Larry O’Brien

Last Thursday I had the chance to see a staff presentation on the underground section of our new transit system.

The public will have the opportunity to see staff’s work on December 16, 2008. It is a good presentation and I am convinced once the citizens of Ottawa see what can be done downtown, they will be as excited as I am about our new downtown transit network. I am very grateful for the work done by Council and I am pleased about the future prospects we share for transit in Ottawa.

A special thanks to City staff who provided superb assistance through long hours at Committee and Council. The overwhelming vote of 22-2 in favour was evidence of the effort and transparency of 18 months of hard work. The City of Ottawa thanks you.

I look forward to working with our funding partners and the business community to secure higher levels of funding to begin construction as soon as possible.

But now on to budget

Tomorrow the budget process starts and things have changed since I was elected in 2006.

When I was first elected I was convinced there were efficiencies to be gained by changing the culture of City Hall. I still believe that. As a businessman I believed it was time to change the way we did business. The argument resonated with many and I was elected to bring a fiscally prudent budget process to City Hall.

But quite frankly the biggest obstacle to having the ability to make sound choices on budget was clear and useful information. This kind of information was not easy to drag out of the thousand page budget document that was a blizzard of data that overwhelmed anyone trying to find out what was spent where and when.

This year the City Manager hired Bob Plamondon to help prepare a new, business-like budget template to improve the process for Council and the public.

And this afternoon I watched a few Council partners see the importance of having clear and accurate information on which to base important decisions.

I shared the options I have developed for the 2009 budget with some of my Council colleagues and I was able to present these with the City’s bottom line in mind. That scenario lead to some buy-in from my colleagues.

How? Now in a relatively clear way we can discern the difference between the “nice to have” service enhancements and what is mandatory to ensure the quality of life we want to enjoy in Ottawa. And at no time since amalgamation is it so important to have this clarity with the global economic uncertainty we are facing as a nation and as a city. My distaste of waste has been replaced by the moral imperative to ensure the safety and security of our citizens at a time when pensioners are losing their savings and people are delaying vacations or not buying that new car.

The first responsibility of any level of government is the security and safety of its citizens. That priority takes precedence over any other activity at the federal, provincial or municipal level. I believe we must ensure that every available penny remains in the hands of our citizens. It is morally irresponsible to do anything but make the tough choices today that will result in a budget that is in the interests of our taxpayers and in line with the fiscal framework that was approved by Council unanimously in 2007 (Please click here to view the fiscal framework). We need to make the necessary cuts and reductions this year to pave the way for a sustainable budget.

As the budget process unfolds I will be working with my Council colleagues and City staff to resist the urge to spend money and to curtail unnecessary spending.