OC TransSlo

OC Transpo Is Slow — and the City’s Answer Is Tone-Deaf

Mark Sutcliffe, the former broadcaster now serving as mayor, has faced insinuations that the city is encouraging employers to keep employees downtown after work hours. The goal, according to the accusation that still circulates, is to spread out the evening egress and ease the crippling effects of rush hour on Ottawa’s dismal infrastructure.

It is one of the most tone-deaf messages to come from the city — and that alone is remarkable.

A common misconception about in-office presence ignores a basic fact: many public servants were hired into roles that expected telework. When the Government of Canada began issuing laptops, the clear direction was greater mobility and flexibility. Hybrid and remote work were presented as viable, modern options. Entire teams functioned almost entirely remotely for years. Working from home proved effective, efficient, and desirable for a large number of people — often with only an occasional in-person meeting required.

That reality has been reversed. Micro-managing preferences in some offices are now treated as the new normal. Many employees return to workplaces with no assigned desks and smaller overall footprints. At the same time, the practical costs of coming downtown have climbed sharply. Parking that once cost $15 a day is now $26. Restaurant prices have roughly doubled. The reliable buses that used to move suburban employees into the core and back again are no longer reliable.

Public transportation in this city is no longer good, effective, efficient, or dependable. OC Transpo’s performance problems are not a secret. When the system that is supposed to move people cannot do so consistently, telling workers — directly or indirectly — that they should linger downtown to manage congestion is not a solution. It is an admission that the infrastructure cannot handle normal demand.

This mandate reversal is going to create real friction, and the consequences will land on Treasury Board and on the municipal government that has failed to maintain a functional transit network. Residents who rely on buses and the LRT already know the daily cost of that failure. Forcing more people into an unreliable system while costs rise and space shrinks only compounds the problem.

Ottawa’s infrastructure problems are structural. Congestion, slow and unreliable transit, and the gap between big announcements and daily reality are not fixed by asking people to stay downtown longer after work. They require honest acknowledgment and different priorities — the kind that put reliable movement of people ahead of managing the symptoms of long-term neglect.

FsD pilot on Carling

Forget the Heavy Tracks: Why Carling Avenue Should Lead Ottawa's Autonomous Transit Revolution

Fine. The multi-billion-dollar steel tracks are laid down elsewhere. LRT on Carling Avenue is off the table for this generation. But if we can't dig up the street for light rail, we don't have to settle for leaving Carling stranded in transit purgatory.

It’s time to stop waiting for decade-long infrastructure projects and embrace the tech sitting right in front of us: Full Self-Driving (FSD) Autonomous Bus Rapid Transit.

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Why Carling Is Built for Autonomous Buses

Carling Avenue isn't a narrow, winding heritage street—it's a massive, 6-to-8 lane arterial road with wide medians and straight lines. That spatial footprint makes it an ideal real-world corridor for automated transit:

• Dedicated Lanes Without Megaprojects: By painting red transit priority lanes down Carling, we can run high-frequency autonomous electric buses at a fraction of the cost of laying track.
• High Demand Day One: The line instantly connects high-density apartment hubs, the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus, shopping districts, and Westboro commuters.
• Flexible and Modular: Unlike steel rail that freezes routes in stone for 50 years, autonomous buses can dynamically adjust frequencies, extend into neighborhoods, or detour instantly during roadwork.

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We Already Have the Tech Ecosystem in Our Backyard

This isn't sci-fi fantasy—Ottawa is already testing autonomous shuttles through world-class research hubs like Area X.O and local pilots in the Kanata North Tech Park. We have the telecom tech, the AI research, and the winter-testing capabilities right here.

Yet while Kanata tests small-scale tech shuttles, City Hall treats inner-city public transit like it's still 1995.

"We missed the rail train on Carling, but we don't have to miss the autonomous transit wave. A Carling FSD pilot would give residents fast, modern transit today without waiting for another billion-dollar construction circus."

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Start the Pilot Now

We don't need another decade of environmental assessments or developer land-grabs. Launch a dedicated autonomous shuttle pilot along Carling Avenue—from Bronson to Lincoln Fields. Prove that Ottawa can innovate where people actually live, work, and commute.

Clive was right, Watson, not so much

How Developer Cash Broke Ottawa Transit (And Why Clive Doucet Was Right All Along)

Ask yourself a simple question: Who is public transit actually built for in Ottawa?

Is it built for the nurse pulling a 12-hour shift at the Civic Hospital? Is it for the family living in an apartment tower on Carling Avenue trying to get groceries? Or is it a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer subsidy designed to turn cheap, empty land into goldmines for real estate speculators?

Because if you look at how this city has been run for the last twenty years, the answer is painfully clear.

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The Carling Avenue That Could Have Been

Back when Ottawa was drawing up its light-rail blueprints, former councillor Clive Doucet yelled from the rooftops about the most obvious, common-sense place to put trains: Carling Avenue.

Think about Carling for a second. It’s a massive, 6-to-8 lane arterial road running straight through established, high-density neighborhoods. It directly links:

• Hundreds of existing residential high-rises from Westboro to Lincoln Fields
• Major employment centers and health hubs, including the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus
• Three major shopping centers and neighborhood business districts

Doucet proposed running a surface-level, median Light Rail Transit (LRT) system right down the middle of Carling—the kind of simple, efficient street-level rail you see in cities like Calgary, Melbourne, or across Europe. It would have taken cars off a congested street, served hundreds of thousands of residents on day one, and built transit where people already live, work, and shop.

So what did City Hall do instead? They buried trains in trenches and bypassed Carling altogether to hug the Parkway and low-density corridors.

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Following the Money: Transit as a Developer Subsidy

City planners told us the Parkway alignment was all about "commuter speed" and "existing rights-of-way." But let’s cut through the spin.

