A New Deal for Ottawa
A New Deal for Ottawa
After a significant amount of negotiation, the Province and Ottawa have arrived at an agreement that will see $543 million in new investments made into the City of Ottawa. Of particular note, roughly $50 million will be invested into upgrades to rural roads and important priorities for rural Ottawa.
The agreement includes up to $197 million over three years in provincial operating supports and up to $346 million over 10 years in provincial capital supports, including:
· Investments for repairing and upgrading rural roads and related infrastructure outside of Ottawa’s city centre.
· Advancing design and construction of a new interchange at Highway 416 and Barnsdale Road to support population growth and development.
· Funding to support public safety and address increased levels of crime, which have had an impact on city services.
· Additional conditional funding for emergency shelters and homelessness prevention to address the needs of increasing levels of homelessness.
· The repair and upgrade of major connecting routes and roads critical to keeping the people, goods and services of Ottawa moving.
· Support for housing- and community-enabling infrastructure through the Building Faster Fund, conditional on the city achieving at least 80 percent of its housing targets.
In addition to financial supports, Ontario has committed to working with Ottawa to explore opportunities to fund and build more infrastructure, including through the Building Ontario Fund and policy changes to assist the city in removing barriers to getting more homes built faster.
The Province will be providing a wide range of additional supports to Ottawa, including through exploring options to lower the costs of Ottawa’s debt financing, expanding infrastructure investment partnerships, improving processes for building more housing supply, and more.
The Province and the City are also working collaboratively to call on the federal government to invest into the City at a level commensurate with Ottawa’s unique role as the national capital. This joint call is requesting that the federal government contribute more to support and help manage the social service pressures introduced by refugees and asylum-seekers, improve public safety through investments into managing unique and excessively costly protests and demonstrations in the capital, provide additional supports for improving housing supply, and more.
I am grateful to the Mayor and the Premier for their hard work in negotiating these investments in our communities. In particular, I have been impressed by the persistent, dedicated advocacy of our Mayor for rural Ottawa. Today’s announcement is further proof of his commitment to rural Ottawa and his ability to get things done.
You can read the press release of the announcement here, full details of the agreement are available here.