Canada should create a federally managed National Capital Region that removes Ottawa-Gatineau from their respective provinces and places them under federal jurisdiction.
The decision to spread the federal government across two poorly managed cities has created a situation where federal priorities, provincial politics, and municipal quagmires come into conflict five days a week. How many buildings that contain important functions to the country are in Gatineau? How many public service functions are disrupted by the regions inability to develop unified transit? What happens if the border is closed again? How many qualified candidates turn down a job, or move jobs, because of how disjointed transit systems are? In a worst-case scenario, what happens to those buildings and their contents if Quebec ever separates? Which police force has jurisdiction?
I doubt that Ottawa will ever develop a political class that is capable of governing the amalgamated Ottawa. Most Ottawa politicians are good people with honourable intentions who should never have been allowed to run a gamma-level city. The city of Ottawa appears determined to mismanage all things transit. Transit is technically a provincial responsibility, but the Ontario government (particularly the current premier) is focussed on the Golden Horseshoe.
Ottawa and Gatineau are bound together by the federal government’s decision to spread the capital across two cities. The daily commute of public servants is the most obvious manifestation of this union. Both cities appear to have been almost forgotten by their respective provincial governments. Creating the federal NCR would just be caving to the truth. Best of all, the NCC could be abolished.
Ian Weatherall 