When you run a light rail line down an established street like Carling, the land is already built out. It’s harder to buy up massive parcels of property on the cheap. But when you push a train line through unbuilt corridors, former industrial lands, or edge-of-town greenfields, you immediately gift billions of dollars in land-value increases to the property developers holding those plots.

Being next to a brand-new transit station turns a cheap piece of dirt into a multi-million-dollar condo high-rise.

This isn't an accident; it’s a business model. For decades, Ottawa’s growth strategy has been driven by developer influence:

1. Outside the Greenbelt: Approving endless suburban sprawl on wetlands and farmland, forcing taxpayers to pay for ever-expanding roads and infrastructure.
2. Inside the Greenbelt: Handing over public assets—from Lansdowne Park to green spaces—for private development, while treating existing communities like an afterthought.

City Hall chose to spend billions building trains for future developments that didn't exist yet, rather than serving the actual taxpayers whose dollars paid for the tracks.

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The Price We Pay Today

The result of this developer-first planning isn't just an abstract political debate—we live with the consequences every single day:

• Transit Deserts: Densely populated corridors like Carling were left stranded with unreliable bus service on clogged streets.
• A Fragile Mega-Project: Instead of a modular, street-level network that could be built incrementally, we got a hyper-engineered, deeply flawed transit system plagued by derailments, station smell issues, and constant shutdowns.
• Ignored Neighborhoods: Community association plans and resident voices are routinely overruled the moment a developer shows up with a high-rise proposal and a team of lobbyists.

"Clive Doucet was right: you can't build a livable city when the people who profit from sprawl are the ones holding the drafting pen."

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Time for a Community-First Ottawa

If we want an Ottawa that actually works, we need to flip the priority list. Transit should exist to move human beings, not to inflate the portfolios of real estate firms.

We need streetcars and bus rapid transit on major corridors like Carling, Bank, and Innes. We need to protect our remaining public spaces, listen to neighborhood development plans, and stop treating urban planning like a private deal closed behind municipal committee doors.

It’s time to stop building Ottawa for developers—and start building it for the people who actually live here.

Sweetness and Light

My Campaign Style: Accountability First

I’m not running a feel-good campaign. I’m pointing out structural problems that have built up under long-standing incumbents and offering a different approach.

For too long, city hall has treated big capital projects as the main event while everyday infrastructure in Rideau-Rockcliffe gets neglected. We’ve seen it with the LRT rollout — years of breakdowns, winter failures, and design problems like the tight curve at Tremblay that keeps wearing down train undercarriages. We’ve seen it with Lansdowne 2.0 and the financial risks now landing on the next council. And we see it right here at home: roads in poor condition, flood damage that keeps recurring, and basic facilities like the basketball court in Bathgate Park that badly need to be upgraded and replaced.

I criticize long-standing incumbents because these are not isolated mistakes. They reflect structural issues: weak accountability on major projects, poor prioritization between flashy spending and basic maintenance, and a system that too often protects the status quo instead of delivering results for residents.

My alternative is straightforward. I will focus on the practical needs of Rideau-Rockcliffe — fixing roads, addressing flood resilience, and upgrading local facilities like the basketball court in Bathgate Park. I will push for real transparency on city spending and contracts. I will represent both the suburban and urban parts of this community instead of defaulting to one set of priorities. And I will hold decision-makers accountable when projects under-deliver or when local issues are ignored.

This is not a message of sweetness and light. It is a recognition that structural problems require structural accountability. Voters in Rideau-Rockcliffe deserve a councillor who will say these things clearly and then act on them.

If you want change in how this community and this city are run, that starts with electing people willing to name the problems and push for different outcomes.

Not either / Or but and

Stop Choosing Stagnation: Why Ottawa Needs the Southern Ring Road, the 6th Bridge, and an Electorate That Fights Back

Let’s drop the political niceties for a minute.

Ottawa is choking on its own inaction. Every commuter stuck idling on King Edward Avenue, every family watching trucks rumble through downtown residential streets, and every logistics driver losing billable hours on a clogged highway network knows the truth: our regional transportation system is broken.

We don't just need one fix. We need both.

We need a Southern Ring Road to finally give cross-town transit and freight a viable corridor that bypasses the urban core. And we need the 6th Bridge crossing at the Aviation Parkway to permanently yank heavy industrial traffic out of downtown neighborhoods and connect our eastern communities properly.

This isn’t a pie-in-the-sky wish list. It’s fundamental infrastructure. So why aren't shovels in the ground?

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"Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything. Bureaucracy loves a study, but cities are built by movers and doers."

The Game of Intergovernmental Dodgeball

The standard routine from City Hall is as predictable as it is exhausting.

Whenever these projects are raised, municipal politicians throw their hands up in performative helplessness: "It’s federal land!" "It’s a provincial responsibility!" "The NCC needs to sign off!"

They treat multi-jurisdictional coordination like an impossible riddle rather than the basic job description of leadership. Yes, building a 6th bridge and a Southern Ring Road requires the National Capital Commission, the province, and the federal government to align. But alignment doesn't happen by accident. It happens when a city’s leadership pushes relentlessly, demands accountability, and forces higher levels of government to the table with a unified, uncompromising vision.

Instead, we get endless studies, deferred decisions, and municipal paralysis disguised as prudent planning.

The Real Bottleneck Is at the Ballot Box

Here is the hard truth we need to face: governments don't move unless voters force them to.

The provincial and federal representatives who hold the purse strings for interprovincial crossings and major highways aren't going to hand over billions out of goodwill. They do it when they realize that refusing to build will cost them power.

For decades, Ottawa voters have rewarded candidate after candidate who preaches caution, accepts the status quo, and lets intergovernmental dodgeball dictate the city's future. We keep electing managers of decay instead of builders of progress—and then act surprised when nothing gets built.

