Random Acts of Urbanism

Bruce Deachman’s column is here. Below is the entire video of Jeff Leiper’s concession speech.

Transcript

Brigitte Pellerin (00:05) Hi everyone. Hi Evan. You look different. That’s nice.

Evan Potter (00:08) Good day.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:10) And I sound different. This is the real-life podcasting, road-tripping edition. I hope that the image is stable enough and the sound is good enough. I am not driving, don’t worry about it. I’m just sitting here pontificating.

Evan Potter (00:20) So you’re in a new place and I’m in a new place, without a beard. There you go. We’re both in new places.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:29) How long since you last shaved? I’ve never seen you without a beard — but I haven’t known you for years and years, so.

Evan Potter (00:38) My lifetime. I was always clean shaven. It was just a COVID holdover. And I can grow a beard. Not everybody can grow a beard.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:48) Right. There you go.

So we are back after the election. We did the live stream, and I just want to say again to the people who joined the live stream: thank you. It was so cool to be able to do something like that. And I’m so gratified by the engagement and the feedback we get, and keep getting, from the people who watch or listen to our little conversation.

We’ve had a chance to sleep on things a little bit, a couple of days. And now we have a bit of a post-mortem.

Evan Potter (01:20) A bit. There’s lots of time.

Brigitte Pellerin (01:20) Let’s go from the easier to the trickier. How about that?

The easier, obviously, is that — as we’ve been saying the whole time, and you were right from the beginning — in Ontario, historically speaking, incumbents tend to win unless there’s a big reason why they shouldn’t win again. And this was, I think, a case study showing that. Comments?

Evan Potter (01:49) Well, you didn’t need to spend a lot of money on polling to realize that Ottawa council was not going to change. And I’m not patting myself on the back. I’m not a professional forecaster. I just know one thing — political scientists know one thing. Municipal politicians have a huge incumbency advantage, especially when there are no official parties. That just compounds the advantage.

So when I said last year that we were basically going to get the 2022 council again, I wasn’t trying to pat myself on the back. I just felt that was something Captain Obvious would say.

What I didn’t know was the mayor’s race. The other question was, would the mayor’s race be competitive? Again, last year I didn’t think it was going to be competitive. I was hoping it was going to be competitive, and I was hoping that you were going to be right all along.

But in terms of the ward races — no great surprise. In fact, a lot of the ward races were predictably blowouts. Catherine Kitts, ninety per cent.

Brigitte Pellerin (03:05) Yeah. There’s a couple of them. I think Theresa Kavanagh also got ninety or ninety-ish per cent. Laine Johnson, same thing. It’s as though nobody was running against them.

And in a way, it’s not just the incumbency advantage in some of those cases. I think that especially at the ward level, people are very satisfied with the representation they’re getting from their councillors — especially in the cases of those who got ninety per cent. And that’s as it should be. That’s the point of democracy. If people are happy, they go out and they vote.

Evan Potter (03:35) It’s as it should be. And I would also say that most of the candidates, with a few notable exceptions, did not start their campaigns until the official campaign start on May first. So these were candidates with low name recognition, if they had any recognition at all, starting at the official start of the municipal campaign. They had no chance.

And at the time, in the summer, I was thinking of writing a column about all the candidates. But I couldn’t do it. I think it would have just been — I would have told them not to bother, quite frankly. And that’s not good. I didn’t want to do that.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:14) Right. Because even in those wards where there was no competition, effectively, it’s good that there was some competition, even nominally. Look at me using my big words. It’s good to have people challenging even very popular incumbents.

Evan Potter (04:33) Well, for some of these challengers this will no doubt be their first campaign — and you need to have a training campaign, quite frankly. So for some of these, hopefully they’re training campaigns, and down the road when a ward becomes an open race they will have acquired some name recognition, some experience, and then they’ll be able to be serious competitors.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:59) Or perhaps go to a provincial-level election, or some other kind of public service position.

This is all good. And if you’re going to do a training campaign, do it in one where you kind of know you’re not going to win, so you’re not heartbroken at the end. And you get to make mistakes, and you get experience.

When you’re competing — I used to compete in kickboxing, and I used to say: I win a fight, or I learn something from a fight I’m not winning. And that’s the spirit in which a lot of those people went and fought in those wards. Saying, I probably am not going to win here, but I’m going to learn a whole bunch, including about myself and about my community and about how this politics business is played. And next time around I’ll come in with some experience under my belt, and if nothing else be much less nervous about how this works.

Evan Potter (05:48) Yeah. But there is a negative implication of having non-competitive candidates enter the race against an incumbent, and that is that it probably contributes to driving down the voter turnout. Because people look at —

Brigitte Pellerin (06:01) We’re going to get to that in a minute, because I have things to say.

Evan Potter (06:06) That’s part of the downside. What else? Can we talk about Jeff Leiper and Neil Saravanamuttoo?

Brigitte Pellerin (06:11) Yes. I just wanted to finish on the wards.

We both saw Erin Coffin dislodging Allan Hubley in Kanata South. So that’s not a surprise. The surprise to me was Bob Bell doing as well as he did in Ward One against Matt Luloff. There were two serious challengers there, Bob and Barbara Gandolfo. And Bob Bell finished the night, I think, close to twenty-five per cent — for a first-timer who didn’t have a lot of name recognition. He did remarkably well. That to me was a surprise.

Evan Potter (06:46) Okay. So Bob Bell — that is a great training camp for him and his campaign team. I think we should expect that the message Bob Bell and his campaign team will take is: hey, I got some traction, I developed my name recognition, developed my political brand, acquired some political capital. So I think he’s somebody who will come back. And I’m hoping that Barbara Gandolfo also comes back.

Brigitte Pellerin (07:15) And beyond the lessons of what this says about Bob Bell as a political personality, if I can use that word — it’s also a good idea for people to look at the campaign he ran and see what issues really resonated with voters. And what is it about the way he presented his positions on those issues that resonated?

Because this could have lessons for the four years ahead, for how to cover those issues. So I’m going to be looking at that. But also for next time, for him or anybody else: what really resonates with the voters in this ward? There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this exercise. That’s why I wanted to point to that ward.

Evan Potter (08:03) So there’s going to be a provincial and a federal election between now and October 2030. That’s coming up, and there will be another municipal election in 2030. So Bob Bell has some choices to make.

Brigitte Pellerin (08:17) It’s good to have choices in life.

Yes — Jeff. Speaking of the devil. Who was doing well, as I understood, in Orléans. Somehow that was not enough. He finished at thirty —

Evan Potter (08:34) Thirty-three point nine.

Brigitte Pellerin (08:…

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Brigitte Pellerin (00:05) Hi everyone, hi Evan. Last regular podcast before voting day.

Evan Potter (00:10) Last regular podcast before a number of intensive last-minute podcasts.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:15) I hope you have some popcorn and some extra melatonin or something ready to help you get through all this, because by the time you get to bed, you’re so wired after an election night that it’s hard to fall asleep. We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

In the meantime — we did a live stream. We’re recording this on Friday, October 23rd, and we did a live stream on Thursday, October 22nd, talking at length about how we see the mayoral race.

Evan Potter (00:38) You’re freezing up on me.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:43) That’s okay. Just if I freeze on you, ignore it, because the machines and the robots are making sure that the recording is great. This is one reason why I like to use that tool, even if some people find it a little bit annoying. Are we back online now?

