Volunteer Loyalty: Where does it Lie?

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Chris McBean

I’m currently researching a new piece on Canadian volunteerism, which will be available soon. In the meantime, here’s a post I originally wrote in February 2014.

I was talking with a healthcare sector client recently about the issue of volunteer loyalty. The client, a senior manager of a healthcare service provider, was upset because they felt that a volunteer was showing ‘mixed’ loyalty by speaking directly to the board chair about an issue within the organization.

The question is “where does the volunteer’s loyalty lie?” As I pointed out to the manager, the volunteer is not an employee, they are giving freely of their time, and so the “manager/staff” relationship doesn’t exist. Yes, the volunteer’s time and activities are being managed by a staff member, but this is a community-based organization where everyone knows everyone else and their families. The volunteer wasn’t breaking any confidence, and was keeping the conversation ‘in house’, so what was the real issue? Was it perhaps that the manager was treating the volunteer like an employee, even a direct report, and therefore had expectations of loyalty, discretion and a management hierarchy?

In today’s society, so many not-for-profit organizations rely heavily on volunteers to help accomplish their program and service goals. Although volunteers work alongside or perhaps in some situations replace employees in the delivery of services, administration and other functions, incorporating volunteer labour into an organization’s daily operations can offer unique challenges to any manager.

Volunteer loyalty is an emotional bond to an organization’s values, beliefs, goals, and the community it serves. This loyalty is a leading indicator of how volunteers feel about the organization, and how they feel they are being treated by staff and clients alike.

Volunteer loyalty is to the organisation, to the community, and not to management.

Volunteer loyalty is of increasingly important value to not-for-profit organizations, and managers need to comprehend why volunteers give of their time, how to measure this loyalty, and then how to improve volunteer loyalty, if they wish to retain these important resources.

Pride Without the Glitter: Why Canada’s Queer Community is Reclaiming Its Roots

Posted on June 28, 2025 by Chris McBean

There’s a quiet, but growing conversation taking place within Canada’s queer communities, one that asks whether it might be time to scale back the spectacle of Pride, and get back to what it was really about in the first place. The parades are still colourful, the parties still loud, but something’s shifting. With corporate sponsorship drying up and the political climate growing colder, many in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community are rethinking what Pride should look like in this new era.

For years, Pride events in cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal have felt less like grassroots activism, and more like mobile advertising campaigns. Walk down the route and you’ll see branded floats from banks, telcos, and beer companies. TD Bank, to name just one example, once earned applause for being an early supporter of queer inclusion, but these days, its giant green float can feel more like marketing than allyship. Many of us, especially those who’ve been around long enough to remember when participating in a Pride parade involved appreciable risk, can’t help but feel the soul has been somewhat bleached out of the rainbow.

Image source: Catalina Vásquez on Behance

Part of the shift is financial. With the Trump-era backlash and culture wars bleeding across the border, some corporations, particularly U.S.-based multinationals, are scaling back their public-facing support of Pride. In 2024, Reuters reported that global brands have “significantly reduced” their LGBTQ-themed campaigns in markets like Canada to avoid conservative backlash. These decisions affect more than just parade floats; they impact grants, community programming, and the broader financial ecosystem that’s supported major Pride festivals for years.

Yet, this isn’t necessarily bad news. In fact, many long-time activists see it as an opportunity to re-centre Pride around the people it’s meant to serve. Before there were glitter canons and wristbands with logos, Pride was a protest. The first Canadian marches, in the wake of the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids, were acts of raw defiance, calling out police brutality and demanding civil rights. Nobody was handing out swag. No corporations were clambering to associate their brand with queer people. That history matters.

Now, with funding drying up and public support shifting, a new generation of organizers is looking backward to move forward. Smaller Pride celebrations are cropping up across the country that focus less on parade floats and more on community picnics, protest marches, zine fairs, and teach-ins. In places like Peterborough and Hamilton, organizers have made the deliberate choice to scale down the main event in favour of something that feels more connected, less commercial.

We’re at a cultural crossroads. Pride doesn’t need to be louder to be more meaningful. In fact, the moment may call for exactly the opposite. There’s power in returning to the grassroots, not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity. If Pride becomes less about the glitter and more about the grit again, that might just be the most radical thing we’ve done in decades.