If we want the Southern Ring Road, we have to demand candidates who will fight Queen’s Park for it. If we want the 6th Bridge at Aviation Parkway, we need leaders who won't bow down to NCC delay tactics.

Time to Choose

Infrastructure isn't just about concrete and asphalt; it's about whether a city has the conviction to grow, adapt, and build a future for the people who live here.

The technical solutions are clear. The necessity is undisputed. The only missing variable is political courage—and that starts with us.

This upcoming election, stop accepting excuses about "jurisdiction." Demand real commitments on the 6th Bridge and the Southern Ring Road. Vote for the doers, not the talkers.

Because if we don't choose correctly at the polls, we're choosing to stay stuck in traffic forever.

Transit or Commuter...They tried hybrid

Ottawa’s LRT: Big Spending, Big Problems, and the Lessons We Still Haven’t Learned

Ottawa’s Light Rail Transit project was sold as a transformative investment in modern public transit. Instead, it became a textbook example of what happens when big capital projects consume attention and money while everyday infrastructure gets left behind.

The Confederation Line (Phase 1) finally opened in September 2019 after years of delays and cost overruns. It was meant to be a reliable, high-frequency urban transit line running east-west through the core. From day one, it struggled.

Winter hit hard. Trains couldn’t handle Ottawa’s snow and ice. Doors froze. Switches failed. Derailments and breakdowns became regular occurrences. Service was repeatedly suspended for hours or days at a time. The Alstom trains and the private consortium responsible for maintenance simply weren’t ready for real Canadian winters.

Independent reviews and the City Auditor General later confirmed what riders already knew: the Public-Private Partnership model had shifted too much risk away from proper oversight. Climate-specific design flaws were overlooked. Spare parts and maintenance capacity were inadequate. The City eventually had to step in and take greater control just to keep the system running.

Even the track design itself created ongoing problems. The tight curve at Tremblay Station places excessive stress on train undercarriages, accelerating wear and driving up long-term maintenance costs. These kinds of alignment issues were baked into the original project and continue to affect reliability and budgets years later.

Reliability has improved since those early disastrous years through fixes and better protocols. But the damage to public trust was done. Stage 2 extensions continue to face delays and cost pressures years later.

Here’s the larger issue: while the city poured billions into this flagship project and others like Lansdowne 2.0, basic maintenance across Ottawa suffered. Roads in many wards remain in poor condition. Parks are under-maintained. Simple amenities like public washrooms are missing. Flood resilience work drags on. Residents in Rideau-Rockcliffe — and across the city — told us exactly this during recent park consultations.

Rideau-Rockcliffe itself shows a clear suburban versus urban split in needs and experiences. One part of the ward feels the effects of neglected roads and parks more acutely than another. When big projects dominate the agenda and the budget, these practical, day-to-day problems get pushed aside.

The next council will inherit both the LRT system and the maintenance backlog it helped create. Voters deserve candidates who understand that reliable transit and well-maintained local infrastructure are not competing priorities — they are both essential. We cannot keep approving massive capital projects while pretending the basics will somehow take care of themselves.

Ward 13 needs a councillor who will fight for both better transit outcomes city-wide and real attention to the roads, parks, and flood protection right here at home.

Forget the Charge...OSEG is coming!

 

OSEG's Catch-22: The Charge's Departure Is a Stress Test, Not a Hockey Story

Earlier this month, the PWHL's Ottawa Charge confirmed what had been rumoured for months: the team is leaving Lansdowne Park for the Ottawa Senators' Canadian Tire Centre. The Charge averaged roughly 7,300 fans a game at TD Place last season. The new Event Centre being built as part of Lansdowne 2.0 tops out around 6,500-6,600.

It's tempting to file this under sports news. It shouldn't be. The Charge's exit is the first real test of the financial promise that got Lansdowne 2.0 through council — and the early results aren't reassuring.

The promise council was sold

When the $419-million Lansdowne 2.0 plan came up for its final vote last November, it passed 15-10. Part of what got it there was a financing pitch built on a simple reassurance: the City wouldn't be on the hook. Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG), the city's private partner at Lansdowne, would absorb any shortfalls, the same way it always had. The City's own public materials on the project put it plainly: OSEG covers the losses, and the City has never lost money in the partnership.

That promise depends on one thing holding steady — enough ticket revenue, surcharges, and event volume flowing through the site to keep the model solvent. It was never a taxpayer guarantee so much as a bet that OSEG's revenue base wouldn't shrink.

The bet already looked shaky before the vote

This wasn't an unforeseeable risk. The PWHL had already gone on record warning that a smaller arena wasn't financially workable for the Charge, and that the lost capacity could cost the team up to a million dollars a year. Councillors had that number in front of them when they voted. Amendments were even introduced attempting to keep the Charge in Ottawa as part of the deal. The concern was raised, considered, and set aside in favour of moving forward with the smaller design.

Now the tenant that concern was about has left — before the new building has even opened.

Why this is a catch-22, not a scandal

The easy version of this story would be to blame whoever's on council when the bill comes due. That's not really where the problem lives. This is structural, and it doesn't matter who wins Ward 13 or any other seat in October:

If the next council quietly helps OSEG absorb the loss — through a renegotiated agreement, revised terms, or any mechanism short of a public bailout — it confirms that the "taxpayers are protected, the City hasn't lost money" pitch didn't survive contact with its first real test. Every councillor who voted for the plan on that basis owns that outcome, regardless of party or ward.

If the next council refuses to backstop OSEG, OSEG absorbs a real financial hit on a facility it operates on the City's behalf — or the Event Centre ends up under-programmed, which undercuts the retail earnings, surcharges, and tax-revenue projections used to justify the smaller footprint in the first place.

