2022 Ottawa Municipal Election

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

There may even be a signifiant upside to untethering cycling infrastructure spending from other, more expensive infrastructure projects like road reconstruction. Projects like Elgin's quick-build protected lane retrofit or Laurier Street were able to be put in quickly, cheaply, and effectively. Montreal shows many improvements on this approach, spending a bit extra on resurfacing and higher-quality materials, but still without digging up the entire substrate and underground infrastructure like we wait to do here.

The benefit of the approach, as I see it, is that it allows the City to be targeted in its investments. Put up the lane first, then you'll have a better sense of what additional interventions are necessary. If you put up a quick-build protected lane, you'll be able to see which parts of it could really benefit from resurfacing, geometry adjustments, etc. The City can target its interventions, whereas right now, it waits to have 100% of the money to upgrade 100% of the project, regardless of the level of necessity. Moreover, because it's spreading a small amount of money thin, it's more that it upgrades everything to 60%, leaving some parts over-improved, and others uselessly under-improved.

I wouldn't be surprised if the quick-build version of the 25-year cycling master plan ended up costing less than the status-quo plan.

The it's going to be cheaper argument is ridiculous. It's like saying my house needs a new kitchen bathrooms and I should finish the basement so it's cheaper to get a HELOC now and do it rather than wait. Yes I know many have taken that path. They are understanding the power of compound interest works both ways.

I do agree though quick and dirty will be the result and we don't always need to wait for it to be perfect. As annoying as it is to have to drive over speed bumps in Montreal's bike lines sometimes it's enough to have the line and plastic divider especially on one ways streets.

[rocketphish]

Getting to know Horizon Ottawa, the community group that is raising hackles this election campaign
The group, which boasts 700 members, has endorsed candidates from Stittsville to Orléans-South Navan, but has been criticized by some for divisive tactics

Taylor Blewett, Matthew Lapierre, Ottawa Citizen
Oct 17, 2022 • 7 hours ago • 8 minute read

Sam Hersh recalls feeling a sense of empowerment after working on Shawn Menard’s successful 2018 bid to become councillor of Capital Ward.

The win, he said, felt like a turning point.

“I think that was also the first time where we actually felt like we successfully challenged the status quo in a significant way,” Hersh, one of the board members of Horizon Ottawa, said in a recent interview.

But Hersh, and others who had worked to get progressive city councillors elected at city hall, remained frustrated by what they saw as a city council that accepted too many donations from developers and represented a version of Ottawa that was refusing to change course on policing, transit, climate and housing.

“We said ‘what’s our next step, what should we do, how do we get even more good people elected the next time around?’” Hersh recalled. “And more than just that — it’s not only about elections — how do we push politics in a more progressive direction?”

In 2019, Hersh and about two dozen others gathered in a room at the University of Ottawa to air their frustrations. It was the first meeting of the group that was to become Horizon Ottawa, and even then, it was already planning for the next municipal election.

In May 2020, the group released an analysis of developer influence at city hall, its first official action. It began issuing frequent calls to action on Instagram, posting infographics with statistics about the city budget and using Twitter to provide live commentary on city council meetings. Today, Horizon Ottawa has more than 700 members.

Almost since the group began — and particularly during this year’s municipal election campaign — Horizon has ruffled feathers with its aggressive and open championing of those who align with its values and targeting of people and behaviours that don’t. It has also drawn criticism from candidates who’ve found themselves on the outside of their fold and sometimes on the receiving end of attacks by the group, which wields considerable social media savvy.

Mayoral frontrunner Mark Sutcliffe accused the group of running an “American-style smear campaign” against him, after the group criticized his decision to attend a fundraiser with a $1,200 “attendance fee,” years after he criticized cash-for-access events at the provincial level.

Sutcliffe said Horizon, which has endorsed his opponent Catherine McKenney, has been attacking him since the beginning of the campaign. His backers have raised questions about whether the group is engaged in candidate-support activities that may constitute illegal campaign contributions, such as training volunteers. Sutcliffe has challenged McKenney (who used they/them pronouns) to “come clean” about whether they’ve accepted any such contributions from the group. McKenney said they had not.

It remains to be seen whether Sutcliffe will take his Horizon complaints to the city’s Election Compliance Audit Committee, which will start accepting requests for audits in April. Hersh has said the possibility doesn’t worry him and told this newspaper last month that Horizon had received legal advice and wasn’t doing anything wrong.

One of the group’s goals “is to make municipal politics more accessible,” Hersh said. “For a lot of people that’s the closest level of government to them and offers a lot of services but it’s also the one people least understand.”

Hersh sought to bridge the gap between progressive social movements and electoral politics. Horizon has tried to “get folks who aren’t normally involved in electoral politics to be involved, to take up space, because the people that usually represent us are not the people that often share our views or that we feel represent us,” he said.

“We’re always looking to push politics in a more progressive direction.”

