Nowhere was it listed in this document how the community uses this section of the river as a social gathering place, fitness, mental health, to commune with nature, conduct Indigenous ceremonies, and celebrate our riverfront heritage here as generations before us have.  Nowhere in this description is a study concerning the waterfront and how this waterway around Kettle Island is used by Indigenous peoples and the residents, how the activities and the infrastructure built along it represent the strong community values that prize the heart of our capital city. Nowhere in this report does it explain how this area helps to provide a strong identity for our National Capital Region, that will be erased after a bridge is built.

Most major cities have a waterfront plan, based on studies, but not in our capital city. At least none is referenced in this document, which suggests why there is a blind spot in the judgment formed by the project team.  Without such a plan, this is just a project designed without the insight to make a fully informed decision. It seems there has been consultation short-cuts to determining the true value of the region to the community and the cost of what we will pay for losing this special place. This has set-up a situation where there is a win-lose for the community – the commuters win and everyone else who appreciates this special location loses (residents, users of the NCC River House, users of the river, wildlife, tourists, and dignitaries).

Best practices for most progressive cities include a waterfront plan, not just for one side of a river, but both sides and the waterway itself. Such plans help direct how infrastructure will avoid threatening cherished community places, before the infrastructure is ready to be built. Not in our nation’s capital. We have one Sir George Etienne Cartier plan fresh off the press after the bridge project was first launched and a City of Gatineau recreation plan that I contributed towards, as an advisor just a couple years ago. Neither of these plans are complete, because they only cover half the river, split it two by two provinces and two cities that cannot coordinate their plans. (Why can’t we have a real integrated capital?)

The Sir George Etienne Cartier Plan had a public consultation process and even took my advice to put a canoe launch in Rockcliffe Park, only that they located it at the foot of a bluff. When I asked the NCC staff who put it in their plan there, rather than the place I suggested, they told me it would be cheaper and more convenient, because there was a parking lot there already. They did not know the landscape, so they put it there across from the cliff where to safely launch a canoe would be nearly impossible unless you were a daredevil. That’s an example of the kind of project planning we have with this bridge and too often with other projects along the river, when those with experiential knowledge of the area are not fully and meaningfully engaged in the process. It’s cheaper to put in a Kettle Island Bridge when the real cost of destroying a special area of value to the community isn’t costed, as result of not trying to understand its value.  The true costs of destroying  this community needs to be addressed, quantified by proper assessment techniques, which I intend to do in the next phases of this consultation if I can secure funding from the funding application program.  I’m afraid only Mark Carney who wrote the book Value(s) on such things would understand this immediately – as a librarian, I suggest this is a good book to read to guide this project.

The other major blind spot that the project team has results from an Indigenous consultation process that does not take into account the realities of how Indigenous people need to be engaged.  For example, the project team seems to have repeated the same practice of informing a bunch of Indigenous communities that are far away, often over 100 kms from the affected area in question, then try to bribe them with promises of employment and supplier set-asides. This is offensive and a clear conflict of interest to any Indigenous person familiar with how our ancestors were exploited. It’s a practice used by colonial officials in the past that should not be used today without careful reflection. It is my experience that most Indigenous communities don’t really care all that much about how a project impacts our local community, so they may easily fall for such enticements.