“When my potential MP for Nepean might also be the next prime minister of Canada, it kicks open the door of possibility to the kinds of initiatives that municipal councillors don’t often get to bring to the federal government’s attention,” Sean Devine, councillor for Knoxdale-Merivale, told Ottawa Compass.

Carney stopped by his candidate office in Nepean on Saturday, where he was greeted by a small but enthusiastic group of campaign workers and volunteers.

“Who is ready to stand up,” he started out saying, before teasing someone who had accidentally knocked over a campaign sign.

He thanked them for their support to help get him elected as an MP for the first time.

Carney has faced questions about his decision to run in that seat, which became vacant only after the Liberal party ousted MP Chandra Arya as its candidate three days before the election was called.

Devine, an advocate for walkable neighbourhoods and supporter of ambitious city-building ideas, said Carney’s decision to run in Nepean could bring local housing and transportation issues to the front stage.

Devine’s ward overlaps the north side of the federal riding, and Devine is himself a resident of Nepean. The rest of the riding wades into Barrhaven West, Coun. David Hill’s ward, and Barrhaven East, which is represented at City Hall by Coun. Wilson Lo.

Devine said Carney’s presence in his neighbourhood means “there’s an opportunity in Nepean to accomplish all these goals, in a big way.”

To accommodate Ottawa’s population growth, Devine proposes building housing on a parcel of land called the southern corridor, which runs between Woodroffe Avenue and Merivale Road, sitting on the boundary of Nepean and Ottawa-West Nepean — represented by Liberal Anita Vandenbeld.

The land was handed to the city in 2023 for development into housing. It also runs alongside the CN Rail’s discontinued Beachburg Line, which runs from Kanata to Ottawa South. 

City councillors have been pushing for the City to acquire the CN railway corridor for years, but plans have never come to fruition due to the “significant cost” associated with the purchase, said Devine. The updated cost of purchase is not public. 

Meanwhile, Ottawa design and consulting firm RAE Spatial Design has pitched the “BBR” project, which involves designs for a revamped railway corridor that connects more than 10 communities with modular housing and walkable neighbourhoods. 

“When you combine the existing neighbourhoods that already align this corridor, and the development potential now available through these newly divested federal lands, we have an opportunity for build massive amounts of new, rapidly constructed, modular housing, adjacent to existing rail infrastructure that, over time, can become a major east-west transit line,” said Devine.

“We’ve certainly looked at it in the past, but the issue has always been the significant cost in acquiring the land from CN Rail,” he continued. “So, who better to help advance this idea than one of the candidates to be the next MP for Nepean?”

Devine’s pitch aligns with Carney’s current messaging, especially his latest promises to double the pace of construction to almost 500,000 new homes a year, which would involve public-private cooperation on a scale not seen since the end of the Second World War.

A Carney government also would create a new entity, Build Canada Homes, to act as a developer on housing projects and provide more than $25 billion in financing to innovative builders of prefabricated homes.

At a campaign stop in Vaughan, Ont. on Monday, Carney said the new approach aimed to “build faster, build smarter and to build more affordably.”

For Devine, Carney’s presence in Nepean and the possibility of the seat being held by the prime minister opens doors to ideas that he says could be otherwise overlooked.

“A former mentor of mine used to say, ‘Don’t think big…think huge.’ This is certainly one of those ‘think huge’ ideas,” Devine said. “When our most urgent priorities can merge with opportunities to do historic investments in the future of our city’s and our country’s economy, thinking ‘huge’ might be the only way to go.”

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The 62-year-old has represented the city’s Nepean seat since 2015.

The decision to remove him comes 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 today, just days before an expected election call.

Arya had already been nominated, but the letter says 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.

Bevan does not include any details about the new information.

Arya, who shared the letter on his Facebook page, says being an MP was the “responsibility of my life.”

“While this news is deeply disappointing, it does not diminish the profound honour and privilege it has been to serve the people of Nepean — and all Canadians — as their Member of Parliament since 2015,” he wrote.

The party also refused to provide any information when it rejected Arya’s candidacy for the leadership race in January.

The decision opens an Ottawa seat as an option for Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has thus far not declared which riding he intends to run in during the election.

Various Liberals have suggested Carney could run in Edmonton, where he grew up; in Toronto, where the Liberals tend to do well; or in Ottawa, where he now lives.

Carney is widely expected to visit Rideau Hall to launch the election on Sunday, for a vote on either April 28 or May 5.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2025.

