Harden released the platform, called “downtown revitalization for everyone”, at the Live on Elgin event venue with less than a week to go before Canadians go to the polls on election day.

“[The plan] is inspired by community organizations that are asking our federal government to take a much more active interest in what’s been happening in our downtown,” Harden said. “What we have seen for almost five years are two very large reports, several summits, and a lot of talking about issues that are hurting and suffering in our downtown that’s been called ‘revitalization’. 

“But unfortunately, despite the fact that these reports have all asked for urgent action, we have yet to see significant change.”

Harden’s plan advocates for the repurposing of federal properties not into luxury or unaffordable housing, as he says most in Ottawa have, but instead into community spaces run by local organizations, small businesses or the artistic community.

“There are so many organizations ready, willing and able to help people who are looking for a respite, looking for a meal, looking for a place to be,” he said. “If you’re homeless or if you’re struggling with an addiction during the day, there is no place for folks to go. 

“What has happened repeatedly is that those folks will congregate around small business doorways, and that leads to conflict between neighbours,” he said. Instead, he says that if elected, he would find ways to reduce that conflict.

He points to strategies that have been employed by the City of Vancouver that repurpose vacant street-level properties into places of “respite”, with bunk beds, facilities and community resources. These “hubs” could also connect people with resources like the HART facilities and the ANCHOR program.

Adding that accessible and reliable public transit is crucial for downtown revitalization, Harden said the current transit system in Ottawa is “not like anything I grew up with”.

“When I was a high school student in the city in the 1980s, I could count on my bus arriving on time, whether I was waiting for it in January or in July,” he said. “That is not the case today, and more and more neighbours, because of that, are deciding not to take transit. They’re taking personal vehicles, they’re taking Uber. 

“We do not blame them for their choices. However, we do want to find ways in which transit can be part of a solution in our downtown to stop the congestion that we have seen during the rush hour of the day,” he continued. “It’s also a climate solution, and our revitalization plan for downtown, our climate plan, our transit plan, is integral to that.”

He also highlighted small businesses, pointing to event and entertainment venues like Live on Elgin, and explained that homelessness, addiction, transit and the local economy are all linked. 

“I think we have to set the goal that the government of Finland set, and that is eliminating homelessness. We have to try to find a space for everyone to have a safe, restful sleep, find opportunities for everyone to eat nutritious meals, find places for recovery, to find places for self-fulfillment, to find places for art and inspiration to create your own enterprise downtown and find new clients and customers,” he said. “That’s what downtown revitalization means to me and the local NDP.”

Harden is running against Yasir Naqvi, the Liberal incumbent, who Harden won against in 2018 when both politicians were running in the provincial election.

388Canada electoral projections have named Ottawa Centre as a safe seat for Naqvi, with Harden predicted to win about 27 per cent of the vote. Ottawa Compass asked why local voters who may want to vote strategically to avoid a Conservative victory should risk splitting the vote by voting for Harden. He said that Liberal Leader Mark Carney, who is estimated to be elected as prime minister, “needs the NDP” in the House of Commons.

“I think the choice voters have right now is, would Canada be better served with a tw- party system? Would Canada be better served without a loud presence, a very progressive presence, from the NDP?”

If Carney is elected to his seat in Nepean and as prime minister, he will be an “Ottawa politician”, and it is important that he understand the local issues, Harden argued.

“We have had a member of the [Liberal] government as our MP for nine years. I have not seen homelessness issues getting better. I have seen the cost of housing soar. I have seen our transit system starved resources,” Harden said. “So what I think Prime Minister Carney needs — and odds would have it that if the current projections are true, he will be re-elected again as prime minister — is the NDP. 

“Mr. Carney needs to be pushed,” he continued. 

In closing, he added that he hears from voters that their voices are not heard, and he is looking to represent the Ottawa community in the House.

“I will hold Mr. Carney’s hand. I’ll put a smile on my face…Let’s walk up and down the street and talk to those neighbours and see what we can do with some federal money,” Harden explained. “This is a rich country, and I find it an embarrassment that we see the suffering and the struggle in our community.”

