{"id":622008,"date":"2026-04-22T22:50:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/622008\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:50:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:50:22","slug":"tweak-to-food-strategy-motion-wins-over-skeptics-of-city-owned-grocery-stores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/622008\/","title":{"rendered":"Tweak to food strategy motion wins over skeptics of city-owned grocery stores"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Council has passed a motion asking city staff to study a food security strategy for Ottawa, but only after a tweak won over skeptics of city-owned grocery stores.<\/p>\n

Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr had initially mentioned city-owned stores in the main clause of her motion, though only as an example of something staff could consider as part of a broader study.<\/p>\n

But she came to council Wednesday with a rewritten motion that moved the idea into the \u201cwhereas\u201d clauses of the motion, which typically explain the rationale.<\/p>\n

While the motion still mentions city-owned grocery stores as an example used in other cities, that small adjustment was enough to win over critics and get unanimous support.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that there is great value in having a holistic idea of what is happening in our city when it comes to food,\u201d said Orl\u00e9ans West-Innes Coun. Laura Dudas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere I could not support the original motion, though, was the examples that were given and the very prescriptive nature of what we would see in what staff would come back with, in particular the publicly funded grocery stores.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney said he was surprised by the headlines about city-owned grocery stores that popped up after Carr\u2019s motion first came to light.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have potholes and lightbulbs and all those wonderful things to deal with and this again is another thing I don\u2019t think we need downloaded to us,\u201d Tierney said. \u201cIt would be a bridge too big for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Carr said the change has little substantive impact. She said her motion was never solely about city-owned stores, but rather one that asked staff to come back with a study that could lead to a wide-ranging strategy about food access, distribution, production and waste.<\/p>\n

Now, as before, city staff don\u2019t need to study city-owned grocery stores, but neither are they forbidden from considering the idea.<\/p>\n

\"AThe idea of city-owned grocery stores has gotten a publicity boost since New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, seen here earlier this month, campaigned on the idea. (Angelina Katsanis\/The Associated Press)Motion ‘doesn’t prescribe anything’<\/p>\n

\u201cIt still continues to say they will look at existing improvements as well as new initiatives,\u201d Carr said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could look at it. The option is there. They are looking at what other cities are doing. They are looking at what we could do as a city.”<\/p>\n

Debbie Stewart, the city\u2019s general manager of strategic initiatives, confirmed to councillors that the motion provides a lot of flexibility and \u201cdoesn\u2019t prescribe anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of city-owned grocery stores has gotten a publicity boost since New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on the idea.<\/p>\n

Toronto city council recently voted to move forward with a pilot of its own, though critics have argued that the grocery business has such narrow margins that non-profit ownership is unlikely to make a major difference in affordability without subsidies for rent or other big expenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":{"0":"post-622008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-ottawa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}