By Nadia Stuewer
To inform Echo readers about the candidates running to replace outgoing City Councillor Mathieu Fleury in the election to be held on October 24, we asked candidates running for Ottawa City Council about their priorities for the ward and for Lowertown specifically. We were unable to contact two out of ten candidates. Six of the eight we contacted replied.
We asked each candidate WHY they’re running, their QUALIFICATIONS for the position, and their views on the BEST elements and WORST problems in the ward. Some comments have been edited for clarity.
Hicham Boutaleb lives in Sandy Hill.
Why? I’ve been listening to neighbours and personally experiencing an apathetic lack of leadership in many pressing problems that could make this ward much, much better.
Qualifications: Hicham Boutaleb will bring to the position analytical skills, political history, passion and drive, and “almost never taking ‘no’ for an answer from bureaucrats”.
Best: The nature, location, and people.
Worst: Bad elements of density including lost abandoned souls, broken urban planning, and hodgepodge monster high-rises.
Tyler Cybulski lives in Vanier.
Why? During the last municipal election, I was not pleased with the calibre of candidate that challenged for our council seat. I was alarmed by the amount of militant, hostile candidates that have presented themselves for election. I [want]… to provide our amazing residents with an alternative option to the divisive, partisan rhetoric that has tainted our city affairs.
Qualifications: Tyler Cybulski will bring a balanced and fair approach to solving issues and works collaboratively with diverse teams.
Best: Lowertown is a wonderful place to shop, dine or take a casual walk.
Worst: The crime and drug use that has taken over the area.
Julie Fiala lives in Vanier.
Why? I want my life to make a difference to the lives of others. I love our ward and I want to make it an even better place.
Qualifications: As a professor of Humanities and Art in 15 different subject areas, I have a vast breadth of knowledge. I am a thinker and a doer, with a great deal of hands-on experience in real-world contexts. I worked for over 25 years with organizations in both the public and private sectors. As an entrepreneur, artist and teacher, I have experience in accounting, project design, communications, policy development for both non-profit organizations and businesses, and budget management.
Best: The people, the family-run businesses, the festivals, the recreation.
Worst: The opioid crisis, the unaffordable housing, the theft and safety issues.
Alex Osario does not reside in Rideau-Vanier.
Why? Over the last couple of years I have seen our ward go into a free fall, things that could have beendone, should have been done and were not done. I love our ward and decided it was time to work to make it better.
Qualifications: I have more than 25 years of experience in Rideau-Vanier. I spend 90% of MY time at the Fire of God Community Outreach Centre on Murray Street. The centre serves up to 800 families all ages, backgrounds and faiths every week with a variety of programs. My education includes three years of Business Administration, two years of electronic engineering and two years of paralegal studies.
Best of Lowertown: We are Canada’s capital and in the downtown.
Worst of Lowertown: The opioid crisis, homelessness and housing issues have become a nightmare.
Stephanie Plante lives in Sandy Hill.
Why? I’m running to build on the things I have gotten done at the municipal level such as the renaming of the Pootoogook Park, supporting families during lockdowns, and working to keep my community safe. I know how to get buy-in from a wide range of people holding varying interests and getting things done.
Qualifications: I have spent my career promoting and protecting our democratic institutions. I am a long-term resident of the ward and have been involved in many community initiatives that have given me a familiarity with the local issues and how best to deal with them.
Best: Canada’s largest bilingual university, Ottawa’s busiest mall, the ByWard Market, the history and heritage of Lowertown and Sandy Hill as well as the Francophone character and vitality of Vanier.
Worst: The ongoing housing crisis, in terms of both affordability and homelessness and the routing of interprovincial traffic through Sandy Hill and Lowertown, with a city administration that accepts it as the status quo, rather than a serious problem to be fixed.
Laura Shantz lives in Vanier.
Why: I love this neighbourhood and want to give back to a community that has given so much to me. I have significant experience working on many challenging issues that face our community, including housing and homelessness, public transit, food security and getting citizens involved in public decision-making.
Qualifications: I have lived in the ward for 13 years. After having lived in poverty and working low-paying frontline jobs, I am now a homeowner. My experience has given me a firsthand understanding of some of the vastly different realities people face in Rideau-Vanier. I have a Ph.D. in Criminology. My dissertation focused on homelessness among older women.
Best: The people, who are kind and generous and bring a diversity of lived experiences and perspectives to our neighbourhood.
Worst: Rideau-Vanier is so often left behind in major city projects and initiatives and is overburdened with services that should be equitably distributed throughout the city.
Major Challenges
The Echo also asked the candidates for their views on the major challenges facing Lowertown.
