensive pertinent experience – hospital administration; IT solutions development; Health Care Board member; Project Management expert. I am very analytical and can use my good judgment to separate the wheat from the chaff. I am frank to the point of bluntness (I’m working to soften that a bit) and not easily intimidated by politicians in power or by staff experts looking for expedient, least resistance solutions that are really only temporary band-aids. I can, and will, ask the tough questions.
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