Over the summer, it was explicit in that intention: posting several calls on social media encouraging Ottawans to jump into council races. “We are looking to support progressives, union activists, BIPOC folks, organizers, working people, socialists, single parents, immigrants, and anyone who wants to help build a more equitable city,” their website stated, offering to connect those interested in running with information and training to help them succeed.

In late August, Horizon registered as a third-party advertiser, allowing the group to spend up to $25,000 on ads supporting or opposing candidates in the election and accept donations for its third-party campaign — including from corporations and unions, who can’t contribute directly to candidates.

Most of Horizon’s donors are local residents who give an average of $30, according to Hersh, who said Horizon will be releasing its full donor list in the “near future.”

From Stittsville to Orléans-South Navan, Horizon has endorsed a dozen candidates in council races. Each one is profiled on the group’s website, alongside information about the endorsement process and links to volunteer with the candidates’ campaigns — something Horizon has encouraged its members to do — and to donate to them.

For some of these candidates a Horizon Ottawa endorsement can be key, said Erin Tolley, Canada research chair in gender, race and inclusive politics at Carleton University.

Political scientists refer to municipal politics as a “low-information environment,” she said. Due in part to the erosion of local news coverage, citizens often lack information about local candidates, which has the effect of favouring incumbents whose names and identities are already known. In this environment, endorsements provide people with a “decision-making shortcut:” voters can associate a name they know (the endorser) with one they may not know (the candidate) and use that to justify their vote.

“I really see Horizon as a strategic organization that’s trying to unsettle traditional politics,” Tolley said. “The giving of endorsements in politics is very common. This is a way that candidates tend to campaign, but one sort of disadvantage to that form of campaigning is that it tends to reinforce traditional networks.

“Horizon Ottawa is an organization that’s trying to leverage existing roles about what third parties can do in campaigns to promote candidates that are cut from a somewhat different cloth to unsettle that way of doing politics.”

When it comes to paid digital advertising at least, the ad library for Facebook and Instagram shows that Horizon’s social media posts haven’t made a huge splash. Most of the ads published since being registered as a third party have garnered several thousand views apiece, though they account for just a small fraction of the group’s online activity.

And that activity doesn’t sit well with everybody. One of the candidates on the receiving end of Horizon’s work to unseat incumbents the group characterizes as “status quo,” Matt Luloff, pointed to what he feels is “divisive rhetoric” from the group.

He offered an example: a seven-second clip from a debate in his Orléans East-Cumberland ward of a back-and-forth exchange over his opponent’s proposal to provide a free shuttle to a local farmer’s market.

Horizon’s presentation of the moment was that the clip showed Luloff arguing no one takes the bus to do groceries and that the incumbent was “out of touch.”

Luloff said Horizon took it “completely out of context” and spread it on social media, and that the point he was trying to make was that “people who depend on public transit for economic reasons are probably not the same people who are going to be taking a free shuttle to a farmers market, where (produce) is notoriously more expensive.”

The debate is available in its entirety on YouTube.

Horizon isn’t just active online; last month, it held a one-day “HorizonFest” event with live music and political appearances, and has erected election signs critical of candidates the group opposes.

In Capital ward, where Horizon’s heft has been placed behind Menard, the incumbent, challenger Rebecca Bromwich has her own objections to the group’s involvement in this election campaign.

“Their rhetoric is nice: they want to have a grassroots organization, they want to bring power to the people. But they fail to interrogate their own power,” said Bromwich, who argued the group is essentially operating as a political party, while those who don’t have Horizon’s support are left to run as independents.

The result, she predicted, is a council with “the kind of factioning that was dysfunctional last time around,” with Horizon-backed candidates operating as a new clique, and the group potentially involving itself in how these councillors approach their jobs.

Kitchissippi Ward incumbent Jeff Leiper shares the sentiment that a “Horizon Club” on council “would not be good for Ottawa,” and said his two terms “in which city council was run as a parliament with an opposition and a governing party, is enough to turn me off municipal parties forever.”

But he also believes there’s a lot of fear-mongering happening about Horizon Ottawa’s role in this election. Why? “It’s politics,” he laughed. And he doesn’t see Horizon Ottawa operating as a political party, at least in his case.

Leiper said his values are aligned with many of Horizon’s: reducing developer influence at city hall, much more affordable transit and a more progressive agenda overall for council, he said. Their endorsement — which Leiper has received, along with those from other advocacy groups — “is helpful to signal some of my values to residents who share the same values,” he said. “But that is really the extent of it … I don’t see myself as part of a party.”

“I don’t have talking points from Horizon Ottawa. There’s no contact between my campaign and Horizon Ottawa. They haven’t provided me with any material help.”

Tolley, the political scientist, pushed back against what she saw as some perceiving Horizon Ottawa, or the type of partisan organizing it’s engaged in, as somehow “dirty.”

Endorsements from influential organizations and politicians happen every municipal election cycle, though not in the same co-ordinated manner as Horizon Ottawa, she explained.