Evan Potter (00:58) Yes, we’re back on.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:59) Right. Real life podcasting.

So we talked at length on this live stream, and it’s on my website. I don’t know if you wanted to post it as well, but it’s everywhere. So if you want to hear our discussion at length about how we see the mayoral race, it’s there. We don’t need to repeat all of that today, because that would be tedious.

But did you want to say — with reflection, we’ve slept on it since that live stream — do you have a pithy observation, or a prediction, about what’s going to happen on Monday night?

Evan Potter (01:29) It’s kind of simple for me. The conventional wisdom says that we are looking at a second term for Mark Sutcliffe, and with a council that’s almost identical. But if Jeff Leiper does win, it would be the biggest upset since 2006 — so in twenty years in Ottawa municipal elections. That’s how I sum it up.

Brigitte Pellerin (01:54) Okay. I hear what you’re saying, and historically speaking, you’re right.

It may not be true this time. And I’m not predicting that it won’t be true — but if it’s not true this time, it will be because of the very high proportion of people in Ottawa who disapprove of the mayor’s performance on a number of key issues. Transit, homelessness, safety. And affordable housing, especially for young people.

So that, combined with the high level of undecideds with days to go. I’m still undecided, Evan. This is how bad it is.

Evan Potter (02:31) I’m not undecided.

Brigitte Pellerin (02:35) A lot of people I talk to still haven’t made up their minds. And I’ve said this for months, and I’m going to say it one last time — and then unless I’m right on Monday, and then I’ll crow about it.

I think that the high number of undecideds is a sign of, overwhelmingly, people who know they don’t want to vote for Mark Sutcliffe again, but haven’t decided who to vote for instead.

Evan Potter (02:57) That is plausible, Brigitte — except that on the other side of the equation is a person named Alex Lawson. And in recent polls he has not been polling anywhere near twenty per cent, which is where he needs to be for Jeff Leiper to really have a shot at becoming the new mayor.

Brigitte Pellerin (03:15) Well — let me be annoying. He doesn’t need to be at twenty per cent in the polls. He needs to be at twenty per cent in the results.

Evan Potter (03:22) Sorry — excellent. He needs to have twenty per cent on Monday night, at least.

Brigitte Pellerin (03:27) That’s right. So we shall see. That’s going to be the one number I pay attention to: how Alex Lawson is doing. He’s won already. He’s the star of this show for Monday night. And so is Neil. They’ve both done so well.

Evan Potter (03:37) No, he’s won already. But for those residents of Ottawa who want Jeff Leiper to win — he cannot win without Alex Lawson having a very strong finish.

Brigitte Pellerin (03:53) Doing very well. Yes, that’s right. Because Alex Lawson removes support for Mark Sutcliffe.

Evan Potter (03:58) Correct.

Brigitte Pellerin (03:58) We’ve said this before. So let me again repeat my really quick cheat sheet in this election. If you’re not sure who to vote for — I know I’ve said this before, but bear with me.

If you’re super happy with the way things are, vote Sutcliffe. Job done, easy.

If you’re really not happy, and your number one priority is to dislodge Mark Sutcliffe from office, you can vote Leiper — more progressive. Or if you can’t stomach someone as progressive as Jeff Leiper, vote Alex Lawson. Both accomplish the same goal of using your one vote to either detract from Mark Sutcliffe’s support or add to his main challenger’s numbers. Either way, you’re good.

Evan Potter (04:38) You are correct, Brigitte. And Neil Saravanamuttoo is not going to like you.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:47) Well — I mean, that’s the truth. So if he doesn’t like what I’m saying, he should take this up with math. Because that’s just the way it works.

In fact, if you vote for Neil Saravanamuttoo, you’re actually reducing the odds that Jeff Leiper might be mayor. And you’re also, secondarily — accessorily, even if that’s not your intention — increasing the odds that Mark Sutcliffe will win again. So if your number one priority is dislodging Mark Sutcliffe, you can’t vote for Neil.

But if you really want to vote for something you care about, and you like Neil — this is your vote. You do what you want with it.

Evan Potter (05:28) Your vote. Correct.

Brigitte Pellerin (05:29) Just know that it won’t do anything to dislodge Mark Sutcliffe if you vote for Neil Saravanamuttoo. And I know Neil won’t like that, but — sorry, I don’t care. It is the way it is.

So I’ve spent part of my morning going through ward races. Because we’ve touched on the ones that we were watching, but there’s a bunch we’ve ignored. And I’d like to give them a little bit of time, because running for office is a big deal. I’m always in awe of people who throw their hats in the ring, especially when they feel like there’s not much of a chance for them and they still do it anyway. My hat is off to them, and I’d like to give them at least a little bit of love on this podcast.

And I want to say one thing. We haven’t really talked about him very much, but Mathieu Fleury — who used to be the councillor for Rideau-Vanier, before Stéphanie Plante — he is, I think, trying to get back into politics. He is running for —

Evan Potter (06:26) I don’t think he’s trying. He is.

Brigitte Pellerin (06:32) Okay, I was trying to be cute. He is running for French public school board trustee in zone ten, which covers wards twelve and thirteen. So I just wanted to put that out there.

Evan Potter (06:43) He’s starting on the road to 2030.

Brigitte Pellerin (06:48) Right. And why not?

Evan Potter (06:50) And why not?

Brigitte Pellerin (06:51) I think we like him. He’s a good person.

All right. So that’s said. Ward One, Orléans East-Cumberland. This is Matt Luloff territory. Matt Luloff last time won over seventy per cent.

Evan Potter (07:04) Yeah, huge.

Brigitte Pellerin (07:06) And he’s on his third term, or he’s been there for a while, right?

Evan Potter (07:10) Second. In the second.

Brigitte Pellerin (07:12) Okay. And he was considering running — was it provincially or federally? — as a Conservative candidate.

Evan Potter (07:16) Federally.

Brigitte Pellerin (07:17) As a Conservative candidate in the 2025 election, but the little thing with the DUI issue made him drop out of that race. So he’s still running. He was convicted of impaired driving and served the sentence that was awarded to him.

And I’ve written about this and I feel comfortable saying this: he waited until he had no other choices to own it. But once he had no other choices to own it, he actually did own it. So I guess he gets a passing grade on that. But that’s up to voters to decide.

He’s facing a number — I think seven people challenging him — including two who are, to our minds, the most interesting: Barbara Gandolfo and Bob Bell. And we’re pretty sure that because of that split — both are doing re…

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Let’s talk about polls. It’s fair to say that in this municipal election cycle, pollsters have not done anybody any favour. We haven’t had a lot of public polls, for one thing, and they’ve been all over the place. For instance, I’ve seen Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s support as low as the 20s and as high as the high 40s. Alex Lawson went from mid-20s to single digits — without doing anything different. Clearly, something’s not quite right.

Meanwhile the betting market has the probability of Sutcliffe winning again above 85%.

I’m not accusing anyone of doing anything wrong, to be clear. Pollsters do their thing and Ontarians are barred from Polymarket so who knows who’s trading. In any case, there’s something not right about how results have been presented. Quito Maggi, the president of one Mainstreet Research (a pollster), and — that’s important because he’s obviously biased — the internal pollster and campaign chair for Alex Lawson, wrote a comprehensive post on the lessons from British Columbia and what they might mean for Ontario municipal politics. Being biased isn’t the same as being wrong, though, and I find his arguments in that piece worth considering. Let me quote the most salient part:

British Columbia’s municipal elections delivered a timely warning for Ontario’s October 26 vote: agreement between polls does not eliminate uncertainty, and confident headlines can outrun the evidence.

