I’ve been meaning to post about this for a couple of weeks.  Jack Aubry beat me to it in today’s Ottawa Citizen.

I live at Somerset and Kent, one block West of the intersection of Bank and Somerset, and BTW pay the inflated municipal property taxes that come with a downtown home.  The now 60–day closure of Bank Street from Cooper to Maclaren, and Somerset Street from O’Connor to Kent has been a real pain in the ass for area residents who would normally drive through this intersection several times a day.  Not to mention the lost revenues for the businesses on those blocks, which Mr. Aubry discusses in his article.

The closure is made worse by two relatively new traffic installations on Cooper and Maclaren streets.  A no straight across O’Connor Street when travelling East on Cooper (an Eastbound one-way) and a no straight across O’Connor Street when travelling West on Maclaren (a Westbound one-way).  These two streets and no straights are indicated with red arrows and Xs on the map below.

Now someone almost died when the building that formerly housed the Duke of Somerset Pub, Lockmaster Tavern and Somerset Hotel partially collapsed during construction on October 19, 2007, so it was important for the City of Ottawa to secure the area and make sure there were no further life-threatening incidents.  But its now been two months and the streets remain closed. 

Also, they’ve had at least one police car and officer, sometimes more, stationed there 24–hours a day for this entire period.  How much is that costing?!?!  Maybe the pending property tax increase would be lower without this expense?

Finally, to the point of this post…

As someone that lives one block from the street closure, I’ve received absolutely no direct communication from the City of Ottawa letting me (and my Centretown neighbours) know what’s going on.  How difficult would have it have been for the City to mail-drop a letter or two to Centretown residents?  There’s also no information posted about it on the City’s website. When are organizations going to learn that simply keeping people informed goes a long way towards lowering frustration and dissatisfaction with service?  And it shows people that you are on top of the situation and care about the impact and people being affected.

I travel a bit, sometimes more for my volunteer activities than for my work (sorry, kids!)

A recent trip left me with a great impression of Detroit, and I never even left the airport.  Indeed, the last time I travelled to Detroit in 2003, I did not really think much of the airport, or of the city. 

This time, however, I was impressed with the quality of the airport facility itself and with some of the little touches they have that indicated to me that the airport authority is thinking about marketing the city frequently.

Airports are the welcome mat to your community, and that’s why they are such a key piece of infrastructure.  People who don’t travel often may not appreciate it, but airports have an impact on investment decisions, on future partnerships, and on a whole host of intangibles that you would not sense from looking solely at the airport — itself — as a business.

Detroit’s welcome mat is now very impressive — bright, airy, modern and spacious, with a look and feel of a city on the move.  Kudos to the designers, etc., although there’s probably been cost overruns, and other challenges, as there always are on these types of projects.

To be honest, however, the thing that stuck with me was the number of languages the airport used to broadcast the kinds of general announcements airports always announce — you know, the “the Detroit airport is pleased to offer a non-smoking environment” ones.  They announced these in six languages, and that told me Detroit thinks of itself as a city of the world.

So why does that matter?  It matters because that’s where the world is going — major urban centres that will thrive are the ones that can welcome diverse cultures and welcome the business they bring.  Airports are hubs of economic and social activity, and they must demonstrate a recognition of their role as a network hub for a world in motion.

In short, I think Detroit gets it, and for all of the city’s challenges in recent times, the airport – at least — told me the city was headed in the right direction.  Indeed, it made me want to come back and visit, and when was the last time you said that about an airport?

There are a few events coming up next week that may be of interest to you and/or your colleagues.

EVENT 1

On Monday, December 3^rd from 11:45am to 1:30pm at the Lord Elgin Hotel (100 Elgin Street, between Laurier and Slater), CPRS Ottawa/Gatineau and IABC Ottawa with Dell and Thornley Fallis Communications are pleased to present:

An hour with Richard Binhammer, Dell’s Director of Corporate Communications

Richard is visiting Ottawa from Dell’s corporate headquarters in Round Rock, Texas. Dell is Fortune 500 leader in social media and online networking / communication. Richard will discuss Dell’s experience in the ever-evolving space and why his company thinks it is important to be there.

The cost is $45 for CPRS / IABC Members, $30 for student members and $60 for non-members.  To register, visit CPRS Ottawa or IABC Ottawa.

EVENT 2

If you can’t make the lunchtime event or would like to learn more about Dell’s adoption of social media from someone who has been at the center of it since the beginning, Richard Binhammer, is also speaking at the Third Tuesday Ottawa on Monday, December 3^rd at 6:00pm at Fresco Cielo (354 Elgin Street, 2nd Floor, between Frank and Waverly).