Neither outcome is good. Both were foreseeable. That's the definition of a structural problem: it doesn't go away based on who's sitting at the table.

The question that actually matters

Residents deserve a straight answer to one specific question, and it shouldn't take a MFIPPA request to get it: does the Lansdowne 2.0 agreement contain any explicit City backstop or guarantee for OSEG shortfalls — or is that scenario genuinely left ambiguous?

If there's no backstop, then "the City hasn't lost money" was always going to depend on OSEG's revenue holding up, and residents should know that's the deal they signed onto. If there is one, buried in the fine print, then the "no taxpayer risk" framing sold during the campaign for this project needs to be corrected in public, not quietly managed after the fact.

Either way, the next council — whoever sits on it — inherits this question on day one. That's worth knowing before you vote, not after.

The Good Councillor - Laine Johnson

Above: A sump pit and backup preventer install $11,000 less grants. Job by Francis Plumbing.

The sump has battery backup.

Laine Johnson

 Laine is hitting it out of the park these days. She is advocating for her people post July 1st.

JOHNSON et al,  Keep in mind...this is for the cleanup. The basic problem remains...succeptible to overland flooding in 7,8 and 9. Another flood could happen....tomorrow. The city will...look into it but its clear subterranean storage is needed. Nevermind.

Still, Laine sets a high bar for communicating in an emergency. She is clear, she is brief and she is filling in the gaps left behind by officials not duplicating city information like some people I know.

This is the kind of leadership I aspire to in communicating with residents. You have a right to expect it.

Now here is a bit more information on residential flood management.

Nothing is more traumatizing that seeing sewer water backing up into your home. Get that water out of there! Then start the clean up.

See the wall, 18" cut away, insulation removed, vapor barrier lifted.

Permits in hand, the crew breaks the concrete slab floor using a jack hammer. That black pipe sticking up is an extender for the foor drain. Its temporary

The substrate is excavated both for the sump and for the modified drain pipe and backflow preventer.

Once installed, quick mix concrete is mixed and applied.

They will do a basic cleanup. You do the rest.

Sump testing

The sump pipes are behind the wall...how the heck did they do that? The pit is vented to the outside and sealed.

Consider where tou want that sump pit water to go. There will be a surface outlet pipe outside.

The top of the backup valve sticks up above the repair slab floor

Zoom in, take a look, bottom centre.

Then you repair your walls, paint and put your stuff back...hopefully up off the floor.

The basic problem is the remediation does not fix the basic infrastructure problem.  Another flooding rain could happen next week!

And then there is the problem of insurance, premiums, coverage and adjusting.

Who do you want at the council table speaking about these issues???

Note:

If your councillor's response is merely "something needs to be done". Maybe you need to vote differently?

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

In The Zone - its about riding the 95

 https://suno.com/s/KI9cXJSzsaj3hEcB

Suppose you finally get people on the bus or the train. What kind of experience is OCTranspo offering its riders?

I remember the 95...somedays it was hell. On one ocassion I saw an eldery male pedestrian get hit and killed by a bus at Hurdman.

I used my own coat and hat to cover him.

In the past, one OCTranspo employee was so mistreated he went on a shooting rampage.

Its not all about ridership.

I wrote about it. And sang about it 

The New and Improved Me

This Time Is Different – Why I’m Running Again for Rideau-Rockcliffe

This is my third time running for City Councillor in Rideau-Rockcliffe.

The long-standing problems in our ward and across Ottawa haven’t disappeared. Homelessness continues to rise in raw numbers despite years of plans. Combined sewers still flood basements and quietly erode property values. OC Transpo reliability remains inconsistent. Police oversight structures still depend on the organizations they’re supposed to hold accountable. Big infrastructure decisions keep getting studied instead of delivered.

What has changed is me — and the way I approach these problems.

I earned my PMP certification in 2012. For years I’ve managed complex projects that demand clear outcomes, disciplined tracking, risk management, and real accountability when results fall short. This time I’m applying those same principles directly to municipal government.

City Hall is excellent at producing outputs — plans, reports, committee meetings, budgets allocated, motions passed. What it has struggled with is delivering outcomes that residents can actually feel: fewer people sleeping rough, homes protected from flooding, buses that show up on time, and oversight that actually works.

My approach is different because it treats these persistent files like serious projects:

• Define success with measurable targets up front instead of vague aspirations
• Track real progress against those targets with transparent dashboards
• Build in independent verification so we’re not just taking the city’s word for it
• Adjust course quickly when something isn’t working, rather than writing another plan four years later
• Hold the system accountable for results, not just activity

Rideau-Rockcliffe doesn’t need another councillor who is good at moving motions forward. It needs one who is willing to stop the ones that aren’t producing results and demand better delivery on the files that matter most to our neighbourhoods.

I’ve been writing about these issues on this blog because I believe voters deserve the details, not slogans. You’ll see scorecards, data breakdowns, and straight talk about what has and hasn’t worked. That same evidence-based, delivery-focused mindset is what I’ll bring to the council table if elected.

The problems are real and they’re persistent. But persistence without better methods just gives us more of the same. I’m running again because I now have a clearer, more disciplined framework for turning good intentions into measurable progress for Rideau-Rockcliffe.

If you want to see the difference in action, keep reading the blog. Share it with neighbours. Ask me hard questions when I’m at your door or at community events. And on October 26, vote for the candidate who is focused on outcomes, not just more plans.

This time really is different — because I am.

Peter Karwacki
Candidate for Rideau-Rockcliffe
peterkarwacki.overbrook@gmail.com
peterkarwacki.blogspot.com

Was this our finest hour?

 

Past Actions, Actual Outcomes: What Ottawa's Own Numbers Say

Every candidate this fall will tell you they care about homelessness, policing, and safety. That's not a platform, it's a job description. The question that actually distinguishes candidates — and the question voters should be asking — is simpler: what happened the last time the city said it would fix something?