Surrey offers the clearest example. An October 14 report put Brenda Locke at 33%, seventeen points ahead of Doug McCallum, and suggested she was headed for another term. The preliminary result reversed that picture: McCallum won 31.94%, against Locke’s 23.08%. Their relative margin differed by almost 26 percentage points.

That assessment was not isolated. An October 16 analysis, pooling three surveys, also placed Locke more than ten points ahead. It acknowledged small municipal samples and withheld exact percentages, but still failed to anticipate the winner. Multiple surveys pointing in one direction offered less reassurance than readers might reasonably have assumed.

I’m not saying the polls are wrong in the Ottawa municipal race. But if they are wrong, I think I know where they will have failed. Follow along, will you?

First: The unhappy

Surveys, starting from before the election began in earnest, showed a high level if dissatisfaction with the incumbent mayor. This one, from April:

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).

I dare you to show me evidence that would suggest satisfaction with the mayor’s handling of those issues has dramatically improved since April. Assuming the level of dissatisfaction is essentially the same as it was in April, there is absolutely no way the mayor has support for reelection in the high 40s, unless every single one of his challengers is a complete and total knob. Which they’re not.

Also, ask yourself the question: What, exactly, is better in Ottawa today than it was four years ago?

Poser la question, c’est y répondre.

Second, the undecided

With only days to go in the campaign, the level of undecided is still somewhere between a quarter and a fifth, depending on who’s measuring. Anything above 20 percent is crazy high at this point in the game. That is not a good sign for Sutcliffe, no matter how you slice it. I have been saying for months that the undecided were overwhelmingly people who have already decided they don’t want Sutcliffe to get a second term but aren’t sure who they’re going to vote for instead.

An internal Lawson poll (done by Quito Maggi) released last week contained a very interesting data nugget. It asked the undecided who they would “definitely” not vote for. And nearly 62% of the undecided they would definitely not vote Sutcliffe.

Third, the enthusiasm gap

I have been out and about the last few months following various campaigns, watching debates, going to events, etc., etc., etc. To the point of being dizzy form all the spin I’ve been subjected to. And even at Mark Sutcliffe’s big events, people aren’t excited about his reelection. There is just no enthusiasm.

That said, I could be totally wrong and underestimate the armies of Sutcliffe fans out there. Or the hordes of people who may be dissatisfied with him but will nevertheless vote for him because they don’t like the others anymore, or some version of “better the devil you know.”

The other guys:

On my podcast with Evan Potter we’ve complained, ad nauseam, about how disappointing we found Jeff Leiper’s performance as a challenger. He underperforms in debates. He is slow coming out with social media videos. He doesn’t take obvious shots.

But then… I’ve followed him around quite a bit, at events and canvassing, and when he’s one-on-one with people, or in small groups, he is a lot better. More animated. More convincing. Real-er. People from other campaigns comment that “Jeff sure has a lot of signs,” including in areas where one wouldn’t think he’d do so well. Like Kanata. Yet I can confirm, having driven around the ‘burbs a lot, that there are indeed many Leiper signs on private property outside his natural habitat downtown.

Leiper also has a small army of very dedicated volunteers. Including a high proportion of young people. I mean 20-something young. Not 45 young. The energy at his events is palpable. If this energy translates into a strong get-out-the-vote operation, Leiper may yet pull ahead.

Especially if Alex Lawson performs well. Which I expect he will — and by “well” I mean anything above 15 percent. Yes, he’s young and relatively inexperienced in politics. But he has done his homework, knows his files, can articulate both problems and solutions, and isn’t afraid of a challenge. And, as Mayor Sutcliffe reminded everyone during the CBC debate last night, four years ago he got elected as someone who’d never been inside City Hall. (By which he meant, someone without experience in municipal politics.) So, if he can be elected as an outsider, other people can, too.

Lawson has something else, too. I’ve seen people chase him to talk to him. He makes people feel like they can talk to him, and as a guy who grew up in difficult circumstances and built a life for himself and his family without ever having anything handed to him, he is relatable for a lot of people in similar circumstances. For people who aren’t happy with Mark Sutcliffe but don’t want to vote for someone on the left, he’s a great option.

Neil Saravanamuttoo is a good man with a great intellect and very interesting ideas. His supporters are very keen and dedicated. And I find his habit of holding town halls where people can literally ask him anything and he’ll answer without spinning extraordinarily refreshing. He’ll do alright, maybe ending at about 10 percent. But he won’t do better primarily because a vote for Neil does nothing to dislodge Mark Sutcliffe and my sense is that there is a plurality of people who aren’t ready to give the mayor a second chance, given how little he’s done with his first term.

The wild card:

Young people. I know, historically they don’t vote. But history is only valid until it changes. Transit, the inability for young people to buy a home or rent an apartment without roommates, those are very salient for people in their early 20s. If the come out this time, Sutcliffe is cooked. The odds of young people turning up in droves at the ballot box aren’t very high, but they’re not zero. I will be watching this very closely.

Voter turnout:

Typically, a high voter turnout is bad news for the incumbent. In 2022, 79,491 voters cast their ballots during the six days of advance voting. This…

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[Part one is here.]

This is part two of my investigation into the response to the historic July 1 flooding that saw something like 6,600 homes in Ottawa flooded, some with overland water, some with sewer backups, some with both.

There have been conflicting reports about whether the city asked for the right kinds of help from the province, and whether the province actually agreed. Last week I laid out what we knew. This week the picture is a little less blurry on some fronts, and a lot sharper on where the real problems are. Let’s dig in.

July 1: the phone calls

As Mayor Sutcliffe indicated — and I had no reason to doubt it — on the evening of July 1, somewhere between 7 and 8 p.m., there were already phone conversations between the premier and the mayor. Updates on the situation, the beginnings of “this is big, we’re going to need help,” agreements to keep each other posted.

I’m paraphrasing; I don’t know exactly what was said but assume it was the typical kind of things that get said in a situation like that. Also, keep in mind that on the evening of July 1, the scale of the problem probably wasn’t as clear as it became in the days that followed. That’s normal. This is not where the response went wrong.

July 3–4: the meetings, and the email that contradicts the minister

The city’s written timeline, which it sent to me directly, fills in the next steps: on July 3, city officials agreed to a meeting with the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. On July 4, the city’s Ryan Perrault emailed the province formally requesting that DRAO — the Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians program — be activated.

Remember that date, because it matters. Emergency Preparedness Minister Jill Dunlop has suggested the city didn’t ask for help until eight days after the flood. The city’s paper trail says July 4. Three days, not eight.

Now, a wrinkle: DRAO doesn’t fall under Dunlop’s ministry at all. It’s a Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing program; Rob Flack’s ministry, not Dunlop’s. So either Dunlop was talking about something else entirely, or she’s confused about which programs her own government runs. I find the second option hard to believe, which leaves the first, and the question of what, exactly, she was talking about.

July 7: “we need more data”

On July 7, city and province officials met to share information on the scale and impact of the floods. The province asked for more information: 311 call mapping (where were people calling from), technical assessments, and more details about affected properties and flood-related damage.

I understand every word in that sentence and almost none of what it entails. What does a “technical assessment” mean, in practice, a week after 6,600 homes flood? I’m still trying to find out. But note the shape of this: the city asked on July 4; on July 7 the province said “show us more.” What happened in those three days, and what exactly was missing, is one of the open questions.