Sources
• CBC News (June 2024): “Pride organizers across Canada reassess role of corporate sponsorship”
• Reuters (June 2024): “Global brands rethink LGBTQ marketing amid backlash”
• Xtra Magazine (May 2023): “The Fight Over Pride: Protest or Party?
• The Canadian Encyclopedia (2022): “How the Bathhouse Raids Sparked Toronto Pride”

Declutter Before You Croak: Tales from a Swedish-Inspired Senior

Posted on June 27, 2025 by Chris McBean

By a (mostly) tidy old man who finally let go of his parachute pants. One of the first posts on this blog discussed the hellish landscape of indoor storage facilities, but the feedback was all about the Swedish gentle art of death cleaning, so here is a little more on the subject.

Let me tell you, nothing makes you contemplate the mess you’ll leave behind quite like trying to find your birth certificate and instead discovering a box labeled “Important Stuff” that turns out to be a fossilized sandwich, a dried-up highlighter, and a cassette tape marked “Elton John – do not toss.” I recently dove headfirst into the wonderful world of Swedish Death Cleaning, and my friends, it has been a wild, liberating, occasionally dusty ride.

The Swedes, bless their tidy souls, have a term for this – döstädning, which roughly translates to “cleaning up before your descendants discover your terrifying taste in novelty mugs.” I started reading a book on the subject by a delightful author named Margareta Magnusson (or “Messie,” as I now lovingly call her), and I’ve never laughed so hard while simultaneously weeping over a collection of mismatched Tupperware lids.

Let me start with the gut punch
Messie says, “If it’s in a box, you’ve already said goodbye.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got boxes that haven’t seen daylight since Trudeau Senior had brown sideburns. Boxes of university papers, photos of people I’m 80% sure I never dated, and a particularly unnerving ceramic owl that I swear moves at night. After that chapter, I went spelunking through my basement like Indiana Jones, only to emerge three hours later, sweaty, triumphant, and hauling four garbage bags and one guilty conscience.

And then came this gem
“If everything is special, then nothing is.” I stared at my wall of “precious items” and realized I’d given shrine status to an angel made from glass banana split dishes. I’d been treating every doodad like it was a sacred relic. When I started trimming it down, a miraculous thing happened: the few things I kept? They actually meant something. My grandfather’s watch. A photo of my kids at the lake. My first submissive’s collar. The rest? Off to the donation bin, where someone else might actually want a mug shaped like Elvis’s head.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not heartless
I had a few hiccups. I kept a concert ticket stub from Elton John’s 1974 Newcastle City Hall concert because “it was the best night of my life.” But then I asked myself, when was the last time I actually looked at it? The memory’s not in the scrap of paper. It’s in the way I still grin when I hear the opening chords of “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding.” So into the recycling bin it went, and I swear, a little weight lifted off my soul.

Here’s another kicker Messie delivered with a smile and a slap
“Saving for ‘someday’ is a waste.” I had candle sets still in plastic wrap from 1992. I had a bottle of wine I’d been “saving for a special occasion” that had evaporated into a raisin-flavored mist. So I did what any self-respecting sexagenarian should do, I lit the damn candles, poured a different bottle of wine, and toasted to the fact that I was still upright enough to enjoy it. Honestly, what’s the point of hoarding “the good stuff” for a day that might never arrive? My good china has seen more use in the past two months than in the previous two decades.

Then came the hard truths
Clutter, Messie says, is often about fear or control. Oof. That hit harder than my second marriage. I had outfits “just in case,” knickknacks I didn’t even like, but kept because someone once gave them to me and I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. (Newsflash: They don’t remember.) When I started letting go, I realized decluttering wasn’t just spring cleaning – it was therapy with a trash bag.

And perhaps the biggest takeaway of all
“Decluttering isn’t a chore. It’s a gift.”
Not to you, necessarily, but to the poor sods who’ll have to clean out your place after you go. My kids love me. But do they love me enough to sort through 14 boxes of DVDs, three broken vacuum cleaners, and a mineral collection that hasn’t been seen since the Harper government? Doubtful. So I’ve started pre-editing my legacy. They can have my stories, my recipes, my dad jokes, and that one legendary, home knit Doctor Who scarf. The rest? Poof.