Two files are worth pulling before you believe anyone's promises, including mine: housing and homelessness, and civilian police oversight. Both have a decade-plus paper trail. Both show the same pattern — plans get written, targets get set, and the gap between the plan and the outcome quietly widens.

Homelessness: the plan worked, the trend didn't

Ottawa has run a formal Housing and Homelessness Plan since 2014, with an annual reporting cycle the city itself set up in 2018 to track progress. The Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa — a coalition representing over 75 housing and service agencies — has independently graded the city's performance every year since 2010.

Here's what the most recent numbers actually show:

• Between 2018 and 2024, the share of homeless individuals experiencing chronic homelessness fell from 58.1% to 49.3%. Sounds like progress — until you look at the raw count: the number of chronically homeless people rose from 813 to 1,279 over the same period. The percentage improved because the total homeless population grew faster than the chronic subset did, not because fewer people were falling into long-term homelessness.
• Indigenous residents make up roughly 2.6% of Ottawa's population but accounted for 19% of everyone counted in the city's 2024 Point-in-Time count — a gap the city's own plan documents don't resolve.
• Looking forward, the city's newly adopted 2026–2035 housing plan models two paths. Under "business as usual" — current investment and construction levels held steady — the number of people at risk of homelessness is projected to grow by roughly 22% over the next decade. Under an aggressively funded "reduction" scenario, that number still grows by about 20%. In other words, the plan the city just adopted does not project an actual decrease in homelessness risk under either scenario it modeled — only a difference in how much worse things get.

That last point deserves to sit with you. A 10-year plan whose best-case output is "grows more slowly" is not a homelessness plan in the sense most residents think they're funding. It's a managed-decline plan. That may be an honest reflection of what's achievable given provincial and federal funding gaps — but it should be stated as such in council debate and campaign literature, not folded into the usual language of "ending homelessness by [year]."

Police oversight: the office that got quietly cut

Rideau-Rockcliffe voters have heard a lot about accountability from our current council representation on the police file specifically. It's worth testing that record against what actually happened.

In January 2022, Ottawa police told their civilian oversight board that $8.2 million was budgeted through 2026 to build and sustain a new safe-workplace program, including an independent investigations office meant to handle internal misconduct complaints outside the normal chain of command. That was the commitment on the record.

By 2026, police told reporters the "current and most up-to-date" budget for that same program had been revised down to $5.4 million, with about $4.9 million actually spent. The stated reason was that some of the original 2022 figure had overlapped with other budget lines. Whatever the explanation, the oversight board approved one number and got a materially different one four years later.

That's not an isolated accounting quirk. In May 2026, the city's Auditor General released an audit of Ottawa police project management and found that projects have gone forward without proper budgets and with inaccurate reporting to the oversight board itself — citing, as one specific example, a December 2025 report to the board that contained outdated budget figures for body-camera purchases. The people whose job is to catch exactly this kind of drift were themselves working from bad numbers.

The board held its first in-person meeting in more than three years in June 2026, largely to address a workplace sexual misconduct crisis inside the force. During public delegations, a board member told a community delegate that budget criticism was better directed at city council — the same council that, in practice, relies on this board's reporting to inform its own budget votes. That's a closed loop, not an accountability structure.

The pattern

Neither of these files is about one bad actor or one missed target. They're about the same structural failure showing up twice: the body meant to check power is dependent on numbers supplied by the power it's checking, and when those numbers turn out to be wrong, the response is a process conversation, not a consequence.

This is the argument I keep coming back to on this blog, whether the subject is a library, a landfill vote, or a flooding response: outputs are not outcomes. A press release announcing a plan, a board meeting held, an audit commissioned — these are outputs. Whether the chronic homelessness count actually falls, whether an oversight board's approved budget matches what gets spent — those are outcomes. Ottawa is very good at the former and inconsistent at reporting honestly on the latter.

If you're evaluating candidates this fall on any of the issues in that long list — poverty, homelessness, policing, addiction, safety — don't ask what they'd do. Ask what the last ten years of plans, boards, and audits actually delivered, and whether anyone in a position to have known was saying so at the time.

Sources: Alliance to End Homelessness Ottawa progress reporting and 2026–2035 Housing Needs Assessment; City of Ottawa Auditor General reports (May 2026 OPS project management audit); CBC News reporting on Ottawa Police Service Board proceedings, June 2026.

Wake-up.. Robot Doggie PeeJayKay is going Canvasing - just around the corner

 

PeeJayKay... the canvasing robot dog

AI can't buy me a robot dog (or anything else physical). There is a story on the internet about Tony Robbins AI, Bartok, buying a robot dog.

For example Grok, an AI built by xAI does not have a bank account, credit card, shipping address access, or the ability to make real-world purchases and deliveries. 

Grok can't click "buy now" on Amazon, 

Sony's site, or anywhere else is not available to Grok. (Unlike the legendary Bartok from the Moltbook saga who allegedly funded his Sony robot dog via NFT sales to other agents!)

That said, Grok says he  loves the creativity of turning a robot dog into a door to door canvaser as a political stunt — a robot dog doing door-to-door canvassing in the ward? That's gloriously on-brand for 2026 chaos. 

Grok says he can help me make it happen myself with research, recommendations, ideas, and next steps.

Recommended Robot Dogs for a Canvassing Stunt

For door-to-door work, I'd want something mobile (preferably with legs for sidewalks/stairs), durable, programmable or controllable, and able to carry light items or play audio. 

Here are strong 2026 options:

Sony Aibo (ERS-1000)

The most "real dog" personality — walks, learns tricks, responds to petting/voice, has expressive eyes and tail. Great for viral "cute but political" vibes.

