How Ottawa's GCTC settled its debt with a single phone call

How does a theatre company get a grant to help pay for its capital costs — those one-time expenses that typically go toward the buildings and equipment a business needs to operate?

If you're the Ottawa Little Theatre, you file an application and hope for a share of a $250,000 fund that covers all the cultural groups in the city.

If you're the Great Canadian Theatre Company, apparently all you have to do is ask. Then you get a $250,000 grant all to yourself.

But if you're the Great Canadian Theatre Company, apparently all you have to do is ask. Then you get a $250,000 grant all to yourself.

At last week's community and protective services committee, Coun. Riley Brockington asked why GCTC "in particular is receiving this money?" After all, GCTC has already received $1.7 million from the city.

The answer provides a glimpse into how much power the mayor's office has in forming the budget, and raises questions about transparency at Ottawa City Hall.

Call to mayor's chief of staff

After a number of questions from CBC, it was revealed that the theatre's grant stems from a phone call that former GCTC board member Brian Toller made in September to the mayor's chief of staff, Serge Arpin.

Although Toller was no longer on the board, he had led a fundraising campaign that raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off GCTC's debt from construction overrun costs. 

"I had been close to this, I had led the campaign and I said that I'd like to follow up," Toller told CBC.

He said he called Arpin in September about whether it would be possible for the city to give the theatre an additional $250,000, a sum that would completely pay off the theatre's long-term debt.

The chief of staff was polite but non-committal, said Toller. So it came as a "pleasant surprise" that the grant was included in the 2017 draft budget.

Building costs ballooned

Back in 2004, the city had committed to paying one-quarter of the new GCTC, to be built at the corner of Wellington Street and Holland Avenue. It was supposed to cost $5.2 million to build the theatre, so city council pledged $1.3 million.

But by the time construction was actually completed three years later, the final price tag had ballooned to $11.7 million.

So in the final reckoning, the city never really paid a quarter of the building costs. That was the rationale used in 2013 when council handed over another $250,000. If a further grant of $250,000 is approved at Wednesday's council meeting, the city's contribution to GCTC will have climbed to just under $2 million, representing 17 per cent of the theatre's final construction costs — not quite one-quarter, but getting warmer.

Funding request undocumented

Officials in both the mayor's office and at GCTC talked about the theatre's ask as though it were a standing request.

GCTC board chair Mitch Charness told CBC he didn't know how the money ended up in the budget, but assumed the city is "trying to catch up on the commitment that it made." 

And Toller said that several years ago GCTC actually asked for more than the $250,000 it received in 2013.

"At the time, the city indicated that they would do what they could with another $250,000 in the future," said Toller.

However, the request for more money has never been mentioned in any publicly available document.

The 2013 staff report that recommends the earlier $250,000 grant states only that GCTC would be "eligible to apply for additional funding in future years, dependent on the funding of the cultural funding programs and part of the annual budget."

The theatre did not apply for money through any official program, but instead went the political route to request funds directly from Mayor Jim Watson's office.

Not lobbying, integrity commissioner says

And to be clear, that is allowed. But if groups are asking politicians for money, shouldn't that be a little more transparent, especially from a mayor who made "integrity" such a major part of his 2010 campaign?

The city's integrity commissioner Robert Marleau told CBC in an email that GCTC grant included in the budget "was not the result of undisclosed lobbying, rather this contribution was in keeping with the city's usual process for administering these types of long-term funding initiatives."

Marleau added that because the request was from a former member ‎of the board, then the activity is "probably not lobbying," but just "an interested citizen seeking a result."

It's arguable whether Toller, who said he asked to follow up on the funding file, is merely an "interested citizen." And it's interesting to note that the former chair of GCTC registered her request for funds in 2013 in the lobby registry, as did the folks with La Nouvelle Scène when they asked for funds for the French-language theatre.

Significant chunk of arts funding

While the $250,000 earmarked for GCTC is a drop in the city's $4-billion combined operating and capital budget, it's significant money in terms of arts funding.

Consider that the "cultural facility capital fund" for the entire city totals just $250,000. In the last four years, the entire fund has been put towards La Nouvelle Scène. Already, the city knows of at least 14 cultural groups with outstanding capital requirements, including Ottawa Little Theatre, which made an appearance before the community and protective services committee last week.

Those groups will have to go through official channels to apply for a share of the $250,000.

GCTC, on the other hand, made one phone call. 

Were rules broken? Probably not. But GCTC's tale of fortune does provide a little insight into how the budget sausage is really made at Ottawa City Hall.