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The most important politician in Mayor Jim Watson’s professional life is now the veteran Progressive Conservative MPP in suburban Ottawa.
“I have a good relationship with Lisa MacLeod,” Watson said at city hall Friday, a day after the Tories won a majority government in the provincial election and MacLeod won 45 per cent of the votes in her Nepean riding.
“I’ve known her for probably 15 or 20 years, and I suspect she will play a senior role in a cabinet and she will become one of our go-to people to continue the progress on these important files. At the end of the day, her constituents are my constituents and vice versa. It’s in our collective best interests that we work collaboratively together.”
The two politicians have been known to get into minor squabbles. One time they traded barbs on Twitter over the casino file and another time on social media they bickered over the provincial upload agreement.
Watson said he appreciates MacLeod’s passion for Ottawa.
“She speaks out loudly for her city and that’s always good for a mayor,” Watson said.
There has been a shakeup in local intergovernmental relations.
A political get-along gang formed in Ottawa when the federal Liberals won power in 2015. There was Watson, the former provincial Liberal cabinet minister, Catherine McKenna, the Ottawa Centre Liberal MP and environment minister, and a slate of provincial Liberal cabinet ministers, including veterans Bob Chiarelli and Yasir Naqvi, and more recently Marie-France Lalonde and Nathalie Des Rosiers. Lalonde and Des Rosiers held onto their seats Thursday, but Chiarelli and Naqvi both lost.
If there was one issue that illustrated the power of this partnership, it was The Ottawa Hospital’s plan to build a new Civic campus on the Experimental Farm. Watson brought the gang together in 2016 to negotiate a site at the east end of the farm.
“I’m saddened personally for people like Yasir and Bob who really did a lot for our community and delivered a lot of funding for important projects (such as) housing, light rail transit and cleaning up the Ottawa River,” Watson said, “but in a democracy you accept the will of the people, and I look forward to working with the new government and continuing the progress we’ve made on those important issues that need the help of the province.”
Watson said he still has personal connections to MPPs from each party from his days at Queen’s Park, including those in the next PC government.
With the PCs focused on finding savings, the best-case scenario for city hall might be the status quo, which essentially means making sure the provincial government maintains previous Liberal commitments.
PC Leader Doug Ford has provided a “strong commitment” on Ottawa’s Stage 2 LRT plans, Watson said. At the same time, the mayor wants clarification on whether the PCs would keep the Liberal plan to provide $50 million in extra Stage 2 funding for a longer Trillium Line extension in Riverside South.
If there’s anything Watson is concerned about, it’s a threat that the province might download programs to cities, but there’s nothing in the PC’s platform that would suggest there would be a greater burden placed on municipal property taxpayers.
Councillors are also trying to decipher what the PC win means for their communities. The inner-urban area, which was covered by governing Liberal MPPs in the last provincial government, will have a patchwork of representation between the PCs, Liberals an NDPs in the next government.
Kitchissipi Coun. Jeff Leiper said he’s concerned about the impact to Ottawa and his central-west neighbourhoods.
“We’re going to take a while to figure that out,” Leiper said. “The immediate concerns would be (for example) cycling infrastructure, progressive issues like that. Environmental sustainability. What is a PC government going to do to continue the legacy of what the NDP has been pushing for and what the Liberals have been implementing? Will the Tories continue that?”
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling
查看原文...
“I have a good relationship with Lisa MacLeod,” Watson said at city hall Friday, a day after the Tories won a majority government in the provincial election and MacLeod won 45 per cent of the votes in her Nepean riding.
“I’ve known her for probably 15 or 20 years, and I suspect she will play a senior role in a cabinet and she will become one of our go-to people to continue the progress on these important files. At the end of the day, her constituents are my constituents and vice versa. It’s in our collective best interests that we work collaboratively together.”
The two politicians have been known to get into minor squabbles. One time they traded barbs on Twitter over the casino file and another time on social media they bickered over the provincial upload agreement.
Watson said he appreciates MacLeod’s passion for Ottawa.
“She speaks out loudly for her city and that’s always good for a mayor,” Watson said.
There has been a shakeup in local intergovernmental relations.
A political get-along gang formed in Ottawa when the federal Liberals won power in 2015. There was Watson, the former provincial Liberal cabinet minister, Catherine McKenna, the Ottawa Centre Liberal MP and environment minister, and a slate of provincial Liberal cabinet ministers, including veterans Bob Chiarelli and Yasir Naqvi, and more recently Marie-France Lalonde and Nathalie Des Rosiers. Lalonde and Des Rosiers held onto their seats Thursday, but Chiarelli and Naqvi both lost.
If there was one issue that illustrated the power of this partnership, it was The Ottawa Hospital’s plan to build a new Civic campus on the Experimental Farm. Watson brought the gang together in 2016 to negotiate a site at the east end of the farm.
“I’m saddened personally for people like Yasir and Bob who really did a lot for our community and delivered a lot of funding for important projects (such as) housing, light rail transit and cleaning up the Ottawa River,” Watson said, “but in a democracy you accept the will of the people, and I look forward to working with the new government and continuing the progress we’ve made on those important issues that need the help of the province.”
Watson said he still has personal connections to MPPs from each party from his days at Queen’s Park, including those in the next PC government.
With the PCs focused on finding savings, the best-case scenario for city hall might be the status quo, which essentially means making sure the provincial government maintains previous Liberal commitments.
PC Leader Doug Ford has provided a “strong commitment” on Ottawa’s Stage 2 LRT plans, Watson said. At the same time, the mayor wants clarification on whether the PCs would keep the Liberal plan to provide $50 million in extra Stage 2 funding for a longer Trillium Line extension in Riverside South.
If there’s anything Watson is concerned about, it’s a threat that the province might download programs to cities, but there’s nothing in the PC’s platform that would suggest there would be a greater burden placed on municipal property taxpayers.
Councillors are also trying to decipher what the PC win means for their communities. The inner-urban area, which was covered by governing Liberal MPPs in the last provincial government, will have a patchwork of representation between the PCs, Liberals an NDPs in the next government.
Kitchissipi Coun. Jeff Leiper said he’s concerned about the impact to Ottawa and his central-west neighbourhoods.
“We’re going to take a while to figure that out,” Leiper said. “The immediate concerns would be (for example) cycling infrastructure, progressive issues like that. Environmental sustainability. What is a PC government going to do to continue the legacy of what the NDP has been pushing for and what the Liberals have been implementing? Will the Tories continue that?”
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling
查看原文...
