As he makes his way north through Ottawa’s Strathcona Park, Peter Meggs walks across the Adawe Crossing Bridge, veering away from the connecting path that leads to a parking lot.
asserted
that → make → lot
Both the connecting path and the pedestrian bridge are municipal jurisdiction.
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path → connect → ?
The bridge overlooks the Rideau River, which is provincial responsibility, although the Rideau River Conservation Authority is the river’s watershed agency, which means it manages things such as environmental and flood monitoring.
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it → overlook → monitoring
After crossing the 125-metre bridge, Meggs then hangs a right and joins a smattering of cyclists, dog walkers and step counters for the home stretch along the multi-use pathway of his regular, 5-kilometre loop around his Overbrook neighbourhood.
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Meggs → cross → neighbourhood
That means he’s now on property run by the National Capital Commission (NCC), the under-the-radar federal body whose mission, according to the organization’s web site, is to help the national capital region be “a dynamic and inspiring source of pride for all Canadians, and a legacy for generations to come.”
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region → mean → generations
Before being turned into a park 119 years ago, Strathcona Park was a swampy floodplain overrun by mud and swarms of mosquitoes.
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Park → turn → mosquitoes
But as Meggs’ brief trek across the bridge suggests, the 15-acre park may now be overrun by swarms of government.
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park → suggest → government
The commission’s critics have for years been asking why the national capital region needs – or perhaps deserves – an extra layer of government and extra source of taxpayer dollars than other Canadian communities.
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region → ask → communities
Those questions have re-emerged in recent months because the NCC’s profile has jumped over its management of the prime minister’s official residence, uninhabited for more than a decade but now on a path to repair.
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profile → re → path
Some NCC critics are also asking if it’s not time that the commission undergo its own renovation.
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commission → ask → renovation
The NCC, unlike municipalities, is run by unelected officials who are not directly accountable to the public – and, according to critics, seem fine with it that way.
“You have to accept the good and bad of democracy,” said Meggs, a former town councillor in Cornwall, P.E.I.
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Meggs → run → Cornwall
But Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said the NCC needs greater scrutiny and accountability, in part because it spends and wastes a lot of taxpayers’ money.
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it → say → money
For example, he said, the crown corporation spent $140,000 to study and design – not build – a staircase, and $1 million for a barn at Rideau Hall, the governor general’s official residence.
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corporation → say → Hall
“It must be the most incompetent agency in all of Canada — which is saying a lot.”
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which → say → lot
With the Carney government presumably looking for more cuts in the bureaucracy to help pay for big spending hikes in defence, infrastructure and other priorities, could the NCC be a target for this fall’s upcoming budget?
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NCC → look → budget
John Fragos, a spokesman for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, said it’s too early in the budget process to speak to any possible cutbacks.
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it → say → cutbacks
Don Drummond, a former senior official at the Department of Finance and chief economist at TD Bank, said most of the discussions over the years about the NCC have been about democratic reform and transparency, not getting rid of it.
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most → say → it
For example, Drummond said, folding the NCC into a federal department that may have more experience writing cheques than running programs might be tempting but also might be a bad idea.
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that → say → programs
Supporters say the NCC, created through a House of Commons vote in 1959, is important because it helps make the National Capital Region – Ottawa and the city of Gatineau, Que. on the other side of the Ottawa River — a special region that all Canadians can be proud of.
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Canadians → say → that
It brings a national perspective, they argue, to issues that would normally be local.
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that → bring → issues
Results have included a protected Greenbelt on the outskirts of Ottawa, federal parklands and parkways including the popular Gatineau Park, and a wide range of recreational sites, such as cross-country ski trails, walkways, the Rideau Canal skating rink, and public swimming spots along local lakes and rivers — all considered attributes by local residents, and some visitors.
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all → include → residents
Supporters, such as former Ottawa city councillor Clive Doucet, say the NCC has made an excellent contribution towards presenting the national capital region as the country’s heart, not just another city, in a way that local governments likely wouldn’t.
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governments → say → way
“It’s been a great success in beautifying Ottawa.”
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It → beautify → Ottawa
NCC defenders point out that Canada is by no means the only country that assigns a special government body to giving its capital extra care.
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that → point → care
There’s no perfect comparison internationally, but India, France, Australia and Brazil are among those countries that have a federal body with a mandate similar to the NCC.
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that → ’ → NCC
In the U.S., the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) serves as the federal government’s planning agency for Washington, D.C.
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Commission → serve → Washington
But in other ways, the District of Columbia is far from over-governed – or as governed as Canadians in the national capital area.
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District → govern → area
Unlike Ottawa-Gatineau, D.C. residents are less represented than those in any other part of the U.S.
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residents → represent → U.S.
While the city of Washington has a mayor and council, the District is part of no state, which means that it has no governor or state legislature.
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it → have → governor
It also means that D.C. also has just one non-voting representative in the U.S. House of Representatives and no representation in the influential U.S. Senate.
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D.C. → mean → Senate
Doucet isn’t wrong that the NCC’s job is to make the national capital region an enjoyable and attractive place to live or visit.
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region → make → ?
In other words, the commission has goals that are often in line with most municipalities, even if the structures, and method of funding, are very different.
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structures → have → funding
The NCC, unlike municipalities, gets its funding from the federal government, which means taxpayers from across the country, not just those in Ottawa and Gatineau.
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which → get → Ottawa
According to its annual report, the NCC received $164.3-million from Parliament in 2025, a 57 per cent increase from the previous year.
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NCC → accord → increase
While much of the NCC’s annual budget is a function of the capital projects that it’s asked to manage during any given year, its operating budget has also been on the rise, a pace well above inflation.
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budget → ask → inflation
According to its web site, the organization has 419 employees, although that figure doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2017.
And those pathways along the river at Strathcona Park are only a tiny fraction of the NCC’s territory.
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pathways → accord → territory
It manages about 116,000 acres of land in the National Capital Region, about 11 per cent of the region’s land.
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It → manage → land
That’s about eight times the size of Manhattan, more than double the size of Washington, D.C., and much larger than all of Vancouver.
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That → ’ → Vancouver
The crown corporation, which reports directly to Parliament through Public Works Minister Joel Lightbound, is also responsible for management of 1,664 properties, including Rideau Hall (the governor general’s residence), Stornoway (the opposition leader’s residence), The Farm (the Speaker’s residence), 7 Rideau Gate (the government’s official guest house), and the prime minister’s two official residences: Harrington Lake, the prime minister’s cottage, and 24 Sussex, the prime minister’s dilapidated official residence.
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which → report → Hall
With 24 Sussex Dr. uninhabited for more than a decade, there have also been fresh accusations that the NCC doesn’t do a good enough job of maintaining its properties.
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NCC → maintain → properties
…and 30 more, not listed.
The Aporia