Below is the timeline provided to me by the City of Ottawa:

On July 1, 2026, an ongoing dialogue with the Province was initiated. The City maintained nearly daily contact with the Province during the emergency response, and provincial representatives participated in meetings at the City’s Emergency Coordination Centre.

On July 3, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH), under Minister Flack, and Ryan Perrault, General Manager of Emergency and Protective Services, agreed to a meeting to assess the damage from the severe weather event.

On July 4, Ryan Perrault requested the Province consider activating the DRAO program and other available provincial funding and supports. [That’s the email reproduced above — BP.]

During a meeting on July 7 between the City and Province to share information on the scale and impacts of the extreme weather event, the Province requested additional information, including 3-1-1 call mapping, technical assessments, affected properties, and details of flood-related damage.

On July 9, the Province advised the City that it could not deploy volunteers equipped with PPE into environments presenting biohazard risks, including mold or wastewater contamination.

The three programs, and which ones are actually controversial

There are essentially three provincial programs in play. Let me park the uncontroversial one first.

1. The Municipal Disaster Recovery Assistance program. This reimburses the city’s own costs — capital costs to repair public infrastructure, operating costs above and beyond normal budgets that can be traced to the disaster. Not insurance-covered costs, not things that would have been replaced anyway. It’s a process: the city has to demonstrate the expenses qualify, and as far as I know, city staff are still assembling that file. Complicated, slow, but no real controversy, so I’m setting this one aside for now.

2. DRAO — Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians. This is the one for individuals and small business owners: homeowners, tenants, small businesses recovering costs from overland flooding that insurance won’t cover. Up to $250,000 per applicant for eligible expenses including emergency costs and cleanup.

Two critical limits. First, DRAO covers overland flooding only, not sewer backup. If the river came over its banks into your basement, that’s DRAO. If your sewer backed up, that’s not. Second, it only covers the zones the province activates. And this is where it gets bad.

When the province activated DRAO in mid-July, it covered exactly two areas: the zones around Graham Creek and Stillwater Creek. On the map, that’s the shape covering Bayshore, Qualicum, Leslie Park, and Trend-Arlington.

It does not cover Crystal Beach, Centrepointe, Parkwood Hills, Bells Corners, Woodpark, Quensway Terrace, Kanata North, or parts of Nepean, all of which had flooded homes.

So we have a big problem with two possible explanations, and I don’t know which one is true: either the city’s request wasn’t comprehensive enough, or the city asked for all the affected neighbourhoods and the province said no. That’s exactly the correspondence I want to see — who asked for what, when. What I do know is that since mid-July, city staff have been pushing the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to expand the zone. The city is trying to fix this. But how we got here, I don’t know yet.

The second DRAO problem is crueller. Say your home got both: sewer backup and overland flooding. You’re now expected to separate the damage, to stand in your basement in coveralls and big boots, in two and a half feet of sludge, and apportion which destruction came from the sewer and which from the river. I’ve dealt with one minor sewer backup in my life and I don’t wish it on anyone. I have no idea what these people are supposed to do, or what help exists to assist them in parsing it, with their insurance, with DRAO, with the city’s compassionate grants (the $1,000 compensation for sewer backups only).

3. Ontario Corps volunteers. This one I didn’t realize was an issue until I started digging last week. Ontario Corps is the province’s volunteer program — ordinary people sign up, get managed by recognized partners, and do low-qualification disaster work: cleanup, distributing supplies, boots-on-the-ground help.

Here’s what the city told me: on July 9, the province advised it could not deploy volunteers with personal protective equipment into environments “presenting biohazard risks including mold or wastewater contamination.” Mold and wastewater contamination are, of course, exactly what you expect after a flood.

I don’t know whether the city requested Ontario Corps volunteers, or when, or for what. I don’t know why the province said no — especially since the sam…

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I wish all candidates had this level of transparency.

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Transcript

Brigitte Pellerin (00:05) Hi everyone. Hi Evan. We are down the stretch. How are you doing?

Evan Potter (00:08) Final stretch, Brigitte. And I’m laughing, I’m grinning, because there have been amusing things this week, and also kind of troubling things this week. So we’ll get into it. You lead off.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:24) Right. So I want to talk — we don’t need to repeat all the things that we’ve said about what the candidates need to do to really win for mayor, because I think people are familiar by now with —

Evan Potter (00:30) But we might want to just say that it is all about the ground game now. You can’t change your comms now. You can’t revive your campaign, hello Jeff Leiper, with your comms. That opportunity has now passed, and now it’s all about the ground game. And that will affect Jeff Leiper more than anyone else in the campaign.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:59) I’m going to push back just a little bit. I think it will also affect Mark Sutcliffe. If his people don’t show up to vote — if they say they will vote for him, but then forget to do so because they’re not that enthusiastic about him — that also affects him. So both of those two candidates really need to have their people. Because the point of elections — this may be a simplistic point, but it is nevertheless the case — the point of an election is to get the people who say they will vote for you to go out and actually vote for you.

Evan Potter (01:26) Yeah. And Jeff needs a lot of votes. He needs more votes than Catherine McKenney got in 2022. So he needs more than their hundred and ten thousand votes.

Brigitte Pellerin (01:37) And what’s really surprising to me about all the polls showing, you know, weird things — honestly, how can — I mean, there are different polls, different methodologies, and I get that, but how can a guy like Alex Lawson be swinging between 4% and, was it 27%, his high water mark? Something is really wrong here. Mark Sutcliffe — I saw him as low as 24 in one of those polls, just for decided voters, mind you. And then as high as 49. Again, there’s just not — okay.

Evan Potter (02:07) You know what I’m going to tell everybody right now? Forget the polls. Forget the bloody polls. The polls have not served the public interest in the 2026 Ottawa municipal election. Let’s just say it, let’s be brutal, let’s be honest about this. And we can only hope now that in 2030 the public gets more public polls. That would be really good. Based on probability-based polls.

Brigitte Pellerin (02:35) That’s right. I’m just going to say again, for people who may be looking for a way to think their way through how to vote: if you’re super happy with the status quo, vote Mark Sutcliffe. That’s the easy one. If you’re super happy, you have the easiest job.

If you really want to kick Mark Sutcliffe out of office, you can either go for Jeff Leiper or Alex Lawson. Both of those candidates take away from Mark Sutcliffe.

And if you want to vote for someone you really care about — and you like Neil Saravanamuttoo’s ideas and proposals, or his experience, his background, the way he shows up — if you like anything about him, and you want to actually vote for something and for someone, for a program, instead of voting strategically against someone else, he’s your guy. That’s it.

Evan Potter (03:15) Well said. I don’t have anything to add to that.

Brigitte Pellerin (03:18) And I will have a column in the Ottawa Citizen coming up shortly too — next week — about if you want to vote by issue. So I’m having a bit of a longer column going issue by issue. So you can go and say, well, I care the most about infrastructure. It’s a bit more of a condensed version of what the different platforms are, so you can try and make up your mind that way as well. I’m trying to offer an easy-to-swallow package to compare the four main candidates, so that people who don’t have the time —

Evan Potter (03:51) And there are a lot of people who would benefit from that, because probably one in five residents still have not made up their minds.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:01) Yes. Well, maybe even more than that, if we look at the polls that we just said we shouldn’t look at.

