With Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden’s announcement that he will be stepping into federal politics, a familiar name and face in Ottawa is ready to take his place.
Catherine McKenney served two terms as city councillor for Somerset, has been active in the not-for-profit sector around the city, and was the runner-up in the 2022 Ottawa mayoral election. Now, they’re seeking the Ontario NDP nomination in Ottawa Centre.
McKenney sat down with Ottawa Compass to discuss their plans and priorities for Ottawa Centre, what they’ve been up to, and why they’ve decided to venture into provincial politics after a two-year hiatus from politics.
Why have you decided to make the jump into provincial politics?
That’s an excellent question, and it’s one that I’ve been asking myself. When I left politics almost two years ago to this day, I felt quite satisfied that I had served two terms on council, and I had no regrets over the mayoral campaign.
It was an amazing campaign, I had a lot of fun, and I really felt like we elevated a lot of the conversations around issues that are important to the city. I have no regrets, but I was happy to be out of the public realm, and as a result, I started to look around and wondering, ‘what else is there for me?’.
I care deeply about cities: that’s where people live. It’s where people need to function. It’s where people either thrive or don’t thrive. And for the longest time, I had absolutely no intention of getting back into public life and into politics. As time went on, I started to have people reach out to me about various levels of government. It’s actually just in the last month or two.
So, a little bit over a month ago, my wife and I were cycling one day. And I said, I’m thinking about provincial politics. She slammed on the brakes, ‘hold up, where does that come from?’
I’ve not involved myself in City of Ottawa politics, and nor should I. I don’t feel that it’s appropriate for me. Others are there. We have some really great progressive councillors, and they’re doing an amazing job. I just didn’t feel like it was appropriate for me to be in that space.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the best political job I will ever have, no matter what I do next, is as a city councillor, and I believe that entirely, because the influence that you’re able to have in your community is like nothing else.
I had been there and done that. I thought, ‘why not provincial?’ Everything I care about happens at the provincial level, and it’s so tightly connected to what happens at the municipal level, right in our cities and in our towns.
I would say it was a decision made over a day. I made a couple of phone calls. And then I was just really excited to move forward.
Can you elaborate on why you felt provincial politics is the right fit for you?
Every level of government is important. But for the work that I want to continue to do, and where I believe I can make the best contribution, is really in the areas of housing and homelessness, in transit, in areas like bike lanes and congestion… How we build our cities, and how our cities function, and that all happens at the provincial level.
That is an area where I can work with my municipal counterpart, where I can work with a team at Queen’s Park, to ensure that cities stay functioning and healthy and that we do better. We’ve not done very well as a province, and we can do so much better.
When I ran for mayor, I had promised a policy to end chronic homelessness in four years. I believe very strongly that we can end chronic homelessness, and we’re falling behind. We’re allowing more and more people to fall into homelessness every day, and there’s absolutely no reason for that. We can end it. We can house people.
We don’t even have to come up with new programs; they’re all there. We just need more of it. We need support for people coming out of chronic homelessness who maybe have addictions or mental illness. We need more housing, period. We need housing allowances to stop people from falling into homelessness. It’s all there; we’ve done little bits and pieces.
We’ve got a provincial government right now that is not committed to ending homelessness. It’s not even committed to building better housing and more housing. And I really do believe that we can do that.
Does the current Premier, and the government that is currently in office, affect your choice to do this?
Absolutely, that is the other factor in me making my decision, because as a city councillor, you’re quite independent. In party politics, it’s a bit different. You have to understand who your leader is, what they stand for, what the party stands for. And while you may not agree on 100 per cent of everything — most people don’t — you really have to believe in what they’re proposing.
With (Ontario NDP leader) Marit Stiles, the more and more I heard on different podcasts, heard her interviewed, and I was fortunate enough to have lunch with her one day, the more I was determined that she will be our next Premier, and she will be an exceptional Premier, and I am 100 per cent excited to be part of that team.
What did you learn from the mayoral race that you think informs you moving forward in this role?
I’m not sure that I will ever run [again] in a race as big as a mayoral race. To run for mayor in a large city takes resources that are astronomical — people resources, brain power, just just the amount of support behind me and to move that campaign forward.
I think it’s really hard to really understand what it takes to run that, that type of, that type of campaign. And I felt that we ran an excellent campaign. I also believe strongly, you know, people come in second. Somebody has to and that was me.
Outside of not winning, I really have no regrets about the policies that we put forward, but building those policies and thinking them through was something I’d never done before. I’d never had to really consider, what does it mean to put forward a policy where we would build out safe cycling infrastructure for families, for individuals, for kids across the city in four years instead of 20 or 25: what does that mean? How is that funded? How does that work? How does that sit within a budget envelope, for example? How does that fit into our long range financial plan of ending chronic homelessness?
It’s not enough just to say you’re going to do it, but you have to know how. I do believe that having all of that experience really does set me up well to move over to the next level, which is provincial. I don’t like to say ‘up’, because I don’t believe it’s ‘up; a level. No, I believe it’s moving over to another.
