He is a decent man and mayor who only ever wanted Ottawa to be the kind of well\u002Dkept city that one expects of a million\u002Dperson burgh
I wondered if that was for my benefit. I was in the back seat, spending a sunup-to-sundown day on the campaign trail with him, writing a story. But no, I was assured by a friend with the inside scoop; he did this sort of thing all the time. It drove city staff crazy, but at the same time they loved him for it. That middle-aged guy they’d often see stooped over the lawn at city hall, picking up litter? That was Jim.
But other events that have recently left scuff marks on his legacy — the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, the occupation last winter of Ottawa’s downtown streets, and the derecho that devastated swaths of the city last May, are harder to pin on him. You might take exception to some of the decisions he made in response to those events, but it’s not like he was ignoring the playbook. There simply wasn’t one.
A retail politician working on a wholesale level, Watson went everywhere: bake sales, church bazaars, art shows. No event was too small. “I’ll show up at the opening of an envelope,” he liked to joke. But notwithstanding their utility in filling his freezer , he enjoyed the circuit. I used to think there should be a “Where’s Jim” app to track his appearances at community events, but I suspected that might reveal that there were three of him.
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