And the idea is that we’re all learning together out loud here, right? So we’re working through the issues and the conversations and what we’ve seen of the politics. So there was a big debate — well, there are debate-paloozas these days, but the one that we wanted to talk about this week was the CFRA/CTV News debate on Wednesday. An hour and a half-ish, or even a bit longer than that. I did appreciate the format very much. They had questions from the audience, a question from a panel, a question from the moderator. Each candidate had a chance to present their views or ask a question of somebody else on the panel. And then they also had little brawls. So that was good.

Evan Potter (04:42) Yeah, I found that really refreshing. But late in the campaign — I mean, some of the earlier all-candidates debates didn’t really offer any exchanges. And we’re not talking about vicious ad hominem personal attacks. That’s not what we’re talking about. Just ways of seeing the differences and the contrast among the candidates. And you couldn’t tell, because of the way the organizers had the format. It was just, here’s a question, you answer, and then they go down the line, and people just basically have memorized answers, or they’re reading off some pre-prepared answers. And that’s not a debate. That’s an information session. Not a debate.

Brigitte Pellerin (05:24) Yeah. But then sometimes you have debates and there’s so much yelling that you can’t figure out what people are saying. So I did like the CTV one. I think it was a very successful debate that way, because we had some of each. We had the best of all the different formats, without too much of the negatives from the various formats. So, well done, CTV News and CFRA.

Evan Potter (05:44) It was a good model. So what did you think about the caliber of the exchanges?

Brigitte Pellerin (05:50) Okay. So I’ll put a caveat to this, because you and I are swimming in this stuff. I’m doing deep dives into everything. Mark Sutcliffe just released a 70-page platform — comprehensive, no kidding, platform — this week, that I still haven’t read in detail. But we’re in this stuff so much, we know the issues so much, that to people like you and I, and some of the nerdier listeners that we have, the level of exchange was not deep enough, was not comprehensive. They stayed a little bit too much on the surface, by and large.

Evan Potter (06:20) Yeah. My view was they didn’t add anything. There wasn’t anything new. They repeated the main points from their platforms. And because I look at it from this kind of campaign communication perspective rather than a pure policy perspective, there were no knockout punches, nobody got thrown off their game. I think the mayor was composed. He didn’t like Neil needling him, obviously, but he was composed. Composed, and he got out his messages.

And again — I’m sorry, not Jeff-bashing, not Jeff-bashing — but Jeff again had to overperform relative to the mayor and his challengers. And once again, I did not see Jeff overperforming.

I want to quote something. As I was thinking about what I was going to say to you on this, I think there was a great opportunity for Jeff Leiper. And he could have said — and this just came right out of me, and I’m sorry, probably because we’re swimming in this stuff, it’s coming out of our pores now — all Jeff had to say was, to Mark Sutcliffe:

“You had a choice, sir. You could have saved residents of Ottawa four hundred and nineteen million doll…

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If you were affected by the July 1 flood, you don’t need me to tell you how hard the past three months have been.

The storm dropped 118 mm of rain on Ottawa, roughly double the previous July 1 record, set in 1959, and well over 140 mm in some neighbourhoods. The city called it a one-in-200-year event. By late July, 6,600 households had reported flooded basements.

This wasn’t ordinary flooding. An enormous amount of rain fell in a very short time, and in many cases the city’s infrastructure simply couldn’t handle it. Sewers backed up into basements. Belongings were destroyed. Even if insurance eventually covers everything, going through that process is a nightmare.

Which is why, when you lead a city, your first job in a moment like that is to get residents as much of the available help as possible, as fast as possible.

Last week, Ontario’s Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Response, Jill Dunlop, said the City of Ottawa didn’t formally ask the province for help until July 9, eight days after the storm. She said it in answer to a question from Ottawa West–Nepean NDP MPP Chandra Pasma. Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s campaign denies it. They say the city asked right away, and that the mayor was on the phone with Premier Doug Ford on the evening of July 1. And again on July 3.

I have no reason to doubt the mayor was on the phone those nights, probably with other officials too. That’s normal; it’s what you’d expect. But a phone call isn’t necessarily a formal request for assistance. It may have been a heads-up that a request was coming. On the evening of July 1, everyone knew this was going to be a big problem, but nobody knew yet just how big.

So the question is simple: who asked whom, for what, and when? I’ve filed access-to-information requests with both the city and the province, and I’ve put questions directly to the people involved. Formal requests can take a long time. With the election on October 26, I don’t think we should have to wait.

Here’s what we know so far, and what we don’t.

Two provincial programs, two very different jobs

Ontario has two programs that matter here.

Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians (DRAO) helps residents, tenants, small owner-run businesses, farms and non-profits pay for disaster damage that insurance doesn’t cover. It’s not money that shows up right away: it comes after you’ve been through your insurance, which can take months on its own. It covers basic needs in a primary residence, with caps and deductibles, up to $250,000 per claimant. And it only applies inside an area the province designates.

Crucially, the province doesn’t need a municipality to ask. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Rob Flack (not Dunlop), decides whether and where to activate it, informed by the province’s own damage assessments and by information from the municipality. In practice, the city’s input carries a lot of weight. If everyone in the city’s emergency management, the mayor’s office and whoever else needs to weigh in shows up with a detailed formal request explaining why the program applies, surely that helps the province conclude that yes, this is what the program is for.

Municipal Disaster Recovery Assistance (MDRA) reimburses the city for its own extraordinary costs, such as emergency response and repairs to roads, bridges and public buildings. This one does require the city to act: council must pass a resolution and submit an initial claim within 120 days of the disaster. The city’s eligible costs must reach at least 3% of its own-purpose tax levy. Above that threshold, the province pays 75% of eligible costs up to it and 95% beyond.

What happened, day by day

* July 1: The storm hits. According to the mayor’s campaign, Sutcliffe is on the phone with the Premier that evening.

* July 3: Sutcliffe says he has spoken with Premier Ford about support for the city and residents.

* July 5: Councillors Laine Johnson, Wilson Lo, David Hill and Sean Devine, along with MPPs Tyler Watt, Karen McCrimmon, Stephen Blais, Lucille Collard and John Fraser, publish an open letter asking the province to send its disaster assessment team and activate DRAO. The mayor is not a signatory. The ministry says it is assessing the situation.

* July 6: At a news conference, Sutcliffe says he has spoken with ministers Dunlop and Flack about getting DRAO for residents. He also announces motions to boost the city’s Compassionate Grant, which pays $1,000 for sewer-backup flooding and had a budget of $150,000 a year.

* July 9: The first formal request for help reaches the province, according to Dunlop.

* July 10: Flack says he’s confident DRAO will be activated but gives no timeline. Coun. Laine Johnson says that eight days after the floods she is still looking for action and answers from both the city and the province, that the city was responsible for starting some of the requests, and that “all of that took too long.”

* Around July 14: The province activates DRAO, but only around Graham Creek and Stillwater Creek: Bayshore, Qualicum, Leslie Park and Trend-Arlington. Residents there have until November 16 to apply.

* July 15: Council approves the mayor’s motions: a partnership with the Red Cross worth up to $400,000, waived fees including building and demolition permits, more Compassionate Grant funding, more money for sump pumps and backflow valves, and legal help with insurance claims. Council also drops the rule limiting the grant to once every five years.

* July 16: The Red Cross launches its Ottawa Floods Appeal. Around the same time, at the mayor’s request, the federal government agrees to match donations.

