{"id":128996,"date":"2026-07-14T12:02:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/128996\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T12:02:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T12:02:22","slug":"rural-voice-at-city-hall-what-works-when-councils-skew-urban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/128996\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural voice at city hall: what works when councils skew urban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ottawa is home to over one million residents and the seat of Canada\u2019s government. By population<\/a>, it\u2019s the fifth-biggest city in Canada and second in Ontario.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also 80 per cent rural.<\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s municipal boundaries stretch far beyond the city\u2019s downtown core and suburbs, into farms and rural communities south, west and east. For producers in the area, this division can create challenges in city hall.<\/p>\n

Policy in Ottawa, including issues of zoning, land use and road infrastructure, tends to skew toward the city\u2019s urban residents. But despite these challenges, Ottawa may also present a blueprint for cities with a rural\/urban split as residents go to the polls this fall.<\/p>\n

Why it matters<\/p>\n

Municipal elections are set for October 2026 in Ontario, giving producers a chance to get their voices heard in city hall. In Ottawa, where wide boundaries put farmers in the minority on an urban-majority council, rural representatives say the fight to be heard on roads, zoning and farmland is one other Ontario communities will recognize.<\/p>\n

Wider boundaries, wider problems<\/p>\n

Nineteen of Ottawa\u2019s 24 wards<\/a> are urban or suburban, five rural. Rural councillors say communicating the concerns of Ottawa producers in city hall has not always been easy.<\/p>\n

One of those rural councillors is David Brown, first elected in 2022 in Rideau-Jock ward southwest of the city. Brown described himself as a \u201cpart-time farmer, full-time politician,\u201d as he still farms cattle and laying hens.<\/p>\n

Read Also<\/p>\n


\n \"A
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Brown represents Ottawa\u2019s Ward 21, one of the city\u2019s most rural.
\n Photo:
\n Courtesy David Brown<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I went to school for, and that\u2019s what I grew up doing,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThe only reason I\u2019m out of dairy farming now is because I jumped into politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said this experience has helped him understand issues facing producers in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a small number of people who are actively working a large area,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s different, I think, to a lot of issues that come up in a big city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ottawa public service, Brown said, was constructed to cater to the city\u2019s majority urban population, leaving rural residents at a disadvantage.<\/p>\n

He said it\u2019s sometimes an uphill battle convincing other councillors of how decisions could affect producers or rural residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of years ago, there was a plan for a roundabout that was approved prior to my time on council,\u201d Brown said, \u201cand before they built it, I looked at the plans and I said, \u2018this is not going to work for the farmers in the area, me being one of them.\u2019 Because I have to go through that roundabout every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me eight months to get city staff and the private sector consultants on board.\u201d<\/p>\n

His method of convincing them: getting a friend to drive through the proposed roundabout in a 1997 Case IH tractor, who proceeded to crush every concrete form under his tires.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never forget it,\u201d Brown said. \u201cOne of the city planners stood next to me and said, \u2018Well, do you think he\u2019s coming back?\u2019 And I said, \u2018I think he\u2019s done all he needed to do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Road maintenance is one of the main issues that affects rural and urban residents differently. Isabelle Skalski, councillor for the rural Osgoode ward, made roads central to her campaign in the 2025 byelection in which she won her seat.<\/p>\n

While poor road conditions could mean an inconvenience for some commuters, they could mean much greater losses for farmers who depend on roads to move equipment between fields.<\/p>\n

Cornwall-area crop farmer Sam McDonell, who also serves as a municipal councillor in South Glengarry, around 90 minutes east of Ottawa, echoed Skalski\u2019s concerns about the treatment of roads.<\/p>\n

He said he often hears concerns from Ottawa-area farmers about the southern stretch of Bank Street, which runs all the way from Parliament Hill to the St. Lawrence River, cresting communities like Greeley and Winchester.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce they get out into the rural side, it\u2019s just not a priority for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said municipalities do not always understand how road work could affect the lives of producers.<\/p>\n

\"Urban<\/p>\n

Urban encroachment next to farm fields in Ontario.
\n Photo:
\n File<\/p>\n

Hands off Ottawa\u2019s farmland<\/p>\n

Land use and development have also led to disconnects between the rural and the urban in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have vast tracts of land that have been cleared and are perfect for building,\u201d Brown said, \u201cbut they\u2019re also perfect for growing Ontario\u2019s food supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said developers are now offering the city higher and higher prices to owners for agriculturally zoned land. And it doesn\u2019t stop there: some are now going to the province, asking for expansions to urban boundaries.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, council has unanimously rejected these calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod isn\u2019t making land anymore,\u201d Brown said. \u201cSo, what we\u2019ve got is what we\u2019ve got. And if you\u2019re going to pave over Ontario\u2019s food supply, I think we\u2019re going to be in a pretty rough way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skalski said she saw a similar collision of priorities in a debate over zoning for battery storage near the Trail Road Landfill<\/a> in Rideau-Jock.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs rural councillors, we can stand firmly against some of these developments, but they do get overturned by council,\u201d Skalski said. \u201cSo that\u2019s kind of an example of where you feel the minority position.\u201d<\/p>\n

