Save Wellington Street !

Eleven months ago on June 22, 2010 we had launched the “Save Wellington Street” campaign and this website, along with a twitter account and a facebook page.

We want to thank wholeheartedly everyone who has been supportive of the campaign and our position to advocate in favor of safeguarding the name of Wellington Street downtown Ottawa.

To mark the anniversary and because there’s been much talk about the “Commemorative Naming Policy” lately, we thought we would take a look at the policy’s key points:

1- A commemorative name honours individuals who have: demonstrated excellence, courage or exceptional service to the citizens of the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario and/or Canada; provided extensive community service; worked to foster equality and reduce discrimination; made a significant financial contribution to a park or facility, and the contribution significantly benefits the community that the park or facility serves or who has historical significant to the community, City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario and/or Canada.

2- Any member of the public or City Council may submit a name to the City for consideration.

3- As part of the process, a preliminary investigation of the commemorative name will be conducted to ensure the name has not been used in the past and that the nomination is meritorious.

4- If the Commemorative Naming Committee approves the application, it will then be subjected to a 60-day public consultation phase to ensure there is community support for the proposal.

5- Following the consultation process, the Commemorative Naming Committee – consisting of applicable departmental City staff, the Mayor or his/her designate and the Ward Councillor – will be reconvened to consider the comments received.

6- If there is majority public support for the proposal – the Committee will make a recommendation to the applicable standing committee and City Council to proceed with the application.

In our opinion, this is how the proposal to rename the downtown section of Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill to Sir John A. Macdonald would score against the six criteria above:

- Sir John A. Macdonald was certainly an historic figure, this is not a point of debate. As an organization who owes half of its name to Sir John A., we are not opposed to more commemorations of Macdonald, we are opposed to the flagrant case of historic amnesia that has been witnessed at city hall in the last eleven months (#1).

- Neither Bob Plamondon (the sole proponent of the renaming) nor Councillor Peter Hume (sponsor of the initiative inside city hall) have submitted an application for the name to be considered. For an application to be submitted, an affidavit needs to be signed, etc. (#2)

- If an “preliminary investigation of the commemorative name” was undertaken, it would become obvious very quickly that although the nomination is meritorious, the name of Macdonald is already in use, and has been since the 1870s. Indeed, as pointed out several times across this website, there exists already a MacDonald Street (notwithstanding the spelling mistake) which is located in the proximity of City Hall and also happens to be parallel to Cartier Street (#3).
Macdonald and Cartier were the leading Fathers of Confederation in the years leading to 1867 and they belong together, like twins. Their street being parallel and remaining so makes sense.

- In the worst-case scenario by which the committee would blindly agree to consider the renaming of Ottawa’s oldest street, there would still be a mandatory public consultation for 60-days (#4).

- The current proposal does not have the support of Jim Watson (Mayor) and Diane Holmes (Ward Councillor) is on record for being one of the 4 who voted against the consultations back in July 2010. She was friendly of our case. The departmental City staff would have the third vote on the Commemorative Naming Committee (#5).

- And it does not have majority public support for the proposal (#6).

We hope that the above criteria and our interpretations of the policy were helpful.

If you wish to read the policy yourself or contact the city with question, you should visit the city’s website here. As per the explanation on the city’s website, this policy dates back to July 2002.

If you are curious about how the discussion happened back in 2002, well we retrieved for you the original report prepared and submitted by Kent Kirkpatrick to the Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee in July 2002.

As promised in Part 2, let’s now take a look at the Report to the Planning and Environment Committee prepared December 2003 and presented to committee January 2004.

From the beginning of the report, the Background section re-affirms the decision of City Council to maintain the name of “Wellington Street” for the section in front of Parliament:

The business owners on Wellington Street between Bayview Road and Western Avenue expressed an urgency to have their street name changed both to clarify their specific location and unique identity. On September 24, 2003, City Council approved the retention of “Wellington Street” between Rideau Street and the Ottawa River Parkway, and to change “Wellington Street”, for the section between Bayview Road and Island Park Drive, to “Wellington Street West”. The Committee deferred their decision affecting the middle section for further consultation with the affected occupants on Champagne Street N. and in the City Centre complex.

It is also worth noting the wording of Recommendation 1 :

Wellington Street (Albert Street to Bayview Road)

Unlike Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill and Wellington Street in the West Wellington/Hintonburgh business district, the middle section is not notable.

