At this week’s Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee meeting, members received an update on the 2024 Rural Summit and the real progress being made on the commitments residents helped shape. The message was clear: this isn’t a finish line – it’s a beginning, and the work continues. The update highlights improved ditch maintenance, stronger governance, better paramedic response, improvements to assessing traffic signals and all-way stops, strengthening the rural affairs office and ensuring rural leads in each department and a commitment to holding another Rural Summit in 2027.

Read highlights here:

Committee updated on commitments made at 2024 Rural Summit | City of Ottawa

Mayor Sutcliffe joined the committee to speak directly to his commitment to keep rural voices loud, respected, and considered at City Hall. You can hear his comments here: Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee — February 5, 2026

As Chair David Brown noted in the Summit update, this work is about keeping rural priorities embedded in City decisions beyond a single event and ensuring ongoing accountability.

Earlier this fall, I asked City staff to provide information about the Adult School Crossing Guard program as residents in Vars are looking for solutions to improve the safety of their school intersection – the response was tabled at this meeting where I unpacked how the program criteria is not designed to account for the rural context and provides no alternatives to secure a guard outside the program. I continue to work with staff to identify ways to make this program more accessible to rural schools and to deliver real safety improvements at this school crossing.

Finally, committee carried every motion it dealt with today- supporting a spring 2026 Rural Woodlands Ottawa tree-planting demonstration at 2155 Roger Stevens Drive, approving the procedural waivers to add and consider the Rural Summit Update and extend public engagement on Summit commitments and priorities, deferring the Stittsville Quarry Jinkinson Road planning file to the March 5 meeting (due to a notification error), and adding an item to extend municipal concurrence for the proposed antenna system at 8230 Bleeks Road.