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In a memo released on Wednesday, Kale Brown, interim director of housing and homelessness services and community and social services at the City, said staff are adjusting the plan for welcoming newcomers “as a result of decreasing demand” and “new opportunities.”

In November, the city identified five city-owned sites to host sprung-shelter facilities for newcomers and asylum seekers, and some members of the affected communities promptly took to the streets in protest.

At that time, the city had selected its “top five” options for the newcomer reception project and is fast-tracking necessary planning and funding in order to have the facilities operational by the end of 2025.

The first structure was planned for 1645 Woodroffe Ave., which is a portion of the NCC-owned parcel. The City currently leases the land for an underutilized football field. The property also houses the Nepean Sportsplex and an OCDSB training facility.

If necessary, the second facility was planned for Hearst Way, which is located west of Eagleson Road and the Eagleson BRT station. It is near the future Stage 2 LRT station and currently serves as overflow parking for the Eagleson Park & Ride. 

The newcomer reception project aims to address an influx of newcomers and immigrants that has been exacerbating the city’s ongoing homelessness crisis. The key aspects of the project included temporary shelter in one of the “reception centres” for up to 90 days, followed by connection to community and health resources, employment, interpretation and translation services and language training, and access to transitional housing and ongoing housing support.

The newcomer reception system also involves the establishment of new transitional housing facilities for newcomers, the purchase of up to 20 scattered homes to be used as transitional housing, and the development of up to two newcomer reception centres as required.

Beginning in June 2023, Ottawa experienced a “significant and unprecedented increase” in the number of asylum claimants accessing shelters, Brown said in the memo. The number of single adult asylum claimants being served in the shelter system peaked at over 1,000 people.

However, as a result of federal immigration policy changes that were announced in fall of 2024 and an increase in the capacity of newcomer-specific transitional housing, the number of asylum claimants relying on community shelters and overflow beds has decreased, Brown said. 

As a result, Brown said “staff are adjusting the infrastructure requirements” in the newcomer reception proposal that is being negotiated with Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

For example, the YMCA has announced it will not be pursuing the purchase of a building at 180 Argyle Ave., which is currently being used as transitional housing. Instead, the YMCA will be working with the City to convert additional space in the building and accommodate additional newcomers. 

The federal government also confirmed that the anticipated buyer of 250 Lanark Avenue will not be proceeding with the sale, allowing staff to consider other uses for the space. 

“These new opportunities, paired with demand trending downwards, will eliminate the need to develop the newcomer reception centres at 1645 Woodroffe Avenue and 40 Hearst Way,” said Brown. “As such the procurement process and the plans to build at these locations will not proceed. The pre-development work completed to date will be kept and staff will continue to monitor trends in demand.”

City councillors of both wards were caught off guard by the news of the planned centres in November. Sean Devine, councillor of Knoxdale-Merivale — where the first facility was planned — hosted a community information session on Dec. 5 that saw protests and some attendees walk out. 

One protestor was detained and removed from the premises by police for rushing the stage and refusing to cooperate with law enforcement.

Now, Devine says he is “enthused” that although the City is taking a different approach, it is “not so much a change in direction about whether or not to to offer these supports and services.”

“As consistently as I can, I’ve been advocating that our city provide good, appropriate supports and services to vulnerable newcomers arriving to our city. That’s been my, one of my primary focuses,” he told Ottawa Compass. “At the same time, however, I’ve been raising questions and concerns about the way in which this file has been handled by the city.”

“There will always be people in my ward who were never pleased that this project was happening, and I will not win their support back,” he explained. “I completely understand that, because while I was advocating, while I was pushing staff to make sure that what we do is done in the most responsible way possible, I was still being supportive of the overall intentions, and so some people were not pleased with that. 

“But at the same time, there have been many residents of my ward who remain critical of this project who at the very least appreciated the fact that I had been pushing for some changes,” Devine continued. “I’d like to think that for my residents who were critical of this, they will see that my oversight role was at least precipitating towards having the best outcome possible.”

Since the announcement was made this week, Devine said he’s already heard from residents of his ward, his inbox “lighting up” from people who are supportive of the City, pleased with his handling of the situation, or generally relieved that the shelters will not be proceeding as planned.

Before the City announced the update, Devine said his team had already planned meetings this week to discuss the project, and he said he intends to proceed with those.

He said he had questions about the procurement and site selection process that resulted in the site in his ward being chosen to house a shelter, and he said he was looking to understand the financing process as well.

