Councillor Rick Chiarelli is standing with Mayor Jim Watson's words, saying that Ottawa does not need to change its laws around the city's bilingualism.
This comes after fellow councillor Mathieu Fluery has been vocally supporting the notion presented by the group "Ottawa Bilingual” to tweak both the provincial city of Ottawa Act and the city's bilingualism bylaw.
Joining Kristy Cameron on The Newsfeed, Chiarelli says there is no need to fix a system that isn't having any issues.
"One of the few policies and areas of operations that we have that generates almost no complaints is this one. So why would we change it and open up the whole thing to all sorts of challenge and debate when the majority of the public understands that they are getting served properly in both official languages?"
Chiarelli says the recent poll that showed close to 70 percent of Ottawa Residents in support of the change doesn't mean much.
"I think they'd be fine with the change because they're really fine with the policy we have. But, I don't think they'd be fine with it if it was something that was going to be inflammatory and debated every single week or every single month. They wouldn't be fine with the courts changing our current policy, and democratically elected representatives not having any authority over it."
Chiarelli also says there's no need to change the way things are right now, as the majority of the public is being served in their language and complaints are very low.
Councillor Fluery has said he will not bring the motion forward unless he receives 17 total votes of support from council, and that he wants this project to be unifying, not divisive.