* July 24: The city formally asks the province to expand the DRAO area. Paramedic Chief Pierre Poirier admits the first map the city gave the province was “fairly restrictive,” drawn before staff understood the full scope of the event. By then the city has received 1,679 grant applications and approved 824.

* September 23: Council unanimously passes the mayor’s motion to apply for MDRA, seconded by Johnson, provided costs meet the threshold. The city is still tallying them. A second motion asks the province to review DRAO’s eligibility rules. CTV reports that the DRAO area still hasn’t been expanded.

As far as I can tell, that small zone is still the only part of Ottawa approved for DRAO. If I’m wrong, I’d love to hear it.

The people who fall through the cracks

The two main programs were designed for different kinds of water. The city’s Compassionate Grant covers sewer backup only and explicitly excludes overland flooding. DRAO covers overland flooding, but sewer backup generally isn’t eligible, and it only applies inside the designated zone.

So if water came in through your window wells and you live outside that zone, you may qualify for neither. That zone left out flooded neighbourhoods including Centrepointe, Crystal Beach and Parkwood Hills. It also excluded Kanata North, which had the highest number of storm-related service requests in the city. The province says it drew the area using information the city provided.

How many households are in that gap? Nobody has said.

What we don’t know

When the city formally asked, and for what. Show us the email, the letter, the form, whatever it was. Surely somebody put a formal request for assistance in writing. I’d like to know what was asked, by whom and when. The minister says nothing arrived before July 9; the mayor says that’s not accurate. They can’t both be right, and we need the paperwork to settle it. That’s also why Jeff Leiper, the mayor’s main challenger, has asked for the paper trail. A lot of people want to see it.

One wrinkle: Dunlop is the emergency preparedness minister, but it’s the Minister of Municipal Affa…

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Timing note: Between recording the podcast and broadcasting it, this poll came out.

TL;DR: plus full transcript below.

* The flood delay: the province says the mayor’s office took 8 days to request assistance after the July 1 flood. Leiper’s campaign wants the paper trail — potential October surprise, and Brigitte notes that just asking the question may be damage enough.

* 27,553 early voters: up 46% from 2022, 76% from 2018. Only the Leiper campaign told Brigitte they’re happy with their early-voter data — a confident ground game. High turnout favors challengers.

* The engaged are really engaged: notebook-toting crowds at Saravanamuttoo events, young volunteers canvassing for Leiper. But most voters will still vote on trust and name recognition, not policy (see: Gore vs. Bush, 2000).

* Watch the undecideds: a third of voters were undecided in summer polling. If they’ve broken, they’ve likely broken away from the mayor. The coming public poll tells all.

* The soft-win scenario: Sutcliffe could win with 32–36% — “a win is a win, but it’s a soft win,” and a diminished mandate has council colleagues already eyeing 2030.

* Lawson’s week: the zero-tax-increase plan is “beautiful politics” — his big beautiful idea — and his homelessness/addiction treatment plan is one Brigitte wants every candidate to steal.

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Transcript:

Brigitte Pellerin (00:00): Hi everyone. Hi Evan. How are you doing this week?

Evan Potter (00:04): Great. I’m doing great this week. And you know why I’m doing great this week?

Brigitte Pellerin (00:07): Tell me. Tell the people why you’re doing great this week.

Evan Potter (00:12): Because I know there is at least one public poll coming up. And there may be more — it could be up to three public polls. One for sure.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:16): Woo. All right.

Evan Potter (00:24): We’re going to find out things, Brigitte. Things will be confirmed — or things will be contradicted. But there will be —

Brigitte Pellerin (00:28): Is that all you want to say for now?

(00:35) No, that’s great. You’re making everyone sit on this cliffhanger so they have to watch us again next week. It’s perfect. Great marketing. You’re the best.

Evan Potter (00:41): There might be a real surprise.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:47): Well — before I go into what we decided to talk about this week, just one thing about what came out earlier this week. I believe it was Tuesday.

The minister responsible — I forget her first name; Dunlop is her last name — was explaining that, you know, with the floods, the July 1 flood. When there’s a problem like this and the city requests the assistance of the provincial government with an extreme event, it’s up to the city to request assistance. That’s the way things work in this country.

(01:17) But the provinces typically will remind the city that there are resources available. And so this is what happened. As we understand it, as we record this, the province did remind the city that there were resources available.

And apparently — not confirmed, but this is from the mouth of the minister of the Ontario government — the mayor’s office took eight days to request assistance after the July 1 flood.

I don’t know why they would do that. So Jeff Leiper’s campaign is asking for the paper trail showing that.

(01:55) If indeed it is true — and I don’t know why she’d be lying about this on camera — but if that is true, there has to be a really, really good reason why it took eight days to request assistance. Because the people whose basements were flooded, they won’t find it funny at all.

Evan Potter (02:08): I’m sure there’s an explanation. And the only question now is whether the Leiper campaign can get the paperwork before election day.

Brigitte Pellerin (02:17): Maybe they don’t need that. Because if you sow enough doubt in voters’ minds that there was a delay, and that it’s unexplained as of yet — that’s enough. I don’t think you need the paper trail.

Evan Potter (02:26): But the media needs the paper trail.

Brigitte Pellerin (02:30): Of course. But for people to decide how they want to vote, maybe just asking the question is enough damage to the Sutcliffe campaign. So maybe that’s our October surprise. We’ll find out.

(02:37) Meanwhile — and I want to say that we’ve been saying this all wrong. This was not the advance poll. The advance poll is October sixteenth. What we had last week was early voting. Am I correct?

Evan Potter (02:54): Yes, that’s correct.

Brigitte Pellerin (02:57): Not that it really matters. Anyway, we had four days of early voting.

(03:02) And I think we may have — I don’t know if it’s a record we’ve beaten, but let’s call it a high-water mark. We had 27,553 voters who voted in those early voting days last week. Which is a 46 per cent increase from four years ago, and a 76 per cent increase from eight years ago, 2018. So that’s a good number.

(03:18) Now, I have to say something for folks who may not understand how this works.

So Elections Ottawa — big shout-out. I love these people. They do the work of angels and they’re great. When you go and vote, please thank them for their work. That’s all they really — they don’t get paid that much to do this work, and it’s critically important.

Anyway: when Elections Ottawa tallies everything, they share with all the campaigns a list of who voted in those early voting days. But of course, they don’t say anything about how those people voted.

(03:47) So the campaigns get the list of who voted early. And then I’m assuming they cross-reference it with their own list of known supporters — people who told them yes, who have a sign on the front lawn, who said I’m going to vote for you, or I might vote for you. So they have those lists, and that gives them an indication of how they’re doing in their campaign. Because if their voters have already voted for them — that’s good.

(04:21) Well. All the campaigns have my number. They know how to get hold of me. And there’s only one that reached out to say they were happy with the data they received from Elections Ottawa. That’s the Jeff Leiper campaign.

Evan Potter (04:36): Okay. That’s the open and transparent campaign.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:39): That’s right. And so I’m sharing this — the campaign is, how could I say this, going into this holiday weekend feeling confident that their voters are going out and doing what they said they would do, which is vote for Jeff Leiper. That’s my interpretation of the message I received earlier.

But if that’s true in the other campaigns — guys, you can reach out. If you’re also happy with your numbers, I’d love to report that.

(05:00) It’s an interesting phenomenon. And it goes to what we’ve been saying for weeks: what Jeff Leiper needed was a superior ground game.

