Provinces will ultimately decide bridge location
In an Ottawa Citizen article published today, Madeleine Meilleur, MPP Ottawa-Vanier and Ontario Minister of Community and Social Services, clarifies the roles of the provinces in the bridge decision. A few excerpts from the article below:
“What it would take to have a bridge is an agreement between the two provinces on where the bridge should be,” Ms. Meilleur said in an interview. “Right now there is no agreement to build it at Kettle Island … If there is no agreement between the two governments, there will be no bridge.”
Ms. Meilleur said the NCC consultant’s recommendation to build the bridge at Kettle Island, is part of a 1950s attitude that has no place in the 21st-century concept of building a city. She said when French planner Jacques Gréber made a plan for the city at the request of prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, it included a bridge at Kettle Island because the area south of the bridge was unpopulated. Today, it has several communities and thriving institutions, and you don’t ravage a built-up community for a bridge.
“Kettle Island is a 1950s decision. It was in the Gréber plan when there was nothing built after St. Laurent Boulevard, but now you have a lot of communities there and we feel that the community should come first — not a bridge,” Ms. Meilleur said.
She says the Ontario government will participate in the second phase of the environmental study, but wants the impact on the community to be paramount in the assessment. Public transit and economic development would be next in the order of priority, she said.
The full article is available here:
Feb. 17, Ottawa Citizen: No bridge without agreement: Meilleur
Loading ...