OC Transpo is out of Council's control

Somebody on city council better wake up pretty soon to the fact that OC Transpo is out - way out - of control.

The cost of bus service is going up and the service is crashing down. 

Just when we are trying to struggle to understand why a new bus barn goes 100% over budget, comes the news that Transpo may buy double decker buses that do not even fit into the $100 million new structure.

Who is running this mess?  It certainly does not appear to be city council.

Competent city staff?

I am all for letting professional managers run the city.  That would free up councillors to develop a vision and policies to move us forward.  But what happens if you have an obviously incompetent manager - such as Alain Mercier.  Mercier is responsible for OC Transpo and OC Transpo is any but efficient.

You can blame the unions if you want and you can blame councillors for making it tough on managers - but in the end the responsibility falls on Mercier.

His job is simple in scope.  Keep the buses moving on schedule and within budget.

Is he up to the task?

PP does it again

The voters of Nepean Carleton have a real decision to make in the next federal election.  They have to ask themselves if they want an MP who works for them or one who works for himself.

After months of being AWOL during the Ottawa bus strike, The Mighty Mouth of MPs, Pierre Poilievre, has decided that his brand of being helpful is to slag the Premier of the province.  Rather than making suggestions to cure this federal morass, he prefers to play politics.

Federal morass, you ask?  How can a bus strike be a federal issue.  This is the nub of the issue.  Because a few OC Transpo buses cross over into Quebec, the service is an inter provincial service... thus falls under federal jurisdiction.  There are three municipal bus services that fall under the feds - Ottawa, Gatineau and Windsor.

You want to be helpful, PP?  Why don't you suggest that the the law be changed to make the bus servies provincial responsibilities notwithstanding the inter provincial/national components.  You make all sorts of exception, including work and safety rules (the pin point of the OC dispute), why not make an exception here; get rid of the problem off Rona's and John's desk and let us get back to worrying about the economy.

Who's running this asylum, anyway?

When I went to bed last night I understood that the citizens paid taxes to the city who in turn hired people to provide services to the citizens.  By the time I woke up this morning the world had changed.

Seems, in Ottawa that the idea that the citizens paid taxes to the city who in turn hired bus drivers to provide us with a service, was all wrong.  According to the drivers and their union bosses, the drivers can do what ever they want to disrupt the services to the citizens and the city can do nothing about it.

The drivers call it "work-to-rule".  I call it stupid!

The city hires... so the city should also be able to fire.  The drivers do not want to work for the city and its citizens... fire them and get people who do!  What about the unions, you may ask?  Screw them!  They are doing it to us!

Feds to get involved?

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the Con government is a reincarnation of the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight"?

They bring in an economic update in November that outrages the country and have to shut down Parliament to save their skins.

Only last week, Labour Minister Rona Ambrose, her of the big hair, asserted that she would do nothing to legislate OC Transpo drivers back to work because she wanted them to work it out at the negotiation table.  One week later she is threatening back-to-work legislation because the parties can't work it out at the negotiating table.  It took her a week to figure that out while this strike has been going on for two months?  Or was it that a Liberal MP Belanger pushed for and got an emergency debate on the issue?

When you have no clue how to swim, you just lunge at anything that floats.

Rona can't swim.

And where, oh where, is PP?  Rumour is that he was seen at the Parliamentary food trough trying to bulk up for the next election in June.

Living in Interesting Times

Are the insane running the asylum?  Certainly the managers are not.

Consider the blustery demand from OC Transpo's union boss that City Council shut up about labour issues and focus on governing the city.  Well, guess what?  Labour issues are city business and the fact that councillors are discussing it is only right.  Geez Louise, how flipping arrogant can you get.  Wages make up 50% of this city's budget.  Council should tell the union that talks are finished, tell the arbitrator that the cupboards are bare and then announce a wage freeze for one or two years.  If the arbitrator wants to ignore the city's financial problem, then lay-off every Transpo worker by announcing the sale of Transpo to the private sector.  You want to fight the people who actually own city hall, Mr. Union Boss?  We will give you a fight you could never dream of in your worst nightmare.

