Enlivening Ottawa after dark and shedding our boring reputation would be easier with a snappy city slogan. So help us out with one.
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Published May 16, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read
The identity of Ottawa’s inaugural night mayor is expected to be announced any day — or night — now, which fills me with both excitement and anxiety.
I’m excited because Ottawa finally has the opportunity to rid itself of the burdensome “city that fun forgot” sobriquet that has hung around its neck since it banned Sunday sports and alcohol in parks on days ending with the letter Y.
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I’m anxious, though, for the same reason. It’s not like the fun-forgetting insult randomly fell from the sky. We earned it, and it’ll take some doing before we’re comfortable enough to throw off the shackles and start greeting strangers with a double-cheek air kiss.
But that’s staid old Ottawa for you. We’re not even using the fabulous title of Night Mayor, or Midnight or Moonlight Mayor, both of which have alliterative allure. Instead, the person responsible for upping Ottawa’s 6 p.m.-to-6 a.m. game will be known as the Nightlife Commissioner, calling to mind someone wearing a uniform with epaulets and a name tag, checking to make sure we don’t sneak in through the back door.
The position has been successful in other cities, yet many critics are against spending 15 cents annually per resident on the office here, chiefly because, well, this is Ottawa. This is the city that fun forgot.
Let’s end that.
But before we adopt any of the suggestions proposed when the night-mayor position was first announced last year — extending public transit service, improving nighttime safety, or providing evening daycare (can we just call it nightcare?) for parents who work at nightlife-related businesses — let’s create a new city motto to redefine our civic identity. How can we otherwise have fun, day or night?
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Remember the terrible slogan city officials came up with five years ago? “Canada in One City”? It suggested that we didn’t have any identity of our own, like a chameleon with low self-esteem. Then there was 2001’s “Technically Beautiful,” which was supposed to lure hi-tech business, but only attracted ridicule. How could anyone read that and not add the word “but” at the end? “Ottawa: Technically beautiful, but … (fill in the blank).”
Our official motto, meanwhile — “Advance-Ottawa-En Avant” — is bereft of inspiration or aspiration. Advance? That’s what time does when you leave it alone. It’s hardly surprising, then, that the region of Waterloo calls itself “The Creative Capital of Canada,” which ought to be taken as a slap at every Ottawan. I mean, seriously, even after Blackberry? It demands a response.
So that’s the challenge: Come up with a motivating motto that’ll make the night mayor’s job easier.
It needn’t be racy. We’re probably not ready yet for suggestive catchphrases like “Regina: The city that rhymes with fun” or “Show us your Regina,” both of which tourism authorities in that city used in campaigns until enough offended residents — perhaps expat Ottawans — complained. That said, there’s something I love about the nonsensical “Show us your Ottawa,” as though our city name might be used as a non-specific euphemism.
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A new motto could involve punnery or other wordplay, similar to Drumright, Oklahoma’s “Town of Oil Repute,” or the “Best little town by a dam site,” used by too many little towns by dam sites to list. How about combining a couple of Ottawa’s longstanding reputations — of being fairly recession-proof and having terrible roads in the spring — into “A Chicken in Every Pothole”?
There are other notable bits of local character we could mash up: “Ottawa: Working From Home Three Days a Week to Free Up LRT Seats that May or May Not Advance.” Or we could blow our horn with “Ottawa: Lots of Parking for Trucks.”
Perhaps a self-deprecating nod to something we don’t have is in order? The motto of Lake City, Iowa, for example, which took its name from Lake Creek, is “Everything but a Lake.” In reference to the oft-discussed-but-never-built east-end Ottawa River crossing, “Ottawa: A bridge too few” might tickle the odd fancy.
We could learn something from Boston, which counts among its nicknames “City of Notions.” It’s at once ephemeral, gaseous, aspirational, mythological and almost meaningless, but all in a wholly magical way. Perhaps, given our many layers of government, we could do something similar with “City of Promise(s).”
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Admittedly, the double-entendre doesn’t work in French. Maybe we could have two discrete mottos — or three, because there ought to be an Algonquin one too. Let’s not settle on something as insipid as Advance/En Avant.
Over to you. Show me your Ottawa.
Bruce Deachman was born in the Gateway to the West before, as a youngster, moving east, to the City that Fun Forgot.
Add your suggestions for Ottawa nicknames and mottos in the online comments section below this column, or email them to Bruce at bdeachman@postmedia.com
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