Thoughts on Ottawa municipal politics

Recently in Ottawa, the two major challengers to Bob Chiarelli, current Mayor of Ottawa, held campaign kickoffs. Alex Munter and Terry Kilrea clearly offer alternatives to the status quo, each in their own way.

While I think Bob Chiarelli has done an OK job as mayor, I'm going to be supporting Kilrea. An excerpt from his speech at his campaign kickoff explains why:

Recently, a guest columnist in the Ottawa Citizen who shall remain nameless wrote that the size of the City of Ottawa operating budget – 2 billion dollars – means that only big business executives or status-quo politicians can manage it.

What nonsense.

Whether the budget is 2 billion dollars or 2 hundred dollars, certain common sense principles apply:

- You don’t spend what you don’t have – you must live within your means.

- You don’t approve projects without knowing how much they are going to cost or how you are going to pay for them.

-You must prioritize your spending and fund those first before you fund wish list projects.

These are common sense principles that I apply to my everyday life and that I will apply to budget issues.

These are the same common sense principles that the average family in our City applies on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis to their own budgets.

Don’t you think our City would be better off today if our elected officials applied these common sense principles to past budgets?

It is the leadership at City Hall that sets the tenor for a city’s character.
Municipal decision-makers affect our lives most immediately in our neighbourhoods, on our streets, and on our core services.

I promise you a City Hall that spends with wisdom and deference to your hard earned dollars and preserves the core services upon which you rely.

I will not waste your hard-earned money!

Kilrea advocates a lean, effective, focused and limited government at the local level which delivers value for tax dollars on core services. Like I posted a couple of weeks ago, if people want a new multi-million dollar chamber music hall, they can pay for it. Similarly all the other programs that the municpal government provides that the private sector could do if there was sufficient demand. If there's not sufficient demand, then it's not up to government to provide it. The city should concentrate on things like snow removal, sewage, and fixing potholes. I think Kilrea would bring some common sense back to government at the local level and so that's why I'm supporting him.