Therefore, if the section Albert/Bayview is not notable, it necessarily means the section in front of Parliament Hill is notable.

Before moving on to the city council meeting that followed, we should also take a look at the letter sent to the affected owners. In the same matter as the letter sent in the previous phase, it was again Don Brousseau who sent the letter (dated July 25, 2003 – File Number D07-13-02-0004):

The first section is found fronting on Parliament Hill and forms part of the well known Parliamentary Precinct and National Capital Commission ceremonial route, and it is considered historically important to retain the name.

The key words are “historically important”.
Therefore, if Wellington Street was “historically important”, it remains the same in 2011 !!

The city council meeting approved the recommendations from the report, and once again the section in front of Parliament Hill was left unchanged.

Part 1 of the mid-May update was updated again to reflect some breaking news.

As of this afternoon, we can confirm that the NCC confirmed that they had not been consulted by the City of Ottawa.

We need not remind that consultations on the matter of renaming Wellington Street were approved on July 5, 2010. That this was ten and half months ago !

Stay tuned …

Following yesterday’s update, some additional items are worth noting:

1- In September 2003 and January 2004, the Planning committee and city council reviewed the historical naming anomaly concerning Wellington Street (three distinct, separate, segments baring the name “Wellington Street”). From this process, it resulted that the western section was renamed Wellington Street West and the middle section was renamed Albert Street. Both these segments were renamed following months of extensive public consultations. In particular, it was the business community who pushed to have the western section of Wellington Street renamed. This was not an initiative from a councillor.

2- It is also worth mentioning that during the 2003-2004 period when these changes were considered, the portion of Wellington Street downtown was protected, considering the “international status” and the “historical importance” of the street. It is after all, the seat of the Parliament of Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada, the Library and Archives Canada, and thousands of Hill staffers have offices on this particular street.

In particular, it was the Analysis section – Recommendation 1 of the report to the Planning and Development Committee presented to city council 27 August 2003 that was most interesting :

This section of Wellington Street is well known as the primary access to the Parliamentary Precinct. It is referenced in national and international publications as the address for Parliament Hill, the Supreme Court and the National Library. Wellington Street forms part of the National Capital Commission (NCC) Confederation Boulevard, is recognized as a ceremonial route and a tourist destination in the Nations Capital. The NCC has indicated their formal objection to any consideration of a street name change. The Department is recommendingthat this section retain the existing name “Wellington Street”.

(emphasis added)

In the quote above, “The Department” refers to the Development Services department, which is now known as the Planning & Growth Management Department. The report was prepared by Ned Lathrop, who was the General Manager of the Department. He moved on to become the Deputy City Manager. He retired in May 2006 and was since replaced by Nancy Schepers. Ms. Schepers is now the Deputy City Manager. The current General Manager of the Planning & Growth Management is John Moser. In the hierarchy of the city bureaucracy, Mr. Moser is the superior of Arlene Gregoire, Chief Building Official, Building Code Services Branch.

It is expected that it will be Arlene Gregoire who submits the report in September 2011. And given that there is a direct continuity between the 2003 department and the current department, it would be surprising that the department’s recommendation is different than the one made eight (8) years ago. This historic precedent needs to be reminded to city hall officials as well as city councillors.

3- Let’s look at other elements of the August 2003 report:

Based on the international recognition of “Wellington Street” between Rideau Street and the Western Parkway, the principal land owner, National Capital Commission, opposed a name change to this section.

The above is from the Consultation section.

**This is very significant. The report confirms that the land owner is the NCC. And this make sense as Wellington Street is part of the ceremonial road Confederation Boulevard and as such has NCC street signs and not Ottawa street signs.

And here is another interesting quote:

Due to the significance of Wellington Street as the primary address for the Parliament Buildings, the Supreme Court of Canada and other significant national monuments and buildings, Wellington Street for this section will remain unchanged.

The quote above is from the letter (dated February 28, 2003 – File Number D07-13-02-0004) from city hall to affected owners of the western section of Wellington Street. It was sent by Don Brousseau (By-law Administrator, Building Services Branch, Development Services Department in 2003 and currently Senior Policy Officer, Building Code Services Branch)

It is important to underline that this issue, of renaming the western section of Wellington Street, was brought forward by the business community, had extensive consultations and strong support. This is not the case with the renaming of Wellington Street section in front of Parliament. Quite the contrary. So far, this issue has been pushed by one person and lacks support from the community. Heritage organizations and advocates in Ottawa have been vocal to oppose the renaming of the segment downtown.

