24 Sussex Drive is getting renovated. Some think the National Capital Commission should be overhauled too - National Post

The National Capital Commission's profile has jumped over its management of 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister's official residence, uninhabited for more than a decade but now on a path to repair. Photo by Tony Caldwell/Postmedia/FileArticle contentOTTAWA — As he makes his way north through Ottawa’s Strathcona Park, Peter Meggs walks across the Adawe Crossing Bridge, veering away from the connecting path that leads to a parking lot.

Both the connecting path and the pedestrian bridge are municipal jurisdiction. The bridge overlooks the Rideau River, which is provincial responsibility, although the Rideau River Conservation Authority is the river’s watershed agency, which means it manages things such as environmental and flood monitoring.

After crossing the 125-metre bridge, Meggs then hangs a right and joins a smattering of cyclists, dog walkers and step counters for the home stretch along the multi-use pathway of his regular, 5-kilometre loop around his Overbrook neighbourhood. That means he’s now on property run by the National Capital Commission (NCC), the under-the-radar federal body whose mission, according to the organization’s web site, is to help the national capital region be “a dynamic and inspiring source of pride for all Canadians, and a legacy for generations to come.”

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Before being turned into a park 119 years ago, Strathcona Park was a swampy floodplain overrun by mud and swarms of mosquitoes. But as Meggs’ brief trek across the bridge suggests, the 15-acre park may now be overrun by swarms of government.

The difference in this regard between the national capital region and other Canadian cities is the NCC. The commission’s critics have for years been asking why the national capital region needs – or perhaps deserves – an extra layer of government and extra source of taxpayer dollars than other Canadian communities.

Those questions have re-emerged in recent months because the NCC’s profile has jumped over its management of the prime minister’s official residence, uninhabited for more than a decade but now on a path to repair. Some NCC critics are also asking if it’s not time that the commission undergo its own renovation.