This little exchange got me thinking:
@glen_mcgregor wet blanket lol! You old traditionalist! Next thing you'll allow defeated tory candidates to write columns attacking foes!
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Jim Watson (@JimWatsonOttawa) April 01, 2012Funnily enough, there was a period when the Citizen had Watson writing columns on city politics, during the brief period in the early 2000s when he wasn’t a public official of any kind. What was then the New RO employed him as a “municipal specialist” as well; I remember encountering him once or twice in scrums, as part of the media pack, which was weird. But Watson’s was an interesting and well-informed voice.
His journalism career was pretty short-lived. He wrote his first column for the Citizen in January 2003; in April, Watson switched again to the other side of the microphones when he ran for provincial office and became the Liberal MPP for Ottawa West-Nepean in the fall. Like Randall Denley, I guess he quit his column once he knew he was going back to being a professional politician after all.
He wrote only about a dozen columns, but it’s funny to read them almost a decade later and see him laying out his political program. Many of them are effectively position papers for his 2010 mayoral run. Here’s the run-down:
Jan. 13, 2003
Our ‘ordinary hero’: Fifty-eight years after a Soviet embassy clerk exposed spies in our midst, and after one man’s three-year struggle to mark the historic event, the city is finally prepared to honour Igor Gouzenko
In praise of Andrew Kavchak, who fought to memorialize Gouzenko
Jan. 20
How to really save the Senators
Arguing that public servants, like politicians, ought to be allowed to accept freebie tickets to Sens games.
Jan. 27
Why the mayor won’t allow a bus strike
On then-current negotiations with ATU 279. He points out that then-mayor Bob Chiarelli got a lot of mileage out of Peter Clark’s presiding over a bus strike in 1997:
City staff have told me that Mr. Chiarelli has told staff they are to do anything and everything to ensure there is no strike. Council is still bruised over the Para Transpo strike — which affected a fraction of the voters that would be outraged if buses stopped in the midst of the cold snap.
Bus strikes and municipal elections don’t mix. Mr. Chiarelli is smart enough to realize that if he could make political hay over Mr. Clark’s handling of a walkout, so too could his potential adversaries, and he won’t let than happen.
Feb. 3
13 soldiers to receive proper tribute
In praise of, well, his own work getting a monument for Ottawans who died in the Korean War.
Feb. 10
Tax rebate program unfair to voters: Shouldn’t force people to support campaigns
Criticizing the city’s program partially subsidizing donations to local election campaigns. That program is being killed now.
Feb. 17
Manley’s the man for cities in crisis
In praise of then finance minister John Manley (the minister who’d named Watson to head the Canadian Tourism Commission) and his plans to send money to municipalities.
Feb. 24
It’s time to end NCC secrecy: Taxpayers deserve to see how the NCC really works
Calling for open board meetings.
March 3
Charlotte Whitton still pulls our chain: Legendary mayor blazed a trail for other females
Marked International Women’s Day with praise for Whitton and also Marion Dewar and Jacquelin Holzman. Suggested naming the newly renovated central hall of the Glebe Community Centre “Whitton Hall,” since that name would be coming off the archives room at the former city hall on Green Island.
March 10
Taxpayers deserve an apology: Credit card debacle meant buck-passing, too little remorse
A comment on the news of the day, a scandal over excessive and poorly controlled spending on municipal credit cards. Takes a pretty hard swipe at Bob Chiarelli:
The mayor, in his opening comments to the corporate services committee, said “the administration has lost the confidence of the public” on this issue. When I asked him if the politicians had also lost the confidence of the public, the mayor brushed aside the question and refused to take any of the responsibility.
The old adage, “The buck stops here,” doesn’t seem to resonate with his worship. Instead, we have a lot of finger-pointing and buck-passing and still no one standing up to say they were sorry.
March 17
Congress Centre must grow: Size matters in the convention business
Self-explanatory. Smacks then-councillor Alex Munter for getting the city to ask for federal money for a Congress Centre expansion that wasn’t drawn from other infrastructure funds. The city got federal and provincial funding three years later, when Watson was the province’s regional minister.
March 20
‘Hypocrite’ Eves flouts tradition: Budget TV show a ‘stupid stunt’
Attacking the provincial Tories for planning to deliver a provincial budget outside the legislature. This one makes me wonder if Watson knew at this point that he’d be returning to politics, though lots of people were very harsh on the move.
The more I see of Eves and his handling of both big and small issues, the more I’m convinced he has the reverse Midas touch. Everything he lays a hand on turns into a fiasco.
I could go on at great length about the Hydro debacle, or his flip flops on a whole host of issues, but I’ll save that for another day. Needless to say, Eves’ performance has not been very impressive to date.
March 24
Thanks to a handful of volunteers, Plant Pool is back in the swim
In praise of Helen Morton, a community volunteer who fought to get the Plant Bath renovated.
March 31
Honour Franklin with fiscal prudence
Honouring Ben Franklin, the former mayor of Nepean who’d just died, by saying the city should run its budgets the way he would have. Watson has not lived up to the ideal he laid out.