Letting go, it turns out, is loving yourself
And loving your family, as well as loving the fact that you won’t be found crushed under a teetering pile of National Geographics from 1987. When you start decluttering your mess, you start making room for joy, for memories, for now. And if you’re lucky, you’ll inspire someone else to do the same, preferably before the dessert glass angel becomes a family heirloom.

So here’s to Swedish Death Cleaning.
It’s not morbid. It’s not sad.
It’s hilarious, humbling, and oddly heartwarming.
And if it means I finally toss that ancient fondue set? Well…..
Skål, my friends. Skål.

By-Elections Signal Alberta’s Political Crossroads

Posted on June 24, 2025 by Chris McBean

The results of Alberta’s three provincial by-elections on June 23, 2025, offer more than simple electoral bookkeeping, they reflect shifting political winds across urban and rural divides, growing challenges for the governing United Conservative Party (UCP), and the solidifying leadership of Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi. While each race had its own dynamics, taken together, they sketch the early contours of the province’s next political chapter.

In Edmonton-Strathcona, Naheed Nenshi secured a commanding victory, winning approximately 82% of the vote. This was no surprise, Strathcona has long been an NDP stronghold, but the size of the margin reaffirmed Nenshi’s appeal among urban progressives. More importantly, it granted the former Calgary mayor a seat in the legislature, allowing him to move from campaign trail rhetoric to legislative combat. For the NDP, this is a strategic milestone. Having a leader with Nenshi’s profile and cross-city recognition seated in the Assembly provides the party with both visibility and gravitas as it prepares to challenge Danielle Smith’s UCP in the next general election.

Meanwhile, Edmonton-Ellerslie delivered a more muted result for the NDP. While Gurtej Singh Brar held the seat for the party, the margin narrowed noticeably compared to previous elections. The UCP candidate, Naresh Bhardwaj, ran a stronger-than-expected campaign, capturing a significant share of the vote. This tightening suggests that even in NDP-leaning urban ridings, voter allegiance cannot be taken for granted. It also indicates that the UCP’s message still resonates with parts of the city’s electorate, particularly among working-class and immigrant communities whose support is increasingly contested territory.

The race in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills played out very differently. As expected, the UCP retained this rural seat, with Tara Sawyer taking over from long-time MLA Nathan Cooper. However, the UCP’s vote share dropped markedly from the 75% it earned in the 2023 general election to around 61%. More striking was the performance of the Republican Party of Alberta (RPA), whose candidate Cameron Davies captured nearly 20% of the vote. The NDP surprisingly edged out the RPA for second place, though rural Alberta remains largely out of reach for them. The RPA’s strong showing, however, is cause for concern within the UCP’s rural flank. Separatist and hard-right discontent, once marginal, is becoming a disruptive force capable of peeling away conservative votes.

Together, these results underline a growing polarization in Alberta politics. The urban-rural split is hardening, with Edmonton increasingly dominated by the NDP and rural ridings remaining UCP strongholds, though now with visible fractures. The UCP retains power, but the by-elections exposed soft spots, especially in its ability to hold urban constituencies and suppress internal dissent from the right. Nenshi’s formal arrival in the legislature sets the stage for a more dynamic opposition, with a leader who brings both charisma and executive experience. His challenge now will be expanding the NDP’s base beyond its urban comfort zone while navigating the complex economic and cultural anxieties shaping Alberta’s electorate.

The by-elections may not have changed the balance of power in the legislature, but they altered the strategic terrain. What was once a contest between entrenched camps now feels more fluid, volatile, and competitive. That should make both major parties pause, and prepare.

Sources
CTV News Edmonton: https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/article/alberta-ndp-leader-nenshi-wins-seat-in-one-of-three-byelections
The Albertan: https://www.thealbertan.com/olds-news/tara-sawyer-wins-olds-didsbury-three-hills-byelection-10853458
The Hub: https://thehub.ca/2025/06/24/a-win-a-warning-and-a-wobble-in-albertas-byelection-results

When the Witness Holds the Gavel: The Constitutional Perils of Reverse Disclosure

Posted on June 17, 2025 by Chris McBean

Canada’s lower courts are now bearing the brunt of an ill-conceived and constitutionally fraught innovation in sexual assault law: reverse disclosure. Introduced under Bill C‑51 in 2018, this legislative regime forces accused persons to disclose in advance any private communications; such as texts, emails, or social media messages, they intend to use in cross-examination of the complainant. The complainant, in turn, is granted full participatory rights and legal representation to argue against the admissibility of such evidence. While politically expedient and publicly palatable in the wake of the Ghomeshi trial, the legal architecture of reverse disclosure has proven to be unstable, incoherent, and in many cases, plainly unconstitutional.