How do you believe you can be a strong advocate at Queen Park to represent Ottawa Centre?
We need true advocates across the province. Of course, the current provincial government in the past six years has not made life better for anyone. We don’t have more housing supply. We don’t have more affordable housing. People are doing more poorly.
When you think about, when you think about a province, and how a province needs to function, and how cities need to function within provinces as well, I think it’s very important to have people in at Queen’s Park who understand municipalities, understand cities, and understand that we also need a change in that fiscal framework for cities.
Cities don’t have enough funding to do the things that they need to do, and we need provinces who will partner with municipalities and the cities. We also need a province that understands housing supply and how you can actually build housing supply within existing neighborhoods, so that you’re not contributing to further urban expansion that’s just expensive and drives cities into bankruptcy.
We need a province that understands that we need to invest in transit. If you do truly care about congestion, removing bike lanes is not going to remove congestion. I was coming home yesterday, I was one of eight bikes at a corner in a bike lane and there were about four cars beside us, and I thought to myself, ‘even if two of us were partnered up in a car, there would still be six more cars on this road right here at this intersection.’ So how does that remove congestion?
How do you think an early election would impact your plans moving forward?
I don’t think that we need a provincial election right now, but if this premier feels that it’s in his political best interest, we are ready to move forward. We are ready to accept the challenge. We are ready to fight in that provincial election and show people what a serious party with serious priorities can bring to them.
In that same vein, in the event that there’s a change in leadership at the federal level, how do you see that impacting the work you aim to do?
We don’t know what’s going to happen federally, but I don’t imagine the polls have been wrong for well over a year.
But whoever forms the next government, I still believe that you know we have to make sure that we’re paying attention and ensuring that we don’t fall backwards. The federal government is so important, but our provincial governments are the ones that are closest to people. They’re the ones whose decisions affect us in our day-to-day lives.
So I’m focused on the provincial election and the outcomes of the provincial election, I’ve also been focused on the outcomes of two recent provincial elections in New Brunswick and in British Columbia. I think that in New Brunswick, we’ve seen that pushing that cultural war too far has had an effect on the existing government. So I hope that that’s a lesson to not just whoever forms government federally, but also provincially, anywhere. I also think that it’s a sign that people are ready for a change.
People can see that we are a few years removed from the pandemic, and things have not gotten better.
Issues like transit and are consistent with what you’ve often advocated for. What are some other issues that are top of mind for you?
Well, we have a supervised consumption site in Somerset Ward, Somerset West Community Health Center, that is slated to be shut down, and that is going to have effects on people’s lives. It will likely result in many more deaths, many more overdoses. So it’s something that we have to stop, and I want to be there to be able to work towards stopping it.
We’ve also got long wait lists for healthcare providers. I have friends who do not have a healthcare provider, whether it’s a doctor, a family physician or nurse practitioner. We have to invest in healthcare and in equity in healthcare.
We have a school in Ottawa Centre that is falling apart, and we don’t have the funding yet in place to provide a new school for young kids. It doesn’t pass fire code, and we’re sending kids into this school.
So, it doesn’t matter which way you look or how you look, everything that is the responsibility of the province right now is not working.
When it comes to the province’s role in municipal issues, some local councillors have raised concerns about issues like bike lanes where the Ontario government has been stepping in. What is your view on that?
Urban expansion is another one. We have a provincial government that is not investing where it needs to invest. It’s not making the changes that it needs to make, and yet is overreaching in two municipal areas. They’re looking at pushing out the urban boundary, which is going to just make cities less and less fiscally sustainable. You cannot continue to build out.
When it’s about removing bike lanes… bike lanes are part of a transportation master plan. They’ve been agreed to by residents, by council, and they’ve been voted on. It is a gross overreach. And it’s also proven to make everybody, not just cyclists, safer. Why would you want everyone to be safer on the street?
At the same time you know it’s time to have a provincial government, and that would be an NDP provincial government, that actually invests in cities and actually works towards making them better, rather than just reaching into their jurisdiction.
What else do you think Ottawa Centre needs to know about your decision to run?
I don’t take any of the issues lightly that are happening in Ottawa Centre or across the province. I’ve always been involved at the municipal level; I was a Councillor’s assistant for many years and it was my second best job, after councillor. I had a senior role at the city for many years working in operations with the Deputy City Manager, and then I was a city councillor.
So I understand cities. I understand municipalities and how they function. And I really do feel that until we have a provincial government that truly understands where people live, how people live, how they function, and they want to actually take care of that, I’m just afraid that we’re going to keep slipping backwards.
I’ve seen it over the last few years, and it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to have people living in encampments in the city. And we do. We have shelters that are overflowing.
We’ve got a raging opioid crisis. Why are we worried about bike lanes when we can be actually working with people to make sure that they’re better? There are solutions, but this government is not invested in those solutions.
