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Is it a problem with our private sector, long-suffering perhaps under the shadow of a monolithic federal civil service? Not likely. From the cocky self-assuredness of our tech sector to the unbridled energy of our real estate developers, Ottawa’s business community appears anything but idle or risk-averse.

No, the issue that is holding Ottawa back – the main factor slowly sucking away at the city’s burgeoning energy – is our strange and dysfunctional political position.

This issue manifests as a three-headed beast, chomping away at what should be Ottawa’s ability to charge boldly into the future.

The first of these three relates to our position as the nation’s capital, which forces the city to be a regular municipality while also having to navigate the boundaries and priorities of a federal government with extensive municipal influence. If you doubt that this creates problems from a city-planning perspective, I have only two words for you: Civic Hospital.

The second stems from our position within Ontario, relegated as we are to being a forgotten backwater well outside the gravitational pull of the GTA. A reminder of this dismal situation was abundantly evident in our recent provincial election, in which all three main party leaders seemed at pains to remember that there was in fact an Ontario east of Pickering.

The third is perhaps the most challenging: our city’s dominant position within a greater metro area that straddles two municipalities and two very different provinces. To continue Ottawa’s growth, it is crucial that we address the needlessly complex and yet vastly underdeveloped relationship that exists between Ottawa and Gatineau. Ottawa is at the heart of a metropolitan area in which provincial boundaries prevent the free movement of labour in a variety of areas; which houses two entirely independent real estate markets; is divided by separate legal systems; and in which both halves of this two-faced metro mess are subservient to provincial capitals hundreds of kilometres away. Does this sound anything like a formula for achieving civic greatness?