“I push back against this assertion that a group like Horizon Ottawa is introducing political parties into municipal politics as though that haven’t existed before,” Tolley said. “In a way, this is almost a more transparent rendering of political party involvement. It’s happening in other ways, in other campaigns, but they’re pretending that it’s not organized political interest and it absolutely is.”

Hersh, for his part, denied any suggestion that Horizon would influence its endorsed candidates’ votes on council.

“I think if you look at the makeup of council, they already vote along party lines,” he said. “We’re not a political party, we’re just a movement and an organization of people who want to push for progressive change in the city. There’s no nefariousness that’s there.”

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...ction-campaign

[Aylmer]

To use your analogy, the current approach says "we need to gut and completely redo the kitchen" when all we'd actually need is to fix a leaky pipe under the sink. Sure, redoing the entire kitchen will fix the pipe too, but we'll spend 15 years mopping, and pay more for the privilege.

A lot of the infrastructure gaps we have don't require the entire street to be ripped up. And sure, waiting 10, 20, 25 years for the wholesale reconstruction of the street and sewers will also allow to put in a cycleway, but so would a few concrete bollards. And instead of having the usefulness of an entire branch of infrastructure held up by a few missing blocks, we could make the best use of the entire investment today.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

To use your analogy, the current approach says "we need to gut and completely redo the kitchen" when all we'd actually need is to fix a leaky pipe under the sink. Sure, redoing the entire kitchen will fix the pipe too, but we'll spend 15 years mopping, and pay more for the privilege.

A lot of the infrastructure gaps we have don't require the entire street to be ripped up. And sure, waiting 10, 20, 25 years for the wholesale reconstruction of the street and sewers will also allow to put in a cycleway, but so would a few concrete bollards. And instead of having the usefulness of an entire branch of infrastructure held up by a few missing blocks, we could make the best use of the entire investment today.

Yeah that makes sense. If that is what we do it will be well spent. But the money on ripping up the street one by one will stay the same so it saves little if anything at that point. I still agree let's do it on some key routes but it's not saving money.

[Williamoforange]

Make housing Affordable Ottawa surveys are out:

https://makehousingaffordable.ca/cat...vey-responses/

Surprisingly Leiper didn't answer, and Menards answers are just bad, up there with Curry's

Also, found McKenney old statement on rail lands and SNC - https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/st...um0QZUZ--ybyGQ

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Yeah that makes sense. If that is what we do it will be well spent. But the money on ripping up the street one by one will stay the same so it saves little if anything at that point. I still agree let's do it on some key routes but it's not saving money.

Make sense too, from a city budget perspective. Although I think the cycling budget will be more efficient nonetheless; many line items taken from cycling are actually to the benefit of car lanes. You'll often see that a bridge widening will dip into the cycling budget for the additional cost, even though the only reason it need to be widened in the first place is to add a left-turn lane for cars. It's perhaps a bit cheeky, but by implementing quick-build cycling facilities on existing infrastructure, I suspect it'll be harder to play that particular shell game upon reconstruction.

But regardless, you're right to focus on "money well spent" as a metric. If LRT has shown us anything, it's that just saving money is fleetingly sweet and enduringly bitter...

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Make sense too, from a city budget perspective. Although I think the cycling budget will be more efficient nonetheless; many line items taken from cycling are actually to the benefit of car lanes. You'll often see that a bridge widening will dip into the cycling budget for the additional cost, even though the only reason it need to be widened in the first place is to add a left-turn lane for cars. It's perhaps a bit cheeky, but by implementing quick-build cycling facilities on existing infrastructure, I suspect it'll be harder to play that particular shell game upon reconstruction.

But regardless, you're right to focus on "money well spent" as a metric. If LRT has shown us anything, it's that just saving money is fleetingly sweet and enduringly bitter...

Veering off topic but wasn't the value engineering on LRT on the route. It's the vehicle choice which (if any choice is) are the cause of problems no?

You make more points and I will go back to it's a signal biking is a key priority details less important.

[rocketphish]

Citizen editorial board: Watch Sutcliffe, Chiarelli and McKenney answer questions from the hot seat
Our video team filmed the sessions, so you can have a (virtual) seat at the table, too.

Editorial Board, The Ottawa Citizen
Oct 17, 2022 • 10 hours ago • 2 minute read

During the 2022 municipal election campaign, the Citizen’s editorial board sat down with three high-profile candidates running to be Ottawa’s next mayor: Mark Sutcliffe, Bob Chiarelli and Catherine McKenney. Our video team filmed these frank conversations, so you can have a (virtual) seat at the table, too.

The process is simple. A candidate walks into a room full of journalists and editors, sits at the head of the table and agrees to answer whatever questions are asked over the next 60 to 90 minutes, on the record. For the person in the hot seat, it’s an experience somewhat akin to a job interview.