What smaller councils do differently<\/p>\n

Angela Field, a farmer and city councillor in the neighbouring municipality of Admaston\/Bromley can attest to this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Admaston\/Bromley, we\u2019re very cognizant of the importance of agriculture,\u201d Field said. \u201cOur municipality is almost 50 per cent ag land, currently our mayor is a farmer, I\u2019m a farmer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Angela<\/p>\n

Angela Field from Renfrew was elected to serve a one-year term as Director-At-Large.File
\n Photo:
\n Diana MartinAngela Field, a farmer and city councillor for Admaston\/Bromley<\/p>\n

Field previously spent a year working with the Ottawa Federation of Agriculture. During this time, she said she saw a disconnect in the area between those who farm and those who don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Land use was one of the biggest gaps, as developers continued to eye agricultural land.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe as municipalities need to stop looking at farmland, working farmland as \u2018undeveloped land,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Town councils like Admaston\/Bromley\u2019s have the benefit of a familiarity with the land, unlike Ottawa, where urban councillors must travel farther outside their zones to understand issues (like the impacts of a roundabout) for themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will look at severances on what is actually functioning ag land, and we\u2019ll say \u2018no,\u2019\u201d Field said. \u201cBut then we\u2019ll also look at it and say, \u2018well, it\u2019s classified as ag land, but you can\u2019t actually grow anything on it, because it\u2019s a rocky end of the field, or there\u2019s two creeks that run through it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She said urban councillors don\u2019t always understand how zoning laws could affect producers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t just say \u2018don\u2019t build on ag-zoned land,\u2019 but we need to work at limiting the urban sprawl. Think about intensification in cities instead of just constantly building out, building out, building out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Field said she remembered driving through the Kanata area west of Ottawa when she first moved to the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all cornfields, and at the time the Corel Centre,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd now when I drive in from Renfrew, wow, it\u2019s all gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ottawa can show others how it\u2019s done<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, there are paths for producers to have their concerns taken seriously at the municipal level, and Ottawa could provide a template for how to do it right.<\/p>\n

Both Brown and Skalski said they have seen the rest of city council, including the mayor, take rural needs seriously.<\/p>\n

The city even has a baked-in support for its rural zones, with a rural representative embedded in every department to offer perspective.<\/p>\n

Field encouraged producers to get involved in municipal politics where they can, including the Ottawa agriculture committee.<\/p>\n

\"Ottawa's<\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s rural representation model could offer other Ontario cities a template.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs fewer and fewer of us are out there producing and working the farms, that means there\u2019s less and less on our councils and advisory boards, and are we really need to get our voices out there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have time. None of us have time,\u201d Field continued. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t even matter what industry you\u2019re in. Nobody has time for municipal politics, but we need to make the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Field said she saw a way Ottawa could set a positive example for other cities, and it stems from one of the municipality\u2019s unique features.<\/p>\n

One of the largest landowners in the City of Ottawa is the federal government. Much of that land is managed by the National Capital Commission (NCC), a Crown corporation which acts as the main federal urban planner in the area.<\/p>\n

This unique arrangement has led to tensions of its own, and Field argued the federal government must be on board with proper land use and preservation. But she also said it has also come through as a positive for agriculture in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to make sure that their bylaws and their regulations aren\u2019t extremely limiting or tight for the farmers,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it is doable. It is clearly doable.\u201d<\/p>\n

She mentioned Nepean\u2019s Blackrapids Farms<\/a>, located on NCC land, as an example of a positive collaboration.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe Ottawa could even be a handbook on how to do this,\u201d she said, \u201cmaybe, if Toronto had been a little more forward-thinking like Ottawa and preserved some of that land, you wouldn\u2019t have the hundreds of thousands of acres literally subdivided and built up now.\u201d<\/p>\n

This s part of a continuing series leading up to Ontario\u2019s October municipal elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ottawa is home to over one million residents and the seat of Canada\u2019s government. By population, it\u2019s the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1824,42900,39629,61,42901],"class_list":["post-128996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-election","tag-farmland-preservation","tag-land-use-planning","tag-ottawa","tag-rural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}