That might seem hard to believe, given that Watson has spent the past 12 years presiding over council meetings and handing out civic announcements. But on Tuesday, he will hand over his office in the town hall’s heritage wing to Mayor-elect Mark Sutcliffe. Some of Watson’s big moments over the past three terms, like starting on the future central library or deciding not to support a downtown casino, have been specific to life in the nation’s capital. Others, such as managing the arrival of applications and navigating the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, were challenges facing cities around the world.
Jim Watson as mayor of Ottawa during the COVID-19 pandemic
In an interview with CBC’s Omar Dabaghi-Pacheco, outgoing Ottawa mayor Jim Watson said he believes his government “did the right thing” to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. It is too early, of course, to tell what history will ultimately remember for the past decade-plus. But here are five highlights — or lowlights, depending on your perspective — that certainly helped shape the Watson era in Ottawa.
Lansdowne lives
When Watson announced he would not seek re-election, he took pride in reviving several projects that had been “stuck in neutral” before he became mayor in 2010 – the first big one being the $300 million revamp of Lansdowne Park. Watson liked to decry the Glebe’s urban space as little more than a bland parking lot before it was massively renovated early that decade, thanks to a public-private partnership with the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG). The CFL’s Ottawa Renegades had packed up in 2006, leaving the former Frank Clair Stadium mostly empty. While the previous council had signed the contract with OSEG, by the time Watson took office, residents were still fighting the plan — calling it too developer-friendly, among other things. By the time Watson was re-elected in 2014, the CFL had returned to the renovated TD Place in the form of the Ottawa Redblacks. The town also had a new football team, while Lansdowne was bursting with shops and restaurants — though perhaps not as many local establishments as some had hoped. “We got it done and it was a huge improvement in terms of employment and green space, trees, shops and sporting events,” Watson told the CBC in an exit interview. However, Lansdowne remains a work in progress. OSEG reported heavy financial losses even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and unveiled its plans for what it dubbed Lansdowne 2.0 earlier this year. These were approved over the summer, but not without simmering resentment. Watson stamps a Canadian silver dollar into the asphalt at TD Place in Lansdowne Park in 2014. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)
Ottawa is celebrating her birthday
Want to unite your city? Try to invade the streets with towering mechanical fire-breathing beasts. That’s essentially what happened in the summer of 2017, when the La Machine spectacle came to town as part of Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations. Organizers said more than 750,000 people watched the 12m tall creatures roam the city center over four days. The entirety of the Canada 150 celebrations — which also included the NHL outdoor classic and the Juno Awards — ultimately propelled Ottawa-Gatineau to the top of the country in tourism development that year. Watson was visibly proud of the role Ottawa played in the big anniversary, looking back fondly this summer, five years after the event. Five years ago, La Machine’s Kumo and Long Ma took over downtown Ottawa for an extraordinary show that captured the imagination of nearly a million residents and visitors! Some of the best memories from Ottawa 2017! pic.twitter.com/gofHeIZwSZ —@JimWatsonOttawa
The highs and lows of the LRT
Speaking of unwieldy mechanical beasts: arguably nothing dominated Watson’s tenure as much as the troubled trains — plus tracks and stations — running along Ottawa’s Confederation Line. Another of Watson’s stuck neutral projects, the $2.1 billion east-west LRT network was approved by the council midway through his first term in office after years of debate. Within a few years, however, things would start to go awry. A giant mechanical dragon named Long Ma roams the streets of Ottawa during the La Machine show in 2017. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press) There was the massive 2016 sinkhole outside the future Rideau LRT station. Then the launch date became a moving target. Then the delays became official. The costs associated with these delays began to add up, while during the test runs, relevant news emerged about the winter value of Alstom trains. Finally, on a pleasant afternoon in September 2019, the fare gates were opened. Watson said the line’s launch marked “the future of transit” in Ottawa, while thanking would-be riders for their patience. It would not be the last time patience was tested. The ensuing series of breakdowns and derailments are now practically part of Ottawa legend, sparking an investigation that found city officials had lowered the bar for the test run’s success and figured it was better to accept a flawed LRT network and figure it out. things after launch. Watson remains proud of the LRT, noting that over the past eight months the line — aside from an errant lightning strike — has operated largely as planned. And when the east and west extensions come online, he says residents will wonder how we ever got by without it. “One of the things that nobody really had a full grasp of — whether it was our staff or the public or the politicians — was how complicated this system was going to be,” Watson recalled last week. “I think people will look back and say it took a lot of effort, it was a bit of a brave move to do a big project of this nature in a city our size. But it was the right thing to do.” Watson tours the future light rail transit tunnel under Algonquin College in 2015. (Alistair Steele/CBC)
The escort enters
If the LRT rollout was a slow disaster, last winter’s Freedom Convoy protests were lightning fast. The weeks-long occupation of downtown Ottawa by protestors rife with COVID-19 mandates and the federal government has severely tested Watson’s leadership and exposed fissures in city council.
‘No one had a road map’ for how to deal with convoy protest, says Watson
Outgoing Mayor Jim Watson told the CBC’s Omar Dabaghi-Pacheco that his job was to push the federal and provincial governments to provide resources during the Freedom Convoy. As the trucks clogged downtown and the incessant honking drove residents to the wall, Watson — the ongoing federal investigation has heard — called for more enforcement. When Peter Slowley abruptly resigned as Ottawa’s police chief, the fallout culminated in a tense meeting where longtime councilor Diane Deans was ousted as chair of the city’s police board. “No one had a road map for how to deal with this,” Watson told the CBC, looking back on the protests. “My job was to push the federal and provincial governments to give us the resources so that our police could clean up and clear the whole area. “We finally got to this point. I think it should have been done sooner.” A protester on top of a truck waves a flag during last winter’s protests on Wellington Street. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada)
Going out
Just days before the Capital’s 2019 Pride Parade, Watson wrote a heartfelt column in the Ottawa Citizen in which he publicly acknowledged that he was gay — and that he had known he was gay since he was a teenager. “I’m comfortable with the decision and I’m glad I did it. But it took me a long time to get there,” he said at the time. The mayor’s sexuality has been part of the public discourse for some time, which Watson himself alluded to when he noted that people at Pride would ask when he would come out. Although he wishes he had done it sooner, Watson said his hope now is that living openly as a gay man will make it easier for young people to struggle with the same decision. “Ninety-five percent of the feedback I had was really positive and it was really touching and nice,” she recalls. “The vast majority spoke well of you and thank you for doing so. “I waited a long time. I wish I hadn’t.”
Mayor Jim Watson officially comes out as gay
Mayor Jim Watson officially comes out as gay
