A mayoral candidate said he wants to see the Ontario Municipal Board gone so that the city of Ottawa can govern itself.
Three changes, which also include no longer allowing developer or union funding of local political campaigns, and respecting the city’s own land planning, height and density bylaws, will allow Ottawa to better govern itself, said Clive Doucet, who presented his platform on good governance yesterday.
“But it can only be done with a mayor who believes that, in an age when eight out of 10 Canadians live in cities, large municipalities need to be respected as senior levels of government, not children to be monitored.
“We have to take responsibility for our own land,” said Doucet, adding the city has to work with others to get its lobbyists together and go collectively to the province to ask to be liberated from the OMB.
“If they’re faced with 80 per cent of the population telling them they don’t want the OMB, they can get rid of it. But you can’t do it city by city.”
