The NCC has a board, but maybe it needs a hammer and planks
Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Apr 05, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 3 minute read
The National Capital Commission is advertising for a new board member and — holy Knights of Columbus — not just anybody.
Out of perverse curiousity, we had a look at the terms and qualifications to join the special 15-member group, which is drawn from coast to coast.
It pays a per diem of between $310 and $375, with an annual retainer of between $4,000 and $4,700 and applicants should be prepared to devote between 15 to 20 days a year, not including prep time, and able to obtain a “secret” security clearance.
The board only actually meets in public session four times a year (more often by teleconference), thus its description as a “part-time” job.
It helps to be bilingual and preference “may be given” to applicants from “one or more” of these groups: women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and members of a visible minority.
As for qualifications, it will be considered “an asset” if you have, and here is where most of you can just stop filling in the application and go home:
- a university degree or a combination of experience and training that amounts to the same.
- sat on other boards.
- experience “in the area of bridges and civil infrastructures.”
- a professional accounting designation.
- experience in habitat/wildlife conservation and ecology.
- knowledge of construction, planning and design, architecture and “land use initiatives.”
- travel, tourism and hospitality industry know-how is also in there, as is “climate change mitigation.”
Now one might be a total smart-arse and think the NCC is looking for some kind of chartered accountant with a background as a zoo-keeping, bridge-building, sous-chef — both here and in far-off lands — but this would be wrong. Because that’s not enough.
Candidates are expected to have a “knowledge of the history of the National Capital Region, the importance of the various Indigenous peoples in the region and the Government of Canada’s commitment to reconciliation” and many other knowledges, too numerous to list here, but rest assured, you certainly lack them.
Then there’s a list of behaviour guidelines and conflict-of-interest rules, ethics codes, and so on, to ensure you can get along with people without, one supposes, too much screaming.
We’re having a little fun with the NCC today, but it is a moment to ask whether a board of richly résuméd people from across Canada is the way to constitute the main federal planning arm in the nation’s capital.
Honestly, when I look at their bios — and these are accomplished people who should be thanked for their service — you do wonder if most of them could find the corner of Bank and Sparks without asking a cop.
A Toronto lawyer, a West Quebec forester, a Quebec City architect, a planning professor from Vancouver, an Algonquin government bureaucrat, an east-coast banker, other high-flyers — the census diversity is certainly there. (In my experience, though, most tend to be fairly quiet in open session.)
As for how much “heft” the board really has, the record is patchy. The NCC is responsible for 24 Sussex Drive, for instance, and it remains a national disgrace. The NCC said to put the Civic campus of The Ottawa Hospital at Tunney’s Pasture and that decision was reversed in about a week. The last big attempt at redeveloping LeBreton Flats crashed and burned after four years of effort.
People reached out to the NCC about the addition to the Château Laurier hotel (on the doorstep of the Rideau Canal) and it dissolved into a mushy compromise. I mean, where does all this expertise get us?
The additions of the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau (non-voting roles) was certainly a good idea and, no doubt, someone like Jim Watson guides them through local terrain.
But of all the good things the NCC does — and crankiness aside, it does many — lots appear to be decisions made at the level of Tobi Nussbaum, the chief executive. Things like bicycle days on the parkways and closing Canal byways to car traffic during the pandemic, or throwing up a bistro here and there, or waking up to the potential of the Ottawa and Rideau rivers.
The NCC oversees a huge portfolio of 1,600 properties and owns 11 per cent of the capital’s real estate. It also has a massive role in how city-building unfolds here (Greenbelt, LRT, Gatineau Park).
If you were designing from scratch, would you put in charge of all that a federal Crown corporation, with a 15-member pan-Canadian board, with only four full meetings a year and a reporting route to a federal minister? Probably not.
Oh, but to have the knowledge.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-291-6265 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...mer-and-planks
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