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The headlines beckon to newsstand passersby: “Budget watchdog probing summits’ $1-billion price tag,” “Tories defend $2M fake lake,” “Faux Canada,” “Summit security, $1B; fake lake, $57K; jokes, priceless.” The press, the opposition and public alike have spent the months leading up to June’s G8 and G20 – in Muskoka and Toronto respectively – decrying the growing cost of hosting  the world summits while the government defends its decisions down to the last dime.

Harsh critique of government spending is hardly a new trend, but it seems have gone into overdrive regarding the summits. “There is often a strong reaction to the amount of money spent by the host country,” Jenilee Guebert, research director of the G8 and G20 Research Groups at the University of Toronto, says. “But it often only comes in the host country.”

According to a report released by the group on June 4, tallying up a final cost for G8 and G20 summits is difficult, as the factors are as varying as “already available facilities at the summit sites, regular and overtime salaries, accommodations, travel expenses, meals, security, technology, infrastructure, communication and service staff.” The report also points out that some host countries benefit from existing facilities, and some of the costs can become ‘lost’ in the different ways the hosts report their spending.

Previous summits in Canada have cost taxpayers a pretty penny: $5.5 million in 1981, between $20 and $29.3 million in 1988, $192-300 million in 2002 and an estimated $1.1 billion this year (all figures CDN).

This year’s price tag includes a whopping $933 million in security alone, but Canada appears to be in good company on that end: most of the host countries report well over half their summit expenditures were on security (with some as high as 90 per cent).

Guebert says countries often justify this spending as an opportunity to showcase areas or regions of their country on the world stage (particularly ones that aren’t already well known).

While the benefits of the massive summit spending are equally hard to quantify, the research group has separated them into four general categories: “1) the immediate, visible short term stimulus of higher spending at hotels, restaurants and shops; creation of temporary jobs; 2) longer term economic benefits such as increased tourists and investment that come from increased global name recognition from the knowledge of the host location, media and advertising coverage; 3) new permanent, public infrastructures and upgrades; and 4) the training for security forces and other first responders to prevent and react to mass emergency events.”

Smaller, lesser-known cities such as Huntsville, reap more rewards from hosting than cities such as Toronto, which already has a higher world profile.

The report suggests that Hunstville has already seen a “substantial economic boost.” Of the $1.1 billion, about $50 million has been earmarked for the G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund, which the group claims has been used for things such as road upgrades, signage, office buildings, etc., which fulfills three of the four aforementioned categories. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty have both been touting the cost versus reward to the Huntsville area in the press leading up to the event. The G8 summit alone is officially expected to generate $300 million in economic benefits. 

The 2002 G8 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta (with a media centre in Calgary) cost somewhere between $192 to $300 million, according to the report. The Calgary Herald reported just before the summit that it would “create the equivalent of 1,500 ‘full-time’ jobs in the Calgary region and a total of 1,800 jobs in Alberta, worth more than $499.5 million in wages and salaries for the province. Tax revenue from G8 related spending will exceed $50 million, with $29.7 million going to Ottawa, $15.5 million to Alberta and $5.1 million to Calgary and other local municipalities.”

While the press and taxpayers criticized government spending for this summit as well, costs were scaled back in comparison to the 2000 summit in Okinawa, Japan. Guebert says rather than trying to out do the previous host, “ Each country deals with summits in their own way. They do not necessary always try and up one another. For example, the summits following Okinawa in 2000 were much less expensive.”

 As noted by Global Maritimes,“The G20 summit is expected to generate about $100 million in economic activity for Toronto . . . After taking several questions on security preparations, Tourism Toronto president David Whitaker sought to steer journalists back to a discussion about "celebrating" what the city had to offer.” It is to the government’s advantage to keep the press focused as much as possible on the benefits, and not on the amount of taxpayer dollars being used to fund extravagant meals, conference and meeting costs and of course, man-made lakes. If the coverage leading up to the summit is any indication, the cliché that all press is good press does not hold true in this situation.

