By Peter Hume
In June 2018 when Ottawa Markets gave its annual report to City Council it was uncharacteristically blunt. Competition from the 19 urban and suburban farmers markets continues to erode our market share. Regulations are stifling and the lack of public infrastructure like modern accessible public washrooms and public spaces doesn’t help to attract vendors or visitors to our flagship public market.
The reason Marchés d’Ottawa Markets (MOM) could say those things is that Ottawa City Council did something courageous. It recognized its shortcomings and limitations and gave up on its efforts to bureaucratically control market activities.
Smartly, the City sought the best advice and more importantly it acted on that advice. It created MOM and gave the organization a broad mandate to invest in the buildings, create great infrastructure and propose new policies to improve the public market experience.
The MOM strategic plan presented in 2018 is all about improving the public market experience. That experience doesn’t rely on one single element. It seeks to improve the whole market.
The other factor you can’t discount or make light of is the fact that the ByWard Market is a complex place. It is an intersection of the public and private sectors, a place where public vendors, retail businesses, and public spaces all must work together to achieve success.
So, to the question recently posed: Are we making progress or are we, as some believe, on an inevitable march to the end?
Despite the gloomy assessment we are on the path to make the market environment better in all aspects.
This summer, in support of the City’s public-realm study we will take our first steps in testing out an Changes coming to the ByWard Market
improved market environment. William Street will, for the summer, be a place for people too walk, to sit and to enjoy the heart of the city. It will be free of cars and parking. It will be a summer home for people. This is a bold move for a staid Ottawa. More importantly, it is a step towards making the ByWard Market a more inviting people place.
If you venture into OM’s signature By Ward Market building, you will have to excuse our dust. For the first time in over 20 years hundreds of thousands of dollars are being invested to start the long process of modernizing our core Market building. Accessible washrooms, renewed building support systems and much needed maintenance work will start us on a path that, over time, will make the Market building an incredible public asset.
The next important step in OM’s market evolution is to strengthen our connection to the local farming community and make our market attractive to our farming community. OM has been talking directly to farmers to understand them and how they market and sell their produce. OM actively sought out farmers to serve on the OM Board of Directors and next month our first farmer will join the Board.
OM needs that farm perspective because history has shown us that change in market vending is very hard. The last time significant changes were proposed vendors applied to the courts and had the changes cancelled.
This tells us that any proposed changes have to be undertaken in a very deliberative and consultative manner based on best practises and supported by a solid policy basis. We are very lucky to be able to review the best experiences in public markets from big ones like Granville Island to little ones we have in our own back yards and church parking lots.
So what is our Market’s future?
It is a market focused on and supportive of the farmer and farming community. It is a future that has better buildings, better public spaces and an experience that all of Ottawa will be proud of.
Peter Hume is Board Chair,Marchés d’ Ottawa Markets