Naqvi was re-elected to represent Ottawa Centre in last week’s election and told Ottawa Compass that housing, downtown revitalization and healthcare are top of mind as he prepares to return to Parliament Hill.

These priorities overlap in a few areas, he said, one of which is addiction and drug use. In Chinatown, one of the neighbourhoods in his riding, there has been a reported increase of public drug use.

Ariel Troster, city councillor for Somerset Ward, issued a public statement in March addressing concerns from residents and pointed to the closure of the Supervised Consumption Site and Safe Supply program at the Somerset West Community Health Centre (SWCHC) under new provincial guidelines.

“While the community health centre will soon re-open as a HART Hub, offering addiction treatment, frontline care and supportive housing, the closure of the only option for safe consumption has led to a dramatic increase in public drug use – something Coun. Jeff Leiper (Kitchissippi) and I raised the alarm about when this provincial decision was first announced,” Troster wrote.

She has been working with newly-elected MPP Catherine McKenney to advocate that Northwood Recovery Clinic, which recently moved from Hintonburg to Somerset West, offer “wraparound” services that consider concerns of local residents.

“Even if a clinic has the best of intentions, they will never have the same integrated resources as the Somerset West Community Health Centre,” Troster wrote. “This is a structural problem created by the province, one that we will beg them to help us solve.”

But the issues facing Somerset Ward fall into federal jurisdiction, too.

“We need to really make sure that we are, from a healthcare perspective, providing the appropriate care for those individuals who are suffering from substance misuse and disorder, but also keep our community safe,” Naqvi told Ottawa Compass.

In his previous term, Naqvi positioned himself as an advocate for downtown Ottawa and the issues facing the downtown core in the wake of the pandemic and the “Freedom Convoy” protest.

Naqvi launched and chaired the Downtown Ottawa Revitalization Task Force throughout 2023 and 2024 in efforts to develop community-led plans for the downtown core.

He has also pointed to his work securing funding from the federal government to support ongoing treatment programs and initiatives in downtown Ottawa — this includes almost $4 million, announced in March, from Health Canada for an outreach program to address the toxic drug crisis.

But with the closure of the SWCHC’s harm reduction programs, Naqvi said he plans to expand the ANCHOR program and the HART hubs, a program run by the province that is meant to fill the gap left by the closures, both of which Naqvi called a “good non-police response to mental health and substance misuse calls.”

Data from The Alternate Neighbourhood Crisis Response (ANCHOR) program began Aug. 15, 2024 and has released data from the first 11 weeks of the program. 

In the first 11 weeks, 1,310 people called 211 to reach ANCHOR, and 626 of those calls resulted in an ANCHOR Crisis Response Team being dispatched. 

Of the remaining calls, 594 were addressed by CNEO/211 Community Navigators and did not require dispatch and 72 were redirected to 911. In 92 percent of cases, no police intervention was required, the data showed.

It’s one of many programs that Naqvi said he plans to prioritize at Parliament Hill in efforts to address the crisis.

“I worked with both [SWCHC] and Centretown Community Health Center, along with the City of Ottawa, to get that $4 million,” said Naqvi. “It’s so that we can provide support for those individuals, so that they are not overdosing on our streets, and not loitering or being a nuisance to small businesses in their neighbourhood, but so that we’re providing them appropriate care and treatment.”

He said he also heard from residents throughout his campaign that Canada-United States relations and U.S. President Donald Trump was a major concern for voters, an issue he said he’s uniquely positioned to support due to his professional background in international trade law.

Part of this approach as the Ottawa Centre MP will include supporting local businesses, he added.

“All of us are impacted by these unjustified tariffs. Ottawa is a unique place. It’s different than a factory or a border town or a rural community that’s maybe reliant on agriculture, but it does have an impact on our small businesses,” he said. “I have many main streets in my in my riding, and small businesses. 

“So I look forward to doing that work with our business improvement areas to make sure that we’re not only encouraging people to support local businesses who are right down the street, as opposed to the Amazons or Costcos of the world, but also creating opportunities for the small businesses to support locally made goods.”

The post Newly re-elected Naqvi advocates for healthcare-based approach to drug use, addiction crisis in Ottawa Centre 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.