A new poll suggests Ottawans are giving a thumbs down to Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s handling of key municipal issues like housing, crime and homelessness.
The Liaison Strategies poll, commissioned by the Ottawa Compass and iPolitics, shows Sutcliffe’s approval rating on every major issue is below water in advance of this fall’s municipal election.
The mayor performs the worst on transit, with 71 per cent of voters disapproving of his handling on the file. His best performance is on crime, where 48 per cent disapprove, compared to 44 per cent who support his approach.
A majority of respondents offered a negative assessment of Sutcliffe’s performance on the other issues, including homelessness (58 per cent disapproved), traffic (57 per cent), housing affordability (54 per cent) and inflation (51 per cent).
For the automated phone poll — conducted between April 11-12 — Liaison Strategies based the results on response from 1,000 Ottawa voters. The data was matched with the city’s profile from the 2021 Census, with the results broken down by region in the city, gender, age and language.
The margin of error is reported as 3.09 percentage points, though is higher for sub-samples.
The mayor’s only positive approval ratings in the poll came on the questions of crime and inflation. On crime, he polled above water among west residents (49 per cent approved) and those 65 and older (53 per cent). When it came to inflation, only those in the 65+ crowd gave him a positive approval (47 per cent to 44 that disapproved).
The Ottawa Compass and iPolitics have partnered with Liaison to provide exclusive polling data on the 2026 Ottawa municipal election.
