Is Lansdowne 2.0 good for Ottawans? Hard to tell. But I can tell what’s not good for Ottawa: how the mayor was trying to get ahead of the report with some political spin. Read MoreBruce Deachman: Ottawa’s mayor should spend more time talking actual policy details and less time warning us about critics.
Bruce Deachman: Ottawa’s mayor should spend more time talking actual policy details and less time warning us about critics.
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Is Lansdowne 2.0 good for Ottawans? Hard to tell. But I can tell what’s not good for Ottawa: how the mayor was trying to get ahead of the report with some political spin.
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Let me explain what happened Monday morning at Mark Sutcliffe’s hastily convened press conference. The mayor highlighted a new staff report and took questions from the media while standing by a large screen that read “Lansdowne 2.0: More for Less.” (The shopping retailer Target already cornered “Expect More. Pay Less.”)
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But the problem was that the report didn’t exist — at least not in any form that journalists, or anyone else, could see. We were told it would arrive at 2 p.m. — “or so” — with a two-hour window to question staff on background (read: but don’t quote them on it).
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The Evening Citizen
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Why the urgency? CBC’s Arthur White-Crummey smartly put the question to the mayor: Why get ahead of a staff report and present it yourself? Sutcliffe responded that “There’s been a lot of information that’s been in the community on this. Much of it has been misleading, and so I thought it was important … to make myself available to answer your questions, to put some information out there that’s true and accurate, and to do it in a way that was suitable for your deadlines.”
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It’s reassuring that, as a former journalist, the mayor pretends to understand our deadlines. Less comforting is inverting how public information is supposed to work. Flipping that order felt like a political hide-and-seek: Sign here; we’ll send the details later.
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When I asked who put forward the successful bid of $65 million for the air rights to develop the two mixed-use towers above the retail podium — much more than the earlier estimate of $39 million — the mayor said, “That will be in the report that will be out shortly.” Why not just tell us, Mr. Mayor? (If anything for our deadlines!) Or had he not seen it, either?
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I hope we let the dream die for Lansdowne 2.0 | Letters to the Editor
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He said, he said: Lansdowne 2.0 by the numbers
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(For the record, we learned much later, after the working day was done for most Ottawans, that it’s Toronto-based Mirabella Development Corporation.)
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Sutcliffe seemed less interested in giving us actual details at the presser and more keen to warn us about “misinformation.”
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“It’s really important that we tell the truth about Lansdowne to counteract the misinformation campaign that is underway,” the mayor warned, adding that the very small group of people who opposed Lansdowne a decade ago were at it again. “It’s okay to have your own opinion,” he added, “but, because the facts aren’t on their side, some of them are spreading misinformation. They’re deliberately misleading and twisting the facts … Let’s not listen to the people spreading false information. They were wrong last time, and they’re wrong this time.”