Weighing in on City Plight Before Going to the Polls

 As Ottawa’s population swiftly approaches 1 million, we have a chance to redefine ourselves. Do we want to continue our urban sprawl and house a massive suburban area? Do we want to build up — not out — and increase density by intensifying the downtown core, thus having buildings closer together and become more reliant on public transit? Do we want to spend $2.1 billion on a transit tunnel? Do we want our tourists to be approached by the army of homeless people in the ByWard market? Do we want Sparks Street to be a vibrant pedestrian street that showcases our diverse culture — or should we just give up and open it to traffic? Landscape Architect and urban expert George Dark puts it nicely: “All cities find their own time. Toronto became a huge multicultural focal point around the world; Vancouver became the vertical city among the mountains; Montreal became a city deep with culture and history; Ottawa is going through this busting out phase, and we need to determine how much it’s going to define itself in its own terms.” It’s not up to the federal government, the NCC, or the province. It’s up to us, Ottawa citizens, and with a municipal election coming up on October 25, 2010, there has never been a better time to shed light on some areas of distress with hopes that these plights will find solutions.

BYWARD MARKET

Last year I found myself at the Munich Airport in Germany with a few hours to kill. Like any good journalist, I made way to the bookstore and was flipping through the pages of The Lonely Planet—I’m always curious to see what people around the world are reading about Ottawa. Under the crime section it read, “It’s best to avoid Rideau Street between Sussex Drive and King Edward Avenue. In the daytime it’s cluttered with smoke-spewing buses and hoards of commuters, and in the evening it’s the preferred hangout for vagrants. The friendly ByWard Market can get a bit of an edge in the late evening with minor drug and prostitute traffic.” Having worked for tips in the ByWard Market to help with university tuition, this scathing remark came as no surprise.

In reading this disconcerting review halfway across the world, one has to wonder about Ottawa’s reputation on an international stage. Back in Ottawa, I trekked through the hoards of commuters, holding my breath through the smoke-spewing buses and head into Chapters on Rideau Street to see what other international publications are saying about our beautiful ByWard Market.

Sadly, they all echo a similar sentiment. Frommer’s writes, “In recent years the number of homeless people and panhandlers has increased,” and warns “two specific places to avoid are the pedestrian underpass on the South side of Confederation Square just West of the Rideau Centre and the main East- West ByWard Market streets between Dalhousie and King Edward.” a lot of readers across the globe being warned about our underbelly.

In the 2006 Municipal election, Larry O’Brien promised to solve homelessness in the ByWard Market through a “businesslike” method. Local political activist Shawn Menard suggests, “O’Brien’s solution was to put up these kindness meters,” they look like parking meters but the money donated goes toward solving Ottawa’s homeless problem, “but did they help anything? No. They were a huge failure because they weren’t a realistic solution,” and suggests “Ottawa needs to invest in affordable housing stock. Even if you look at it from a financial standpoint, it makes sense: Affordable housing costs about $18,000 a year per person, but it can cost $100,000 to keep them on the street because of the services they are using.”

Ottawa is the Capital of one of the greatest countries in the world, and the ByWard Market is without a doubt the epicentre of hustle and bustle. Perhaps it’s time we vest a little more interest in our reputation abroad and instead of wasting time and resources on utterly useless solutions we should spend more time considering real solutions, like affordable housing.

SPARKS STREET

Sparks Street never used to be a dump. In fact, it attracted thousands of tourists and locals daily looking to shop and dine. But as far back as most memories go, Sparks Street has suffered from an unfortunate decline in pedestrian traffic. Go there after sunset and you’ll hear crickets. Have you ever graced a piazza in Italy? On any given night, they are full of people sipping espresso, enjoying gelato or simply people watching.

Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, shares a similar population and demographic to Ottawa. Their pedestrian Street, Strøget, sees up to 250,000 people every day. The potential for Sparks Street to be great is there, but why has it been under utilized for so long? Most would argue, because it’s a logistical nightmare. Trying to find whose in charge of Sparks Street is like playing Where’s Waldo with a blindfold on.

According to Jean Wolff from the NCC, “The entire north side (closest to Parliament) belongs to federal Public Works,” and as for the south side, “33.8 per cent is privately owned, 49.5 per cent is federal Public Works again, and only 16.7 per cent is the NCC.” It should go without saying that the NCC is willing to take only 16.7 per cent of the blame... if that.

