As much as the provincial budget deficit is a news story and some of us will be placing odds on who sits in the Martin after December 12th, your best bet for the money in terms of political fireworks and intrigue will play itself out at city hall starting next Friday.

On November 28th, staff will release their impacts report as part of the city's universal program review process. Although council does not meet until December 10th, councillors can make effective use of this 12-day respite to plow through this impact report which is rumoured to run 1,200 pages or more.

Without knowing the contents, here are a few questions councillors should be asking staff on December 10th, if not earlier. What elements make up the supposed $120-million operating budget shortfall? As much as this figure has been bandied about for six months, I have never seen an actual breakdown of this amount. And kudos to the Greater Ottawa Chamber of Commerce which has been quietly asking for this breakdown since Labour Day.

Speaking of the Chamber, a second bouquet needs to be thrown their way for the diligent work they've been doing on Ottawa's population projections. While Mayor Chiarelli and others like outgoing Kanata councillor Alex Munter have told all and sundry that the city has grown by 50,000 people, the actual statistics tell another story.

City documents tell us Ottawa's population was 800,000 in 2001, however, Statistics Canada says it was slightly less at 774,072. You might ask (or hopefully a few councillors will wake up and speak up) what sort of does a difference does 25,928 people really make?

Not much in one year, but when you start extrapolating growth projections 10 and 20 years into the future for things like neighbourhood planning (read: development charges) and capital requirements (read: sewer charges) along with $3 billion plus master transit plans, 26,000 people here and there over two decades has a huge impact on planning scenarios.

While if pays to be smart and build for future growth, building Cadillac transit systems for people who will never materialize in this region is a monument to poor planning and bad government. Even city staff testified during the ward boundaries dispute before the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) that the city has not grown as fast or as large as some elected officials like to spin us.

Council should demand a base set of updated growth numbers and projections -not the garbage that drove the 20/20 smart growth wishlist process - before making any cutting or shelving decisions on either the operating or capital sides of the 2004 budget and beyond.

During the next two weeks, Councillor Jan Harder is expected to release the work that her team of community leaders and experts (yes, I'm involved in this group) has done with its own independent analysis of city finances. If media calls to my office are any indication, some of Jan's colleagues aren't too pleased.

A CBC radio reporter, obviously spun by some a few folks on council, asked me if Councillor Harder's secret process was designed to undermine staff or derail the UPR efforts. What garbage!

The process has hardly been secret since a news release on this effort and composition of the Harder Group was put out almost three months ago. If only other councillors showed half of Jan Harder's initiative and conducted similar consultative efforts, then the budget deliberation process would be better. As for undermining staff, the cooperation that city staff has given Ms. Harder's has been exceptional.

However, the most important piece of information in the forthcoming budget debate must come from you. Call (580-2400) or email your councillor (www.ottawa.ca), even if you didn't vote 12 days ago because we will likely be whopped with property tax hike in 2004, and if you don't speak up, it's going to be a big one.