Housing, post-pandemic recovery for businesses, safety and security. (Julie Fiala)
Lack of accountability and vision and a laissez-faire “pass the buck” attitude among leadership. (Hicham Boutaleb)
Safety and security (Alex Osario)
Drug use and homelessness (Tyler Cybulski)
Ottawa’s housing crisis; Vision Zero (zero traffic fatalities and severe injuries), increasing Ottawa’s tree canopy to 40% and stopping OC Transpo fare increases. (Laura Shantz)
The ongoing situation at St. Brigid’s. (Stephanie Plante)
Top priorities
The candidates also identified the top priorities for the ward and for Lowertown that they would address if elected.
Hicham Boutaleb’s priorities include solving the homeless problem, green spaces with “right to shade” on streets, climate emergency contingencies (solar powered participant businesses in event of blackouts), and finally fixing OC Transpo.
Tyler Cybulski addressed the need to transition away from supervised injection sites and adopt proven methods of addressing widespread addiction, since the current framework only leads to increased consumption.
Julie Fiala’s top priorities include safety on the streets and at home for all, food security, housing for all, mental health increased services, safer roads for cyclists and pedestrians, cleaner air for future generations and adult education.
Alex Osario’s priorities include safety and security, addressing the cleanliness of our streets, figuring out what is the backlog in the housing and working to fix that, and bringing accessible and reliable public transportation to the ward.
Stephanie Plante’s priorities include creating a Physician Recruitment Committee; promoting the ByWard Market Public Realm Plan; promoting safer neighborhoods that include safe streets, access to public toilets, water fountains, more public art and less garbage; housing options for all and the climate crisis, whose solutions include reliable and affordable public transit, active transportation options and greenspaces.
Laura Shantz’s priorities include making King Edward Avenue (and the truck corridor) safer for pedestrians and cyclists and less hostile to the community that surrounds it in terms of speed, pollution, noise and safety and adapting our strategies to include the homeless and ensure they have the resources and facilities they need to be good neighbours (e.g., public washrooms, and access to essentials outside of the shelter system).
Housing and homelessness
The candidates all agreed that housing and homelessness is one of the most pressing issues facing Rideau-Vanier.
Hicham Boutaleb is already consulting with Toronto shelters managers, who he believes have done a better job. His priorities are counselling, activities, job assistance and substance-abuse assistance.
Tyler Cybulski would push for City Council to develop a housing-first strategy to deal with chronic homelessness and cycles of instability. Emergency shelters will always be required, but they are not long-term solutions.
Julie Fiala would house people immediately using alternative models and shared-housing strategies; increase access to mental-health services and support-worker services to combat of chronic homelessness; and train more personal support workers to work in the city.
Alex Osario emphasizes working together.
Laura Shantz focuses on the need to implement solutions backed by evidence: Housing first works in the great majority of cases and should be our preferred option for housing. We need strong inclusionary zoning (20-30%) in all areas, not only near transit hubs, and we must commit to housing 1000 individuals and families each year, including 30% for Indigenous families.
Stephanie Plante highlighted the need for developers and government to promote more affordable housing. She endorses the #StartsWithHome campaign. She would begin discussions with the federal government and other owners of under-used buildings in Rideau-Vanier to see if they can be retrofitted into housing units, streamline the process for construction permits and renovation for developers who include heritage conservation, social, family and / or geared-to-income housing in their development plans. She would prioritize families living in motels for public housing.
Transportation
The Echo asked for candidates’ views on five types of transportation in Lowertown and how they propose to address them: pedestrian, bicycle, cars, public transit and trucks.
Pedestrians:
Hicham Boutaleb suggests expanding pedestrian zones and banning cars from the Byward Market.
Julie Fiala views trucks on King Edward turning on Rideau as a pedestrian safety issue. E-scooters are also a problem.
Stephanie Plante would prioritize pedestrian and school areas for snow clearing.
Laura Shantz discussed the need for safe infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists that meets the needs of our entire community., Speed limits of 30 km/h and changes to the infrastructure and the physical layout of roads to ensure that lower speed limits are respected.
Bikes:
According to Hicham Boutaleb, implementing bike lanes should be continued.
Julie Fiala suggested that that potholes are a problem, and bike safety and road safety education need to be increased.
Stephanie Plante, a bicycle user herself, would advocate for a firm timeline with key benchmarks from the City as to when all roads in Rideau-Vanier can have at least one protected bike lane.
Laura Shantz discussed the need to fix missing connections so that cycling routes are safe and complete, not dumping people into heavy traffic.