I’m not sure if a humble man like Ben would want another road or facility named after him. I think the most appropriate honour for a man like Ben would be for the new city to take a page out of his financial playbook and adopt a true no-debt policy.
It’s not exactly a traditional way to pay tribute to a former leader, but I think the new city would be wise to follow in Ben’s footsteps. The city has tinkered with a pay-as-you-go plan put forward by Councillor Rick Chiarelli, but I have doubts the current council has the financial discipline to reign in their insatiable appetite to spend more than taxpayers can afford.
Ben was not a supporter of amalgamation, and he was concerned the big spenders would control council and all of the good work that he and other like-minded civic leaders had built up would be cast aside.
So while it might be more politically appealing to honour Ben in a more tangible fashion, I think the best tribute to him would be to ensure councillors treat taxpayers’ money as if it were their own.
April 7
Ousting councillors an uphill battle: Incumbents have an unfair advantage over challengers
Calling for an end to the provincial policy allowing municipal politicians to carry campaign surpluses forward from election to election.
April 14
Why they’re mad as hell in rural Ottawa
The headline oversells it a bit, but this column attacks a city publication extolling the virtues of amalgamation for being very sloppy on details, and takes up the question of how many rural wards there ought to be. The city was aiming to reduce them from five to the four we have now. Watson is now angling to significantly reduce the number of urban and suburban wards.
April 21
Helmets should be required for skaters
Relating the story of Watson’s friend Carl Gillis, who fell on his rollerblades, hit his head and died. This column is all about inline skates, not ice skates, though Watson championed helmets generally as minister of health promotion and has instituted city rules requiring helmets for “weak skaters” of all ages on city rinks.
April 28
Too many feel sting of Green Hornets
The city should be looser about parking enforcement. Watson admits to getting $300 to $400 worth of parking tickets a year.
The next day, April 29, Watson declared his candidacy for provincial office. The Citizen reported a couple of interesting tidbits at the time:
Of 103 provincial ridings, Ottawa-West Nepean is the only one that has not yet selected a Liberal candidate.
The announcement will end months of speculation about whether Mr. Watson’s inevitable return to politics would come as soon as the provincial election or stay on hold for some other future opportunity.
Mr. Watson, 41, who was first elected to Ottawa city council in 1991, became mayor in 1997, leaving that post in 2000 to become president and chief executive of the Canadian Tourism Commission.
Giving up the federally appointed position at the end of last year for full-time media work, in January he began hosting a noon-hour television show at the New RO and writing a column for the Citizen on municipal politics.
At the time, while Mr. Watson said he might like to eventually re-enter politics, he said he would not run in the next provincial or federal election.
Apparently he announced his candidacy on the air at the New RO.
This was followed by a really vicious column from Denley, headlined “Find a job and stick with it, Jim.” It ended thus:
The root cause of all Watson’s restless job-shifting is Bob Chiarelli. The former MPP wasn’t supposed to beat Peter Clark for the regional chair’s job. Clark was supposed to win in 1997, then retire when the new city was created, leaving the mayor’s job open for Watson, already the mayor of the old city. Chiarelli fouled that up by winning the regional chairmanship, then seeking the mayoralty in the last election.
Watson chose not to run against him, saying he was tired of politics. Unable to beat Chiarelli, more like. Watson is naturally risk-averse, and he didn’t want to spoil his pristine record as a winner.
If Jim Watson runs true to form, the following two predictions will come true. He will run federally in the next election, in Ottawa Centre. His new campaign Web site already mistakenly informed the public that he was seeking that position. Oops. Turned that card up too soon. Explaining his abrupt switch from provincial to federal politics, Watson will say it’s an opportunity that will only come up once, and he is receiving great encouragement to run from people in the riding.
After nicely settling into his office on the Hill, Watson will receive yet another message from his people, this time urging him to run as mayor of Ottawa. The general assumption is that Chiarelli won’t run again in 2006, leaving the path to Watson’s real dream job open at last.
So Jim Watson is an opportunist. Nothing wrong with that. Most successful people are. But let’s just see him for what he really is. He’s an affable guy who loves to be loved, but all he’s ever really accomplished is creating the popular political character, Jim Watson. If the former mayor, tourism boss and TV host wants to add credibility to his resume, he should stick with his next job, and actually make something of it.
So, no love lost at any point, really. This all goes back a long way.
P.S. for giggles: Reasonable people can disagree about whether it’s appropriate for politicos to become editorial writers and/or columnists, and vice versa. Of course, if it’s wrong for Denley, it was probably wrong for Watson, too.
It does happen a fair bit, though. Consider Karim Bardeesy, who went from being a provincial Liberal aide to a Globe and Mail editorialist to a Liberal aide again. Or the Globe’s Michael Valpy, who tried and failed as an NDP candidate. Or John Robson, who was a Reform Party aide, then a Citizen editorial writer, and now with the Sun chain. Right or wrong, it’s not some weird aberration.
