On Monday Ottawa City Council voted to proceed with the Lansdowne Partnership Plan, so now staff and OSEG will continue to develop the plan until the next vote in June 2010.  While I would have preferred to see the City take a different track (light rail pun intended) and put the entire site up for an open design competition, our campaign did yeild significant public pressure, and at least some consessions were obtained.  What follows are just my thoughts on what I've learned about politics in the last three months.

Grassroots Politics Is Not A Myth

A recurring idea I keep hearing about the Green Party it's that we are grassroots.  Everyone makes reference to it but I've never been certain what measurement you're supposed to use to be certain your grassroots.  But like any good life lesson, you don't learn anything until you experience it for yourself - and now I've learned that one element of grassroots politics involves regular, normal, non-political people getting engaged.

The website I contributed to, letsgetitright.ca, was used to send 517 emails to City Council from 451 people, with 90% of submissions calling for Council to reject the unsolicited bid.  While you could argue that as the CEO of an EDA I no longer qualify as "regular" and "non-politician", all it takes is a brief review of the submissions we received to show that the grassroots got engaged.

We'll never be able to measure what impact those 517 emails had on the outcome (an average of 10 a day for two months straight) - but I believe it made a difference.  I did receive updates from residents who were suprised that their councilors replied to their email.  Even I was surprised to receive replies from different councilors that went beyond standard template responses.

Campaigns Are About Issues

I suppose this should have been obvious to me but I never realized how potent issues are to a campaign.  The Lansdowne campaigns were fairly simple - one decision to make with two possible outcomes: yes or no?  Each time I talked to someone about LPP (my poor coworkers) it was easy to articulate my arguments on why they should get engaged and help me do something about it:

• An open design competetion for the whole park might yeild better ideas about what to do with the park - so say no to LPP and let them compete with others ideas.
• The plan might be revenue-neutral, but it's certainly not tax-neutral.  Property taxes will be diverted from General Revenues to repay a $117 million dollar loan. The plan is not "free".
• A CFL team will probably fail again; actually the LPP anticipates it might fail and the financials do not require a successful franchise.
• Etc, etc.

The clarity of those arguments (to me at least), and the fact the decision is a boolean, make it easy for a grassroots person like myself to engage in the campaign and feel like I might make a difference.  I'm hoping the Campaign Commitees at the GPC and GPO will have similiar success enabling our candidates to frame their arguments as well.  So far I'm impressed with Mike Schreiner's honeymoon faze with the media - so far the phrase "green tax cut" keep showing up in the same paragraph as his name.  That's the kind of idea and issue a candidate can get their teeth into and articulate to anyone.

Final Lesson: There Isn't Enough Time In The Day

As much I as believe we did a great job communicating our point of view and getting that message to City Council, you just can't compete with the major media when it comes to getting your message across to the masses.  Martin Canning sums it up well:

"The campaign that was organized against Lansdowne Live was a great experience in grassroots campaigning. The fragmented coalition that emerged waged a strong fight. In the end, however, the communications team and high-level organization that took place in support of the megaproject won the battle. With the help of Hill and Knowlton and the Mayor, OSEG representatives and Lansdowne Live earned positive media coverage day after day. Of course, in their typical, status-quo fashion, Ottawa’s two major dailies lapped the OSEG press releases and conferences up with a spoon. Alternatively, CBC and Metro News should be applauded for offering a balanced and critical picture of the controversial plan and its implications."

We didn't win, but we didn't entirely lose, and maybe that's the most valuable political lesson to remember for next time.