Re: City Butchers Bayview ‘Innovation’ Plan | Unpublished
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Ottawa, Ontario
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I am the founder of Unpublished Media Inc., a company I started in 2012. I am also a communications professional and community activist, living in Nepean, Ontario. And, I am a hockey goaltender, political hack and most importantly, an advocate for grassroots, participatory democracy at all levels of government.

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Re: City Butchers Bayview ‘Innovation’ Plan

January 16, 2013

I wrote this comment in response to Ken Gray's blog post on the unsuitability of Bayview Yards as an innovation hub in Ottawa.

The only thing that should be developed at Bayview is the new football/soccer stadium because of its access to mass transit (4-way rail link). I agree that Kanata would be better.

If this is primarily to build a movie production studio, I think we are making a big mistake because Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver compete very hard with LA for film and TV production and have done so for many years. I doubt there will be much interest in Ottawa as a major player in film since production costs are always going up. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an option for new media firms to step up in Ottawa, but as you rightly point out, new media firms seek low overhead, not high profile locations.

The media, film and advertising industry exists in Canada’s three largest cities. I think we would be better off focusing on what makes Ottawa unique. We are a government town, how about technology innovation and new media firms focusing on governance solutions, this way Ottawa can be a leader rather than a follower.