Evan Potter (05:20): Not just superior. Incredible.

Brigitte Pellerin (05:23): Okay. And a dissatisfaction with Mark Sutcliffe, and everyone else voting strategically for Leiper.

Evan Potter (05:27): Yes, of course. And a lot of people loving Alex Lawson. He needed those things together. He needs an incredible ground game, an unbelievable ground game — and he needs Alex Lawson in the high twenties. That’s what he needs.

Brigitte Pellerin (05:47): Right. So we’ll find out about that part, the Lawson numbers — and I believe that’s what you want to talk about, how that’s the one number we should all look at. But if all of this is happening, then we may be looking at an upset.

Evan Potter (06:02): You may be very, very happy.

(06:06) But just a comment on the early voting. 27,000 — that’s great, it’s a high number. Let’s say there are three hundred and thirty thousand people who vote on October twenty-sixth. So that’s about eight per cent, nine per cent — don’t call me on the math — somewhere between eight and ten per cent who’ve gone for the early vote.

(06:30) I was told this week by someone that a higher percentage of Toronto municipal voters went to the polls for the early vote. Just an interesting factoid — that more Toronto voters, as a percentag…

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I asked the three main challengers what they thought of Mark Sutcliffe’s $10-billion infrastructure plan. Neil Saravanamuttoo did not answer, but we can safely assume he’s not especially impressed.

Jeff Leiper: “Sutcliffe’s infrastructure plan is a hodge-podge of projects already approved by Council, projects Council has already rejected, and projects that depend on funds not yet (and maybe never) secured. Revenues available to build infrastructure will be reduced under his reckless tax cap promise and fulfilling his promises will require massive cuts to other city spending. Leiper's commitment is to increase the funding available for infrastructure projects with a $46 yearly levy on households. “Sutcliffe's plan is a wish list, not a budget. We've tried his approach for four years, and our infrastructure fell further behind. Ottawa deserves a mayor who tells the truth about what it costs.”

Alex Lawson: “Mark had 4 years to invest in critical infrastructure but instead he let it rot in the ground while he spent our money on things we didn’t need. Now he’s asking us to believe he’ll fix the problems he let linger using debt instead of the money he already wasted. My fiscal plan will be out soon, and it will focus the city’s spending on getting the basics right, so I don’t need to come begging hat-in-hand for another chance four years from now.”

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Transcript

Brigitte Pellerin (00:06): Hi everyone, hi Evan — hope you’re doing well. This is a busy one. We’ve got a bit of froth in our eyebrows, because there’s a lot going on and a lot to get to.

But first, a little housekeeping. I want to thank our viewers, because people are watching and listening — I hear it wherever I go. People say, I listen to you and Evan, and I really like the format. They appreciate the conversational format. They appreciate that we’re not partisan — I mean, not that there’s partisan politics in municipal politics — but they appreciate that we talk openly, and as honestly as we know how, about the race. So that’s useful, and I’m grateful, and I love hearing it. When you see me out there, come and talk to me. I like that.

Evan Potter (00:53): And come out to the Big Rig.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:56): That’s right. When we go out for beers — and this time I tried to be a bit more ahead of it and made a reservation and everything. It’s always good to see people.

I also want to say that the good folks at Rogers TV run this podcast on the television network, so if you have Rogers at home, go and watch us there if you like. And we’re now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — I always want to say Shopify. They’re not the same thing. I know that.

So if you like what we do and want to support us: share it, rate the podcast. It helps other people find us.

(01:29) And people do talk to me. A woman came up to me at a Neil Saravanamuttoo event earlier this week, and she had some good criticism. She started with: maybe you don’t care. And I said, no — I do care. I want to hear what you have to say.

I won’t share what she said, because she said it to me, not for public consumption. But she had a valid point to make, and I gave her that. And then we had a good evening. So it was good.

Anyway — let’s go. What are we talking about first? What’s really got your goat this week?

Evan Potter (02:02): Well, before I get to my regular Jeff Leiper grievances — which I keep saying I won’t do, and then he or his campaign does something that drives me nuts —

Brigitte Pellerin (02:08): You’re Jeff-bashing?

Evan Potter (02:16): No, we’ll come to that. But first: hot off the press this morning, the Globe and Mail runs the first national story on the mayoral race, to my knowledge. I don’t think the National Post has written anything on the Ottawa mayoral race.

And it was very fair, very factual. It was a news piece, not an opinion piece, and it gives the rest of the country a sense of what the four top contenders are saying and what their intentions are for the city. I think that’s really good. It’s good for Ottawa. It’s good for the candidates.

(03:07) What struck me, Brigitte, was David Valentin’s direct quote. He’s the principal at Liaison Strategies, who’s been doing the Ottawa tracking poll.

Brigitte Pellerin (03:13): He’s the head of the Liaison polling firm.

Evan Potter (03:21): The Globe journalists went to him and asked his view. And he said that the mayor — I’ll use the conditional — could win, and the number he ascribed to that win for Mark Sutcliffe was 35 per cent. Which I note is the same number Liaison was polling the mayor at over the summer.

So it’s interesting that David would throw that 35 per cent winning number out there. He was conditional. And as David has done in the past, he leaves the door open for a surprise.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:01): Well, of course they always do that — which bothers me, because I go out there and stick my neck out and make predictions. I’m wrong more often than not. But I think it’s more fun when you go out and make predictions.

Evan Potter (04:13): I’ve been predicting, based on public polling and my own sense of the campaign, that the mayor could win anywhere from 32 to 39 per cent.

Now, the mayor’s closest supporters and his allies on council have privately told me they think he’ll win more than 40 per cent — and one said even over 50. I don’t think that’s the case. I’m going to stick with David’s conditional prediction of somewhere in the mid to high thirties, all things being equal. Because the mayor has been leading in the public polling since the beginning, all the way through.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:23): And in a four-way race, that’s kind of enough.

(04:58) And traditionally, as we’ve said over and over again, in Ontario municipal politics the incumbent tends to win. That’s just because people don’t — well, it’s a lot to pay attention to, right?

Evan Potter (05:02): So for all the viewers who are champions of the challenger candidates: I’m not trying to throw cold water on the aspirations of your candidate. Brigitte and I are just telling you the reality, which is that in municipal races incumbents almost always win. It’s literally over 85 per cent, sometimes a 90 per cent chance that the incumbent wins.

And in our case, we don’t see a change election. This is more a status quo election. So in that case, all things being equal, all the predictions point to Mark Sutcliffe.

Brigitte Pellerin (05:50): Except — okay, here’s where I stick my neck out.

Advance polling is usually an indication. In most elections, when you have high voter turnout, and especially a lot of people showing up to vote early, that tends to be a sign of a change election.

(06:09) Now, early voting for the municipal race just opened this week. I don’t know that we have numbers yet, and that’s fine — we’ll be able to talk about this more next week if they’re out. But anecdotally, there were some — not everywhere. I’ve been to places where it was kind of deserted.

Evan Potter (06:28): Not at City Hall. At City Hall, not. But other places.

Brigitte Pellerin (06:30): I was at Richcraft the other evening — mind you, it was the evening — and there was nobody there for the advance vote. But it was nice. There were signs and everything, so it was clear. If you were there to vote, they make it clear and easy to do that, and I appreciate that.

A big shout-out, now that we’re here, to the people who run Elections Ottawa. They do fantastic work. I just love them.

