Yesterday on CKCU I had a conversation with Shawn Menard on the “Our Ottawa” group. There’s been lot’s of hints over the past few months as to what exactly the organization is, much to the consternation of some. They’ve been pitching themselves as a “network of community organizations”, and their first real release was more than a little cagey, though it does position them of being generally in favour of centre-leftish (with an emphasis on the centre) urbanist ideas. You won’t find much disagreement in this corner with things like restricting the urban boundary, supporting services like Crime Prevention Ottawa, or a more general push to city-wide thinking.
I think the interview clears things up a little bit more, leaving a bit of a better scope of who is actually involved. It’s also pretty clear that there is some manner of organisation behind the group, and they aim to make it more than an umbrella title for a coalition of like-minded groups. While they aren’t going to run a slate of candidates, they are going to do some decidedly slate-like things and (I paraphrase here) endorse candidates that are willing to endorse their principles, and maybe even look out to find some people to carry the flag. It seemed pretty clear that endorsement will come with at least some organizational and volunteer support.
That’s a pretty big deal, especially if they are as organized as they make it sound. Unseating incumbent councillors is a daunting prospect, even if you have a group of dedicated and connected volunteers, but is certainly not impossible. The real advantage will probably be in open contests, of which there are at least three so far. Council candidates have a notoriously tough time trying to build profile, so being able to associate with a larger group of ideas can only help.
We’re still a ways off from the election, and it’s still a bit early to tell exactly what effect this will have at the ballot box. At this point, I think that its fair to say that they will be an important part of the campaign, and should make the council races a whole lot more interesting. Short of it being a spectacular failure, I expect that we’re going to see more coordination like this in the future, and especially from those that disagree with what Our Ottawa ultimately advocates.
Our Ottawa is organizing a rally today at noon at City Hall to oppose the re-opening of the urban boundary, so if you are around you should go and check that out.
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of having Chris Page in studio to talk about his new album, “A Date with a Smoke Machine”. In a fit of absentmindedness, I forgot to record the first half of the conversation, so you missed out on him singing Summertime Out, which is a shame because it’s my favourite track from the album. Worry not, though, as you still get the second half of our conversation and another in-studio song.
The in studio performances sounded excellent, but the CD itself is even better: it’s catchy and personal and filled with the sort of songs that will get in your head and have you humming. Think of it as a sort of vaccine against the wretched CTV olympic theme.
The CD release show is next Saturday at Dom Polski SPK (Waverly near Bank), with Camp Radio and Year Zero opening.
This morning, I had the pleasure of talking with Ottawa’s own Jill Zmud about her new album, coming to writing music past the “Britney years”, and the nature of musical collaboration in town. She had her guitar, and also treated us to live acoustic versions of “East of the Line” and “Wish”.
She plays in Memphis in the near future, for those heading to Tennessee. She plays Ottawa again later in March.
This morning, Adam had a chance to chat with Peter Raaymakers of Public Transit in Ottawa about their new Journal on, of all things, public transit it Ottawa. The journal is free, online, and has a neat community-reviewed structure, and deserves to be checked out.
Last week, Josh had the opportunity to talk with members of Wide Mouth Mason about life returning to the road, what they’ve been up to in the last few years, and revisiting past concerts to make a live album.
They played Maverick’s last week, so ignore the pushing of the show. At times the phone was a bit spotty, so I do apologize if their are audio hiccups.
This morning, I had the chance to chat with George Dark, who is heading up the Lansdowne Strategic Design Review and Advisory Panel. To bring people up to speed, as part of moving forward with the Lansdowne Live plan, the city opted to appoint a design panel to help sort out what the whole thing is actually going to look like.
I was already generally supportive of the Lansdowne Live plan, mostly because I was pretty sure that we were going to let hopes of the BEST PLAN EVER get in the way of something that we can all use and enjoy, but this makes me a lot more hopeful. Coming from this, I think its a lot clearer that much of what we’ve already seen is largely a first draft, that we sorta know what the pieces that are going to be used are, but not actually what exact form they’ll take. That’s a good sign.
There is also room for optimism in that it sounds like there is going to be, or is at least an option for, public consultation in the early design phase. So, bidding companies will be encouraged to actually come and talk to the people that live here to help shape their proposal. That’s a good thing for a project that, rightly or wrongly, has left a nasty feeling of being imposed. We should all get uppity and make sure that happens.
This morning, Josh and I had a chance to chat with Ottawa mayoral candidate Jim Watson. We talked about why he was looking to come back to municipal politics, the challenges of a 10-month campaign (especially with the burden of a “front-runner” moniker), and talked specifically about transit and Lansdowne.
Watson clarified his comments from last week a bit, but still used some the phrasing that frustrated Reevely so last week (”Cut the suit to fit the cloth”, etc.) We pushed a bit on the transit issue, but he’s still pretty vague as to what something being affordable means. That said, he was pretty clear that it’s important to move forward on these files, and it doesn’t sound like he is going to look to change decisions that have already been made should he be elected. That’s a good thing.
Anyway, Watson is going to be an interesting force over the next year: he’s pretty clearly the front runner, and suspect that he’s going to be pretty tough to beat over the course of it. That means that, as we decide on these big issues, his opinion should have some affect amongst the public, even if he doesn’t get an actual vote at council.
This is the second of our conversations with mayoral candidates, having previously spoken with Alex Cullen. We’ll keep plugging away as time and circumstances permit, and will endeavour to speak with people again as things actually start to happen. We also won’t limit ourselves to the city-wide race, and will likely start turning our eyes to some choice council seats closer to the date.
This morning, Josh spoke with Andrew Nikiforuk on Wiebo Ludwig’s recent arrest and release in relation to a series of pipeline bombings in BC. Josh has a pretty good outline of the situation, and I suspect that we are going to hear more about this now that the search warrant is complete, but Nikiforuk makes a really neat comparison between this sort of situation and a divide between urban and rural Canada. Essentially, urban folk take for granted where our energy comes from, despite its extraction often having a pretty terrible effect on some rural communities way of life- effect’s that we would not brook ourselves.
Now, after the show Josh and I kicked ourselves for not leading out with Corb Lund’s “This is my prairie”, which more or less exactly mirrors the sort of sentiments that Nikiforuk talks about (and that have surrounded Ludwig for the last decade or more.) So, to make up for it, here it is on some other radio show on some other station, who happen to have video cameras rolling for making radio. Crazy.
This morning, I spoke with Colin Carmichael of Noprorogue.ca. It’s an umbrella website created to help coordinate the frustration with prorogation of parliament and manifest it in something real. So, at the site you’ll be able to see a reasonably impressive list of cities where some form of event will be taking place on January 23rd to protest parliament’s suspension. Our conversation focused mostly the dispersed nature of the organization and the challenge of translating facebook group activisim (slactivism?) into actual action
This morning, we spoke with Bay Ward councillor and mayoral candidate Alex Cullen. The audio is below.
Cullen is first out the gate, and is obviously quick to frame himself as an experienced guy that knows what he’s doing and is unafraid to speak realisitically about taxes and services. His efforts on transparency are along the same vein. You can expect that this will be a dominant theme from a couple of candidates, including some of the rumoured high-profile ones, so it makes sense to try to associate himself with it early.
Also, as a heads up, I’ll be trying to get all of the candidates, as they declare, for similar interviews. I’ll probably also touch back with candidates as things move forward.
Also also, you should check out Cullen’s website at www.electalexcullen.ca. He’s right that it’s a bit rough (and there was some twitter catcalling to that effect yesterday), but he does have a fair number of ideas and issues up there, so it’s worth a look.
Fellow Travellers 