4- It is also worth noting some of the comments that were given by councillors during the discussion related to the report.

First,
Councillor Little :

This was first raised by business owners along that stretch of road due to the difficulty in locating businesses and to differentiate between the Hintonburg and downtown portion. He asked for Committee support of his Motion and that of the community, although there was a contrary recommendation by staff.

Second,

Councillor Harder supported Councillor Little’s Motion. For Emergency and Protective Services (EPS) purposes, there is no question residents know where Wellington Street is located in the downtown core.

Taking into consideration these comments, it becomes obvious that the renaming of Wellington Street in front of Parliament is NOT done for concerns of EPS purposes. On the contrary, renaming the oldest street to Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard would create confusion with the current MacDonald Street (behind city hall).

Before concluding, it is important to emphasize that the August 2003 report and the September 2003 meetings were concerning the western section of Wellington in Hintonburg.

The decision to rename the middle section of Wellington was deferred and was dealt with in January 2004. This decision will be analysed in Part 3 of the update, to be posted tomorrow.

Stay tuned…

It has been over a months since the last update and since city council approved the renaming of Robertson Road, creating a dangerous precedent that we now need to avoid repeating.

1- There is nothing new from the NCC. We are however waiting confirmation on whether city hall has contacted them since the last update. As of May 19th PM, it has been confirmed that the NCC had not been consulted by the City of Ottawa yet.

2- The last status report reveals that there will be a report concerning the renaming of Wellington Street downtown, to be tabled September 13, 2011.
It is ironic to note that it will be 159 years minus one day after the death of the Duke of Wellington, Sept 14th 1852. An insult to the Iron Duke!

3- The last meetings of the Planning Committee were on April 26th and May 12th. This item was not on their agenda.

4- The next meeting of the Planning Committee is on May 24, 2011. Wellington Street is not on the agenda. There will be two more meetings before the end of 2011Q2 and nothing indicates Wellington Street will be considered before the report is tabled in September (see above #2).

5- Regarding the Robertson Road case, the controversy is growing. It is worth mentioning because of the many parallels that can be drawn between the two issues. Despite city council already voting on this matter, there is now a petition with 1300 names (1200 residents and 100 businesses) who are protesting the renaming.

A relative of Robertson is even calling on city council to reverse its decision.

6- Further to the issue of Robertson Road, and specifically to the complete disregard of city protocol (e.g. following the Commemorative Naming Policy), the Arts, Heritage and Culture Advisory Committee has moved to discuss this issue at their meeting yesterday May 17th and a motion will be forthcoming on this matter.

It is absolutely essential that the same mistakes committed with Robertson be not repeated with the proposed renaming of Wellington Street.

Stay tuned …

Part 2 of this update will be posted on May 19th followed by Part 3 on May 20th.

1- We can confirm that the NCC has not been consulted by the City of Ottawa so far. This is current as of April 5th

2- According to the latest “status update” from the Planning Committee, there has been no progress made on this file. No consultations, and this after more than 9 months.

3-The last meeting of the Planning Committee was on April 12th. This item was not on their agenda. They were busy renaming Robertson Road (more on that below).

4- The next meeting of the Planning Committee is on April 26, 2011. The agenda for that meeting must be released five business days ahead, so expect April 18 or 19th.

5- On April 13th, City Council approved the renaming of Robertson Road, named after John Robertson, foreman of the Rideau Canal. This was rushed through Planning Committee on April 12th and then approved on the 13th without much notice.

The same situation risks being repeated when the Planning Committee considers renaming Wellington Street. It is one of the next items to be discussed within the near future.

The renaming of Robertson Road was assigned motion no. PEC 05-10 and renaming Wellington Street was assigned motion no. PEC 06-10.

Considering that the Commemorative Naming Policy was completely ignored in the case of renaming Robertson Road, can we expect the same treatment for Wellington Street ? It would be unacceptable.

6- Mayor Jim Watson has re-confirmed his support for our campaign. He had previously given his support back in July 2010. It was essential to re-confirm the position of the Mayor remains to not support the renaming of Wellington Street.