Trial courts across the country have issued sharply divergent rulings on how these provisions should operate. In some decisions, judges have deemed the mandatory timelines imposed on the defence to be incompatible with the fair-trial rights guaranteed by section 7 of the Charter. Others have questioned the very foundation of the regime, arguing that it unjustly burdens the accused with obligations that reverse the presumption of innocence and compromise the right to full answer and defence. Nowhere else in Canadian criminal procedure is a complainant, essentially a Crown witness, granted standing to challenge what evidence may be used in their own cross-examination. It is a distortion of the adversarial system.

The concept of reverse disclosure is not merely controversial; it is structurally flawed. The defence is no longer free to mount a case in the manner required by the facts and theory of the defence, but is instead placed under the supervision of the court and the complainant’s counsel, long before trial. This undermines not only trial strategy, but also the accused’s right to test the Crown’s case without disclosing defence evidence in advance. Worse still, it creates an asymmetry in which the complainant is effectively briefed on what the defence intends to argue, giving them an opportunity, conscious or not, to shape their testimony accordingly.

This problem is compounded by the legislative vagueness surrounding what constitutes a “private record” and how relevance, prejudice, and privacy should be weighed. The result has been legal uncertainty and procedural chaos. Judges are left to interpret a vague and often contradictory set of provisions, and defence counsel must navigate a landscape where each courtroom may yield different rules and interpretations. This is not how constitutional criminal law is meant to function.

Some courts have gone so far as to strike down portions of the reverse disclosure regime altogether, citing fundamental Charter violations. These judgments are not aberrations, they are warnings. When a regime designed to protect complainants ends up jeopardizing the constitutional rights of the accused, the entire framework must be re-evaluated. The criminal trial must remain a place where the presumption of innocence is more than a platitude, and where the right to a fair trial is not subject to the political winds of the day.

Until the Supreme Court addresses these concerns decisively, lower courts will continue to struggle with reverse disclosure. And in that struggle, justice itself hangs in the balance.

The Church of the Polyamorous Christ

Posted on June 14, 2025 by Chris McBean

If only this were real!

The Church of the Polyamorous Christ is a spiritual movement that reimagines Christian teachings to fully embrace and affirm polyamorous relationships. At the heart of its manifesto is a simple, profound belief: that the love exemplified by Christ is limitless, far too vast to be contained by monogamy alone. This theology holds that Christ’s message of compassion, acceptance, and radical love applies to all forms of consensual, ethical relationships, including those that involve multiple partners and the full spectrum of LGBTQIA2S+ identities.

A central tenet of the church is the idea that traditional Christian doctrines around marriage and sexuality often fall short of expressing the depth and breadth of Christ’s love. Instead, the church calls for a faith rooted in mutual respect, honesty, and open-hearted communication. It also seeks to dismantle the social and religious stigmas that continue to weigh down non-monogamous relationships, seeing those barriers as obstacles to living out a more inclusive and authentic Christian love.

The Church of the Polyamorous Christ invites its followers to grow spiritually by embracing the beauty and diversity of human connection. It challenges the notion that monogamy is the only valid or moral path, and instead celebrates a theology where diverse expressions of love are understood as sacred reflections of the divine.

And to be clear, this isn’t polygamy in terms of one man with many wives. This is polyamory: a celebration of all genders, all sexualities, and all loving combinations built on trust and consent.

Sounds kind of incredible, doesn’t it?

Now, if only I weren’t a Secular Spiritualist…

Public Drinking: A Study in Trust, Culture, and Control – Ottawa vs. Germany

Posted on June 11, 2025 by Chris McBean

Public drinking reveals much about how societies balance freedom, responsibility, and trust. The stark contrast between Ottawa’s tentative, tightly-controlled 2025 pilot program for alcohol consumption in municipal parks and Germany’s longstanding acceptance of public drinking illustrates deeper social and cultural divides. In short, while Germans operate under a framework of collective behavioral expectations and trust, Canadians, at least in Ottawa, approach public behavior through a lens of institutional caution and control.