Editorial boards are a journalistic tradition with a long history at the Citizen and across the news industry. They’re used to bring together the expertise and judgment of a selected team of editors and journalists in order to cover topics we think are important to our audience. Usually, they help senior editors determine editorial opinions, such as candidate endorsements, and often we write news stories or columns out of these meetings.
Article content

Questions posed to Chiarelli, McKenney and Sutcliffe ranged from broad issues such as housing, development, transportation and affordability to specific questions such as: What should happen to the still-closed-to-traffic Wellington Street? How many terms would you serve if elected? And so on.

The editorial boards were filmed over the course of several weeks. Sutcliffe’s editorial board was held Sept. 27, Chiarelli’s was held Oct. 3, and McKenney’s was held Oct. 11. Not all platform promises had been unveiled at the time of filming.

[VIDEOS]

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...m-the-hot-seat

[rocketphish]

Sparring continues between mayoral frontrunners in final week of election campaign

Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen
Oct 17, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

With a week left in the most competitive mayoral race Ottawa has seen in more than a decade, Mark Sutcliffe returned Monday to the suburban Kanata park where he kicked off his campaign four months ago to highlight the promises he’s made and get in some digs at his primary opponent, Catherine McKenney.

McKenney held a similar event at the beginning of the previous week, which was focused specifically on what the candidate characterized as “cuts right across city services” that they said Sutcliffe would make to support funding his platform promises, framing it as Sutcliffe continuing “the status quo” in the city.

Sutcliffe, for his part, has committed not to cut any services — something he reiterated Monday. He went on to state, in an ostensible reference to his competitor, that “some people see Ottawa as a small, compact urban community rather than the large, diverse city that it actually is. They don’t spend a lot of time listening to the people in rural and suburban Ottawa. They have different, expensive priorities that only serve the interests of some people in our city. But I know Ottawa is so much more than that.”

It’s the kind of political jousting Ottawans can expect to see until the mayoral race concludes next Monday. Both Sutcliffe and McKenney have released financial plans, numerous platform promises (Sutcliffe pulled his together into one document on Monday) and have received endorsements from big names in Ottawa. They went head-to-head-to-head with fellow candidate Bob Chiarelli at a televised debate on Thursday and were slated to do so again Monday night at another hosted by local community associations.

Much of the criticism they’ve been lobbing in one another’s direction has focused on their respective plans for the city’s finances, and it seems likely this will continue.

McKenney (who uses they/them pronouns) dropped a claim last week mid-debate that Sutcliffe’s plan had a hole in it, by accounting for inflation only on budget pressures funded through property taxes, and not those funded by other sources like user fees.

Sutcliffe’s team produced an explanation that night about how other inflationary pressures are being accounted for. Namely, that user fees and government grants — making up about half of city revenues — normally get adjusted for inflation, they said. They also contended that McKenney would raise property taxes by seven per cent in the last two years of their mandate.

McKenney’s team shot back, saying Sutcliffe had “made up other numbers to misrepresent Catherine’s plan,” and that they’ve demonstrated how they’re going to maintain a three per cent annual property tax increase. They doubled down on the budget hole argument and criticized Sutcliffe’s accounting for it — they said all government transfers received by the city aren’t guaranteed to see increases due to inflation and stated that his plan for user fees to go up “will make life more expensive for you.”

Sutcliffe’s financial plan doesn’t address that part of the city budget, beyond identifying money for his commitments to cut recreation fees by 10 per cent for children and youth, and freeze transit fares in 2023.

But McKenney’s financial plan does factor in user fees rising — they’ve projected total city revenues growing at the rate which they have over the past four years — with accounting for those areas where they’ve said fees won’t go up, like transit fares and patio fees.

On Monday, Sutcliffe opined that McKenney is “seeing the momentum behind my campaign and is looking at ways of creating a little bit of fearmongering now about what things would look like. He suggested that his own criticisms, by contrast, have been on what Catherine has said in their financial plan that they will do.

“I’m not twisting and using conjecture to portray Catherine’s fiscal plan in a certain light, I’m simply quoting it.”

As for his campaign’s argument that McKenney would increase taxes by more than the three per cent they’ve committed to, he said his team has done an analysis and believe McKenney’s inflation assumptions would probably lead this to occur.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...ction-campaign

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Williamoforange

Make housing Affordable Ottawa surveys are out:

https://makehousingaffordable.ca/cat...vey-responses/

Surprisingly Leiper didn't answer, and Menards answers are just bad, up there with Curry's

Also, found McKenney old statement on rail lands and SNC - https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/st...um0QZUZ--ybyGQ

Also surprised Leiper didn't answer. Based on that survey, it seems Leiper's opponents would be nightmares on the housing file though.

On McKenney, I am disappointed to see it was them who made that comment. Ultimately, we own the yards. That's not in question. Still though, looking a the entire platform and campaign of each of the leading candidates, I'm still on team McKenney. Of course I don't agree with 100% of their record or campaign. They are not the perfect candidate, but more so than Sutcliffe who represents the status quo.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Would you serve more than two terms as mayor? McKenney says no, Sutcliffe says 'highly unlikely,' while Chiarelli taking it 'one step at a time'
Ottawa's current mayor, Jim Watson, is departing after his third consecutive term — the longest mayoral stint in the city's history

Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen
Oct 11, 2022 • 10 hours ago • 3 minute read

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...ation_with_ads

I believe McKenney when they say they would only do two terms. As they say, they have a very specific vision which is mostly achievable within two terms.