There is no cost to attend this event, but you will need to join Third Tuesday Ottawa to view the event notice and RSVP. 

EVENT 3

Lastly, CPRS Ottawa’s annual Holiday Reception is taking place on Tuesday, December 4^th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm at Metropolitan Restaurant (700 Sussex Drive, at Wellington/Rideau).

This event is open to CPRS members and non-members at no charge, but donations for the Salvation Army’s Christmas Kettle Campaign will be welcomed.

Cash bar with hors d’oeuvres provided by Thornley Fallis & 76design.

Note: I am on the CPRS Ottawa Board and Dell Ottawa is a client of mine at Thornley Fallis.

Our firm, Thornley Fallis Communications, which is one of Ottawa’s leading public relations firms, is recruiting Senior Public Relations & Communications Professionals for our growing Ottawa office.

Candidates should have a consulting, agency or journalism background and/or significant experience in conceptualizing, planning and executing public relations programs and activities for government organizations, private sector companies and/or national associations.

Successful candidates will demonstrate the ability to:

• Build and lead teams, allocate resources, and manage multiple projects and budgets simultaneously.
• Deploy a broad range of leading-edge communications methodologies and tactics.
• Manage relationships and provide clients with effective strategic advice.
• Integrate new media, web and social media tools into communications programs.
• Develop and close new business opportunities, including proposal development and presenting to clients/prospects.

Candidates must be highly-motivated and thrive in a fast-paced team environment, possess superior communications and exceptional writing skills, and deliver outstanding client service.  Bilingualism is a definite asset.

The Thornley Fallis team prides itself on working collaboratively, and we are looking for consultants interested in joining a group of fun, dynamic professionals who are committed to providing clients with the best possible counsel, service and results.

CVs can be submitted to me:

Keelan Green
Vice-President & General Manager
Thornley Fallis Communications
55 Metcalfe Street, Suite 730
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6L5
green@thornleyfallis.com

… as much as it worries other experts whose opinions I care about.

I had a good chat with the new national editor of Maclean’s about this issue when I was at an event in Toronto to celebrate new linkages between TO and Atlantic Canada last week (might have been two weeks ago — October and November have been flying by!)  I suggested to him, in essence, that I think the notion of people saying they are disengaging from citizenship, i.e. abandoning the political process because “it’s not for them,” is OK with me as long as I know that I, and most of the people I know on a daily basis, still participate.

Citizenship is active, and requires work.  It also, however, gives you a chance to voice your concerns about the approximately 1/3 of your salary that levels of government take off your weekly earnings, and if that doesn’t motivate someone to participate, then unfortunately I don’t think anything will.

I teach part-time at a local community college, and the problem isn’t young people.  It’s that people have decided it’s too hard, it’s too removed from their daily lives, and that it doesn’t matter.  Asking people to care about things they don’t care about is an uphill battle, and I — for one – am skeptical that it’s as important to change their behaviour as people say.

That’s why I like people who have engaged in a partisan way, no matter what their affiliation — I respect that they care, and I respect that their commitment has led them to public service in that way.

Not caring, to my mind, is the easy way, so instead of proportional representation, or some other solution, let me propose this concept: we should offer voters a tax credit for voting, a receipt for a $100 tax credit for the next year’s income tax.  We could promote similar initiatves at the provincial and municipal level.  That way, there’s a further financial incentive to get people out to the polls when they get the chance.

Some don’t need the incentive, of course, because they think the opportunity to cast a ballot is simply too valuable to pass up.  But if we don’t go this route, all the tallking about reengaging people will not lead to increases in voter turnout on election day.

My two cents (or 2.1 cents US) …

At least that was my immediate impression when I received this mailer (cover below) with information on the upcoming provincial election and referendum from Elections Ontario last week, but maybe that’s just me.

I was struck recently by the lack of coverage given the 2006 census when it was released July 17th.  What struck me, in particular, was the fact that:

1. During the slowest news period of the year, the story about the aging of Canada’s population (across the board) received one day of coverage, with very little follow-on coverage anywhere, and
2. There was little national discussion about the various regional stories associated with the census and the ongoing impact that will have from coast to coast to coast in this country.

I confess, I’m a bit of a demographic buff — have been since I helped out a bit on New Brunswick at the Dawn of a New Century in 1996 and read Boom, Bust and Echo by David Foot the same year.

So, while I’ve been waiting, let’s reflect on some of the larger things the census tells us:

1. Newfoundland may shrink its way into have-province status, as young people are an ever-rarer sight in that province;
2. All of Atlantic Canada faces significant population challenges, as does Saskatchewan and Quebec outside of Montreal;
3. Alberta, BC and Ontario remain the bright lights, demographically, meaning their economies will continue to shine as well.