Harden’s Liberal counterpart has released a healthcare platform, which reiterates the Liberal government’s plan. Naqvi is set to release a plan for downtown revitalization later this week, which is expected to point to his work with the Downtown Ottawa Revitalization Task Force, an initiative he launched and chaired throughout 2023 and 2024.

The post Harden releases downtown revitalization plan, says Carney ‘needs the NDP’ appeared first on CompassNews.

Ottawa Centre

Turning first to the city’s downtown core, Liberal Yasir Naqvi is seeking re-election for Ottawa Centre, a seat he has held since 2021. Prior to that, he represented the riding in the provincial legislature after succeeding in 2007 in his first bid, then winning re-election in both 2011 and 2014. In 2018, he sought a fourth mandate but came in second behind NDP candidate Joel Harden.

Now, Naqvi will be facing a familiar foe in Harden, who has made the jump to Parliament Hill and is running as the federal NDP candidate for Ottawa Centre. 

Jeff Rutledge, vice-president of McMillan Vantage and Conservative strategist, said he’s watching Ottawa Centre with interest and that the race will be a “curious” one as Naqvi and Harden hash it out.

“I think that they are both trading independently on their names, detached from their party, and they have both straddled…The provincial-federal line,” he told iPolitics. “I think that that helps them to have a much more robust profile. 

“And as progressive candidates — although I would say that Mr. Harden leans quite a bit further left than Mr. Naqvi —- I think it’ll be fairly competitive,” he added.

Harden won the provincial vote in 2018 with 46.1 per cent of the vote, and his popularity in the riding makes Ottawa Centre “the most interesting” local riding for Marci Surkes, managing director of Compass Rose and former executive director of policy and cabinet affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office.

“[Ottawa Centre] is one where it is never necessarily a seat that can be taken for granted for the Liberals,” Surkes told iPolitics. “The NDP has deep core organization, and we’ve already seen [Jagmeet] Singh supporting Mr. Harden. 

“Mr. Harden is a very colourful candidate, he’s a very high profile candidate, and he has very well-articulated what may be considered really to the left of the New Democratic Party stream,” she continued. “And so that sort of profile will play and garner a lot of attention for the New Democrats there.”

She said that while she expects Naqvi will be successful in holding on to his seat, the Liberals will have to “work hard to keep it.” Polling from 388 Canada shows Naqvi leading in the riding, but the latest results showed a downward trend for the Liberals.

That said, despite the NDP’s decline in the latest polls on a national level, Harden is still a popular member of the Ottawa Centre community, and Surkes said this is one seat “where a local candidate could potentially make a difference.”

Nepean

Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced he will be seeking the seat in Nepean, a riding previously occupied by Chandra Arya, who held the seat from 2015 until he — very recently — was ousted by the Liberal Party last month.

On March 22, Arya said his nomination to run for the party again in his Ottawa riding had been revoked, almost two months after the party also told Arya it would not accept him as a candidate for the leadership.

National campaign director Andrew Bevan informed Arya in a letter just days before the election was called.

Arya had already been nominated, but the letter said new information obtained by the party’s “green light committee” led the campaign co-chair to recommend that his “status as a candidate” be revoked.

Soon after, Carney announced he would be taking over as the Liberal candidate for the riding. He’ll be facing off against Conservative Barbara Bal.

Notably, Carney lives in Rockcliffe, and his perceived distance from Ottawa’s west end could be a weakness to his campaign. During a speech outside Rideau Hall on Mar. 23, he mistakenly said Bells Corners, a community in the Kanata riding, was part of Nepean.

“Not only has he only presented as the candidate for that riding in the last week, but he needs to get up to speed fairly quickly in terms of local politics and local riding considerations,” said Surkes.

Liberal strategist John O’Leary said Carney’s choice to run here could indicate that he didn’t want to “push out” an incumbent, but rather run for an “open seat”, and rely on the surrounding Liberal incumbents.

He also said that the time of voters being deterred by an “out-of-town” candidate are likely over.

Rutledge doesn’t agree. 

“There have been some rough stumbles at the beginning, and not knowing necessarily what was in his riding and what was not in his riding rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and signalled what can be one of the greatest criticisms of parachute candidates — which is they don’t know the people and they don’t know the issue,” he said. 