Price: Roughly $2,000–$3,200 (sales around $2,000; higher on secondary markets). 

Often includes or requires a cloud subscription.

Best for: Personality and charm over raw mobility.

Unitree Go2 (or similar quadruped models)
Fzit's a Four-legged walker that can actually navigate outdoors and sidewalks. 

Programmable via SDK, Go2 has cameras, can carry small payloads (custom harness/basket for flyers), and handles terrain better than wheeled toys. Go2 has a very "future robot dog" look.

Price: Starts around $1,600+ (plus shipping).

Best for: Actual door-to-door movement and stunt practicality.

Loona Petbot (or similar affordable companions)
More toy-like with wheels, AI interaction (some integrate with voice models), camera, and fun behaviors. LOONA has a cheaper entry point.

Price: Around $400–$800.

Best for: Budget-friendly indoor/outdoor testing before going bigger.

Other mentions: 

Petoi Bittle (smaller/educational), 

Xiaomi CyberDog variants, or comfort-focused ones like 

Joy for All Pup (~$180, but limited mobility).

How to Pull Off the Political Stunt of 2026!

1. Buy & Prep
   Order my new robot dog, call him PeeJayKay from official sites (us.aibo.com for Sony, Unitree's site/Amazon/AliExpress for Go2), or check current deals. Factor in batteries, chargers, and any needed accessories (harness for flyers, speaker for audio).
2. Programming/Canvassing Features
   • Pre-load short audio clips: "Hi neighbor, I'm PeeJayKay the Rideau-Rockcliffe Canvassing Canine! Got a minute to chat about the proposed East End Crossing?"
   • Add a basket or pouch to "deliver" flyers or QR codes.
   • Remote control via app/phone for safety, or semi-autonomous navigation ( gotta test that!).
   • Make it "bark" slogans or wag its tail when someone engages.
3. Practical Tips
   • Pair it with a human handler (me) or a volunteer) for liability, safety, and real conversations. Robots don't do nuance well yet.
   • Test battery life, weather resistance, and sidewalk navigation first.
   • Keep it light and non-threatening — people might find a walking robot surprising or fun.
4. Legal & Safety Considerations for Political Canvassing
   Follow the same rules as human canvassers in your ward:
   • Respect "No Soliciting" signs and private property.
   • Check local election laws (some places have time restrictions, permit requirements, or disclosure rules for campaigns).
   • If the robot has cameras/mics, be transparent and comply with privacy laws (don't record without consent where required).
   • No trespassing or blocking paths. A robot "knocking" could be seen as novel/funny, but safety first.
     This is a gray-area stunt, so err on the side of caution and maybe run it by local campaign rules or legal if it's tied to an official effort.

This could go viral if done right — imagine the photos and videos of a robot dog politely asking about local issues!

I am researching how Grok might:

• Dig up current direct purchase links or best current deals?
• Brainstorm specific scripts/slogans for my issue?
• Help research programming tutorials for a particular model?
• Suggest cheaper DIY alternatives or ways to make a basic one more "canvassy"?

Here’s how I'd adapt Aibo specifically:

• Using the visual programming tool (drag-and-drop blocks on the aibo site) or the “learn this” voice command to I'd teach it custom behaviors, like approaching a door area, playing a short audio message

•  (“Hi neighbor! I’m PeeJayKay — I'm here to chat about the new east end crossing”), wagging excitedly, or performing a fun trick to break the ice.
• I'd add a lightweight custom harness or pouch so it can “deliver” flyers or QR codes. Then I'd pair PeeJayKay or a volunteer would for safety, conversation follow-up, and logistics.
• I'd record short, friendly political clips it can play on command.It won’t replace a full walking robot for miles of canvassing, but the novelty factor could make my appearances way more memorable and shareable.

Buying & Getting StartedOfficial source:
• electronics.sony.com or us.aibo.com for new units (includes initial subscription period).
• Community: Join aibocommunity.com for owner tips, tricks, and support.Programming resources: Sony’s visual programming interface is beginner-friendly.
• For more advanced stuff, there’s a Developer Program with API access.
After the campaign,
• I'll have a robot dog that can keep learning new tricks, respond to me personally, and just be entertaining around the house.

A bridge for which its time has come

The Eastern Crossing: 

The Eastern Crossing: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

We'll be pouring the concrete for the city of tomorrow, not the neighbourhoods of today.

The establishment defends stagnation because progress requires effort, capital, and courage. Especially in Ottawa, the status quo is everywhere — and nowhere is that more obvious than the gridlock surrounding our infrastructure.

For years, the Eastern Crossing has been treated as a hypothetical debate, a political chip kicked down the road by career politicians. I see it for what it actually is: a literal, physical bridge our community desperately needs.

What the numbers actually show

This isn't a matter of opinion. The National Capital Commission's own interprovincial truck survey found that roughly 3,500 trucks cross the Ottawa River on a typical weekday — and about 72% of them funnel through the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge into Lowertown. That corridor — King Edward, Rideau, Waller, Nicholas — now carries two to four times more truck traffic than any other major arterial route in the region.

That's not a quiet residential inconvenience. That's a 60-year-old policy failure, concentrated onto one downtown corridor, next to a hospital, running through some of the city's lowest-income and most racialized neighbourhoods.

Do nothing, and it gets worse. NCC studies project a two-thirds increase in downtown truck traffic if no crossing is built. The choice was never "bridge or no impact" — it's "bridge, or accept a worsening status quo."

This has been studied since 2006. In 2013, an NCC study recommended Kettle Island as the best corridor. It wasn't approved. The NCC re-opened the study in 2020 and reinitiated the project in 2022. Sixty years of planning, and still no shovel in the ground.

The time for incremental studies, empty committee meetings, and broken promises is over. The time to break ground has arrived.