But, the NCC’s mandate in accordance to the National Capital Act is to “organize, sponsor or promote such public activities and events in the National Capital Region as will enrich the culture and social fabric of Canada.” Well, what’s wrong Sparks Street? Can’t it play a role in enriching the culture and social fabric of Canada? Even with its claimed 16.7 per cent of ownership, the NCC’s assets on Sparks Street must be in the tens of millions, and yet nothing happens. What about Winterlude? Surely they could facilitate an ice sculpture display, or for that matter, a Bluesfest stage? Or incorporate the Jazz Festival? Or even the Tulip Festival? These aren’t ground breaking ideas, so why haven’t any been implemented?

Sad thing is, when things do happen on Sparks Street, it’s usually haphazard. Dr. Bruce Firestone asks, “Why does the City spend $5.5 million on cobblestone walkways and fountains that barely work,” and suggests “it’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” But Sparks Street doesn’t have to sink. Dr. Firestone exclaims “fixing Sparks is no secret; the solution is the same for any street or community. We need to follow the neo-urbanism movement and have at least 35,000 people living within a 10 minute walk.”

The City Councillor that represents Sparks Street, Diane Holmes, agrees that Sparks is in need of more housing close by, and points out that when sold and rezoned the old Ottawa Technical High School site would allow for 1,000 extra units to be built. So, 1,000 down and 34,000 to go!

Having so many different players on Sparks Street isn’t working. Something needs to be done. The NCC, the City, The BIA, the private owners, and the federal Public Works need to work together or somebody needs to step up to the plate and take charge. Sparks Street is bursting at the seams with potential; we just need to harness it.

DYSFUNCTIONAL COUNCIL

For the most part, Ottawa citizens ignore municipal politics. It’s a government city and federal matters often overshadow city affairs. Trouble is, nothing affects our day to day life more than the decisions made in the Council Chambers.

This lack of citizen engagement is starting to rub off on City Council— who as of late has seemed a little too laissez-faire about things. Part of this problem can be blamed on Ottawa’s raging incumbency issue, which, as Shawn Menard points out, “is a huge problem in Ottawa. After two straight elections where no incumbents lost a bid for re-election, it has some hoping for a cleaning of the house similar to what Crombie and Sewell did in Toronto in the 1970s.

But George Dark suggests it’s not as bad as many suspect, stating our Council isn’t any more or less dysfunctional than any other big city, “There’s maybe a tendency to rely on the government for a solution and to think the government will quickly deliver a solution.” Perhaps that is too much to ask for, but whether Ottawa expects too much from the government or not, there is a problem.

A few years back the CBC ran a story about an Ottawa business having to pay $45,000 in fees to relocate in a similar neighbourhood. So it packed up and went to Gatineau were it was significantly less expensive, the process went faster and the City even provided a free all day street parking pass.

Average people running small businesses should not need to pay exorbitant amounts to simply relocate. They shouldn’t need to cut through yards of red tape or pay for a planning consultant. These kinds of regulations are detrimental to our entrepreneurial spirit. It’s no wonder Ottawa ranks 9th in Canada when it comes to small business growth.

If we are going to take economic growth seriously, we need to foster a friendly environment to do business. As it stands, there’s not much that is friendly about it.

TRANSIT

How long have we been hearing about Ottawa’s transit debacle? The same song has been playing like a broken record for the past... how many years? Ottawa’s transit system has been inadequate well before the 55-day bus strike. Shawn Menard argues, “you have a bus strike that cost the city over $500 million that simultaneously debilitated small businesses and further eroded public trust in the system and what’s their genius marketing campaign to improve ridership? A 5.4 per cent rise in fares slated for next year. That compounds to just over 30 per cent in the past 3 years.” How raising the cost, again, is supposed to increase ridership is beyond me.

Another transit issue that needs to be solved is the east-west tunnel system that will cost $2.1 billion and won’t be complete until 2031. Menard insists, “There are less expensive, equally effective options are available now,” suggesting, “we extend the O-Train’s north and south rail lines right now— the tracks already exist,” But the powers that be have this fixation on an elaborate LRT tunnel and a huge fleet of new buses.

