Council sends electric bus debate back to transit commission

Ottawa city council has voted to continue the discussion on the city's zero-emission bus program after new councillors expressed concern about a lack of debate this term.

City council was slated to vote on approving budget authority for the planning, design, and construction of the charging infrastructure for the fleet of what would eventually be 350 zero-emission buses.

Staff said the city would buy 26 40-foot electric buses this year and 77 next year as it moves to build its electric bus fleet. The goal is for OC Transpo's bus fleet to be fully electric by 2036.

However, Coun. David Hill moved a motion asking for the matter to head back to transit commission, saying the current term of councillors have not had a chance to look at the plan.

"My preference would be for us to go to transit committee so that we can actually talk this through with the experts, to allow for public delegations who are not able to come today, and to allow for a fulsome discussion for the new 2022 to 2026 transit commission, who will own this problem on behalf of council," Hill said. "If this goes south in three years' time, it is not going to be last term that is going to wear it; it's going to be us."

Councillors voted 20 to 5 in favour of sending the report back to transit commission for more discussion. Councillors Glen Gower, Tim Tierney, Cathy Curry, Sean Devine and Mayor Mark Sutcliffe voted against the motion.

"I'm still not sure what would happen at a special meeting of the transit commission that we couldn't do today," Sutcliffe said, encouraging council to vote against Hill's motion and instead ask questions at a committee of the whole.

The transit commission isn't scheduled to meet again until Feb. 9, but Hill said he would like the commission to call a special meeting sooner to discuss the issue.

"This motion today was not about the actual technology, it was about the ability for transit commission to ask those questions internally because we have more opportunity to engage with public delegations, we have the opportunity to speak more repetitively and more frequently so we can really get to the heart of the issue," Hill told CTV News.

Gower, who voted against referring the report to the transit commission, told CTV News that experts were present at Wednesday's council meeting, but those experts will need to reconvene for a special meeting.

"We had all the experts to answer questions from councillors today, so we’re looking at Friday morning, potentially, to bring those experts back and bring city councillors back together so we will have the opportunity to ask the same questions on Friday morning," he said.

100 FEWER BUSES

The report included details about federal funding that would help pay for the transition to electric buses, including $350 million from the Infrastructure Canada grant and $75 million drawdown on the Canada Infrastructure Bank credit facility

But while OC Transpo said in 2021 it planned to buy 450 electric buses, last week it said the plan now includes only 350 buses.

The total estimated cost of the program for 350 buses is $974 million, the report says.

--With files from CTV's Tyler Fleming.