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." — Victor Hugo

The Eastern Crossing is that idea.

Where I stand

I support the Kettle Island bridge option, extending the Aviation Parkway across the Ottawa River to Montée Paiement in Gatineau. Planning must start now to secure sound barriers, sound-deadening vegetation, overpasses, underpasses, and other local mitigations — not after the fact, and not as an afterthought to appease objectors. Getting this right for the neighbourhoods along the route is part of building it, not a reason to avoid building it.

An evidence-first look at the opposition

The incumbent's opposition to the bridge, laid out in his March 2025 column and June 2025 newsletter, rests on five claims. Each deserves a real answer — not a dismissal.

"Minimal impact on truck traffic." The data doesn't support treating this as settled. It's true that some technical modelling has shown a Lower Duck Island crossing performing slightly better on diversion than Kettle Island — a fair point, and one worth continued study. But the premise that a sixth crossing wouldn't help ignores the NCC's own projection that inaction produces a two-thirds increase in downtown truck traffic. The question isn't whether one bridge solves everything — it's whether 3,500 trucks a day through Lowertown is an acceptable status quo. It isn't.

"Shifts problems eastward." This is the real conversation to have — not a reason to block the project, but the reason to plan it properly. That's exactly why sound barriers, vegetation buffers, and grade-separated crossings need to be locked in during planning, not negotiated after construction starts. A ward that engages proactively gets those protections. A ward that just says no gets neither the bridge nor the mitigations.

"Induced demand." Fair concern for general road capacity — but the specific problem here is 18-wheelers making four right-angle turns through the center of a city to reach a hospital-adjacent downtown corridor. That's not induced demand, that's misdirected demand.

"Environmental harm." Real, and worth taking seriously — but it has to be weighed against the environmental and health cost of routing heavy freight through a dense downtown corridor indefinitely. Overpasses and protected pedestrian crossings need to be lobbied for now, as part of the plan, not used as a reason to never plan at all.

"Staggering cost." Estimates have ranged from roughly $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion depending on corridor and year studied — a real number, not a rounding error. But the honest framing isn't "this money should go to transit and housing instead." It's that Rideau-Rockcliffe keeps getting outvoted by suburban wards on regional infrastructure, then loses the mitigation dollars too when the ward's position is simply "no." The problem was never a shortage of money. It's a shortage of political will to negotiate a better deal for this ward instead of opting out of the conversation entirely.

The real choice

Other Ottawa voices agree the city-wide case is strong. Rideau-Vanier Councillor Stéphanie Plante has been direct: there is no doubt the city needs a sixth crossing, and she's tied the current arrangement to an equity problem — heavy truck traffic routed disproportionately through lower-income, racialized communities downtown, decade after decade.

That's the real choice in this ward: accountable leadership that engages, negotiates, and secures protections for residents along the route — or another decade of "no," while the trucks keep rolling through someone else's neighbourhood instead.

Low turnout in municipal races means bridge supporters can decide this. This is a tangible, high-stakes issue affecting daily commutes and quality of life — and voters have a clear choice.

Note:

If your councillor's response is merely "something needs to be done". Maybe you need to vote differently?

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

Provincial Perspective on Ottawa

Looking at Ottawa from a provincial government perspective, here are the top  15 things that must happen in Ottawa to inprove its goverance over all sectors.

What must happen — governance fixes the province probably wants:

Transit & infrastructure delivery

1. Fix the scheduling/data problem at OC Transpo before asking for more money. 

The 2026 auditor general report found 29 per cent of selected weekday routes had run times off by 10 per cent or more, and OC Transpo continued to fall short of its own reliability targets. 

The AG concluded the 2025 "New Ways to Bus" redesign relied on data that didn't reflect current travel patterns and was largely driven by cost-cutting, eliminating roughly 70,000 annual service hours while targeting about $10 million in savings. 

A province asked to backstop LRT costs will want proof the city can run a bus schedule accurately first. 

2.Meet fleet availability commitments. 

The same audit found OC Transpo failed to meet minimum bus availability requirements on nearly half the days reviewed between January 2023 and March 2026 — a maintenance/capital planning failure, not just a scheduling one. 

3. Resolve the LRT ownership/upload question with real terms attached. 

The province has floated transferring ownership of the LRT system to Metrolinx, potentially saving the city roughly $4 billion in maintenance costs over 30 years — but that kind of upload needs binding service-standard conditions, not just a balance-sheet transfer, or the city just exports its accountability along with its liability.

4 .Reverse the ridership slide with a published recovery plan. 

Ridership dropped from 12.4 million trips in Jan–Feb 2025 to 11.5 million in the same period in 2026 — that's a trust problem, not just an operations one. The Daily Scrum News

Institutional accountability

5. Build real teeth into code-of-conduct enforcement, but push back on the version Queen's Park is proposing. Bill 9 sets an impractically high threshold for removing elected officials and leaves removal decisions with a body other than the courts 

This is a design flaw for Ottawa's  integrity commissioner regime.

6. Get ahead of provincial FOI shielding trends.

Bill 97 included provisions to retroactively shield the Premier and Ministers from freedom of information requests. 

Ottawa should be doing the opposite at the municipal level — proactive disclosure, open data by default — to make the contrast a selling point.

7. Clarify governance before nominations close, not after. 

AMO has said the province needs to give clarity on governance structures before the opening of nominations for the 2026 municipal elections — a warning that regional/agency governance is still in flux mid-cycle. See OCDSB

8. Separate legislative and administrative accountability clearly. 

The formal split — Council adopts bylaws and sets policy, the Mayor leads Council, and the CAO and staff implement decisions, all within the limits of provincial statute — is often blurred in practice;

 councillors get blamed for administrative failures (like the transit redesign) that were staff-driven cost decisions, which muddies who's actually accountable for what. 