“One might say that my questions are no longer relevant, but I have a lot of concerns and doubts about the procurement process we followed, and so I still want to get those questions answered, because I want to find out if we had embarked on a road that we should not have embarked on in the first place,” he said. “And then, with regards to financing… I still am not sure if the city is in a position to finance this overall project.

“We’re still moving forward, and I need to make sure that our procurement processes are transparent there, and I need to make sure that we can finance this project,” Devine concluded. “So I guess the only thing is, even though everything has changed here, my oversight role has not, and I still have to ask those questions and get them answered.”

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A few weeks later, Watt said the news is “just starting to feel real” as he prepares to be sworn in to the Queen’s Park legislature.

He grew up in Nepean, attending Cedarview Middle School at a time when “it was surrounded by farms,” not housing developments and construction. Prior to entering politics, he also worked in the community as a registered nurse, and he says the lessons and challenges he saw in the healthcare system motivated him to run for public office. 

READ MORE: Liberals hold and flip Ottawa seats as city councillor takes Carleton

“Everyone has a health care story. Whether they don’t have a family doctor, they’ve been on the wait list for over five years, or maybe they recently had to use the hospital, or have a loved one who’s going through the system,” Watt told Ottawa Compass. “Everyone has a health care story. And that’s my bread and butter.”

Watt also ran in the 2022 election and came in second behind MacLeod. But MacLeod announced in September that she would not be seeking re-election, leaving her seat open and the PC’s hold on the riding up for grabs.

While door-knocking in 2022, Watt said he felt that some people were getting ready for a change in representation, a sentiment that was amplified this time around.

“Regardless of what was going to happen, we knew there was going to be change, but Nepean is special in the sense that people are really proud to live here, and people want someone who is going to champion them at Queen’s Park,” he said. “So, my biggest strategy at the door was giving people hope. 

“I didn’t talk about Doug Ford. I didn’t talk about the conservatives. I introduced myself, why I’m running, and asked them what they care about,” Watt continued. “I wanted to leave every door with a positive interaction, because what I felt and learned from 2022 is that the best motivator to get someone out to vote was to get them excited and inspired to vote for someone rather than vote against someone.”

John O’Leary, a liberal strategist, said there are a few reasons the Liberals were able to flip the riding — and one of them is Watt’s strength as a local candidate.

“Tyler worked hard, in the leadup to the 2022 election and in the years since,” O’Leary told Ottawa Compass. “He and his team were ready for the election because they had put in the time to learn the riding, connect with voters and be a consistent, positive presence.”

There were a few other factors at play, too, O’Leary says. For one, by not seeking re-election, MacLeod opened the seat up for change.

“[MacLeod] held the riding since 2006 and had previously worked for the popular MPP and MP in Nepean-Carleton John Baird,” he said. “The departure of a longtime incumbent often gives voters permission to take a wider view of what they might want in an MPP.”

But he also notes that while Watt might have benefitted from the lack of an incumbent, his close finish in 2022 “suggests he might have been able to overcome MacLeod too.”

Additionally, the NDP and Green Party have largely fallen from focus in Nepean, leaving the Liberals to emerge as the clear choice for voters who are choosing not to vote PC. 

Finally, the Liberal Party’s hold on the Ottawa region could have supported Watt’s campaign, O’Leary said. With Nepean, the Liberals now hold five of Ottawa’s eight ridings, with the others split between the NDP and PCs.

Watt won 48 per cent of the vote, with his opponents split between the PCs (38 per cent) and the others, with the NDP picking up only 9 per cent. 

“I went into this election day at peace with whatever was going to happen,” said Watt. “I felt that it was going to be close, but I certainly didn’t expect our results — winning by almost 5000 votes.”

At Queen’s Park, Watt said he’s excited to “champion” Nepean, advocating for progress and growth, including issues like public safety, the Barnsdale interchange, the expansion of roads like Prince of Wales, public transit, education and, of course, healthcare. 

He said he’s also excited to “be a good listener” and learn how he can help small businesses and advocate for every resident in Nepean.

“It was nice to see Premier Ford finally acknowledge Ottawa in this previous election. He made some promises…to do with the LRT and getting Ottawa its fair share,” he said. “So I will be one of those people there holding his feet to the fire. 

“But ultimately, at the end of the day, I don’t care what party anyone is from. I want us all to work together so we can accomplish things and make sure that Ottawa and Nepean are taken care of.”

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