The new city council has been sworn-in and the new standing committee memberships are now known. The former Planning and Environment Committee (PEC) has been split in two:
- Planning Committee
and
- Environment Committee

Going ahead, it is assumed that it will be the Planning Committee who will have it within its duties to continue dealing with the “issue” of the renaming of Wellington Street. The membership of the Planning committee is as following:

Planning Committee, chaired by Councillor Peter Hume: Councillor Stephen Blais, Councillor Rainer Bloess, Councillor Rick Chiarelli, Councillor Jan Harder, Councillor Katherine Hobbs, Councillor Allan Hubley, Councillor Bob Monette, Councillor Shad Qadri, Councillor Mark Taylor.

Of these ten members, only three were present when the former committee had narrowly approved the so-called “consultations”. One could hope that Councillor Peter Hume, re-appointed to the chairmanship of this committee, will seize this new opportunity to lift the veil of secrecy that has been surrounding these “consultations”.

In over five and half months, the primary stakeholder in these so-called consultations, the National Capital Commission have not yet been consulted !

It should be reminded to the reader of this site that the proposal to rename Wellington Street is not currently following the normal due process. The primary and only supporter of this ill-considered initiative is Bob Plamondon, who was a former consultant to former mayor O’Brien and was given a special by-pass to bring his idea to a standing committee instead of following the regular procedure. Following due process would had involved submitting a street renaming proposal, which has not been done.

Any member of the public or City Council may submit a name to the City for consideration. As part of the process, a preliminary investigation of the commemorative name will be conducted to ensure the name has not been used in the past and that the nomination is meritorious.

From the above, it is obvious that the proposal to rename Wellington Street to Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard clearly violates the city’s Commemorative Naming Policy. This initiative is also without merits given that the City of Ottawa has already a street that commemorates our first prime minister. The street named MacDonald Street has existed since the 1880s.

It should also be noted that the proposed name Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard would not fit on the regular street name blade and exceeds the character limit. Even Bob Plamondon admits to this on his website:

Technically, Sir John A. Macdonald is too long for our standard street name blade.

Mr Plamondon also recognizes that he was previously told by city staff that …

For safety reasons, we do not duplicate names or parts of a name that have been already been assigned to streets, or other public facilities. Thus, if there is a Macdonald St somewhere in Ottawa or John St, the name would not be entertained

… yet he continues to ignore the warning signs that his ill-considered proposal is both a waste of time for city staff, the committee and councillors and a waste of taxpayer money as the costs to replace the letterheads, business cards and other materials for the thousands of workers on Wellington Street would cost above the one million dollars.

Ironically, Bob Plamondon’s own website lists Macdonald Street as alternative to his own proposed longer name, yet he refuses to recognize that there is already a MacDonald Street in Ottawa.

As we approach 2011, the year of the 185th anniversary of Wellington Street, our National Capital’s oldest street, one can only hope that cooler heads will prevail and the so-called consultations approved by the former PEC will be cancelled as they have not even started yet. With the leadership of newly elected mayor Jim Watson, the city council of Ottawa should embrace history and recognize the heritage value, history and special status that Wellington Street represents.

Instead of trying to rename one of Ottawa’s most famous and well-known street, Mr. Plamondon should join with the Macdonald-Cartier Society’s common-sense alternative proposal: to rename the bland that is currently Airport Parkway to Macdonald-Cartier Airport Parkway, a proposal that not only makes sense because it leads to the Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, but also protects the duo of Macdonald-Cartier that characterises Ottawa. The city currently has the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge between Gatineau and Ottawa, the parallel streets MacDonald and Cartier and of course the international airport. Across the province, Ontarians are also familiar with the Macdonald-Cartier Highway (Hwy 401).

Respecting the duo formed by Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George-Étienne Cartier respects the history of our country from pre-Confederation and post-Confederation periods, and until current times.

The past is a memory that all must cherish and remember, and not try to erase for their own personal gains as is the case with Mr. Plamondon who has been using the initiative to rename Wellington Street to sell his own book.

Wellington Street belongs to all Canadians.
And Canadians have rejected the proposal to rename our National Capital’s oldest street.

With the Ottawa municipal election now over for almost a full day, here is a partial analysis of what it means for the battle to save Wellington Street and preserve the historical and heritage value of our National Capital’s oldest street.

Ottawa city council has 1 mayor and 23 councillors.

