I’m a pollster. My job is to read people and to read cities — to understand what they want, what they’re afraid of, and who they actually are beneath the surface of what they say. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve watched election after election from the data side.
I don’t endorse candidates lightly, and I’m not a natural cheerleader. But I’m endorsing Alex Lawson for Mayor of Ottawa, and I want to tell you exactly why.
Alex Lawson grew up in Heron Gate. He went to Ridgemont High School. At 18, he started framing houses. Eighteen years later, he runs a business that puts food on the table for dozens of Ottawa families. He didn’t inherit this city’s problems from a distance — he grew up inside them, and he’s spent his adult life building his way through them. That’s not a slogan. That’s a biography.
But here’s the thing about Alex Lawson: you don’t need to take his word for who he is. His record speaks for itself — and it speaks loudly.
This is a man who has sandbagged alongside flood victims in the Ottawa area every flood year since 2019. When the derecho tore through this city, he didn’t post about it on social media. He put a chainsaw in the back of his truck, drove out to find families in need, cleared three driveways of fallen trees, and left without asking for a photo or a thank-you.
He has rallied local businesses to donate to the Snowsuit Fund — raising over $15,000 across two campaigns. He’s donated to the Kanata Food Cupboard. He’s organized flood relief efforts in Constance Bay. He’s collected and delivered over a thousand pairs of pyjamas to the Pyjama Patrol for kids in need. He threw a free community appreciation barbecue in Blackstone just to say thank you to his neighbours. He supports youth dance and arts programs. None of this made headlines. That’s the point.
He also quietly invests in the next generation of Ottawa workers. He speaks to students at the YMCA’s trades programs. He’s talked to young people at BGC Ottawa about career opportunities. He works with co-op programs across the city to help youth get into the industry, and he sits on the Program Advisory Council at Algonquin College and the Trade Development Initiative at the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association. He brokered a partnership between the YMCA and Algonquin College that simultaneously gives students real-world learning experience and delivers free kitchen replacements to a flood-damaged daycare. That’s not a politician making announcements. That’s a builder solving problems.
I should say clearly where I stand: I’m a longtime Liberal, and I was one of the most outspoken opponents of the so-called “freedom convoy” that paralyzed this city in the winter of 2022. I felt it viscerally as an Ottawa resident — so viscerally that the truckers came to my suburban street to harass me and my neighbours, the downside of running a public-facing business with my home address attached. I believe people have the right to protest — that’s not in question. But that right doesn’t extend to your thirty-ton rig. The convoy was an occupation. It hurt residents and businesses, and it was wrong.
Let me also be clear about something else: the convoy occupation was a failure of City leadership. We had weeks to watch that convoy move east across the country, and the City did not act in time to prevent what happened. When it arrived, it abdicated that leadership.
Which brings me to the attacks now being levelled at Alex Lawson — attacks that, not coincidentally, are already being amplified by a mayoral campaign with four years to defend and precious little to show for it on housing, transit, or public safety. When a campaign with that record reaches for a smear, it’s worth asking what they’re trying to distract you from. It got so bad last week that one post had to be deleted by the mayors campaign.
So you might wonder: why am I endorsing a candidate his opponents are accusing of convoy links? Because the link is false. Here’s what actually happened. In the early days of the convoy — before it became the occupation it eventually did — Alex Lawson delivered portable toilets to the streets of downtown Ottawa. His critics have tried to spin this as convoy support. It wasn’t. It was community support. Without those facilities, residents were dealing with protesters using their lawns, their alleyways, their doorsteps. Alex was there for Ottawa. That’s a distinction that matters, and it’s one his critics have conveniently ignored.
As for his Facebook posts from that period — yes, he was frustrated and outspoken. But consider who he was in 2022: a homebuilder running a business that employs dozens of Ottawa families, watching lumber prices spiral completely out of control. The pandemic supply chain crisis hit the construction industry harder than almost any other sector. Framing costs doubled. Materials became nearly impossible to source. His industry was designated front-line, and him and his crews were working through sub-zero winters while shutdowns made it so they couldn’t even replace their boots or gloves. When Alex posted about supply chain disruptions, he wasn’t speaking as an ideologue — he was speaking as a small business owner whose livelihood, and his employees’ livelihoods, were being squeezed. You don’t have to agree with everything he said to understand where it was coming from.
Ottawa is struggling, more today than four years ago. Anyone who lives here knows it. Housing costs have made this city increasingly unaffordable, and the development charges and bureaucratic delays that drive up the cost of new homes aren’t a natural disaster — they’re a policy failure. Transit isn’t working. OC Transpo is a system that too many residents have simply given up on. Our roads are gridlocked. Crime is up. Homelessness — including youth homelessness — is a persistent and visible challenge. These are not abstract problems. They are the daily experience of Ottawa residents.
Alex Lawson has concrete ideas on every one of these files. On housing, he wants to cut building fees and reduce the friction that makes new homes more expensive than they need to be — and he understands the sector from the inside out, having built homes in this city for two decades. On transit, he’s been willing to say publicly what many residents already know: the system is broken and needs accountability, not just more money. On crime and public safety, he’s spoken plainly and practically. On homelessness, his focus is on real solutions, not just targets.
I’m a pollster. I’ve seen candidates who talk a good game and disappear when things get hard. Alex Lawson is not that candidate. He’s the guy who shows up with sandbags when the river floods. He’s the guy who grabs a chainsaw after the storm. He’s the guy who drops off porta-potties for his neighbours — not for the cameras. He’s the guy who spent eighteen years building this city from the ground up, literally, one home at a time.
Ottawa needs a builder. I’m supporting Alex Lawson — and I think you should too.
Quito Maggi is the president and CEO of Mainstreet Research.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.