My fear is that the census, and indeed demographics, is becoming a story that is too big to cover, much like the challenges we face from an energy perspective or the challenges faced in reforming and reshaping government operations.

But much as the lack of coverage makes me a little crazy, what really irks me is the challenge I have talking with people who refuse to consider the impacts demographics will have on them personally. 

For example, where are pension funds investing their money, and what impact is the flight of head offices from Canada going to have on their investments?

There are literally thousands of questions that could be asked of government, of citizens, and of the corporate sector out of the census.  I guess that means I better go back to the source document itself and get reading — waiting for a national discussion on it seems like it might be too much to ask.

The Ottawa Chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society has launched a new website.

The site was designed, built (on WordPress) and will be maintained (all in-kind) by Thornley Fallis and 76design.

The new site is built around a blog that board members of the local chapter will contribute to.  There are already a few posts to check out.

Note: Keelan Green & Stephen Heckbert of Thornley Fallis and contributors to this blog are CPRS Ottawa Board Members.

This is the kind of story that drives me crazy about Canadian health care.

Take a self-serving report (this one by the Canadian Nurses Association, but there are others published every year), then oversimplify its findings and report them to the public, highlighting another crisis in Canadian health care.

To quote the story, available here:

“The report, by the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), says 8,000 nurses will graduate but 15 per cent of them won’t be able to find secure employment.

The CNA says the problem is resulting in 10 per cent of new graduates moving to the United States every year.

The unemployment figure is determined by looking at health-care policy studies, past trends and reports from young nursing students across the country.”

Except it isn’t entirely accurate — the key word in the report is “secure.”  A lot of professionals, when they first graduate, aren’t hired into permanent, full-time jobs. Instead, they are hired on probation, given the worst shifts, etc.  Nurses, unfortunately, are no different.

The report goes on:

“According to the CNA, Canadian governments spend an average of $60,000 over four years to train a nurse. If 1,200 of them are unable to find work ever year, that amounts to a waste of $72 million in tax dollars.”

“Smadu said that employed registered nurses are working the equivalent of 10,000 full-time jobs in overtime.

“We know that 8,000 isn’t even meeting that gap and that’s why to us it’s really very shocking that we have new graduates who still don’t have full-time employment when they graduate,” she said.

“We predict at the association that we need about 12,000 graduates a year to deal with the impending retirement of registered nurses.”

There’s that word again — full-time employment.  Does the fact that a new nurse, fresh out of university, isn’t being offered a permanent, full-time shift at a hospital or other health care facility mean that he or she doesn’t have a job?  Not necessarily, but this report is being reported as though that is the case.

The Canadian health care system is a complicated mix of public and private sector management and involvement already.  Doctors, far from being employees of the government, are self-employed business people, by and large.

There are things to be done in health care — moving new doctors to salaried positions, for example, and buying the practices of current physicians.  There are things to be done in medical education — eliminating tuition fees for doctors who agree to remain in Canada, charging the true tuition (about $100,000 per year) to those who don’t agree, and finding a mechanism to enforce that agreement, for starters.

And, yes, we’re facing a demographic challenge — but reporting the results of a study without ensuring the real questions are asked isn’t going to do it. 

So what questions would I ask?

• Are you saying, Canadian Nurses Association, that there are trained nurses in Canada who are unemployed (not underemployed, but out of work completely)?
• Are you saying these nurses, professionally trained and certified and willing to relocate, can’t find any work anywhere?  Or are you saying they can’t find guaranteed, full-time employment in the area they want, with the hours they want — because that’s different.

I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I would want those answers before I reported that “1 in 7 new nurses can’t find work.”

I think the Canadian health care system, by and large, works pretty well, and I think the proof is obvious to anyone who’s watched GM, Ford and Crysler struggle with their health care costs south of the border.  “System needs improvement,” however, isn’t the same headline as ”system in crisis.” 

Public Relations machine, General Rick Hillier, Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff, was at it again yesterday.This time he was on Coach’s Corner with Don Cherry and Ron MacLean between the first and second period of game 5 between the Ottawa Senators and New Jersey Devils.

The General was interviewed from Afghanistan with Master Corporal Tom Charette of the 2nd Batallion Royal Canadian Regiment about the Canadian mission as they welcomed the Stanley Cup and several former NHLers to Kandahar.

I was watching the game in a bar that went absolutely dead quiet during the interview. 

General Hillier has to be one of the most recognized, popular and respected individuals in Canada right now. He has done more with the CDS position than any of his predecessors. 

He says he’s not a politician.  By job definition, he’s not, but he’s probably the best one Canada has.

It would be a real loss if he doesn’t go into politics after his military career.