Mayoral candidates promise dog parks, doctors and another transit review

As the municipal election heads into its final two weeks, candidates running to be Ottawa's next mayor continue taking stances on core issues such as transit and policing, but also doctor recruitment and dog parks.

Bob Chiarelli on Tuesday promised a "top to bottom review" of OC Transpo, a promise already made earlier in the campaign by other candidates, including Catherine McKenney and Mark Sutcliffe.

In a news release, Chiarelli said the transit agency's "reputation is now in tatters" because fares continue to rise even as ridership falls and passengers wait at bus stops.

Chiarelli listed nearly a dozen things that need to change, such as reducing the number of cancelled bus trips, revising services based on customer needs and ridership levels, improving reliability and its scheduling.

Beyond the promise of a review, however, he did not provide specific ways to make those changes.

Doctors and dog parks

Sutcliffe on Tuesday released a statement to highlight parts of his platform — already announced — that would "make life more affordable, reliable and safer for senior citizens." Included on that list were his promise of $25 million for repairing roads, sidewalks and snow clearing, and his tax increase target of two to 2.5 per cent.

A couple of the proposals were new, such as a pledge to improve service on the 311 tool residents use to make complaints and find city information, and appointing a citizen representative who rides Para Transpo to the transit commission.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Sutcliffe also promised to create a "family doctor recruitment strategy" for Ottawa.

"While this isn't specifically a municipal issue and the City of Ottawa can't solve this problem alone, the mayor can show leadership in implementing a strategy for this high-needs area to recruit family physicians to our city," Sutcliffe said in a statement.

Other Ontario cities, including Kingston and Windsor, have come up with such strategies, he noted.

Sutcliffe is also promising to "build at least three new dog runs/parks in existing city or National Capital Commission (NCC) owned land in underserved neighbourhoods over the next four years including Kanata, Stittsville, and Barrhaven."

In a statement last Friday, he described meeting a resident who would drive from Kanata to Hampton Park, in the core, because "she doesn't have a suitable park close to her home."

The City of Ottawa recently took stock of all of its parks and recreational facilities, and has already set out plans to build four more fenced, off-leash dog parks in the coming decade.

According to that master plan, that would bring the number of fenced dog parks to 15 by 2031, not counting another 175 parks where dogs are allowed off-leash. Any decision about use of NCC land, meanwhile, would fall to the NCC, which operates dog parks at Conroy Pit and Bruce Pit.

Seat on the board

Another mayoral candidate, Nour Kadri, promised to take a seat on the Ottawa Police Services Board, if elected mayor.

Three of the seven board members come from Ottawa city council, and while many mayors around the province do sit on their police oversight boards, Mayor Jim Watson has not during the current or last term. Council also appoints a citizen representative, while three members are appointed by the Ontario government.

Kadri said in a news release on Tuesday the board needs members with strong equity, diversity and inclusion training so they can "address the issues pertaining to systemic racism and underrepresentation of the most affected groups of our society."

The police service needs to be "well funded and resourced, but they cannot do it all," he said. Professionals in social services and health need to be "integrated into effective policing," Kadri said.

The question of whether to increase police spending caused significant debate at budget time last December, while the Ottawa police and city have indeed been looking at which calls might not need a police response.

The municipal election is Oct. 24, with a final advance voting day this Friday, Oct. 14.