Sutcliffe on the other hand, I could see him run past two terms. A lot of people have vowed to only stay for two, but then made being City Councillor (or politician in general) a career. Blais was one example, one of Sutcliffe's staunchest supporters, promising to only run for two, then ran for a third just to resign after winning a provincial seat.

Chiarelli is pretty comical. That last part, good sense a humour. Has a good point though bringing up Hazel McCallion.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I believe McKenney when they say they would only do two terms. As they say, they have a very specific vision which is mostly achievable within two terms.

Sutcliffe on the other hand, I could see him run past two terms. A lot of people have vowed to only stay for two, but then made being City Councillor (or politician in general) a career. Blais was one example, one of Sutcliffe's staunchest supporters, promising to only run for two, then ran for a third just to resign after winning a provincial seat.

Chiarelli is pretty comical. That last part, good sense a humour. Has a good point though bringing up Hazel McCallion.

I have a feeling Sutcliffe is only there because he was asked to run by Watson. He wants to be an MP or a Senator. This is his first stepping stone, and I won't be surprised he jumps ship after the first term.

[rocketphish]

Ottawa vs. itself — Is Ottawa's election staidness baked into its DNA?

Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Oct 18, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 4 minute read

With only a handful of days left before electing a new mayor and council, Ottawa voters are faced with the prospect of sending the city in one of two drastically different directions, one of them bold — some say too bold — and progressive, the other cautious — some say too cautious — and conservative.

After a dozen years with the prudent Jim Watson at the helm — an enormously popular mayor until the wheels fell off the trains and the trucks rolled in — it will be fascinating to see which direction voters choose. Are they ready to take a big step from the middle of the road, or is Ottawa’s staidness simply baked into its DNA?

The three frontrunners for the mayor’s office all care deeply about the city, and talk about fixing transit and roads, and the need for more housing. But each presents a different map to accomplishing their goals, and together comprise a cast worthy of a theatrical farce.

Leading the pack throughout the campaign (so far) is Catherine McKenney, an ultra-progressive, gender-neutral-pronouned activist who for the past eight years has represented Somerset ward on council, where they were clearly not among the ruling-class Watson Club party. Before that, they worked for former councillor, now CHEO boss, Alex Munter, and as a strategic advisor to the deputy city manager. Housing affordability is perhaps the cornerstone of their mayoral platform to turn Ottawa into a “world-class city,” but it’s McKenney’s big-ticket, $250-million plan to accelerate construction of Ottawa’s cycling infrastructure, completing the 25-year plan in four years, that commands most of the attention. Opponents say it’s too much too quickly, in uncertain economic times.

Closing in on McKenney’s heels is Mark Sutcliffe, a businessman and media personality with no previous political experience, or, frankly, big-project plans, who in spite of his inexperience has cast himself as the safe, line-by-line efficiencies-finding, fiscally responsible and conciliatory candidate. Lately, however, he’s been selling his inexperience as an asset, suggesting that it makes him the candidate of change (one could argue that a McKenney with some power would also represent change, but let’s not quibble). Safety and affordability are Sutcliffe’s keywords.

Also on the podium, but with little chance of trading up his bronze medal, is Bob Chiarelli, who has gobs of previous political experience — he was mayor, regional chair and a provincial cabinet minister — but has the least-detailed platform of the three. His firm promise to freeze taxes and conduct a top-to-bottom review of city spending comes with a lot of the “Have no fear; I’m back” sort of reassurance that isn’t all that reassuring. Some in the audience at Monday night’s debate, perhaps impressed by his magnanimity, applauded when he deferred to McKenney on a question about cycling and pedestrian safety, but the move displayed a lack of leadership.

So if the choice is between McKenney and Sutcliffe, which way will the tide turn?

Ottawa has had an extremely progressive mayor before, from 1978 to 1985, when Marion Dewar presided. A peace activist, Dewar’s greatest legacy was leading Project 4000, which brought 4,000 Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees to Ottawa.

Ottawans have also voted boldly, most recently in 2006 when they elected another businessman without previous political experience, Larry O’Brien, to the top post. The Mayor of Swaggerville, as O’Brien was sometimes called, did not share the sandbox well with others, and lasted just one combative term.

In fact, there are parallels between that 2006 contest and this year’s. The frontrunner back then, until the campaign’s final week, was Munter, the first openly gay politician in Ottawa’s history and a progressive, although he championed low taxes, safety and fiscal responsibility throughout the campaign. But voters just couldn’t pull the trigger on him, with O’Brien surging ahead in the polls in the campaign’s final days and ultimately capturing 47 per cent of the vote to Munter’s 36 per cent. Incumbent mayor Bob Chiarelli, meanwhile, finished in third place with slightly more than 15 per cent, his 46,000+ votes far greater than O’Brien’s margin over Munter. Interestingly, O’Brien has endorsed Chiarelli this time around, saying that experience does matter after all.