In Germany, it is not only legal, but culturally unremarkable to walk through a park or down a street sipping beer or wine. Public drinking is allowed in virtually all spaces: parks, streets, public transport, so long as behavior remains respectful. There is no need for signage, restricted hours, or opt-in zones. Instead, the rules are social: keep your voice down, clean up after yourself, and don’t cause a disturbance. The assumption is that most people, most of the time, can be trusted to enjoy alcohol in public without devolving into chaos. Enforcement is minimal and focused on conduct rather than consumption. The legal framework reflects this confidence in citizens’ capacity for self-regulation.

Ottawa, by contrast, is poised to take a small, hesitant step into public drinking territory. The 2025 summer pilot, if passed by full council, will allow alcohol in select municipal parks during restricted hours and away from certain facilities. Local councillors must “opt in” their parks, and enforcement mechanisms, signage, and safety protocols are emphasized. The premise is that public drinking is potentially risky, necessitating detailed restrictions and contingency planning. The policy does not presume that residents can handle this responsibility; rather, it cautiously tests whether they might.

This divergence is not simply legal, it is philosophical. German norms lean on a social compact that assumes citizens will behave decently in shared spaces. Canadians, or at least Canadian policymakers, appear to lack such confidence. Public drinking is imagined not as an ordinary act, but as a behavior to be fenced in, bounded, and watched. Ottawa’s delay in launching even a pilot underscores a broader cultural tendency: one that privileges regulation over trust, institutional control over social cohesion.

Underlying this is a question of what kind of public life a society envisions. In Germany, a Feierabendbier (after-work beer) on a park bench is an extension of civil society, part of a shared public realm. In Ottawa, such an act still falls outside acceptable norms, even as urban life becomes denser and more diverse. This points to a lingering paternalism in Canadian municipal governance: the belief that citizens must be managed rather than trusted.

Ultimately, the Ottawa-Germany contrast reveals a deeper social reality. Where Germans assume the public is capable and socialized, Canadians assume the public needs structure and limits. That divergence shapes not just laws, but the very character of public space, and what we are allowed to do within it. Public drinking, then, becomes a proxy for how much a society trusts its own people.

Patients Are Not Property: Time to Rethink How We Regulate the Sale and Retention of Primary Care Rosters

Posted on June 10, 2025 by Chris McBean

In the midst of Canada’s growing primary care crisis, it’s time we take a hard look at how patient rosters are handled, or mishandled, when physicians transition or leave their practices. Across the country, millions of Canadians are without a family doctor. Against this backdrop, we can no longer tolerate a system in which doctors purchase entire rosters of patients only to turn around and drop half of them, not based on clinical need, but lifestyle preference.

This is not a matter of gender. It is a matter of professional accountability and ethical stewardship. Patients are not chattel. They are people, often elderly, immunocompromised, managing multiple chronic conditions, who place their trust in a system that is supposed to protect their continuity of care. When a physician acquires a patient list, they are not buying a gym membership or a book of business. They are assuming responsibility for the long-term health of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of human beings.

Let’s be clear: physicians have every right to structure their practice in a way that supports their well-being. Burnout is real, and work-life balance matters, but that personal balance cannot come at the expense of vulnerable patients being systematically cast adrift.

Professional colleges, including the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), do provide formal mechanisms for a doctor to reduce their patient list. These guidelines exist to allow flexibility, but they were never meant to be a loophole for roster triage based on convenience. If the intention was always to serve only a part-time practice, why was the entire roster purchased? Why was the community not informed in advance? And why are regulatory bodies permitting what amounts to a public harm, wrapped in private contractual terms?

These are not just hypothetical concerns. The abandonment of patients, especially those without alternatives, has ripple effects throughout the entire healthcare system. Walk-in clinics become overwhelmed. Emergency rooms fill with non-emergency cases. Preventable conditions go unmanaged until they become acute, and meanwhile, the public’s trust in the integrity of primary care continues to erode.

If physicians wish to buy a practice, that is a valid path to establishing their career; but there must be clear, enforceable rules to ensure that patient care is not commodified in the process. A few policy options worth considering:

Conditional licensing of roster transfers: Require binding disclosure of the incoming physician’s intended working hours and patient capacity before the sale is finalized, with oversight by a neutral third party such as the local health authority.
Mandatory transition plans: If a physician intends to offload more than 10% of a newly acquired roster, they should be required to demonstrate how those patients will be supported in finding alternate care – not simply left to fend for themselves – meaning that there is actually an alternative primary caregiver available who is willing and able to add them to their existing roster.
Public-interest reviews of large roster changes: Just as utility companies can’t hike rates without justification, physicians shouldn’t be able to restructure public-facing services without transparent public reasoning.