Cars:
Hicham Boutaleb suggested diverting heavy downtown traffic and building an overpass and a tunnel. For Julie Fiala, potholes and e-scooters are a problem for roads; King Edward is congested; traffic is unsafe for bikes and pedestrians in general. Alex Osario stated that there must be a common, balanced approach to ensuring everyone has access and safety when accessing our roads.
Laura Shantz would push to have roads designed to minimize driver error at intersections and where road fatalities have occurred. She would advocate for increased e-vehicle charging infrastructure in our ward.
OC Transpo:
Hicham Boutaleb finds public transit “awful”.
For Julie Fiala, issues include delays, unreliable LRT, staff shortages and the low pay of transit workers. Stephanie Plante noted that transit plays a key role in combating climate change.
Laura Shantz is committed to stopping annual fare increases and shifting the cost burden away from the fare box.
Trucks:
Stephanie Plante would advocate for strategies that get trucks off our downtown streets.
Laura Shantz stated that the long-term solution favoured by the impacted neighbourhoods is a truck tunnel from Ottawa to Gatineau. The City should reduce the number and timing of local delivery trucks and commercial garbage and waste pickup in our communities.
Social services
Candidates are concerned that the ward has more than its share of social services in the ward.
Hicham Boutaleb had a unique perspective: he feels that social services such as greenspace are not equitably concentrated for the health and well-being of everyone.
Julie Fiala believes a full evaluation is required as the social services landscape is changing post-pandemic.
Julie Fiala Alex Osario and Laura Shantz all agree that services should be more equitably spread throughout the city.
Stephanie Plante’s position is that we need both more and less: fewer shelters – our ward already has far more than our share – and more social supports, such as family doctors, look into increasing programming for children ages 0-5 years; work with francophone social service organizations to increase French daycare providers; advancing the new Older Adult Plan.
How to improve the quality and outcomes of citizen engagement
Hicham Boutaleb notes that the quality of life here, and generally in North America, has been deteriorating since the late 1970s. Citizens must be communicated to, engaged, and educated as to the causes and reasons for these developments. Municipal politics are one of the most directly democratic ways they can change their communities for the better.
Julie Fiala proposed more outreach from the councillor’s office and opportunities to meet the councillor such as pop-up cafes. She would continue to use social media for updates, multiplying channels of direct communication and streamlining the process of communicating problems to the councillor’s office.
Alex Osario noted that we thrive when the community gets involved. “Public consultations are important, and they will be a must for me.”
Stephanie Plante would ensure community associations are consulted on decision-making and important projects; set up citizen participation committees, such as a youth council, a condo council, an intercultural council and an elders’ council; meet regularly with colleagues at all levels, including neighbouring wards; hold meetings to hear directly from citizens and give weekly updates on social media on City Hall and upcoming meetings and events.
Laura Shantz stated that we need to do better at reaching out to those who are not normally included in city consultations, including BIPOC folks, disabled folks, low-income residents, and those facing barriers to participation (e.g., young parents, people who use drugs, people working irregular schedules, caregivers), youth, and those who are new to the region.
Electoral reform to ranked ballot
We asked the candidates for their views on a ranked ballot voting system at the municipal level (see text box).
Tyler Cybulski is not in favour of ranked ballots.
Julie Fiala and Stephanie Plante are in favour of ranked ballots, with Stephanie Plante noting that with 10 candidates in Rideau-Vanier, a candidate could win with just over 10 percent of the vote.
Laura Shantz suggested that different methods of representation (e.g., larger wards represented by several councillors) would be required to make the system as equitable as possible. Alex Osario is in favour of free and fair elections that give a fair start to everyone.
Ranked Ballot System
In a ranked system, rather than just putting an X beside the one candidate you like, you rank the candidates according to your preference. If a candidate gets a majority of votes, they win. If there isn’t a candidate with over 50% of the votes, there is an instant runoff where the candidate with the least number of votes is dropped and the voters’ second preferences are counted. In this way, voters’ preferences still count, even though their favourite didn’t win. The vote is recounted, and if there’s a winner by majority, the election is over. If there isn’t, the recounts continue going this way, with the person with the fewest votes being dropped and their votes being transferred according to the next ranked candidate. The eventual winner will enjoy a majority. It may not be a majority of first preferences, but it’s a majority based on ranked preferences.
[Source: University of Toronto, https://www.utoronto.ca/news/what-ranked-ballot-means-and-how-it-works]
Remember to vote
Given the opportunities for changes in our ward, voters are encouraged to meet with the candidates at public meetings to obtain a good impression of who would be the best next councillor.The CBC offers “one-stop shopping” for the municipal elections, with links to the candidate who have websites.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-municipal-election-2022-mayor-city-council-1.6570134