Whether voters agree is another matter, but the decision is, as always, ours to make.

[email protected]

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

I have a feeling Sutcliffe is only there because he was asked to run by Watson. He wants to be an MP or a Senator. This is his first stepping stone, and I won't be surprised he jumps ship after the first term.

I wouldn't be surprised. Hand picking a know "Watson Club" member would have been too on the nose, so they had to find someone on the outside. Says a lot that many of the "Watson Club" members immediately supported Sutcliffe when he announced his candidacy, before he even presented anything on his platform.

Watson has not "officially" supported Sutcliffe, but the Tweets he shares make it obvious.

[rocketphish]

On NOW

Mayoral candidates to debate at 6 p.m. on CBC Ottawa
CBC Ottawa News at 6 will host Tuesday, Ottawa Morning will host Friday

CBC News
Posted: Oct 17, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 4 minutes ago

Election night is next week, and for the first time in more than a decade Ottawa will be voting for a new mayor.

This Tuesday evening, we'll hear from four candidates for the top job in a special episode of CBC Ottawa News at 6.

Join CBC Ottawa's Omar Dabaghi-Pacheco as he moderates a panel featuring four mayoral candidates: Bob Chiarelli, Nour Kadri, Catherine McKenney and Mark Sutcliffe.

That's Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET. You can watch the debate on TV, via the livestream that will be hosted in this article, or on CBC Gem.

Then on Friday, CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning will be hosting what is likely your final chance to hear the candidates debate the issues that matter.

Join host Robyn Bresnahan as she welcomes Chiarelli, McKenney, Sutcliffe, and Brandon Bay starting at 7 a.m. ET.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...-cbc-1.6617713

[rocketphish]

Mayoral candidates spar over transportation, convoy in CBC Ottawa's debate
Chiarelli, Kadri, McKenney and Sutcliffe appeared on a CBC Ottawa News at 6 panel

CBC News
Posted: Oct 18, 2022 11:55 PM ET | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

Four candidates vying to become Ottawa's next mayor exchanged heated back-and-forths during a special edition of CBC Ottawa News at 6 Tuesday night.

Bob Chiarelli, Nour Kadri, Catherine McKenney and Mark Sutcliffe appeared on a panel moderated by the CBC's Omar Dabaghi-Pacheco.

Here are some highlights from the mayoral debate.

Dabaghi-Pacheco pushed McKenney on how their transit plan would appeal to people who live in Navan, Kanata and other rural or suburban areas, as well as people living in the core.

"My transportation plan will get you out of traffic," they said. "If you need to drive or you choose to drive — by getting more people onto transit, you get more people out of traffic. That benefits everyone."

Sutcliffe took aim at McKenney's plan to build bike lanes, which McKenney has said would be financed through a $250-million green bond.

"With the added interest that's going to cost $450 million, almost half a billion dollars," Sutcliffe said.

He added the debate around transit needs to respect residents living in rural areas — who can't bike their children to hockey practice or a doctor — saying many he's spoken with decry the condition of city roads.

"They find the state of our roads deplorable. I will also fix public transit and LRT," Sutcliffe said. "We can't just do bike lanes."

Kadri said he'd review transit scheduling to optimize routes and retain drivers and mechanics to improve reliability and increase ridership.

Chiarelli talked about how a new mayor and council will need to complete an assessment of the system.

In one of the most pointed exchanges, Chiarelli raised concerns about the Ottawa Police Services Board's goal to hire a new chief by the end of the term and took aim at Sutcliffe's potential conflict of interest.

Chiarelli and McKenney sent a joint letter asking the civilian police oversight body to investigate the potential conflict on Tuesday — Coun. Eli El-Chantiry, head of the police services board which will select a new police chief, is an honorary co-chair of Sutcliffe's campaign.

"El-Chantiry is pushing to hire a new police chief before the new mayor and council are in place," Chiarelli said. "After totally inadequate public engagement."

Sutcliffe is the only leading mayoral candidate who supports the move.

McKenney positioned themselves as supporting residents during the truck convoy, while pressing Sutcliffe about an column he penned in the Ottawa Citizen on Feb. 14 about a need for understanding the protesters, although the exact quote McKenney cited isn't found within the text.

Each of the candidates was asked to choose one city service they would protect at all costs.

Chiarelli said he would protect people on social assistance and experiencing homelessness. McKenney echoed Chiarelli, saying they'd make it a priority to end chronic homelessness.

Kadri said he'd maintain the number of city employees — as opposed to Sutcliffe who has promised to cut 200 city jobs — while Sutcliffe talked about doing a line-by-line review to find efficiencies and savings in non-essential areas.

"Catherine is trying to present themselves as a fiscal conservative. It's simply not true," Sutcliffe said.