If you missed the headlines, the fleet of new buses came from a “limited time offer” that New Flyer so graciously extended to Ottawa. New Flyer offered us a 19 per cent discount on 226 buses. The City was only planning on buying 80 new buses but Councillors voted 18-3 in favour of an impulse buy that cost taxpayers $155 million. But wait, since we bought the buses using borrowed money, we actually paid $210 million after interest. How much was that discount again?

Yes, repairing the older buses was costly, and the new buses are more fuel efficient, but as Councillor Christine Leadman says “one week [to take the offer] to me, that’s not enough time. To me, that’s accommodating New Flyer,” and we have more buses spewing smoke on Rideau Street. The song is getting old and its high time proper decisions are made. If you’re going to build a ridiculously expensive tunnel to house a train, don’t buy 226 brand new buses—it makes no sense.

The Best of Both Worlds

I was late for work on Friday. “I had to go pick up the Farmer’s gun at the repair shop,” was my excuse. In the past it has been, “Sorry I’m late – damn donkey got his head stuck in the feeder,” or “My apologies – my cow’s water broke just as I was leaving for work.” My life on a 200- acre farm outside Oxford Mills is a constant source of entertainment for my colleagues at a marketing/ communications firm in Westboro. I post my weekly stories on the bulletin board by the water cooler and host a staff party on the farm at the end of the summer.

I grew up surrounded by farms, but I never imagined I’d live on a farm of my own one day. Then I met the Farmer.

After a year of courting, the single father of two asked me, a single mother of three, to be his wife. The first thought that crossed my mind was, “we are going to have five daughters in one house. We need another bathroom.” My fiancé was a university professor. I didn’t give a whole lot of thought to his other role – that of a sheep farmer.

We married on the farm in August, 2007. As I settled in to my new life on the farm, I studied the animals’ behaviour, took note of their personalities and wrote stories about them. But I wasn’t really hands-on. And then came lambing season.

“If I know you, you will want to tuck baby lambs into every spare bed of the house,” the Farmer said. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. But when lambs were born throughout a -30º February to mothers with little milk and even less maternal instinct, I did ask my husband to build me an infirmary with a heat lamp in the basement of the farmhouse, so that I could thaw out my charges and nurse them back to health. Eighty lambs were born my first winter as a farmwife. We lost only one. I had bottle-fed a dozen of them myself.

Then opportunity came knocking in the shape of a challenging and rewarding new job in the city, and he assured me that we could balance our life on the farm with my new job in the city.

No sooner had I accepted the position than a young ewe-lamb gave birth to twins that she had no intention of feeding. I panicked. Who would feed my lambs while I was an hour away in the city? I turned to the Farmer.

“You will just have to teach them to feed themselves,” he reasoned. I filled a large calf bottle with milk replacer, strapped it to the side of the pen and held the lambs up to it until they learned how to drink from it themselves. After three days of “training”, I was able to fill the bottle, go to work in the city and return ten hours later to fill the bottle again. I was pretty proud of myself. The lambs thrived. And so did I, in my exciting new career.

If I feel I need to be close to the animals for some reason, I am able to work from home occasionally. But there is rarely a problem of emergency proportions that will not wait until we get home.

The farm has become a retreat for our city folk family and friends, who often travel out on weekends to wind down and relax. We rarely watch TV because life is entertaining enough when you have dozens of animals to look after. I think the fact that we rarely get sick is also attributed to the hours spent every day in the fresh air, pitching hay and shoveling manure. This work keeps you honest. And the mindless activity of manual labour is great for meditating on the other stresses of life.

Granted, if you live on a working farm, you don’t take many vacations. But I have lived overseas in a big, exciting city, I have been to dozens of beach resorts in my life, and I concur with the Farmer when he says, “I live where I want to spend my holidays.”

Mixing the best of rural and urban life is a pleasure, and a privilege.

Diana Fisher, also known as The Accidental Farmwife, writes a weekly column for Ottawa Region Media Group community newspapers (http//:theaccidentalfarmwife.blogspot.com). On weekdays, she is a full-time project manager for gordongroup marketing + communications.

