Candidates for Councillor, Capital Ward 17

Shawn Menard

It has been a tremendous honour to serve as your City Councillor for the past four years. Thank you for your ideas, advocacy and support. We’ve all been through a lot together, with multiple climate emergencies, a pandemic and an occupation which tested our resolve.

During those emergencies, we took action on the ground and communicated regularly and honestly with residents about important information and how to access resources.

We were also determined, despite the unprecedented events, to work hard for residents and be responsive to constituents on the day-to-day issues you raised and to deliver on local priorities.

We’ve secured new investments in our parks, prioritized street safety for all modes of transportation, ensured new community buildings would get funding in Capital Ward, pushed for LRT accountability and transparency and worked collaboratively to pass motions that have set the city up to finally take meaningful action on climate change and affordable housing.

In the coming years we need to focus on tax fairness for residents in the core, reining in wasteful spending and the developer influence which is at the heart of much of it. We need to stop sprawl in Ottawa, which costs $465/year/person, and fix the 6,000 km of roads and pathways we already have instead of widening and expanding new roads. We must retrofit our buildings – which will both lower emissions and save residents money. Our motion for a new tree bylaw passed which puts emphasis on preserving our tree canopy, with much more needed to be done with strict targets for tree cover in the core.

Ottawa is a winter city and active all year round. We have collaborated with volunteers, city staff and the NCC to expand the Rideau Winter Trail in Capital Ward for skiing, snowshoeing and winter biking. We’d like to connect it to the new pedestrian bridge, just installed at Carleton University over the river.

We have made progress on street safety by lowering the speed limit on all residential streets in Capital Ward to 30km/h and added new traffic calming. We have redesigned the Bank Street Bridge with improved sidewalks and segregated bicycle lanes. In the next term of council, we will push for needed improvements along Bronson, Bank, Glebe, Pretoria, Chamberlain and Isabella.

The Glebe needs more affordable housing. We have new affordable units being built on Carling and have secured affordable housing for a number of developments in the ward, including a new ward fund dedicated to this objective. The corner parking lot at Bank and Chamberlain has now been reserved for affordable housing through the new Bank Street height and character study. City council must make this a larger priority.

The way the city has conducted itself on Lansdowne has been to allow for private sole-source proposals to take precedence over good public planning and proper consultation. That must end. We will:

1) Ensure the “park side” of Lansdowne is made a priority for improvement.

2) Ensure that a new council fully consults city wide with options available.

3) Ensure the proposal is not solely financially tied to corporate development interests with financing arrangements that box us in on possibilities.

Rebecca Bromwich

 Capital Ward Deserves Better

I am running to represent Capital Ward on City Council because Capital Ward deserves better. Our communities deserve representation that is effective, with a City Council that functions collaboratively without unnecessary combativeness or dysfunction.

My Priorities

Saving and Spending Responsibly

There is a crisis in affordability of property taxes as well as user fees for municipal services that is compounded by the inflationary economy we are facing. Many Glebe residents, particularly elderly persons, are in jeopardy of losing their homes if costs continue to skyrocket.  I am committed to keeping property taxes as low as possible.

Protecting and investing in Ottawa’s green environment and green spaces

Ottawa has developed a Climate Change Master Plan, and we need to work together to implement the current plan as well as improve upon and renew it when it comes up for renewal in 2025. We need to undertake smart and sustainable investments for a greener and cleaner city, infrastructure and services. This means that investments in housing in the Glebe as well as any work on Lansdowne need to be looked at with a sustainability lens. Parks need to be preserved and the tree canopy should be enhanced. Cycling and bike infrastructure need to be bolstered so that bike lanes are accessible and genuinely safe.

Improving Community Safety

We need to spend strategically to improve first responder response times and services. Road safety requires planning as well as enforcement.

Improving All Transit Services

Transit infrastructure needs to be improved. Any redevelopment of Lansdowne must be done in a consultative way that involves all community stakeholders meaningfully and contemplates transit and parking on Bank Street. I am interested in investigating a Bank Street O-Train, as well as expanding train services through Capital Ward out to the airport.

About Me

I am a moderate, independent candidate not affiliated with any particular political party or “club” at the municipal level. I am also not connected with any particular mayoral candidate, and I will work constructively and collegially with whomever wins. I do not endorse the new “strong mayor” regime that is being brought in by the provincial government, but I will strive to work as productively as possible within whatever system is set out. This “strong mayor” concept does make it imperative for councillors to build solid working relationships with the mayor. I will work constructively within the jurisdiction and systems set out to achieve the best possible outcomes for Capital Ward.

I am a long-term Ottawa resident, solo mom of four teenagers, a mediator, a Carleton law prof (teaching in the Sprott School of Business)  and a lawyer with a twenty year career in private practice as well as academia. I have an MBA and a PhD (from Carleton) as well as my law degrees.  The fact I completed these credentials while caring for my four kids and practicing law tells you something about my work ethic. I have served as a volunteer in a number of roles, with my kids’ preschool, school councils, and also with Planned Parenthood and now COSA (Circles of Support and Accountability Ottawa). I am past-Chair of the Carleton County Law Association Diversity Committee, and serve on the Equality Committee of the Ontario Bar Association as well as its governing Council.  I have sat at many tables – from my kitchen table, to boardroom tables, to the Counsel table in courtrooms – that equip me to represent you well on Council.

Daniel Rogers

I have lived in the Capital Ward for 48 of the past 50 years.

I went to school here. My kids went to school here – First Avenue, Mutchmor, Hopewell and Glebe Collegiate.

My career has been spent in public affairs. I have served the Government of Canada as a press secretary and legislative assistant to the Government House Leader, senior advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister, chief of staff to the Minister of Transport and chief of staff to the Government House Leader.

I have worked as the director of government relations for the Canadian Bankers Association and for the Railway Association of Canada.

Between these various undertakings, I also ran a public affairs consultancy.

More recently, I have spent the past three years as a small business owner in the Glebe.

As a small business person in the Glebe, I believe we can be better served by City Hall. For instance, why is the Glebe one of the few spots in the city where people are required to pay for parking on Saturday?

There are bigger issues to be sure.

Transportation and transit issues, Lansdowne redevelopment, intensification, climate change, affordable housing, access to public washrooms, mental health, drug addiction and homelessness, policing…not necessarily in that order, of course.

There have been recent musings of building an LRT link from Billings Bridge under Bank Street to Queen Street, with four stops in between. If affordable, this would go a long way to alleviating much of the congestion we now see on Bank Street, and I would be very supportive.

Intensification and development are good. It increases the income the city needs while limiting urban and suburban sprawl. That said, development and intensification should not drastically change the face of a neighbourhood. Development should benefit the City and its communities as much as it does the developers. Affordable housing and transparency measures should be required of every development proposal before being considered.

Anyone walking down Bank Street will have witnessed in recent years the increase in homelessness, substance addiction and people grappling with mental health issues on the street. I don’t claim to have the solutions to these problems, but I’m ready to work with anyone who wants to try and address this conundrum.

Policing might be a place to start. In recent years, we have seen the relationship between the police and the people they serve deteriorate. Maybe the solution begins with getting more police out of their cars and onto the streets where they can interact and re-connect with the communities they serve. This may also go some distance in alleviating some of the issues outlined above.

These are just a few of the issues that I would like to tackle. I hope to meet many members of our community on your doorsteps in the coming weeks to discuss other issues that are important to me,x but also to hear about the issues that are important to you.