‘It makes absolutely no sense,’ says Ottawa mayor as checkpoints cause major border backups

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson is venting his frustrations regarding newly implemented police checkpoints along the city's border with Quebec.

Images of commuters backed up in Gatineau for hours Monday morning are reinforcing, for the mayor, how ridiculous it is to have checkpoints between the two cities.

Watson says it would have been nice to have been consulted by the Government of Ontario before such a decision was made last Friday.

“We hear about it after it's announced by the premier,” the mayor tells CityNews' The Rob Snow Show. “And we could have told them that trying to put these checkpoints on borders in Ottawa, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. We're one economy.”

Mayor Watson disagreed with police checkpoints being implemented by the Quebec government last year, and he's not feeling much different this time around. Not only does he feel the checkpoints are a waste of time for residents in both cities, but says they are a waste of local policing resources too.

“It's going to cost us hundreds-of-thousands of dollars because you have five bridge crossings, two ferry crossings — 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And there are so many reasons why you don't have to prove that you are coming over to Ontario because you work here, or goods or services, medical reasons, compassionate reasons and so on.”

Watson says the province will be expected to pick up the tab for whatever the checkpoint initiative ends up costing the Ottawa Police Service. He thinks it would have made more sense to have Ontario Provinical Police officers set up along inter-provincial borders in the city instead.