Peter Karwacki: FOIA to access Open Data?

You Can't Manage What You Won't Measure — And You Won't Share

There's something fundamentally broken when a resident gets told to file a Freedom of Information request just to find out who to talk to.

That's not access. That's a filing system pretending to be a door.

I ran into this recently when trying to get basic information about city data — who manages it, who's responsible for it, how it's structured. Reasonable questions. The kind any councillor should be able to answer for any constituent on the spot. Instead, the answer was: fill out a form.

And that's when it hit me. The FOIA runaround isn't just a bureaucratic inconvenience. It's a symptom of something deeper: a city that isn't serious about measuring its own performance, because a city that measured itself honestly would have no reason to hide the results.

Peter Drucker's line has never been more relevant — if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. But there's a corollary nobody in city hall wants to say out loud: if you won't share it, you aren't managing it for us. You're managing it for yourself.

The city collects mountains of data about our roads, our parks, our infrastructure, our service delivery timelines, our asset conditions. That data was gathered using public money, about public assets, in service of the public interest. The moment a resident has to file a formal request to see it, the chain of accountability is already broken. We're not asking for secrets. We're asking for the scorecard.

So here's my short list ( there are more). If city hall can't publish the numbers below on a regular basis, in a format any resident can read without a law degree, then they aren't managing these things. They're hoping.

What I want measured, published, and held to account — for Rideau-Rockcliffe:

Infrastructure & Assets

Road condition ratings by street segment, percentage rated "poor" or "critical"
Sidewalk gap inventory — kilometres missing, with locations
Bridge and culvert inspection dates and condition scores
Parks asset condition ratings: playgrounds, washrooms, field surfaces
Average age of water and sewer mains, with replacement backlog in years

Safety & Community

Reported crime by type and neighbourhood, tracked year-over-year
Response times for bylaw, fire, and EMS calls within the ward
Youth program participation — how many kids are actually in programs like North-South Development's "It's A Trap"
Gang intervention referrals and outcomes

Housing & Growth

Rental vacancy rate and average rent by dwelling type
Development applications, approvals, and appeals — with timelines for each
Affordable unit count versus ward target, updated annually
Affordable housing waitlist residents with a ward postal code

Transit & Mobility

OC Transpo on-time performance for routes serving the ward
Cycling infrastructure completion against the ward's active transportation plan
Pedestrian injury incidents at key intersections
LRT ridership at Tremblay Station, month by month

Environment

Urban tree canopy coverage, with year-over-year change
Stormwater flooding complaints per year, mapped by location
Green space per capita versus the city average

And for the City of Ottawa as a whole:

Financial Health

Infrastructure deficit in dollars, broken down by asset class
Development charge revenue collected versus projected
Percentage of capital projects on time and on budget
Cost per resident for each major service category

Service Delivery

311 ( calls for service) resolution times by category and by ward — so you can see if your neighbourhood is being served equitably
Permit processing times: building, renovation, food truck, event — all of it
Social services caseload per worker and average wait time for intake

Housing & Affordability

Affordable units built versus official plan targets
Average time from application to occupancy for city-funded projects
Shelter capacity utilization, nightly

Equity

Capital investment per ward, per capita — the single most revealing number in municipal politics
Service access rates by language, income, and neighbourhood
Proportion of city contracts going to local and minority-owned businesses

Environment & Climate

City fleet electrification percentage
Municipal greenhouse gas emissions versus 2030 targets
Kilometres of combined sewer overflow events per year
Tree planting targets versus actual trees planted, by ward

None of these are exotic asks. Most well-run cities track all of them and publish them without being asked. What I'm calling for isn't new data collection — it's publishing what the city already has, in a format residents can actually use, on a regular schedule, without a form in the way.

I've written before about the $13.43 billion sitting in Ottawa's 10-year capital plan. That number is meaningless without the underlying data — which assets are deteriorating fastest, which wards are getting investment and which are being quietly deferred. An open capital register, searchable by any resident, turns that abstract figure into something you can actually hold a councillor accountable for. That's the point. That's what democracy looks like at the municipal level.

The technology is not the barrier. Ottawa has a data portal. Smaller cities publish machine-readable asset reports and service dashboards without anyone having to fill out a form. The barrier is institutional culture — a default assumption that city data belongs to the city, rather than to the people who paid for it.

When I knocked on doors and asked about this, I wasn't told to file a form because the information is sensitive. I was told to file a form because that's what you do. That's the entire problem, right there. A city that truly measured itself — and stood behind those measurements — would want residents to see the numbers. The form is the tell. It means someone, somewhere, knows the scorecard isn't flattering.

Residents deserve a city hall that acts like it works for them. That starts with data they can actually see — not data they have to formally request, wait 30 days for, and hope arrives in a readable format.

If you're measuring it, prove it. Publish it. All of it.

— Peter Karwacki, candidate for Rideau-

Rockcliffe Wardpeterkarwacki.overbrook@gmail.com