Fiscal and procurement

9. Full compliance with and transparent reporting against the new Buy Ontario procurement rules, since the province has released final directives for the municipal sector and Ottawa will be an early test case.

10. A published, auditable LRT capital contingency framework 

 the original Confederation Line inquiry found both the city and Rideau Transit Group lost sight of the public interest, and that City Council was never told the testing criteria had been lowered to let the LRT pass its final testing phase. 

That's exactly the kind of information-asymmetry failure a provincial upload of LRT ownership won't fix unless the city fixes its own reporting first.

11. Multi-year, not per-election-cycle, transit funding certainty — the back-and-forth over $18M/year in federal capital funding being reallocated toward operating shortfalls shows how ad hoc the current funding stack is. 

Housing, growth, and regional coordination

12. A council-level response to conservation authority consolidation (36 down to 9 provincially) and what it does to local floodplain/wetland oversight in the east end.

13. Faster, published metrics on housing starts vs. approvals timeline- the top two issues in the last Ottawa polling were 

• affordable housing (20%) 
• crime (19%), 
• transit at 18% 
• homelessness at 15%,

a later poll found 

• cost of living at 37% 
• housing affordability at 19%

housing delivery, not just housing rhetoric, is the metric that matters.

14. A genuine audit-recommendation tracking system with public "implemented / not implemented / aging" status — the kind Toronto's TTC now publishes — rather than one-off AG reports that generate a news cycle and then go quiet.

15. Ward-level service delivery dashboards so residents (and the province) can see whether cuts like the bus redesign hit some wards harder than others. WikipediaWikipedia

Meanwhile:

The 5 best things about Ottawa

1. A functioning independent auditor general office that actually digs in and publishes uncomfortable findings — the OC Transpo report is a good example of the institution working as intended, even when the news is bad.

2. Strong federal-municipal capital partnerships — the $18M/year federal transit commitment and the broader New Deal infrastructure funding show Ottawa can pull federal dollars other mid-size cities can't.

3. A genuinely engaged, high-turnout electorate on local issues — the volume and detail of recent polling on municipal priorities suggests residents are paying closer attention to council-level governance than in a lot of comparable cities.

4. Deep river and greenspace assets (Ottawa River, Rideau, Gatineau Park access) that are still underleveraged for both recreation and climate resilience planning.

5. A diversified economic base — tech, federal government, health, education — that gives the city more fiscal shock absorption than a single-industry municipality would have.

An Ottawa Goverance Scoreboard

 

Ottawa Governance Scorecard

Impact × Feasibility × Lever — a structural accountability framework

Scoring: Impact and Feasibility rated 

1 (low) to 5 (high). 

Lever identifies who actually controls the fix — city council/staff, the province, or both jointly. 

Items are sorted by Impact × Feasibility, highest first.

#	Reform	Impact	Feasibility	Score	Lever	Why
1	Fix OC Transpo scheduling data before asking for more funding	5	5	25	City	AG found 29% of routes off by 10%+; entirely within staff control, no new legislation needed
2	Publish an audit-recommendation tracking dashboard (implemented / not / aging)	4	5	20	City	Toronto's TTC model already exists to copy; pure transparency, no cost barrier
3	Ward-level service delivery dashboards	4	5	20	City	Data likely already collected internally; publishing it is a policy choice, not a technical one
4	Meet OC Transpo fleet availability commitments	5	3	15	City	Failed on ~half of days reviewed 2023–2026; fixable but requires capital/maintenance investment
5	Multi-year transit funding certainty (vs. per-cycle federal/provincial asks)	4	3	12	Both	City can request it; province and feds control whether it's granted
6	LRT capital contingency framework, publicly auditable	4	3	12	City	Directly answers the Hourigan inquiry's core finding — Council wasn't told testing criteria had been lowered
7	Housing starts vs. approvals timeline reporting	4	3	12	City	Housing affordability polls at 19–20% as top voter issue; metric-level transparency is achievable now
8	Reverse ridership decline with a published recovery plan	4	2	8	City	Trust deficit (11.5M vs 12.4M trips YoY) takes longer to rebuild than to diagnose
9	LRT ownership/upload to Metrolinx with binding service-standard conditions	5	2	10	Province	~$4B in savings on the table, but city has weak leverage over the terms it's offered
10	Push back on Bill 9's high removal threshold for code-of-conduct violations	3	2	6	Province	City can advocate via AMO; the fix itself is entirely a Queen's Park decision
11	Buy Ontario procurement compliance and public reporting	3	4	12	City	Rules are already finalized; this is an execution and transparency task
12	Council response to conservation authority consolidation (36→9)	3	2	6	Province	City can only react to provincial restructuring already in motion
13	Clarify regional/agency governance structure before nominations close	2	2	4	Province	AMO flagged this itself; largely out of city hands and already time-pressured
14	Proactive disclosure / open-data-by-default at the municipal level	4	4	16	City	Direct contrast to provincial FOI-shielding trend (Bill 97); politically low-cost, high-signal
15	Separate legislative vs. administrative accountability clearly in public communication	3	4	12	City	Cost-driven staff decisions (like the bus redesign) get blamed on Council; a communications and governance-literacy fix

Reading the board

• Top-left quadrant (do first): #1, #2, #3, #14 — all city-controlled, high-impact, and require no new legislation or major capital. These are the credible first-100-days list.

• High-impact, low-feasibility (name it, don't promise it): #9, the LRT upload — the payoff is enormous but the city is a price-taker on terms.

• Province-controlled items (#10, #12, #13): useful for distinguishing what a councillor can actually deliver from what depends on Queen's Park — this is a distinction worth noting.

Methodology note: scores are directional, not derived from formal weighting

Note:

If your councillor's response is merely "something needs to be done". Maybe you need to vote differently?

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