Weekly newsletter: April 1, 2025

Happy April!

Last week, we welcomed the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Edith Dumont, to City Hall for a brief visit. It was somewhat of a homecoming for Her Honour, as Ottawa is her hometown!

With just two weeks left in the hockey season, a Senators-Leafs playoff series is looking likely, which could be fun… and interesting!

Ottawa Police Service joins CAMSafe

Programme aims to help OPS with investigations.

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) has joined CAMSafe, an initiative that partners with households that have security cameras to help in investigations. CAMSafe is a voluntary registry of residential and commercial security cameras in the community.

At registration, the OPS will request basic contact information and ask if you are willing to share recorded footage with police when needed. A screen capture of the camera’s perspective will also be requested at registration so investigators can determine if relevant footage from that camera may be available.

In a sense, it is a new approach to neighbourhood watch.

By registering, participants are not handing over control of their security camera systems and will retain full control over their own accounts and footage. The OPS will never have live access to footage.

In the event of an investigation, the OPS will consult their registry to identify registered cameras in the area with potentially helpful footage and contact the owners of those cameras. Even then, sharing footage with the OPS is voluntary.

Participants may also remove their information from the registry at any time.

The OPS continues to adapt their approach to enforcement and collaboration by recognising and leveraging the value and widespread use of security cameras. Other law enforcement agencies using a similar approach include the Ontario Provincial Police and police in Belleville, Peterborough, and Sudbury.

CAMSafe’s success depends on widespread community involvement. In the coming weeks and months, the OPS will undertake a marketing and outreach campaign both for the programme and for policing overall.

Councillor Hill and I are planning a community event with the OPS in May to coincide with Police Week, so stay tuned for information about that some time late-April! In the meantime, you may see OPS’s outreach team going door to door with pamphlets with information about CAMSafe.

Visit CamSafe.ca↗ for more information about the programme and/or to register. Residents may also contact the OPS at CAMSafe@OttawaPolice.ca to learn more about the programme.

Shelter zoning permissions

Item expected at Planning and Housing Committee next Wednesday.

Sprung structures may be behind us, but we’re not done with questionable policy direction just yet.

Back in February, Councillor Leiper moved a motion tasking staff with creating an amendment to the existing Zoning By-law to permit shelter zoning by default in all zones inside of the urban boundary. At that time, I was the lone vote against the item at Committee, while Councillors Desroches and Hill joined me in dissent at the following Council meeting.

City staff are expected to present their report and recommendations on such an amendment at the April 9 Planning and Housing Committee.

As background, staff have been working on a new Zoning By-law since last year. The process, approved by Council in 2023, includes multiple drafts and public consultations.

Yesterday, Committee approved the second draft of the new Zoning By-law. Staff will begin another round of public consultation starting in a few weeks before a third draft is presented to Committee in the autumn. That will be followed by more public consultation before the final draft in December or January.

The length of time and level of care put into that process reflects the policy’s impact.

The new Zoning By-law is expected to include permissions for shelters in all zone types inside of the urban boundary to reflect the Official Plan (which, in turn, reflects provincial policies), but it is subject to the remainder of the process.

Councillor Leiper’s motion aims to accelerate the shelter permissions by about nine months by amending the current Zoning By-law. But by doing so, it bypasses the remainder of the new Zoning By-law process, including two rounds of public consultation.

Despite concerns from communities including ours about poor process related to sprung structure before that was scrapped, we are here again considering a policy direction that bypasses public consultation. What’s worse is it bypasses steps this very Council agreed to when the new Zoning By-law process began in 2023.

The motion also contains some contradictions.

One of the reasons for moving to accelerate the change is to lighten some of staff’s workload, yet this report is redundant work. Remember, this amendment to the current Zoning By-law was created while staff continued to work on the new Zoning By-law.

Then there seems to be a belief by some that a presumption of what the public feedback will be gives licence to bypass public feedback. Yet, an exception was originally created for the Kanata sprung structure site before the project was cancelled to ensure that community’s voice was heard.

This was also framed as an “honest” conversation about shelters, but there’s no honesty in undermining a public process we approved. Essentially, the motion tries to pull the rug from under residents who are engaged with the process.

During earlier conversations about the new Zoning By-law, Councillor Hill asked staff if there were sections that could be addressed immediately as “low-hanging fruit.” City staff stated the new Zoning By-law was better passed as a whole document, considering its comprehensiveness, a view that’s now changed for no good reason.

Bypassing public consultation as part of this motion aims to do achieves nothing but further erodes public trust. Our community is still sensitive to last year’s sprung structure experience, so it’s insulting we’re even considering the motion.

Emergency shelter, from small-scale options embedded in communities up to large-scale shelters downtown will always be controversial.

Shelter in general is an important topic worth discussing, but we are once again muddling it by introducing bad process to the equation. It’s exactly how sprung structures played out, and it seems we’re destined for a repeat.

Enjoy the week ahead! Hopefully the weather won’t be too wild.

-Wilson