Kelly: Rural Summit wrap-up

 

Nov. 2, 2024: Councillor Kelly’s opening remarks at Rural Summit 2024

This past Saturday, it was amazing to see the culmination of months and months of effort. This included five rural summit workshops attended by over 500 people, and a survey filled out by more than a thousand rural residents.

This work informed the conversation we had at the Summit itself and was instrumental in guiding the creation of ten very promising announcements for rural Ottawa made by Mayor Mark Sutcliffe at the Rural Summit.

For too long, our city has taken a single approach to policy development and implementation. That may work in cities like Toronto, Edmonton, and Montreal, but it doesn’t work in a city that spans almost 3,000 square kilometers with a landmass that is 80% rural. What works in the Glebe, Downtown, or Barrhaven won’t necessarily work in West Carleton-March or anywhere else in rural Ottawa. That is why the theme of the 2024 Rural Summit is Rural Solutions for Rural People.

This is not about getting things at the expense of any other part of the City or receiving more than other areas. We have already seen that some are looking to turn this into a rural vs. urban discussion. It is not. It’s simply about the recognition that the issues we face in rural Ottawa often require different solutions or a different approach than issues in urban or suburban Ottawa.

While I was the one who moved the motion to bring back the Rural Summit, this would not have happened without my rural colleagues who, along with their teams, have worked hard together to make this event a success. Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has been supportive of this process since the day my motion passed at Council and has been working hard with rural Councillors and Senior Leadership at the City to ensure this process yields tangible results for rural residents.

At the Summit, he outlined 10 new commitments for rural residents based on feedback we have heard so far. Our issues will not be solved at one summit, or even in one term of council, but these ten announcements are a very exciting step in the right direction. They include:

• An enhanced rural office with additional staffing

• A designated rural expert for each department to help rural residents and Councillors navigate the bureaucracy and ensure a rural perspective is applied during decision-making

• An expanded role for the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee to have more input on all decisions that would impact rural communities

• Commitment to establish a clear plan for rural ditching and a proposal, supported by the Mayor, to double the rural ditching in our upcoming budget for 2025

• Improving Rural Paramedic Response: Hiring 23 new paramedics in 2025 and 2026, improving response times through a new dispatch system, and addressing offload delays with provincial partners

Click here to read more about the ten new initiatives announced by Mayor Sutcliffe for rural Ottawa.

I would like to reiterate that this is not the end, but rather the beginning of the conversation on how to better serve rural communities. I would invite you to reach out to me if you want to provide further feedback on how the City can do that. We will now begin the process of writing the report, complete with recommendations and budget requests for the 2025 Budget and beyond. We will then begin working with our urban/suburban colleagues and City staff on implementing rural solutions for rural residents.

Thank you so much to the many dedicated residents of Ward 5 who took the time to provide feedback and ideas as part of the 2024 Rural Summit process. I would also like to thank the Ward 5 Resident Working Group Members, Shirley Dolan and Ken Holmes for their extremely hard work in helping to make this a success. They worked tirelessly for months to consult with residents, businesses, stakeholders as well as City staff to help design and fine tune the process.

We are one big step closer to a new day for rural Ottawa.