(07:00) Some people have reported to us privately that they’ve seen biggish lines. Maybe. I don’t know — I didn’t see that with my own eyes, so I can’t confirm it. But if it’s true that advance turnout is high, to me that signifies more of a change election than not. So that’s one thing.

Evan Potter (07:14): I will respectfully disagree with you on that.

Brigitte Pellerin (07:18): Okay. You and your numbers and your data.

The other thing is that I think the polls underestimate the dissatisfaction with Mar…

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Let’s have beer! Evan and I will be at Big Rig in Gloucester Centre Friday October 2, from 6-6:30 pm (traffic depending). Come see us!

CRIC database that lists polling firms, as we discuss in the first few minutes.

Below is the image the Leiper campaign has of where people have requested lawn signs.

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Transcript

Brigitte Pellerin (00:02): Hi Evan, how are you today?

Evan Potter (00:03): Fine, fine. Again, there’s a briskness in the air, and it’s hard to deny.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:08): Hard to deny — this time it’s coming.

I want to start by saying a great thank you to the viewers and listeners who came to have a beer with us last week at Irene’s Pub in the Glebe. Almost a dozen people showed up, which — for something announced on Twitter at the last minute — I can admit now, I was a little bit scared nobody would come and it would just be you and me having a beer. Which would have been fine, obviously. So we went in with low expectations, and I was blown away. It was lovely to meet people, talk to them, hear them, have those conversations.

So we want to do it again.

Evan Potter (00:49): Come one, come all.

Brigitte Pellerin (00:52): We will be at the Big Rig at Gloucester Centre next Friday — October second. I should have looked at the calendar before announcing it, but yes: Friday, October second.

I’ll try to be there around six-ish, traffic depending. I was a bit sad that I got to Irene’s late — I had a problem with my bike, so I arrived eight minutes late and people were already waiting for us. So I’ll aim for six-ish and announce it on Twitter. And you’ll get there when you get there, after your class, traffic depending. We’re being a little loosey-goosey with the timeline. But we’ll be there, have a beer, and hear what people have to say out in the east end.

Evan Potter (01:32): Absolutely. I love travelling around the wards. I don’t know why I’m so interested in all this stuff, to be honest with you. I’m fascinated, because I want to know what people think. Maybe that’s the inner political scientist in me.

Brigitte Pellerin (01:50): There’s a beautiful series on the CTV Ottawa news site. Leah Larocque went walking around in all twenty-four wards. She talks to people about their concerns, and then she explains the wards a little — where they are, what’s important there. Really interesting, and very well done. Look it up, folks, if you’re interested. Maybe just your ward, or go explore the others.

(02:18) And now, from the sublime to the ridiculous — sorry, I needed a transition, and it’s not always elegant — that polling. What is going on?

Evan Potter (02:26): People have a lot of views on the polling. And I’m going to say that the polling situation right now is an under-reported story by Ottawa’s local media. I’m looking for CBC, CTV, the Ottawa Citizen, whoever else, to have a look at what’s going on.

Brigitte Pellerin (02:53): Do you want to catch people up first on what’s happening?

Evan Potter (02:57): I was thinking about how to address this today, and I’ll keep it as fact-based as I can.

We’ve had seven public polls since April. Liaison Strategies did five of them. Of those five, four reported polling on the mayor’s race — and the August Liaison poll did not release the numbers for the candidates for mayor.

Brigitte Pellerin (03:35): But it talked about other issues, like safety and homelessness. Just not the mayor’s race.

Evan Potter (03:40): Exactly. Then we had Corus Consulting [name to verify] in June — that was poll number six. And most recently, ElectRight [name to verify], reporting from September seventeenth and eighteenth, did a poll. Both of those also included numbers for the candidates for mayor.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:02): I have one question before we move on, and it’s a factual thing.

There’s a group — I forget the name of it — a group of established pollsters. Because everyone can go out and measure things, but polling is actually a science. To be accepted into that group, you presumably have to show you’re a real pollster. Liaison is in that group.

Evan Potter (04:23): Yes, it is. Abacus is in there.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:30): Abacus is in there. Mainstreet Strategy — would they be in there?

Evan Potter (04:34): Mainstreet, yes. They’re all there. All the major pollsters are there, and those who typically do public polls are there.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:45): But not ElectRight. This latest poll.

Evan Potter (04:47): I did not see ElectRight on the members list.

Brigitte Pellerin (04:55): Okay. So if we’re wrong about this, someone can correct us — but you don’t see it on the list that’s publicly available.

Evan Potter (04:55): No, it’s not on CRIC’s member list. As I’ve been told this week, it’s a voter identification firm. And if you go on the website, as a service, it provides public opinion research.

Brigitte Pellerin (05:08): And by highlighting this, I’m not trying to throw shade at them or question their work. I’m just saying there’s a factual difference between the established polling firms — let’s call them that — and other people who do research that can also be polling, but who aren’t recognized established pollsters.

Evan Potter (05:31): Well — they are not the pollsters included in the CRIC membership. I think they would probably say they’re professional pollsters, or that they provide those services.

(05:59) So here’s what I would conclude, without getting into questions of methodology, which will vary from pollster to pollster. Sample sets, weighting averages — all of that will vary from firm to firm.

What I can say is that in all six of the polls in which the mayoral results were released publicly, Mark Sutcliffe was ahead. That’s incontrovertible.

(06:42) And I think intuitively we know that. He’s the incumbent — I always come back to this — he’s the incumbent mayor with no quote-unquote personal scandal attached to him.

To be able to unseat somebody like that — you don’t even have to say Mark Sutcliffe, we’ll just call him the mayor — is incredibly difficult for challengers. The incumbent advantage, and I’ll say it for the next four weeks, is huge. We’re not saying it’s insurmountable. We’re not throwing shade, as you said, on all the many people who are putting aside their personal lives to be challengers. We need that for democracy. But to challenge incumbents, whether at the ward level or the mayoral level, is a huge bar to surmount.

So you would expect Mark Sutcliffe to be ahead, and by all accounts he has been, and probably is as we speak. Now the question is: is he ahead by eight points, ten points, sixteen points?

Brigitte Pellerin (07:35): So what’s the issue, then?

Evan Potter (07:42): We don’t know. But he’s ahead.

Jeff Leiper — if you look across all the polling in terms of committed and leaning, his variation has not been that great. If we were to do a census, which we’re not going to do, it would probably be between twenty-two and twenty-six percent.

Brigitte Pellerin (08:10): Which is his natural base, basically.

Evan Potter (08:11): I like that word you used — natural. You’d say the progressive voting base in Ottawa is probably about that size. So he’s probably capturing it. They have no other place to go. He’s their guy, he’s their candidate.

And of course he’s sharing some of that — we don’t know what percentage — with Neil Saravanamuttoo. I’ve always said the two of them probably take forty percent.

Brigitte Pellerin (08:44): So they would win if there were one guy.

Evan Potter (08:48): They could win if they were one guy. And Neil was always the primary threat to Jeff Leiper’s underdog attempt to unseat Mark Sutcliffe.

Brigitte Pellerin (08:55): Because he’s fishing in the same waters, so to speak. Not that voters are fish.

(09:07) Our viewers are very smart. They’re very well informed. They understand things.

Evan Potter (09:15): So we’re telling people things they already pretty well know. The real question now becomes Alex Lawson. What is his number?

When you have Liaison having him at…

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