WARNING!! The True City Debt

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am amazed at Larry O’Brien statements on the Lowell Green Show that Ottawa is in excellent financial shape and that we have nothing to worry about.

He also said that he is proud of his financial accomplishments! ????

I have some devastating news for all of Ottawa.  We are not in good financial shape!

4 years ago we had a debt of 325 million dollars

During Larry’s 4 years of stewardship the net debt has risen to over one billion dollars.   

In just 4 years!!!

This is a tripling of debt - over 300% increase.

This is a tragic case of irresponsible and extravagant expenditures unmatched in Ottawa’s Municipal History – and this, from a man that espoused zero means zero.

The way the budget is written, he basically told the public that we have assets such as roads and sewers that we can sell to offset your debt.  How misleading, unethical, impossible, and false.

Jim Watson, must have known about this!  He was dealing with the City of Ottawa all the time, with Larry as mayor. 

 I found out – anyone could!

Mr. Watson has said NOTHING about this debt!  NOTHING!

I wonder is he trying to keep this information from the public, as has O’Brien.

Now there’s a conspiracy!!  Watson and O’Brien hiding a BILLION dollar debt.

This is what happens during elections where candidates think they can say anything.

This is completely disrespectful to the taxpayers.

How is O’Brien or Watson going to keep taxes down?  The re-payment, on this 1 Billion dollar debt alone, is 80 million a year.

 

And we thought our Hydro rates were out of sight! 

This is an enormous problem.  Where is the money going to come from?  Keep borrowing?

Mr. Watson is committed to borrowing another 1 or 2 billion dollars to destroy the existing successful bus transit way causing:

- 7 years of traffic chaos and gridlock,

- destroying transit ridership, and

- guaranteeing no transit expansion until after 2020.

Let’s just visualize 10 or more years later. 

- All the billions that the Federal and Provincial Government has given for Transit is gone. 

- The LRT is finally built between Tunney’s Pasture and Blair road.   

- The money is gone.

- We are still deeply in debt. 

People in Orleans and further East, People in Kanata and further West are going to be screaming for an extension of their LRT. 

Mr. Watson knows he can’t defend the plan, thus with his “comfortable lead” he refuses to discuss or debate the issue in any forum where the truth may come out.

The money given to us by the Federal and Provincial government was in 2009 dollars.  The value of a dollar in 2009 - is not worth a dollar 10 years later.  The gas tax will not be able to cover this discrepancy.

Watson is blindly following O’Brien’s street car plan called LRT.  As O’Brien said before, Watson has no specific or detailed knowledge of the LRT plan.  We all know he has given unqualified support for the plan which will result in a second 1 BILLION dollars of debt to complete this first small section.

Watson, at the Kanata meeting, eloquently and distinctly admitted that all future money will be devoted to LRT until after 2020. 

- No money for the homeless,

- No money for affordable housing –

Yet he recently stated that he would use the provincial uploading for these needy projects. 

Watson is not offering anything that is not being offered by anyone else. 

However, he has the innate ability to take nothing and make it sound like a great plan

How is he going to do this?  Borrow in order to keep his promise of no more than a 2.5% tax increase?

One would have expected Watson to jump all over O’Brien on the issue of out of control debt – as he did on tax increases.

Why did he not?  If elected, was he going to make a surprise announcement that “oh gosh!  we are in deep debt – just  like so many other politicians have done in the past, once elected.

In order to avoid the second billion dollar debt for the LRT proposal, this City has no option, but to choose BRT and Haydon is the only one who has that plan.

My proposal will ensure no cost to the taxpayer and no increase in debt.

In addition there would be over a billion dollars of transit funds available to extend Bus Rapid Transit system East, West, and South starting immediately.

I am the only candidate who can guarantee that the provincial uploaded funds will be used for the intended purpose – affordable housing.

– Unlike Watson.

According to the Citizen “Watson, has to date, delivered little except well worn clichés that have limited relevance to the taxpayers”

- I have a plan to solve the King Edward truck traffic problem.

- I have a plan to integrate the Gatineau bus system with ours over the old train bridge which will remove all Gatineau buses from downtown Ottawa.

What has Watson offered as his vision?

Do you remember Watson’s vision on Lansdown Park?  As Mayor he wanted to sell it to developers.  How about that for a vision?

The citizens of Ottawa need to know Watson’s reasons for

- Not disclosing the 1 BILLION dollar City debt; and

- Choosing to endorse O’Brien’s transit plan – other than the sound of the word train, is like the sound of music.

Unfortunately the music is the sound of your money rattling down the train drain