“Particularly for a riding like the one that Mr. Carney is running in … I think he is struggling to connect with both the new members of the riding and those older, more traditional voters who are trying to understand how a parachute candidate can connect with them.” 

To Rutledge, the race in Nepean might be more competitive than Carney has let on. Currently, 388 Canada is showing Nepean as a “safe” seat for the Liberals, with the Conservatives 19 percentage points behind Carney.

The riding is also in Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s backyard. 

Carleton

Pierre Poilievre first won the Carleton seat in 2004 from Liberal incumbent David Pratt, and has held it since. Now Carney is at his doorstep, as Surkes said.

“We have a side-by-side, head-to-head competition in the west end of Ottawa that I think few political observers saw coming, in terms of both of the major party leaders vying for the role of Prime Minister actually abutting one another in their local races,” she said. “And naturally in those ridings, there is very considerable overlap in terms of the issues, in terms of the organizers, in terms of the community concerns. 

“So both Mr. Carney and Mr. Poilievre, although not squaring off, are swimming in the same pool.”

According to 388 Canada, the popular vote has trended considerably downwards since Justin Trudeau resigned as prime minister, and continued the downward trend when Carney was elected Liberal leader. 

On Jan. 5, the Conservatives had a comfortable 65 per cent of the popular vote, 388 Canada said, with the Liberals trailing behind with 15 per cent. On April 4, there had been a drastic change, with the Conservatives dropping to 50 per cent and the Liberals only 10 percentage points behind. 

Rutledge said Poilievre’s extensive experience in the riding and continued support for public servants, many of whom are residents of Carleton, will work in his favour, and that reports of bad polling are just attempts to distract from Carney’s “fumbles” in Nepean.

So while the odds still appear to be in Poilievre’s favour, the polls for his riding are not as confident in his victory as they have been in the past. It is no longer considered a “safe” seat for Poilievre, 388 Canada, and while he is still leading, it’s not by as large a margin as we’ve seen before. 

“I would anticipate Mr. Poilievre being successful in his riding,” said Surkes. “That said, if their internal polls and external polling continue to demonstrate a Conservative slide, Mr. Poilievre may have to focus more on his riding than he might otherwise have had to, and that will be a consideration for their national tour.”

The post A battleground and a shared backyard: Ottawa ridings to watch appeared first on CompassNews.

With its usual candidate climbing the ladder this year, the riding could become a bit of a battleground — but the jury’s still out on that.

Ottawa Centre, the most central riding in the City of Ottawa, is only 37 square kilometres but home to 126,360 Ottawans. It is home to the Glebe, Centretown, Westboro, Rideauview, Little Italy, Dow’s Lake, Old Ottawa South, Old Ottawa East and part of the downtown core.

The riding has been held by NDP member Joel Harden since 2018, who took over from Liberal Yasir Naqvi when Naqvi made the switch to federal politics. It has historically been held either by the Liberals of NDP; when one party holds the federal seat, the other tends to take the provincial one.

Jonathan Malloy is a professor of political science at Carleton University where he specializes in Canadian political institutions and both federal and provincial politics. He’s also a resident of Ottawa Centre and says it “has been a Liberal-NDP battleground for many years.”

“It flips back and forth between the two parties, and there tends to be an alternation. It switched a few years ago. It had been a federal NDP seat and provincially Liberal, then switched over a few years ago,” he told QP Briefing. “What seems to be the case, though, is I think the NDP is clearly trying to have it all for itself without sharing it with the Liberals there.

Harden is now following in his predecessor’s footsteps and announced he will be running for the federal seat in Ottawa Centre in the next election. In his place, long-serving city councillor and former mayoral candidate Catherine McKenney has been nominated as the NDP candidate for the riding.

McKenney was elected as a city councillor in 2014 after working at the City in senior positions. They were also a candidate in the mayoral race in 2022, running against now-Mayor Mark Sutcliffe. McKenney is also the co-founder of CitySHAPES, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to affordable housing, city-building and ending homelessness.

Ottawa Centre is similar to most urban centres in its NDP-Liberal leanings, said Malloy. It just doesn’t seem to be the centre of the Liberals’ focus this time around.