If one had to pick the pharmaceutical company most associated with unethical and illegal conduct this past year, it would likely be Pfizer. So it seems reasonable to respond with disbelief and outrage to the federal government’s October 5, 2009 appointment of Dr. Bernard Prigent – Vice President, Medical Director and registered lobbyist for Pfizer Canada – to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Governing Council (CIHR GC). This is the body that sets the strategic direction for most federally funded health research in Canada.

This appointment is outrageous because of the conflicts of interest it creates. It is also hard to believe because of Pfizer’s record on scientific integrity. Surely we deserve better from our government.

A senior executive from a for-profit pharmaceutical company should not be given a seat at the CIHR GC table because, at that table, he or she will be faced with unmanageable conflicts of interest. Members of the CIHR GC have an ethical obligation to promote “the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system.” In sharp contrast, senior executives in the pharmaceutical sector (pharma) have a legal obligation to maximize profit. Where members of the CIHR GC have an ethical obligation to pursue the public interest, senior pharma executives have a legal obligation to serve their employers’ interests. To be blunt: the interests of ordinary Canadians are not the same as the interests of pharma shareholders; maximizing profit does not maximize health.

The conflicts of interest are obviously even more acute for a registered lobbyist. A seat at the CIHR GC table provides the lobbyist with nontransparent access to the very people he is registered to lobby. Some of the discussions at that table and (perhaps more importantly) at the interstices of meetings will undoubtedly include some of the topics he is registered to lobby about. This seems to fly in the face of the Lobbyist Act and its goals of transparency and accountability regarding lobbying activities in Ottawa.

This appointment also damages CIHR’s reputation. The Minister of Health and the President and GC of CIHR have hitched CIHR’s star to Pfizer – a company infamous for illegal and unethical conduct. For example, in September 2009, Pfizer agreed to a US$2.3 billion settlement in relation to its fraudulent marketing of its drugs. This settlement included a $1.2 billion criminal fine – the largest in US history. Bestowing on Pfizer the honour of association with the CIHR GC will have a corrosive effect on public trust and damage CIHR’s hard-earned reputation for furthering research that meets the highest international standards of ethics and scientific excellence.

Supporters of the appointment argue that Dr. Prigent’s conflicts of interest will be few and far between. But this is simply untrue – the conflicts will be pervasive because the CIHR GC “oversees the direction and management of CIHR. It develops strategic directions, goals and policies; evaluates the agency’s overall performance; and approves the budget.” Consider just a few of the CIHR GC’s responsibilities where pharma has interests that potentially conflict with the public interest. Pharma has an interest in terminating an Institute that funds research into how changes to patent law could decrease the costs of drugs and improve the health of Canadians. Pharma has an interest in terminating the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network – the body that will provide independent information on the safety and effectiveness of drugs after they are put on the market (recall that the dangers of Vioxx and thalidomide became known only after they had been approved by Health Canada). Pharma has an interest in weakening the guidelines for research involving humans and the overall governance structure for research ethics. Pharma has an interest in the budget allocations as between research into preventive care versus research into drug discovery. Pharma has an interest in many things about which the CIHR GC could give advice to the Minister of Health. And the list goes on…

Supporters of the appointment also argue that Dr. Prigent brings essential expertise in commercialization to the GC. But there are, of course, other ways to get access to commercialization expertise without importing these serious conflicts of interest. Bring in someone from a commercialization think tank. Appoint an Advisory Committee of industry executives and talk with them at length. But do not give pharma executives and registered lobbyists decision-making authority over the research agenda of our nation’s health research funding council.

Much is driving the opposition to this appointment (for more arguments, visit www.noveltechethics.ca). More than 4,200 Canadians signed an online petition calling for the withdrawal of this appointment. The signatories include members of the general public from across the country as well as researchers from all disciplines (including Canada Research Chairs, members of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Order of Canada), and Deans of Medicine, Law, and Health Professions. In addition, both the CIHR Institute Advisory Board Ethics Designates and the CIHR Standing Committee on Ethics have expressed serious concerns about this appointment. Furthermore, there is dissent about this appointment among the Scientific Directors of the 13 CIHR Institutes. It is time for all of these voices to be heard. Parliament, are you listening?