Ultimately, the issue is not about lifestyle choices. It’s about stewardship. Every doctor, upon licensing, accepts a social contract with the people they serve. That contract includes not just the right to treat patients, but the responsibility to do so with equity, consistency, and integrity.

We wouldn’t accept it if a public school principal took over a school and expelled half the students because they only wanted to work mornings. We shouldn’t accept it in primary care either.

Lansdowne Park: A Case Study in Public-Private Partnership Failure

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Chris McBean

In the heart of Ottawa lies Lansdowne Park, a public asset that has undergone over a decade of controversial redevelopment under the banner of public-private partnerships (P3). Initially hailed as a visionary collaboration between the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG), Lansdowne has instead become a cautionary tale; an emblem of how private interests can hijack public value, with taxpayers left holding the bill. Despite grand promises of economic revitalization, self-sustaining revenues, and community benefit, the Lansdowne project has consistently failed to deliver on its core goals.

The Origins: Lansdowne 1.0 and the Rise of the P3 Model
The current saga began in 2007, when structural concerns forced the closure of Frank Clair Stadium. In response, the City sought partners to reimagine Lansdowne as a revitalized hub for sports, entertainment, and urban life. The resulting Lansdowne Partnership Plan (LPP), approved in 2010, was a no-bid, sole-source agreement with OSEG. It created a 30-year limited partnership through which OSEG would refurbish the stadium, build retail and residential developments, and share profits with the City through a revenue “waterfall” model.

The City’s share of the original $362 million redevelopment was around $210 million, used for stadium upgrades, a new urban park, parking facilities, and relocating the historic Horticulture Building. OSEG contributed roughly $152 million, not as direct capital, but largely through operational losses rolled back into the project in exchange for an 8% return on equity. The land remained public, but OSEG was granted long-term leases for commercial components, at just $1 per year.

A Financial Model Built on Sand
The P3 structure was sold to the public with the assurance that Lansdowne would eventually pay for itself. Early forecasts predicted a $22.6 million net return to the City. In reality, those profits never materialized. Retail revenues rose steadily, but so did costs. By 2016, OSEG was reporting $14.4 million in losses. As of 2023, the partnership had not returned a cent to municipal coffers. The revenue waterfall prioritized OSEG’s return on equity before any surplus could flow to the City, meaning taxpayers bore the financial risk, while private partners had guaranteed returns.

Worse, the project locked the City into a complex financial structure that made renegotiation difficult. The Auditor General of Ottawa has since criticized the model, citing opaque accounting and a lack of oversight over cost estimates and projections.

Lansdowne 2.0: Doubling Down on a Broken System
Rather than reassess the underlying flaws of Lansdowne 1.0, the City has pressed forward with an even more ambitious sequel: Lansdowne 2.0. Approved by Council in 2023, this next phase proposes to demolish and rebuild the north-side stadium stands, construct a 5,500-seat event centre, and erect two residential towers atop a retail podium. The estimated cost is $419 million, with over $300 million of that funded by the City through new debt.

Despite lessons from the past, the same P3 framework persists. The City continues to rely on OSEG’s management and forecasts, despite repeated underperformance. Recent findings from the Auditor General suggest that construction costs may be underestimated by as much as $74.3 million, bringing the actual cost closer to half a billion dollars.

Community Concerns Ignored
One of the most damning aspects of the Lansdowne saga has been its consistent disregard for community needs. Neither Lansdowne 1.0 nor 2.0 includes affordable housing. This, in the midst of a housing crisis, is a glaring omission. Public green space will be reduced by more than 50,000 square feet in Lansdowne 2.0. Traffic and parking concerns persist, especially given the site’s poor access to Ottawa’s light rail system.

Environmental groups have flagged the project for increasing the urban heat island effect and ignoring climate resilience standards. Ecology Ottawa and other watchdogs note that the loss of mature trees, additional hard surfaces, and energy-intensive stadium lighting run counter to the City’s own climate goals.