There is one new mayor, 10 new councillors and 13 re-elected incumbents.
Of the incumbents, four are members of  the Planning and Environment Committee which is responsible for the fiasco around Wellington Street that started with the July 5th vote 4-3 in favor of a “consultation”. This so-called “consultation” violates the city’s municipal addressing by-law and most importantly, the city’s Commemorative Naming Policy.
Of these 4 PEC members, three can be labeled as hostile because in favor of the first step leading to an eventual renaming: Hume (committee chair and primary supporter, friend and ally of Bob Plamondon), Qadri and Monette. Diane Holmes from Somerset Ward 14 voted against the proposal and is considered friendly.

Of the other four PEC members not returning the most notable one was Michel Bellemare whose support was a deal-breaker in the 4-3 vote. His amendment was accepted as a friendly one as chair Hume was in panic mode after seeing six presentations against the proposal, and a single one, Plamondon’s, in favor of the renaming and the historical vandalism. Michel Bellemare was defeated by Tim Tierney who did not respond to the survey. The other PEC members not returning  are losing mayoral candidate Clive Doucet and retiring Peggy Feltmate (both voted against the renaming) and Gord Hunter (was absent on July 5th). It is noteworthy that Feltmate was the vice-chair of the committee.

Although not desirable as an outcome, it is likely that Peter Hume will be re-appointed as chair of the committee and will continue to support the renaming and the historical vandalism it represents.

The position of vice-chair is now vacant and it will be interesting to see who is chosen to this position. This leaves six other voting member positions. It is very likely that at least 4 and perhaps 5 of the total 8 will be newly elected councillors.

Which leads us to the analysis of the 10 councillors-elect. First a recap of their names (ward number in brackets):
- Mark Taylor (7)
- Keith Egli (9)
- Tim Tierney (11) defeated Michel Bellemare
- Mathieu Fleury (12)
- Peter Clark (13)
- Katherine Hobbs (15)
- David Chernushenko (17)
- Stephen Blais (19)
- Scott Moffatt (21)
-  Allan Hubley (23)

Fleury, Hobbs, Chernushenko, Moffatt responded to the election survey and were committed to oppose the renaming.
The other six councillors-elect did not respond to the election survey.

And finally to the position of mayor. The citizens of Ottawa, maybe you reading this campaign site, voted for Jim Watson. As a mayoral candidate, Mr. Watson was opposed to the renaming and said so unequivocally, he would not support this initiative. We are glad he won. Two of the other four leading mayoral candidates were also opposing the renaming, as well as Charlie Taylor who finished 8th. Only former mayor O’Brien,  a close friend of Bob Plamondon, was assumed to be supporting the renaming. It is noteworthy that Mr. Plamondon was employed as consultant to O’Brien, and this is likely how he won his support and how he was able to bypass the regular process to submit a street name change proposal.

If were are not already aware of it, you should know that no request/application for a street name change has been submitted. Mr. Plamondon decided to bypass the regular process and use his political connections instead to advance his personal campaign. The motives for renaming Wellington Street are yet to be revealed. And the premise on which this whole initiative was built is very weak… Sir John A. Macdonald is already commemorated with his own street, MacDonald Street and this since the 1880s !!!

The street in front of Parliament is the link between the Capital realm of Parliament Hill north of the street and the Civic realm south of the street. In addition to being the seat of the House of Commons and Senate, Wellington Street is also the location of the Supreme Court of Canada, the National Archives and Library as well as thousands of public servants and hundreds of staff who work in MPs’ and Senators’ offices. The costs of renaming the oldest street of our National Capital are unmeasurable. Instead, we have offered a common-sense alternative, renaming the Airport Parkway which leads to the Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. Renaming this road to the Macdonald-Cartier (Airport) Parkway makes sense and would lead to the airport of the same name. Airport Parkway is administrative bland anyways.

I want to end this partial analysis by taking a minute to once again thanking you for your interest for our campaign and battle to preserve history. Wellington Street belongs to all Canadians. You can follow us on twitter at @savewellington and we are also on facebook, search for “Save Wellington Street”.

If you are of the visual type, below is the list of all the elected and re-elected candidates for mayor and ward councillors. A comment has been added to indicate how each stand, if their position is known, or if they did not respond to the survey.

Mayor / Maire

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 1

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 2

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 3

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 4

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 5

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 6

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 7

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 8

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 9

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 10

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 11

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 12

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 13

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 14

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 15

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 16

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 17

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 18

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 19

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 20

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 21

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 22

Councillor / Conseiller(ère) Ward/Quartier 23