Two municipal election candidates discussed Ottawa public transit in a panel hosted by Carleton’s Graduate Student Association (GSA) on Oct. 2 in the University Centre Atrium.
Of the 12 mayoral candidates and five candidates for Capital ward, four were invited to the panel, but only Shawn Menard, Capital ward councillor candidate, and Clive Doucet, mayoral candidate, participated.
The panel was moderated by GSA vice-president (finance) Ashley Courchene.
Each candidate was given 10 minutes to discuss their vision for public transit in Ottawa, after which the panel was opened to questions from the floor.
Doucet, who is also a former Capital ward councillor, was the first to give his opening statements.
“Ottawa’s transit system is a massive failure . . . we seem to be unable to get buses where people actually want to go,” he said.
“[I’m] this old guy with white hair saying you should elect me for mayor [because] I’m trying to do the same thing I tried to do when I was your age—I’m trying to create a more sustainable city.”
Doucet focused largely on increasing the amount of public transportation.
“I want a real transit system,” he said. “We can do the same thing as Toronto for maybe 100 million dollars.”
Menard, who is also the current Ottawa-Carleton District School Board trustee for Capital ward, began by announcing that he will be passing around a petition about Carleton students deserving a better U-Pass. He focused on this issue throughout the panel dicussion.
“Students are paying a disproportionate amount for the U-Pass compared to what they would have been paying with a regular student bus pass,” he said. “It’s still a fantastic program . . . [but] the U-Pass has become more and more unaffordable for students.”
Menard also said he plans to bring free transit to Capital ward.
Once the floor was opened to questions, Cameron Rose Jette, a student and city councillor candidate for Ward-19 Cumberland, asked how the candidates plan to improve Para Transpo and overall transit services to make it more accessible for people with disabilities.
Doucet said he would improve the booking system for Para Transpo.
“The first thing I would do is bring in the Toronto system of booking, to get rides a few hours in advance,” he said.
Menard said he would reallocate funds to the transit system.
“There’s one big reason why Para Transpo isn’t serving residents as well as it should be: it is underfunded. I would reallocate the funding from the brand new roads we are building,” he said.
Courchene said the GSA would have liked to see more candidates attend.
“We did what we could with what we had,” he said.
Phil Robinson, executive coordinator for the GSA, said that only four candidates were invited because there was concern that students would not want to attend a panel with many speakers, and that all candidates would not have an opportunity to speak.
Voting for this municipal election will officially begin on Oct. 22.
Photo by Shaked Karabelnicoff
