A city center and Ottawa mayoral candidate, and Gatineau Mayor Que.
On Tuesday Coun. Catherine McKenney and France Bélisle, mayor of Gatineau, testified before a House of Commons committee that is considering annexing Wellington and Sparks streets in Ottawa, as well as rue Laurier in Gatineau.
The committee is also considering turning the Wellington stretch between Elgin and Bank streets into a pedestrian zone.
“There’s always been a great opportunity long before it happened in January and February,” said McKenney, whose Somerset neighborhood includes Parliament Hill. “It allows us to create a public space, it allows this interprovincial link between us and the city of Gatineau, which I think needs to become a stronger link.”
The House Standing Committee on Procedures and Affairs was asked to study the idea after serious concerns were raised about police on Wellington Street and nearby streets during the weeks-long protest last winter.
The geographical change in the parliamentary precinct would involve the handing over of the police from the areas transferred to the federal government.
In his testimony, McKenney, who is also running to become the next mayor of Ottawa, told lawmakers that downtown residents and businesses suffered because Ottawa’s police resources expanded. too much during the protest.
“The city of Ottawa simply does not have the capacity to protect federal property during major national events and also to patrol our neighborhoods,” the councilor said.
The Wellington Street section in front of Parliament Hill has been closed to motor vehicles since the end of the convoy protests in late February 2022. (Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press)
The business group opposes the pedestrian zone
During his testimony, McKenney also defended the permanent restriction of the three Wellington blocks in front of Parliament Hill to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport. Private vehicles have been banned from using this stretch since the end of the protest.
“I often like to refer to these kinds of street changes as‘ opening ’instead of‘ closing ’,” McKenney said.
“We are really opening it up to the people. We will offer unique opportunities for extensive programming in front of Parliament buildings.”
On this point, McKenney cited a recent request to host a giant ball hockey tournament in Wellington against Parliament Hill this summer.
“Our city center has a wide capacity to absorb any vehicular traffic that has been diverted from this stretch of Wellington Street,” they said.
The executive director of the Bank Street Business Improvement Area (BIA), which stretches along Bank from Wellington to Highway 417, told the committee that its members are opposed to becoming part of Wellington in a pedestrian area.
Christine Leadman said the closure “would create a lot of concern and anxiety in businesses,” adding that she has received complaints from the public.
Gatineau Mayor Que. France Belisle told a House committee on Tuesday that she hopes the transfer of Wellington Street to the federal government will help speed up plans for an interprovincial streetcar. (Alexander Behne / Radio-Canada)
The tram is a must, says the mayor
Belisle said he supports the surrender of rue Laurier in the center of his city to the federal government because the street is already part of the ceremonial Confederate Boulevard and home to the Canadian Museum of History.
This measure would simplify and improve communications between the levels of government and their respective agencies, according to the mayor of Gatineau, who previously served as president of Tourisme Outaouais, the western Quebec tourism agency.
On several occasions during his testimony, Bélisle made it clear that he hoped that a transfer of jurisdiction would reinforce his city’s goal of building a surface streetcar connecting Ottawa and Gatineau.
“This decision will become a catalyst for the federal government to assert its role as a leader in coordinating interprovincial traffic,” Bélisle said in French.
“This essential infrastructure project has the full support of the people of Gatineau and needs to move forward.”
Belisle said expanding the parliamentary precinct would end decades of inaction.
“We have the impetus to solve the security problem, but we also have the impetus to position ourselves in the world as a dynamic capital that makes coherent decisions,” he said.
The standing committee is scheduled to meet again on Thursday and may make recommendations for approval by Parliament.