On September 12, 2007, Chair Russell Mills and Acting CEO Micheline Dubé announced a number of initiatives that promise to foster more openness and transparency by the NCC:
– all ‘regular’ (quarterly) Board meetings will be open to the public, starting November 7. Agendas will be made available in advance and Minutes will be posted on the NCC web site;
– Public Standing Committees will be instituted. These committees will consist of “individuals with a variety of backgrounds, such as general public, interest groups, scholars or professionals, who would be selected on the basis of applications submitted in response to a call for interest.” The public will be able to participate in the deliberations of these committees and a summary of their input will be presented to the Board at their quarterly meetings. Suggested areas of interest of such Committees are Culture, Heritage, Gatineau Park, Greenbelt, Core Area, Urban Lands, and Transportation;
– an external ombudsman function will be created to investigate and address complaints from individual citizens;
– the NCC will hold an annual Open House where the public can meet the CEO and staff. The CEO will also be “opening her office doors” several times a year to meet members of the public;
– efforts to encourage an on-going dialogue between the CEO and the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau will be renewed;
– the NCC’s web site will be enhanced to provide better information to the public.
In addition, the open Annual General Meetings (held since 2001 in the fall) and Meetings of the Board with Interest Groups (held since 2002 in the spring) will continue. However, the latter will now also be open to the general public. There will continue to be a requirement to submit briefs in advance.
You are invited to fill out a 2-page questionnaire to tell the NCC what you think of their initiatives and to give them further suggestions. You are asked to respond before October 12, 2007.
For all information, including the questionnaire, go to www.ncc-ccn.gc.ca/consultation [no longer online]. Be aware that several elements noted above were culled from information only provided in the text of the questionnaire!
Comment
Several of these initiatives are in line with recommendations made by the Mandate Review Panel in its report issued last December. The key deviation is with regard to the proposed Public Standing Committees. The Panel had recommended that the NCC’s existing Advisory Committees begin to function much like Committees of City Council, with public meetings and submissions by the public, that the Chairs of these Committees become members of the Board, and that, if the Board would not accept a recommendation from a Committee, it would have to justify this in writing. While Board composition (and selection criteria — expertise rather than political connections) are likely outside the power of the NCC to change, whatever these Public Standing Committees will turn out to be is without doubt a far cry from seeing them function as the Board’s Advisory Committees, let alone in the way the Panel envisaged it.
The reference to renewed efforts of dialogue with the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau is an implicit admission that the Tri-Partite Committee has not functioned well. The public has been left in the dark about when this Committee met and what was being discussed, apart from an off-camera summary by the Chair at the AGM. There is still no promise that this “renewed effort” will include more openness and transparency.
It also remains to be seen what Board business will be conducted outside the public’s view. While few will object to in camera discussion of personnel or litigation matters, what about budgets and land sales, for example? According to an article in The Ottawa Citizen of September 13, the NCC is going to propose that it be given more authority to buy or sell land. (At present, it needs Treasury Board approval for any purchase over $25,000 and any sale over $10,000.) This is a move to be watched. It is interesting to note that Conservative MP Poilièvre thinks that such increased authority is not necessary. He sees no problem with the NCC holding a public discussion on big financial items, prior to submission to Treasury Board. We couldn’t agree more. The Greenspace Alliance has long maintained that there is no reason whatsoever why proposed sales of public land could not be discussed in public.
While these initiatives are certainly a good start, there is a long way to go, even on goverance issues, e.g., Board composition and qualifications for appointment. (This is a point made by MP Paul Dewar, as quoted in The Citizen.) As well, there is much left on the table before one can be truly confident that the NCC has been renewed. The status and management of Gatineau Park and the issue of so-called surplus lands come to mind. The Coalition for NCC Renewal plans to lobby further for changes in these and other areas.
Erwin Dreessen
13 September 2007