Sens refuse to pay extra transit fee — while Bluesfest still on the hook

The city of Ottawa was unsuccessful in its bid to recover the costs of providing extra buses to major events at the Canadian Tire Centre — including Ottawa Senators games — and has still not finalized a deal to charge Bluesfest for extra transit costs.

Transit commission had directed OC Transpo staff to negotiate a deal with the CTC similar to the one the city has regarding large-scale events at Lansdowne Park, where extra transit costs are picked up by the event organizers and tickets also double as bus passes.

The Senators, however, "aren't interested," said Coun. Stephen Blais, who chairs the transit commission, to reporters on Monday.

'Pay their fair share'

It turns out that the Senators have an agreement with the city that requires transit service be provided to them.

According to the 2016 transit budget, charging for incremental bus costs for CTC events was supposed to bring an additional $430,000 into city coffers. OC Transpo will now have to absorb that lost revenue.

In the meantime, OC Transpo is still in talks with Bluesfest to cough up $200,000 to pay for extra bus service during the huge summer music festival.

Despite Mayor Jim Watson's recent claim to reporters that the deal was basically done, it appears the negotiations are ongoing — even though Bluesfest tickets have been on sale for weeks.

"I don't like to use the word 'force,'" said OC Transpo boss John Manconi. "We see [Bluesfest] as an important festival and we want to work cooperatively with them. And we expect that they do the same and pay their fair share of city expenses — like they do for paramedics, for fire, for police."

Policy never fully enforced

The policy to recoup extra transit costs from large events goes back more than a decade, but the city has never fully enforced that policy.

Indeed, this is the first year that the city has tried to charge Bluesfest for the costs of putting extra buses on the road, even though the special events by-law that allows the city to do so was passed in 2013.

It's also clear that forcing some organizers to pay for extra transit and not others has created an unequal playing field.

While the city can require festival and fair organizers to pay for incremental transit costs, it does not have the authority to charge for events at the CTC or the EY Centre, like Ottawa Comiccon — or even Canada Day on Parliament Hill.

However, the city still provides additional bus service to these events, since otherwise the regular transit system would be overwhelmed.