"And Catherine is attacking my responsible fiscal plan as a way of distracting from the fact that Catherine is a spender who will not be able to keep expenses under control at City Hall."

He said their financial plan would deplete the city's reserves.

McKenney pushed back.

"My priorities have always been people. My priorities are transit, my priorities are housing, my priorities are climate action," they said.

"That is what is in my plan. We have a fully costed plan, we've got a solid plan, and we have accounted for inflation across the entire budget."

Seeing an opportunity, Kadri took aim at the frontrunners.

"Sutcliffe's plan is not progressive. Catherine's plan is not pragmatic."

Residents have grown used to a divided council, often split between those who support Jim Watson and those who don't.

"Bob Chiarelli and Mark Sutcliffe both are competing. Who's going to be Jim Watson 2.0?" Kadri said. "OK, perhaps one of them is Jim Watson 2.0. The other one is not a fully fledged version. [They're] Jim Watson 1.5."

Sutcliffe pushed back against Chiarelli's suggestion that his campaign had "corporate backers."

"I said very clearly at the beginning of the campaign that I would not accept donations from developers, and I've not accepted donations from developers," Sutcliffe said.

"We'll see the numbers later," Kadri responded.

McKenney challenged Sutcliffe and the two candidates to release their donor lists. McKenney has already released their donor list.

"It would be easier if you just showed us your donors list," they said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...2022-1.6620967

[rocketphish]

Why Catherine McKenney keeps showing up: the making of Ottawa's progressive mayoral candidate
The convoy crisis illustrated a few things about McKenney. For starters, they have guts.

Jacquie Miller
Oct 19, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 7 minute read

During the “Freedom Convoy” protest last winter, Ottawa councillor Catherine McKenney joined a council meeting live from occupied downtown.

While most councillors appeared on the video call from home — a regular practice during the pandemic — McKenney was instead wearing an N95 mask while strolling through the city’s downtown core, where jerry cans were piled up next to trucks adorned with Canada flags.

“The stench of diesel fumes right now is actually sickening,” McKenney reported.

”We’re never f***ing leaving’,” yelled a man in a tuque walking by McKenney.

“Hi there,” McKenney replied, not missing a beat.

Residents were under siege from the “mayhem,” McKenney told council, imploring the city to do something to clear the streets of the vehicles and protesters.

Later during that council meeting, McKenney tore into Mayor Jim Watson, saying they had lost all confidence in him. (McKenney uses they/them pronouns.)

The convoy crisis illustrated a few things about McKenney, who is running to be mayor. For starters, they have guts.

They received telephone threats and sent their youngest daughter out of town for a weekend, but McKenney continued to walk the streets of their downtown Somerset ward. They asked truckers to leave, all while checking in on residents to offer help if anyone needed groceries or pet food delivered.

For people living downtown amid the convoy chaos, McKenney’s presence meant a lot, says Brenda Knight, who lives in a condo at Bay and Queen streets.

“The fact that McKenney was in the streets walking around, it showed they cared, genuinely,” she says. “We can’t breathe. We can’t sleep. We can’t go out to get food. Trust me, when nobody else is listening but you know one person is listening, it matters.”

The convoy crisis also laid bare, if there was any doubt, the divisions between McKenney and Mayor Watson.

When McKenney first ran to capture the Somerset Ward seat in 2014, they said they would vote for Watson. But by McKenney’s second term on city council, they were clearly not a member of the “Watson club,” the group of councillors who usually voted with the mayor.

McKenney offers a change in direction from Watson, and they have put forward different priorities than the other two perceived front-runners for the mayoralty, Mark Sutcliffe and Bob Chiarelli.

McKenney’s campaign has focused on climate change, affordable housing, reliable transit and transparency at city hall. They promise to freeze OC Transpo fares and offer free rides for everyone under 18. They talk about walkable neighbourhoods and better bike paths, increasing the tree canopy, limiting urban sprawl, ending chronic homelessness and making Ottawa a world leader in reaching net-zero carbon emissions.

Their slogan: “We can make Ottawa the greenest, the healthiest and the most connected city in Canada.”

Sutcliffe has attacked McKenney’s promises, especially the proposal to spend $250 million on improving bike lanes by collapsing 25 years of work into four years and paying for it with a “green” bond.

McKenney’s team instead likes to call their platform “bold.” Ottawa can be a leader, McKenney said in a recent interview. “We always compare ourselves to others, whether it’s the Netherlands for recycling or another country for climate or transit. I want other cities to compare themselves to us.”

McKenney was born 61 years ago in Fort-Coulonge, Que. Their father worked as a forester, while their mother was a stay-at-home mom. The family moved to Sturgeon Falls, Ont., 80 km east of Sudbury, where McKenney’s experience in elementary school helped shape their politics later in life.

”The school I went to had mostly Indigenous kids. Those were my friends,” McKenney said in an interview on the podcast Bad + Bitchy.