Don't forget this is the same union that blamed a mother because a bus drove off with her two year old after shutting the door in her face while she struggled to get on the bus with a stroller an another child.

Now I am on a roll.

It is time that city staff were told by council that arts and cultural funding is such a small part of the budget (It represents $7 million in a $2 billion budget.) that it is time that they quit trying to destroy the arts in Ottawa by their constant sniping at it.  Does cutting the $935 allotment to the Torbolton Historical Society sound like it is going to solve the problems of this city?  How about the the $24,000 cut to the Dragon Boat Festival?  The Dragon Boat Festival brings in thousands of competitors and tourists to Ottawa.  They spend money at stores, hotels and restaurants.  Those stores, hotels and restaurants pay taxes to the city.  For every $1 that the city gives the arts, heritage and festivals, they get back $1.50 in direct revenue - they recover their investment, with interest - and another $20 is earned in this community.  Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

When all is said and done, it is beyond the time when the ENTIRE city council must be replaced by new people with new ideas.  New councillors will not be carrying the baggage of past decisions.  It is time to start over.  And it is time that we tell the city unions to smarten up or we will privatize everything in the city including janitors and police service.

Council MUST run this city.  Staff MUST to be told that they work for US not for THEMSELVES!

The Cons that couldn't shoot straight

Will the bush league activities of Canada's Greatest Government (TM) never cease?

One day the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is accused of playing politics (Harper calls her a Liberal hack), the next day the head of AECL is gone, then Minister (I build houses!) Lunn fires the head of the CNSC hours before she was supposed to testify on the Hill. Now three weeks after the fact the head of technology at AECL claims that CNSC never told AECL to upgrade the power back up on the NRU. This is after the AECL claimed that they told CNSC that they did the back ups as requested; apparently lying as they spoke, cause they did not do the back up power connections. I suppose that the new Chairman of the CNSC shoud be called a Conservative hack since he was appointed by Harper!

If you are confused; join the crowd! Is this anyway to run a government and especially a nuclear industry?

Can you say investigation?

News to laugh at

I read in this morning's Ottawa Citizen, a letter from a lady who lamented the raise in parking fees in Ottawa. She seemed quite elegant in the way she wrote but kinda blew her point with one comment. She claimed that the downtown was so quiet after working hours that "you could almost hear the dust blowing". Can you say Pulitzer?

Problem is that if the core is devoid of visitors now, how is a 50 cent/hour rise in rates going to kill it?

There are many other examples of overkill letters from earnest writers to the Citizen including a recent one wherein a gentleman was so fed up with a small OC Transpo increase, if I remember correctly it would cost him an extra $10-15 per month, that he was going out to buy a car (minimum of $10-20,000) and drive to work ($60/month for parking plus gas, insurance, repairs, etc) in protest. I suggest that he give up two of the lattes he buys each month to cover the OC Transpo increase and use the money he saves by not buying a car to pay for a badly-needed Economics 101 course.

Ottawa is not such a bad place to live. We grow at a rate of a couple of thousand persons per year, we build new housing, new schools and create jobs at a fair rate. The climate sucks in all but one season of the year and the streets are poorly maintained in winter but generally it is a great place to live.

Costs to run the city are going to rise with time. It is a fact of life in the big, well mid-sized maybe, city. Learn to live with it.

That is not too say that we can't do a better job in running this city. Notice that I said WE?! That's right, we run this city, not city council. They work for us! We hire them once every four years and can, and should, fire them if they screw up or let us down. If city council cannot balance a budget, make cuts to bureaucrats at city hall or put our fiscal house in order then we should fire them in one felled swoop in 2010.

But in the meantime, quit the sniping with the flawed logic.