Canada's Capital Errors

"The municipal council is often dysfunctional. The budget is a mess. The streets are potholed. It takes forever to get anything done. Two top transit officials just quit, presumably in disgust. The [Federal] government dislikes the place. And now, just to cap things off, the mayor has been charged with attempted bribery."

"City Hall hasn't functioned well since Mr. O'Brien's election. He made one of those impossible promises in the campaign - to freeze taxes for four years - that has ensnarled everything. Mr. O'Brien, a successful businessman, brought the simplicity of the business mind to the complexity of governing, with predictable results. He thought that, as business people often do, by eliminating "waste and duplication" and privatizing certain services, he could balance the budget and avoid a tax increase."

"It was great politics but lousy public policy. The city manager explained why it wouldn't work. The Mayor's first chief of staff quit. The council rebelled."

"There was a plan - Ottawa never lacks for plans - to build a light-rail system. That scheme got completely mishandled, in part thanks to a maladroit intervention by federal Environment Minister John Baird, an Ottawa MP."

"So now Ottawa has no train - but it does have a lawsuit from the German company that was to have built the train. True to form, the city just unveiled a $2-billion transit plan without any idea how to pay for it. Meantime, $200-million from the province and another $200-million from the feds for transit go begging. The federal Conservatives now want to use some of the money not for rapid transit but for - you guessed it - a bridge."