Peter Karwacki: The Satirical Interview with an Ottawa Mayor

The Honest Mayor: An Interview That Could Never Actually Happen

Reporter: Why did Council approve a $95 million landfill purchase appraised at $23 million?

Mayor: We don't call it overpaying by $72 million. We call it "long-term planning." If you say a number with enough confidence in a council chamber, nobody checks the math until it's somebody else's term.

Reporter: OC Transpo has missed nearly every performance target for years. What's the plan?

Mayor: Same as always — commission a report so expensive it becomes the achievement. We don't fix transit, we fund its eulogy, on a loop, annually.

Reporter: Why does every ward boundary vote split 20-5 along urban-rural lines?

Mayor: Because we didn't draw wards, we drew a custody battle. Every councillor gets the kid on alternating weekends and nobody agrees on bedtime.

Reporter: The Montreal Road shelter was cancelled after community pushback. Right call?

Mayor: Compassion is in our strategic plan. It's just not zoned anywhere.

Reporter: Ottawa Police spent $4.9 million on governance reform since 2022. Real change?

Mayor: We restructured the org chart four times. That's not reform, that's musical chairs with a procurement budget. Nobody's sitting anywhere different, the chairs just cost more now.

Reporter: Lansdowne 2.0 — good use of public money?

Mayor: Define "good." If "good" means a stadium gets built, yes. If "good" means anyone can explain who pays for it, I'm going to need you to define "good" again.

Reporter: Why does every road get a safety fix only after someone's hurt?

Mayor: Grief has a budget line. Prevention doesn't. You can't cut a ribbon for the crash that didn't happen.

Reporter: Your honest assessment of 24 Sussex Drive?

Mayor: It's not a residence, it's a metaphor with a leaky roof. We've spent more studying whether to fix it than it would've cost to just fix it. Twice.

Reporter: Why do City-run programs cost more and deliver less than residents could manage themselves?

Mayor: Because a resident solving their own problem doesn't need a press release. Ours does. We're not funding outcomes, we're funding the announcement of outcomes.

Reporter: Last one. If you were honest with voters just once, what would you say?

Mayor: That the dysfunction isn't a bug, it's the org chart working exactly as designed — to make sure no single person is ever responsible for anything. And that I will absolutely deny saying that the moment this interview ends.

Reporter: Why doesn't Ottawa have a public washroom policy?

Mayor:
1. We have a Public Washroom Strategy. The strategy is "Tim Hortons."
2. Mayor

A washroom doesn't get its own ribbon-cutting. A "Multi-Use Wellness Hub Feasibility Study" does, and that's basically a toilet with better branding and a five-year timeline.

3. Mayor

We looked into it, and it turns out a public washroom costs less than the meeting we had about whether to look into it.

4. Mayor

Technically there is a policy. It's called "hold it."

5. Mayor

Every other city's washrooms are "infrastructure." Ours are "an ongoing conversation with stakeholders," which is a lot less plumbing and a lot more PowerPoint.

6. Mayor

We don't lack washrooms, we lack a councillor willing to put "toilets" in a press release headline. Bridges photograph well. Toilets do not.

7. Mayor

We did build one. It's downtown. It's wrapped in scaffolding. The scaffolding has now outlasted two mayors.

8. Mayor

The real barrier isn't cost, it's that nobody wants to be the politician remembered for toilets when they could be remembered for a stadium nobody asked for.
9. Mayor

We have a robust network of public washrooms. We just keep them inside private businesses and call it "partnership."
10. Mayor

Honestly? A bathroom is the one piece of infrastructure where everyone agrees on the need, the cost, and the design. Council can't function without something to disagree about, so we just... don't build it.

10. Mayor

We do have a P3 model for washrooms — a Public-Private Partnership. You go in public, in a private business, and pee. It's very efficient. Tim Hortons has done more for bladder infrastructure in this city than three terms of Council.
11. Mayor

Officially it's called a Public-Private Partnership. Unofficially, it's "go ask Starbucks." Same acronym, much smaller capital budget.

And finally

12. Mayor

We've fully privatized the public washroom system. We just didn't tell anyone, and the private partner is whichever café is most agreeable.

Breaking News:

the City has announced its new washroom policy is new bilingual signage

— Public-Private Partnership / Partenariat Public-Privé —

bolted onto the door of every downtown coffee shop bathroom.

When asked, the mayor said:

Mayor
Our official Public-Private Partnership framework for washrooms is innovative and creative: the public provides the bladder, the private sector provides the toilet, and Council provides the press release."

Here are a few more about statistics

Ottawa loves a good stat: technically true and practically meaningless.

Reporter: The City says 94% of roads meet "acceptable condition" standards. Is that true?

Mayor: "acceptable" the same way a landlord defines an apartment as "move-in ready."

Reporter: OC Transpo reports 80% on-time performance. Riders disagree. Who's right?

Mayor: We're both are right. Did the bus show up? No, We're measuring whether a bus exists in the system, theoretically, at some point during the day.

Reporter: Council says response times for 911 calls have "improved." Improved from what?

Mayor: We picked the one that was easy to improve on. Pick a low baseline and even standing still counts as progress.

Reporter: The City touts a 30% increase in "community engagement" on the new budget. What does that mean?

Mayor: It means thirty percent more people clicked a survey link before realizing the budget was already decided. We count clicks, not outcomes. Clicks don't push back.

Reporter: Police governance reform reports "significant progress on accountability metrics." What changed?

Mayor: The metrics changed. That's the progress.

Reporter: The City says 100% of new builds meet "climate-conscious design standards." What's the standard?

Mayor: That somebody filled out the climate-conscious design form. We don't measure carbon, we measure paperwork. Paperwork doesn't melt ice caps, so technically we're winning.

Reporter: Why does every annual report show "record investment" in housing, transit, and infrastructure, every single year?

Mayor: Because "investment" means money announced, not money spent, and definitely not money that solved anything. We could announce the same dollar twice and it would still be a record.

Reporter: The City claims a 25% reduction in "homelessness-related service gaps." What's a service gap?

Mayor: A service gap is whatever was there before we redefined the service. Shrink the definition, shrink the gap. Nobody's housed, but the chart's beautiful.

Reporter: Satisfaction surveys show residents rate City services 7 out of 10. Does that reflect reality?

Mayor: It reflects who picked up the phone. We don't survey the people who gave up calling 311 in 2019. Survivorship bias is basically our core methodology.

Reporter: Last one. If the City published one honest statistic, what would it be?

Mayor: The percentage of our statistics designed to be defended in a council meeting rather than verified by a resident. I'd guess that number's close to 100%, but we haven't commissioned a study, because we already know we wouldn't like the answer.

Maybe these are not funny for the simple reason that we are tired of it.

Hold the whole of them to account!