“It reflects the dynamics that you’ll generally see in the core of any large city, which is to say that you’ve got extremes. You’ve got both some fairly wealthy neighbourhoods and also some fairly low-income neighbourhoods,” he explained. “You’re generally going to have a high level of diversity, and you will see a lot of interest in urban issues of public transit, affordability,  and different things like that.”

The NDP couldn’t have picked a better “succession plan” to ensure an NDP victory despite Harden’s departure, said Malloy.

“Harden has been elected twice now, provincially, and now the party has nominated a very strong, high profile candidate for the provincial seat in Catherine McKinney,” he explained. “They’ve got a strong incumbent who’s now moving to federal and then a very high profile provincial candidate who did very well in the mayoral election two years ago and won the wards that Ottawa Centre is part of.”

Also vying for the seat is Liberal candidate Thomas Simpson, a newcomer to politics. Simpson has previously worked as a public servant and accessibility advocate, currently serving as a vice-president at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

Malloy said that while Simpson certainly seems capable, he said he’s “surprised” that the Liberals did not choose a more familiar or veteran candidate.

“What I really find interesting is that the Liberals don’t appear to be making a strong play for [Ottawa Centre. I would have thought the Liberals would have tried their best to win back this seat, and they certainly have a strong local organization,” said Malloy. “So it’s just interesting that the Ottawa central provincial liberals don’t seem to be pulling out all the stops to win back this riding.

He said this could be a tactical decision as the Liberals focus their efforts on beating Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives rather than going to war with the NDP — even just as a way to manage resources.

It could also be a matter of retention, and Ottawa Centre can reveal more about the Liberals’ strategy for this election, he said. For example, Ottawa West tends to be more conservative, while eastern ridings lean Liberal. But in Kanata-Carleton, where Liberal Karen McCrimmon holds the provincial seat, the Liberals seem to be focusing resources on retaining the riding and ensuring McCrimmon’s re-election.

This just doesn’t seem to be happening in Ottawa Centre.

The Progressive Conservatives have offered Scott Healey, a Canadian Armed Forces veteran who has participated in provincial and federal conservative campaigns since the 1980s. He’s on the board of the Ottawa Centre PC Association, but this is his first time running for the seat. He’s campaigning on healthcare, affordable housing, “productivity”, “competitiveness through innovation”, and a “rational” approach to tackling climate change.

Meanwhile, small business owner Simon Beckett is the face of the Green Party of Ontario in Ottawa Centre. His campaign is prioritizing affordable housing, healthcare, and investments in mental health and addiction services.

Of the four, McKenney is the only candidate who has been elected to public office — and held it.

“You never know what will happen in elections. But that said, the NDP won the seat the last two elections and they have a very strong candidate who already has been elected there and has attracted a lot of votes previously in the riding,” he said. “So it does seem to be that McKinney is going to win it.

“So you really never know, but the nature of political campaigns is, if you campaign you have to pick where to focus the resources. And it’s really interesting that the other parties don’t seem to be focusing much on Ottawa Center at all.”

But not everyone shares his view.

Ashley Csanady, liberal strategist and vice-president at McMillan Vantage, said the Liberals are “really confident” about holding the its seats in the Ottawa region — and adding Simpson in Ottawa Centre.

“It’s a really tough race because of who he’s running against, but I think it’s not by any means a foregone conclusion,” she told QPBriefing. “It’s Liberal federally, and I know [Naqvi] is out there and knocking doors for [Simpson], and we have a strong work on the ground in Ottawa. So, that’s definitely a race to watch. I think that’ll be a close one.”

At the same time, veteran PC operative Thomas Gendron said he’s watching the Ottawa riding with “great interest”, which he said “aren’t looking incredibly solid right now.”

“It could be from Trudeau, it could be from disenfranchisement with the party itself and their poor performance in two previous elections,” he said. “But, either way, it looks as though there’s a possibility of potential gains there.”

Ontario voters will go to the polls Feb. 27 and we’ll see if the NDP’s legacy in Ottawa Centre is enough to hold Ottawa’s most central riding.

The post With Harden out, what’s next for the Ottawa Centre riding? appeared first on CompassNews.