LRT - How we got here from there

Ottawa City Council — Recorded Votes on LRT/O-Train, 2006–2021

Includes every publicly reported council-level tally found on the O-Train / Confederation Line / Trillium Line file, from the original north-south cancellation through the post-launch inquiry decisions. Mayor column shows who was in the chair at the time. Where news coverage didn't report individual names, only the tally is shown.

Full Table

Date	Mayor	Matter	Result	Named / notable votes
July 12, 2006	Bob Chiarelli	Award north-south LRT contract to Siemens/PCL/Dufferin ($778M)	14 – 7	Not individually reported
Dec 14, 2006	Larry O'Brien (newly elected, chaired meeting)	Cancel the north-south LRT contract	13 – 11 (to cancel)	Coun. Peggy Feltmate (Barrhaven at the time) voted against cancelling; general council split on suburban/urban lines
Feb 23, 2007	Larry O'Brien	Motion by Coun. Diane Deans to reconsider/reinstate the cancelled contract	Motion cancelled before a vote was held	Deans tabled it; withdrawn after O'Brien released a poll showing weak public support for revival
2010	Larry O'Brien	Endorse functional design for new east-west LRT line	Reported as "council endorses" — no tally found	—
2011	Jim Watson	Accelerate east-west LRT construction timeline (target: 2017)	No tally found in coverage reviewed	—
Dec 19, 2012	Jim Watson	Approve Confederation Line (Stage 1) — $2.13B fixed-price contract to Rideau Transit Group	24 – 0	Unanimous; no dissent recorded
Feb 2017	Jim Watson	Approve implementation plan / project definition for Stage 2 ($3.6B expansion)	No named tally found	Preceded June 2017 federal funding announcement
Mar 6, 2019	Jim Watson	Award Stage 2 contracts (East-West Connectors + TransitNEXT/SNC-Lavalin) — $4.66B total	19 – 3	Against: Coun. Diane Deans, Coun. Rick Chiarelli, Coun. Shawn Menard. Coun. Catherine McKenney's motion to delay the vote to Mar. 27 was defeated separately.
Oct 13, 2021	Jim Watson	Call a judicial (judge-led) inquiry into Stage 1 procurement/launch (McKenney motion)	10 – 13 (motion failed)	Watson and 12 councillors voted against; McKenney was the sponsor and a "yes"
Oct 13, 2021	Jim Watson	Procedural ruling on how to handle Gower's replacement motion vs. McKenney's inquiry motion (challenge to Chair)	11 – 11 tie (ruling sustained; tie goes to chair)	Diane Deans challenged Watson's procedural ruling; her mic was cut mid-argument (Watson later apologized)
Oct 13, 2021	Jim Watson	Refer Confederation Line investigation to city Auditor General instead (Gower motion)	14 – 9	Moved by Coun. Glen Gower; supported by Watson

Not full council recorded votes (context only)

Date	Event
2019–2022	Justice William Hourigan led a provincially-called public inquiry (not a council vote) into Stage 1's problems, reporting in late 2022/2023
Jan 29, 2025	Council approved dissolving the Light Rail Subcommittee created after the public inquiry report (tally not reported in coverage reviewed)

Gaps marked "no tally found" reflect what turned up in the news coverage reviewed, not necessarily an absence of a recorded vote — Ottawa's official council minutes (ottawa.ca) or Horizon Ottawa's Vote Tracker (2022–2026 term only) would have complete roll calls if you need to fill these in, especially the 2010, 2011, and Feb 2017 votes.

The Nail That Sticks Up

Conformity, dissent, and Ottawa's LRT file — a voting-record summary

Over nearly two decades and more than a dozen recorded council votes, Ottawa's LRT file shows a consistent pattern: as costs rose and problems mounted, the number of councillors willing to vote no barely moved. Council approved the original Confederation Line unanimously. It approved the ballooned $4.66-billion Stage 2 contract with only three dissenters. And even after years of delays, a public derailment, and mounting evidence of trouble, a motion for a judicial inquiry still failed. The story isn't that council was fooled once — it's that almost nobody was willing to be the one name standing alone against the file, meeting after meeting.

"Nobody wanted to be the nail that sticks up."

The Record

Date	Matter	Result	Who stood alone / stood apart
Jul 2006	Award original north-south LRT contract	14 – 7	Not individually reported
Dec 2006	Cancel that contract under new mayor O'Brien	13 – 11 (to cancel)	Genuinely close — the one vote in the whole file where council was actually split
Dec 2012	Approve Confederation Line (Stage 1), $2.13B	24 – 0	Unanimous. Not one councillor on record with a concern.
Mar 2019	Award Stage 2 contracts, $4.66B (up $1.2B in weeks, contracts not seen by council before the vote)	19 – 3	Deans, Rick Chiarelli, Menard voted no. Several "yes" votes were cast by councillors who said openly they didn't have the facts.
Oct 2021	Judicial inquiry into Stage 1 failures (McKenney motion)	10 – 13 (defeated)	Failed even after two derailments and years of public dysfunction. Watson voted with the majority to block it.
Oct 2021	Procedural ruling on how to handle the inquiry motion	11 – 11 tie	Broken by the mayor's chair vote. Deans's mic was cut mid-challenge.
Oct 2021	Refer investigation to Auditor General instead of a judge	14 – 9	The softer, lower-accountability option won out

What the Pattern Suggests

• Dissent never became a majority. Across every recorded vote on this file, from 2012 onward, the "no" side topped out at 10 votes — and only once, in the very first cancellation fight, was council actually split down the middle.
• The dissenters were a small, repeat cast. Diane Deans, Catherine McKenney, Shawn Menard, and Rick Chiarelli account for most of the recorded opposition on cost and oversight. The rest of council moved as a bloc, vote after vote, regardless of what had changed on the file since the last one.
• Unanimity at the start set the tone. A 24-0 vote in 2012 meant there was no dissenting voice on record to point back to later — no one who could say "I told you so" with a paper trail. That silence at the outset may have made it harder for anyone to break ranks once problems appeared.
• When accountability was finally on the table, council chose the weaker mechanism. Faced with a choice between a judge-led inquiry and a staff-directed audit, council chose the audit — the option with less independence and less power to compel testimony — by a wider margin than it rejected the inquiry.
• Procedure did some of the work opinion wouldn't. The one moment the vote was genuinely even (11-11), it wasn't decided by debate — it was decided by the mayor's tie-breaking power, with a councillor's microphone cut mid-objection.

Gaps: the 2010 functional-design endorsement, 2011 timeline-acceleration vote, and Feb 2017 Stage 2 implementation approval didn't have individually reported tallies in the coverage this summary draws on. Ottawa's official council minutes or Horizon Ottawa's Vote Tracker (2022–2026 term) would fill in specifics if needed, particularly for any votes cast by current-term councillors.

Sources: CBC News, Global News, Ottawa Magazine, CTV News, CPTDB Wiki, Horizon Ottawa Vote Tracker.