Public feedback has been overwhelmingly negative. A survey by the advocacy group Better Lansdowne found that 77% of respondents opposed the new plan. Critics have called for a full reassessment, independent cost-benefit analysis, and alternative development models that prioritize public use and affordability.

The Broader P3 Problem
The Lansdowne project exemplifies the risks inherent in the P3 model. When private partners are guaranteed returns and public entities assume the risk, the result is rarely equitable or efficient. While the private sector pursues profit, as it must, government has a duty to prioritize public interest. In this case, the lines blurred, and profit came first.

Public-private partnerships are often promoted as a way to leverage private investment for public good. Yet in practice, they can enable private actors to extract value from public land and public funds, with minimal accountability. Lansdowne is a textbook case of this imbalance.

Time to Reclaim Public Space
As Ottawa moves forward, the Lansdowne experience should serve as a clear lesson: public infrastructure must be publicly driven. The City needs to step back, reassess its relationship with OSEG, and consider alternative models that place public interest at the centre. This could include establishing a municipal development corporation, returning retail management to the City, and mandating affordable housing in all new residential builds.

If Lansdowne Park is truly to be the “people’s place” as once envisioned, it must serve the city, not subsidize private profit. The future of Ottawa’s public assets depends on getting this right.

Sources
• Ottawa City Council Reports, 2023–2025 – ottawa.ca
• Ottawa Auditor General Report, June 2025 – link2build.ca
• Better Lansdowne Community Survey – betterlansdowne.ca
• Ecology Ottawa – ecologyottawa.ca
• Ottawa Business Journal Archives – obj.ca
• Lansdowne Park Redevelopment History – en.wikipedia.org

OC Transpo: A Two-Decade Decline in Rider-Centric Service

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Chris McBean

As a long-time Ottawa resident and observer of our city’s public utilities, I’ve witnessed firsthand the transformation of OC Transpo from a model of efficient public transit to a system riddled with challenges. Over the past two decades, a series of missteps, underinvestment, and a departure from rider-focused planning have led to a decline in service quality, reliability, and public trust.

From Transitway Triumph to LRT Troubles
In the 1980s, Ottawa’s Transitway was lauded as a pioneering bus rapid transit system, setting a benchmark for cities worldwide. Its dedicated bus lanes and efficient service made public transit a viable option for many residents. However, the shift towards the Light Rail Transit (LRT) system, particularly the Confederation Line, marked the beginning of a tumultuous era.

Launched in 2019, the Confederation Line was plagued with issues from the outset. Frequent service disruptions due to door malfunctions, electrical failures, and even derailments became commonplace. These problems not only inconvenienced riders but also necessitated the reallocation of buses to cover LRT routes, further straining the bus network .

Service Cuts and Declining Reliability
In recent years, OC Transpo has implemented significant service reductions, often without adequate public consultation. For instance, in 2021, the agency planned service cuts without seeking rider input, leading to widespread criticism . By 2024, the city had cut $47 million from OC Transpo’s capital budget, removing 117 aging buses without replacements, resulting in a 3.5% reduction in bus service hours .

These cuts have had tangible impacts on riders. Students, for example, have reported overcrowded trains, erratic service, and high fares, leading to dissatisfaction and calls for meaningful reforms . Community feedback has consistently highlighted issues with reliability and a lack of focus on the city core .

Financial Strains and Leadership Challenges
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated OC Transpo’s challenges. A 38% drop in ridership since 2019 led to a $36 million revenue shortfall . Despite these financial strains, the agency increased fares in 2024, disproportionately affecting seniors and youth riders .

Leadership changes have also marked this period. The recent departure of General Manager Renée Amilcar underscores the need for a strategic reevaluation of OC Transpo’s direction. Transit advocates have called for a “serious, honest” review of the system to address its myriad issues .

A Call for a Rider-Centric Vision
To restore public trust and improve service quality, OC Transpo must adopt a rider-centric approach. This includes engaging with the community to understand diverse transit needs, investing in infrastructure to ensure reliability, and providing transparent communication about service changes. Equitable access must be prioritized, ensuring that transit services are affordable and accessible for all demographics.

The challenges facing OC Transpo are significant, but not insurmountable. By focusing on the needs of riders and committing to transparency and accountability, Ottawa can rebuild a public transportation system that serves its citizens effectively and efficiently.