Ottawa council election saw lots of change — but few surprises
The new council under Mark Sutcliffe will have less collective experience than its predecessor.
Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen
Oct 25, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 5 minute read
Voters steered clear of any major upsets in selecting 11 new faces for Ottawa council Monday and allowing every incumbent to return to the table, where Mark Sutcliffe rather than Catherine McKenney will succeed Jim Watson as mayor.
The new council will have less collective experience than its predecessor, with a cohort of political newcomers, including the mayor, joining two veterans whose council histories extend to 12 years and a few others with eight.
The remainder of the incumbents have served only a term and, in some cases, not yet a full one.
Some of the more seasoned councillors also saw the most serious threats to their re-election. In Osgoode, former councillor Doug Thompson came close to pulling off a comeback, but the unofficial results Monday night indicated he didn’t secure quite enough support to topple two-term incumbent George Darouze, who led by about 240 votes.
Kanata South’s Allan Hubley didn’t manage a huge vote of support for his fourth mandate — just 34 per cent of the ballots cast — but it was enough to win, with the remainder split between a field of strong challengers.
Fellow-three term councillor Tim Tierney kept his lock on Beacon Hill-Cyrville, while Riley Brockington in River and Jeff Leiper in Kitchissippi both won solid mandates to represent the wards they’ve held since 2014.
This group now accounts for the veteran voices at the council table, after the city’s senior-most politicians chose this election to make their exit.
Replacing Jan Harder, Diane Deans and Rick Chiarelli, who’ve been on council since amalgamation, will be newcomers David Hill in Barrhaven West, Jessica Bradley in Gloucester-Southgate and Laine Johnson in College.
Hill is a Canadian Forces veteran, whose campaign involved a minor scandal that wasn’t enough to torpedo his appeal among voters (he apologized for a “lapse in judgment” after he was caught on camera removing a competitor’s flyer from a resident’s front door and replacing it with his own).
Bradley, who strode to a comfortable victory Monday, will step into familiar shoes in Deans’s ward, as the councillor’s executive assistant of more than a decade.
Johnson, on leave from a director role at affordable housing provider Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, started campaigning long before Chiarelli bowed out of the race, and bested her closest challenger — Pat McGarry of Hulse, Playfair and McGarry Funeral Homes — by more than 3,000 votes.
In rural West Carleton-March, Parliament Hill Liberal staffer Clarke Kelly edged out his opponents by claiming 27 per cent of the vote in a crowded field to take over for retiring Eli El-Chantiry, who was first elected in 2003.
In neighbouring Rideau-Jock, where Scott Moffatt decided to move on after three terms, political staffer David Brown easily secured the victory. He came up short in 2018 when he challenged Moffatt, in whose office he used to work, for the seat.
A 10-candidate battle in Rideau-Vanier become a fight to the finish between two front-runners, with public servant Stéphanie Plante defeating researcher and fellow university professor Laura Shantz by just over 300 votes. They were vying to replace Mathieu Fleury, another three-term councillor who didn’t want a fourth.
Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Keith Egli left his ward in the same circumstance, with seven candidates vying to take over as its representative, and playwright Sean Devine ending up the winner. It’s a sweet electoral victory for Devine, a well-known community volunteer who twice ran unsuccessfully as a federal NDP candidate in the area.
In Alta Vista –– Jean Cloutier’s turf since 2014 –– the incumbent-less race was won by Marty Carr, a federal public service executive and former president of the Alta Vista community association. She bested three challengers, including runner-up Carolyn Kropp, MPP John Fraser’s executive assistant.
Somerset ward handed an expected victory to Ariel Troster, a communications strategist who won McKenney’s endorsement for her bid to take over the ward McKenney had represented for two terms, and enjoyed support from other local progressives.
One ward is actually gaining a more experienced councillor than it’s losing. In Riverside South-Findlay Creek, Steve Desroches — the area’s previous councillor twice over — secured by a sizeable margin a return to the seat that Carol Anne Meehan is leaving after one term.
OC Transpo employee Wilson Lo will become the first-ever councillor for Barrhaven East, the city’s 24th ward and a new addition to its electoral map. The 30-year-old bus driver-turned-customer communications officer secured 37 per cent of the vote in a seven-candidate field.
The other eight of the 13 sitting councillors who won their respective races Monday night will be entering their second terms.
In the city’s east end, reworked ward boundaries were no blockage for Matthew Luloff, Laura Dudas and Catherine Kitts. They breezed to re-election in Orléans East-Cumberland, Orléans West-Innes and Orléans South-Navan, respectively.
In the west, Kanata North voters gave their seal of approval to Cathy Curry, who was appointed by council last November to the seat Jenna Sudds had vacated to run federally. Curry took more than three-quarters of the vote Monday.
In Stittsville, planning committee co-chair Glen Gower saw his pitch for re-election easily green-lit by ward residents, defeating his nearest opponent by more than 5,000 votes and taking 59 per cent overall.
Inside the Greenbelt, a cohort of one-term councillors broadly seen as part of this council’s “progressive” faction were returned to their seats, overwhelming their few challengers with roughly 80 per cent of the vote in each race: Theresa Kavanagh in Bay, Shawn Menard in Capital and Rawlson King in Rideau-Rockcliffe.
Newly elected councillors will have a few weeks to get oriented before their swearing-in on Nov. 15. The current council stays in place until that time, subject to “lame duck” rules that restrict their ability to approve new spending and to hire or fire staff.
Monday’s results aren’t official until the clerk declares them, which is expected on or before Friday.
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