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.  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
 

On May 3, 2007, Min. Cannon announced the appointment of the new Chair of the National Capital Commission, Mr. Russell A. Mills.  See the NCC's press release here.  The welcoming words were spoken by Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Micheline Dubé.
 
Wikipedia says about Mr. Mills in a "stub" (not quite a full article): 
Russell Mills (born July 14, 1944, in St. Thomas, Ontario) is a former Canadian newspaper publisher. He served as publisher of the Ottawa Citizen for sixteen years before being fired in 2002 by the newspaper's owners, CanWest Global, after a Citizen editorial calling for then-Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien to resign after the paper published a series of articles exposing a financial scandal.
Mills earned two degrees from the University of Western Ontario. His first was a bachelor's degree in general arts in 1967, and his second was a master's degree in sociology in 1968. Mills then joined the Ottawa Citizen in 1971 and would work for them for three decades.
He rose to become publisher of the Citizen in 1986, and was soon promoted to president of the Southam Newspaper Group in 1989. He kept this position until 1992 when he returned to the Citizen to again serve as publisher. He held this position until 2002.
The day prior to being fired, Mills received an honorary degree from Carleton University. He soon became a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Mills now serves as the Dean of the School of Media and Design at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario.
 
Meanwhile, still no word from the Minister's office about the recommendations from the Mandate Review Panel.
 
Erwin Dreessen
31 May, 2007

The Mandate Review Panel released its report on December 21, 2006.

[Update - 12 Nov 2007:] Download the Report (5.6 MB) from the NCC's web site.

Download the Press Release and Prof. Gilles Paquet's remarks.

CBC.ca news item, December 21.

Articles in The Citizen, December 22, 2006, section D - City:

We should strongly welcome the report's recommendations, in particular:

- a strengthened and more focused mandate;

- the need for a rigorous definition ("a Charter") and public process around National Interest Land Mass status;

- the end of land sales, even if determined to be "surplus";

- a municipal consultative committee (MCC) of senior officials, advising the NCC Board - and if the advice is not heeded, they must explain...

- the Board's Advisory Committees (4 identified) acting like municipal standing committees: in a public process;

- chairs of the Advisory Committees to be on the NCC Board;