At about age six, after the holiday break, McKenney asked a friend what she got for Christmas. The friend said she got a stuffed snake. A young McKenney then asked what else — aren’t there usually a bunch of gifts?—and the friend replied that was all she got.

“I went home and I said to my mother: ‘you can’t tell me there’s a Santa Claus,’ ” they recounted. “I was upset.”

In elementary school, McKenney said they and another student were always the top two in academics and track and field. “By Grade 7 and 8, I realized that for us to be equal, I was average and she was exceptional,” they continued. “Over time, I was able to see the privilege that I had and what that meant, and how it just allowed me to move ahead where somebody else would be left behind.”

McKenney moved to Pembroke, Ont., in Grade 9, where their dad got a job at Algonquin College teaching forestry.

In their 20s, McKenney was busy working various low-wage jobs—from fast food outlets to local photographer’s assistant—to financially support their two young kids as a single parent. They moved to Ottawa at 26, and in their 30s, completed an undergraduate degree in social science at the University of Ottawa.

It led McKenney into municipal politics in the late 1990s, where they worked for two progressive city councillors: Alex Munter and Diane Holmes. McKenney shifted to federal politics in 2004 as a legislative assistant for former NDP MPs Ed Broadbent and Paul Dewar, only to return to Ottawa city council in 2008 as a senior advisor to then-deputy city manager, Steve Kanellakos.

When Holmes announced she was retiring from Ottawa politics in the lead-up to the 2014 municipal election, McKenney was an obvious choice to represent the people of Somerset. They were re-elected four years later in a landslide.

Their Centretown West home now includes their wife, youngest daughter and four pets—two dogs and two cats—adopted from the Humane Society. Plus Peri the pet rat. “The rat’s not a rescue,” McKenney laughs.

McKenney finds much-needed alone time running in the woods, mainly in the Gatineau Hills. Since the pandemic, McKenney started running in the Experimental Farm. Four days a week, they get up at 5 a.m. to run for two or three hours. Longer on Sundays.

In 16 years, McKenney and their running partner haven’t missed a day due to weather. “We’ve missed for other things, like an injury, but never because it was too hot, too cold or too rainy.”

And in the race for the city’s top job, their primary challenger, Mark Sutcliffe, is also an avid distance runner, who wrote a book on his journey to the Boston Marathon.

During the campaign, while Sutcliffe has presented himself as a fresh face with business and leadership experience who has never been a politician, McKenney has sold her experience at city hall as an advantage.

Sutcliffe has branded McKenney’s candidacy as a “hard left turn” for Ottawans with expensive promises that will result in higher tax increases. McKenney has pledged to cap annual tax increases at three per cent, in line with the city’s current approach, with no cuts to city services. Sutcliffe promised to keep property tax increases between 2 and 2.5 per cent in his first two years as mayor, if elected.

McKenney has the endorsement from Horizon Ottawa, a community group that promotes “progressive” politics and is a registered third-party advertiser in the municipal campaign.

They also have the endorsement of former federal Liberal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, who calls their climate plan “smart,” as well as Mark Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England.

Even in victory, McKenney’s progressive vision for Ottawa might only come to fruition if they find a majority of like-minded councillors. McKenney, like all three leading Ottawa mayoral candidates, has promised not to use the “strong mayor” powers instituted last month by Queen’s Park.

“In McKenney’s platform there are a lot of pretty bold ideas,” says councillor Glen Gower, who is running for re-election in Stittsville. “In a lot of areas, it would represent a change of course. To be successful, they will have to get the support of a majority of council. I can’t say if Catherine would be able to do that or not, but that would be the big challenge.”

Others, like Sarah Wright-Gilbert, call McKenney “a bridge builder” who is able to look beyond political differences. Wright-Gilbert first joined the city transit commission as a citizen member in 2019. and recounts one heated debate over the failures of the city’s LRT, when she was distraught after being attacked on Twitter by another councillor. McKenney arranged a private meeting in their office so she and the councillor could talk.

“If Catherine was a divisive person, they would have taken that situation and used it to further their own political agenda,” says Wright-Gilbert. “But Catherine did the exact opposite.”

[email protected]

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...oral-candidate

[J.OT13]

Leadership for a Liveable Ottawa debate. Sort of starts abruptly.

• Video Link

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

[B]Why Catherine McKenney keeps showing up: the making of Ottawa's progressive mayoral candidate
The convoy crisis illustrated a few things about McKenney. For starters, they have guts.

I did a double-take when I saw that headline and wondered if people on the lower end of reading skills might not wonder if it's McKenney or the convoy that "has guts".

[J.OT13]

Watching the debate on Rogers. Pretty funny when Chianello asks about cyclists and pedestrian safety, Chiarelli defers to McKenney for suggestion on cycling and abide with what they would suggest (50:15).

Seems McKenney and Chiarelli have been an unlikely duo during this entire campaign, working together or supporting each other on requests such as asking the Provincial Government to remove the Tewin Lands from the Official Plan and writing to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission to investigate conflicts of interest within the Police Board and hold off on hiring a new police chief until after the election.