Larry O’Brien

This afternoon the City of Ottawa received word from The Minister of Labour, The Honourable Rona Ambrose, that the Federal Government has granted the City’s request to put its final offer before the membership of the ATU 279 for a vote.

Below, I have attached a memo that was forwarded to Council this afternoon:

I am writing to advise that the Federal Minister of Labour, The Honourable Rona Ambrose, has granted the City’s request that its last offer be put before the membership of the ATU 279 for a vote.

As you will recall, following the Union’s rejection of the City’s last offer and its withdrawal from negotiations, lawyers for the City made a formal request to the Minister that she exercise her authority under Section 108.1 of the Canada Labour Code and direct a supervised vote of the Union membership on the offer. The Minister, in calling for a supervised vote has responded to our position that there is a pressing public interest in having the OC Transpo strike resolved as soon as possible, that the most effective means of achieving this is to allow the members to vote directly on the City’s proposals.

The vote will be conducted and supervised by the Canada Industrial Relations Board no later than January 9, 2009.

Given this result, it is my intention to call a Special Meeting of Council early next week.

Mayor Larry O’Brien

For Christmas, my son gave me a book by scholar Fareed Zakaria.  This Christmas present brought me much peace over the holidays so I thought I would share an important message that I learned from reading the book. According to Zakaria: “we feel less safe today, then we really are.”

We are in fact probably living in the most peaceful time in the history of mankind. Although it may seem like I am wearing rose coloured glasses when I make this statement as we hear “breaking news” about some of the atrocities occurring around the world, but the truth is we do live in peaceful times.  It may at times feel like an unsafe world but it is not. The facts are there to back it up.

According to the Professor Gurr from the University of Maryland’s  Centre for International Development and Conflict resolution who tracked and studied the data carefully: “ the general magnitude of global warfare has decreased by over 60% ( since the mid-1980’s) falling by the end of 2004 to the lowest level since the late 1950’s.  Other studies of the data reach a similar conclusion. Harvard’s polymath professor Steven Pinker argues “that we are probably living in the most peaceful time in our species existence.”

One reason why we feel as though we are threatened by non-peaceful events could be related the fact that we are soaked in modern news media cycles, with 24 hour reporting that delivers TV visuals of every tragic event that occurs around the world into our homes almost immediately.

According to Zakaria; “the data reveals a broad trend away from wars among major countries.” All of these events we read and hear about are horrible and sad but in the context of history we are living in a time of unprecedented peace.

We here in the City of Ottawa are blessed to be in a position where we can live and benefit from a very peaceful existence. Thanks to our veterans and of course the soldiers on the front lines today, our way of life is protected, and our peace preserved. We think of all of you, and thank you for your sacrifices as we move into the New Year.

So for New Years I wish for the safe return of our soldiers, and I wish that all of you feel the safety and peace of living in these times.

Enjoy this moment in history – we are blessed to be alive today. Enjoy this peace as you play with your children and walk your dog.  Enjoy this peace as you breathe the crisp air of our Canadian winter. Enjoy the feeling of peace as you celebrate the New Year. We are very lucky people.

Colleen and I wish you a very Happy and Peaceful New Year.

The world of junior hockey and future superstars of the NHL are in Ottawa for the next few weeks.

The World Junior Championship is a tradition of the holiday season for many of us. This important event went through months of preparation by the organizing committee, volunteers, Hockey Canada and City staff.

Ottawa has been blessed in the last few years to host world class sporting events. It is a testament to our ability to come together and be a good host city. Ottawa also hosted the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2007 and it was the most attended single-sport event in Canada’s history.

The World Junior Championship 2009 will have a similar impact, especially if Team Canada wins the gold!

On behalf of the 895,000 residents of Ottawa, City Council and local businesses I want to welcome the world to the Nation’s Capital.

I encourage all of our guests to visit Parliament Hill, our museums, the Rideau Canal - a World Heritage site, our popular Byward Market, Bank Street, Sparks Street and all of our venues.

For all the scores, game information and statistics on the World Junior Championship 2009 please click here.

Picketing at World Juniors

City lawyers returned to Superior Court on Wednesday in order to resume arguing the City’s application for an injunction to restrict the picketing activities of striking ATU 279 members.

This move came after Union President André Cornellier’s public call on Tuesday for all 2,300 bargaining unit members to picket Lansdowne Park at noon on December 26th to coincide with the start of the World Juniors.

Following submissions by lawyers for the City and for the ATU, Ontario Superior Justice Charles Hackland suggested that the parties enter into discussions to reach a resolution that would ensure no disruption to people and/or vehicles accessing the event, while still permitting the ATU to convey its message to the public.

As a result, the City proposed a resolution that permits a limited number of picketers (a maximum of 10 per entrance) to conduct an information picket on the Lansdowne Park grounds, but this resolution also prohibits any interference with traffic entering or leaving the property. This proposal was ultimately accepted by the union and was confirmed in an order of the court.

I believe this resolution strikes an appropriate balance between the union’s lawful right to conduct an information picket, while also respecting the rights of fans, organizers and participants to not be impeded or blockaded while attending the games.

It is important to note that the court’s order in this case will apply for the duration of the tournament.

The City acted quickly to find a resolution. The result was good news for Ottawa as a host city and for all of our visitors, participants and fans.

Nothing brings our city together like Canada’s game.

To the many citizens of Ottawa inconvenienced by the strike over Christmas I want to thank you for the hundreds of emails of support for us on this issue.

The messages you have left me are simple and direct and we will continue to work to reach a settlement that is fair and reasonable for both taxpayers and our drivers.

The vast majority of you believe that we need to settle this, but not at any cost and the majority of Council also believes that this is the right path. We also believe that many drivers also want to get back to work.

City is being flexible

Last night the City of Ottawa provided a fair and reasonable offer to the ATU executive that included a 7.25% increase over three years, more sick days, a one-time payout to offset the City having full control of the scheduling rules and we also offered more benefits for the drivers.

The union executive has decided that this was not enough. They are asking for a wage increase of 9.25 % over the next three years.

We only learned on their web site last night that they were not going to come back to the table today and that they were also going to picket at the World Juniors.

Both of these actions are disappointing and after a full week of flexible negotiations where much progress had been made, they walked away from the table for the second time.

We are now left with only a few options.

Today the City sent a letter to Labour Minister Rona Ambrose asking her to intervene and permit a supervised vote of the members on our last offer – wage increase of 7.25%, more benefits, more sick days and some flexibility to the scheduling offer.

As well the City has been in court and are seeking an injunction to limit the ATU from disrupting the World Juniors.  Both of these actions are intended to minimize the disruption of the City by a union executive that is clearly not interested in getting drivers back to work. We will wait for the Minister’s response to our request and we should know the status of the injunction later today.

To all of you in the City of Ottawa I wish you a Merry Christmas and a kind and peaceful holiday season.