Where's the NCC?

Mark Kristmanson (CEO National Capital Commission), John Baird (then-Minister for the NCC), Jack Kitts (CEO, Ottawa Hospital)

On the 3rd of November 2014 three men took to the stage to make an important announcement about the future of the Ottawa Hospital. Mark Kristmanson, CEO of the National Capital Commission, John Baird, then-minister for the NCC, and Jack Kitts, CEO of the Ottawa Hospital, were delighted to share the news that 60 acres of research land at the Central Experimental Farm would be transferred from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to the NCC for lease to the Ottawa Hospital.

(Notably absent from the scene was anyone from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.)

As readers of this blog are well aware, this came as a surprise to everyone. The deal was negotiated in secret in early 2014 despite AAFC categorically rejecting a hospital on the site in 2008. Its absence from the event may suggest how its negotiators felt about being involved in the severance.

Nonetheless, in documents obtained through access to information and freedom of information requests, as well as statements by both John Baird in 2016 and Mark Kristmanson in 2015, the National Capital Commission played the key roll in "facilitating" the proposed land transfer.

And yet since the 2015 election the NCC has been all but absent from the scene. Melanie Joly, the new minister for the NCC, has not said a word publicly. Mark Kristmanson seems to have disappeared even though in spring 2014 he was personally commenting on the draft treasury board submission.

The NCC's role deserves to have more light shed on it.

Why, for example, did the NCC fail to include the land severance during its 2014 consultations on the Capital Urban Lands Plan?

(A plan that, conveniently enough, includes a new "non-federal facility" category precisely for these 60 acres. A plan, further, that makes clear it should overrule any other plan for lands under its mandate, including the Central Experimental Farm which has its own longterm management plan. The NCC had the opportunity, and perhaps the responsibility, to bring this forward during the 2014 consultations on the Capital Urban Lands Plan.)

Why, when asked by a consultant hired by AAFC in spring 2014 for details about the Hospital's case did the NCC simply shrug and say "we'll have to go with what we have"?

Why did the NCC, in late April 2014, tell AAFC negotiators that it understood their interests and wanted to help protect them, and then a few days later tell the Hospital that the NCC wants a design that uses the whole 60 acres being offered? That AAFC's interests were its own and not the NCC's? And that perhaps Mark Kristmanson and Jack Kitts should be personally brought to bear to halt complaints from AAFC regarding the size of the land grab?

Jack Kitts of the Ottawa Hospital has been abandoned to carry the water for the NCC as this deal has soured under ever increasing scrutiny. I am sure he is also wondering "Where is the NCC?"

Stop Coveting the Experimental Farm, and Other Thoughts.

Research Fields at the 60 acres, source: GoogleMaps.

You can read my latest op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen here.

My argument has two main points:

One: Jack Kitts, the CEO of the Ottawa Hospital, has stated in earlier articles that it would have been inappropriate to hold consultations before the Hospital had secured a location for a new civic campus and had approval to move their design process forward from the Local Health Integration Network. I disagree for three reasons.

First, in March 2012 the LHIN authorized the Hospital's pursuit of the Experimental Farm land (despite being told by AAFC to look else where in 2008--there's an open question what happened between 2008 and 2012) on the condition that it undertakes "community engagement." Four years and six days will have passed before the first "public information session" which is only supposed to be about the design of a new campus.

Second, the Central Experimental Farm is a National Historic Site of Canada. It has a longterm management plan. There is an advisory council that is supposed to guide its future. Both are readily discoverable with a quick Google search.

Third, the Hospital keeps saying it wants a "21st Century Hospital." It cannot achieve this goal relying on 20th century processes that ignore the very people who would point out the flaws in its arguments. It will be 470 days since the announcement and the first "public information session" and the Hospital has actively avoided consultation as both the Citizen and CBC have reported. A 21st century process would have engaged the community early and often.

Two: The Central Experimental Farm is not a land bank. It is an active research station and a national historic site of Canada. The Farm's longterm management plan acknowledges the importance of ongoing research as the best way to celebrate its role in Canadian history. The Ottawa Hospital, and others, however look at the Farm as empty land. It is not empty although, as I argued in more detail back in November 2014, discursive techniques are being employed to empty it of meaning to facilitate construction and development projects.

The Hospital is treating the Farm as free land. Part of the many flaws in its 2007 site selection process--a process that is still defining its choices--is the idea that the only costs that matter are the Hospital's. It did not take into account the benefits of agricultural research at the Farm, and on the land across the street in particular.

As of mid-February the Hospital still hasn't spoken with an agricultural scientist.

They are operating in a low information environment based on a desire to hop across Carling and abandon the existing campus once construction is complete. And that is the root of almost all of the Hospital's ongoing problems. They need to slow down and listen.

In response to today's letter writer in the Citizen, who suggests the Farm should remain on the table, I want to posit if the Hospital is looking for vacant land in the city then the Farm should immediately be taken off the table. As I said above: the Farm is not empty land.