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 Mark Sutcliffe. And I say this from my observations, from what people tell me, from what I see with my eyes. I don’t think people are excited to have Mark Sutcliffe as mayor. Even his supporters.
Evan Potter (07:43): No, they’re not excited.
Brigitte Pellerin (07:48): They’re like: it’s better than the others. This is the devil we know. And I don’t mean he’s a devil — it’s just the expression. The guy we know. It’s okay. We know what to expect.
People like predictability, especially business owners. They like to know that if he’s re-elected, what they’ve been doing for four years will continue to work for the next four. That’s very valuable when you’re a business owner. So that’s the core of his support, as far as I can see.
Evan Potter (08:13): Can I say something on that? It’s interesting that you say devil you know — that was one of the commentaries from Globe readers under this morning’s article. Someone wrote: Mark Sutcliffe, better the devil you know.
Brigitte Pellerin (08:26): Right. Exactly. Or: meh, it’s all right. Or: could be worse.
Evan Potter (08:26): And you’re absolutely right. There has never been great enthusiasm. He can talk about Team Ottawa all he wants, but there’s no great enthusiasm for him personally.
But as an incumbent mayor, he doesn’t need to have that. My sense with Mark Sutcliffe is that his campaign is doing enough to get him over the finish line. He’s not overperforming. He’s just doing what he needs to do to get a second term. And because his main opponent is Jeff Leiper, who has not overperformed — and who needed to — it makes the mayor’s job much easier.
Brigitte Pellerin (09:15): So from the preliminary information I’m gathering from a number of sources, I’m starting to think that Mark Sutcliffe’s main opponent is no longer Jeff Leiper — it’s Alex Lawson.
In the sense that people who six months ago, if you’d asked them who they were going to vote for, would have said: yeah, Sutcliffe, devil I know, whatever, it could be worse, I don’t mind, I’m used to it — those people are now going to Lawson.
Evan Potter (09:40): That’s very interesting. I am hoping we will have a public poll within seven days of election day. We need to validate what you’re hearing — your sense from your sources, and from others who have said the same thing.
But as I’ve been saying for a couple of months: Neil Saravanamuttoo and Alex Lawson are the big non-winners. Can I call them that? They win whether or not they lose. It’s a wonderful position to be in.
Brigitte Pellerin (10:17): They’ve already won.
Okay, let me segue into something else. That was my piece on the state of the electorate as far as we know it now. But something hit me this week, because I’ve been going to events.
Neil Saravanamuttoo has done, I believe he said, about ten of these. He calls them Ask Me Anything, Tell Me Anything town halls. And he means it. He stands there and he takes it, and he engages with people.
(10:45) I’ve been to Alex Lawson events, I’ve been to Jeff Leiper events, I’ve been to one Mark Sutcliffe event — but he’s such a known quantity to me that I don’t really need to see his people. So I’m interested in the challengers.
And I’ll tell you this about the Neil Saravanamuttoo supporters and the Alex Lawson supporters. They’re different kinds of people. They come at it from different angles. Neil has more progressive supporters, whereas Alex Lawson has more centre-right supporters.
(11:13) But these people show up prepared. They’re engaged. They have notebooks. They’re scribbling things down. And I’m loving it, because my little nerd is so happy to see people engaged.
They show up with questions that stretch over two or three minutes and we follow along — they’re not boring. They’re not the long stories you sometimes get at these events where you think: good grief, that’s not a question, that’s a novel.
(11:43) People are really engaged back and forth with each other in the room. They talk to each other at the end of the event.
There is such an appetite for the kind of politician or leader who is authentic and genuine — not a polished politician, or someone trying to be one. Both Neil and Alex, by virtue of being at the bottom right now in the voting intentions, are probably not raising a ton of money. They have to be creative. And their best asset, for both of them, is themselves. They’re putting themselves out there. They’re flying without a net.
Alex Lawson does similar things — he doesn’t advertise it as Ask Me Anything, but you can ask the guy anything and he’ll just smile and answer. And people love that.
(12:10) So I’m seeing this race as Neil and Alex versus Mark and Jeff.
Evan Potter (12:16): Interesting. I agree.
(12:38) And I completely agree with you. When you first suggested this bifurcation to me earlier this week, it just sparked. Like you, I thought: it’s obvious. Of course. That’s the great separation.
Because normally I put Neil and Jeff at 40 per cent — that they share the 40 per cent. And I like your new separation: the fresh, authentic Alex and Neil versus the consistent, predictable Mark Sutcliffe and Jeff Leiper.
Brigitte Pellerin (13:21): And there were two statements this week that really hit me — not just one-liners, but crystallizing statements.
Neil Saravanamuttoo announced earlier this week that if elected, one thing he’d do is restore City Hall as the people’s palace, starting with removing those security barriers at the entrance.
(13:45) Because it used to be easy to just go into City Hall — including in the winter when it’s cold, you’d go into the building, use the washroom, listen to someone playing that beautiful piano, look at the art, warm up for a minute. Or in the summer, cool off in the AC. We can’t do this now, with those stupid security barriers. People don’t want to go through a checkpoint just to go to the bathroom.
And as he said: this is ridiculous, and we don’t need it, because the mayor’s office and the councillors’ offices and the staff offices are already separated, with security around them. We don’t need to keep the people out of the people’s building.
(14:13) And that, coupled with his promise to do a lot more of those town halls and go around the city so people have access and can ask him questions and hold him accountable — there is such an appetite for that. People might even vote for that in spite of everything else, just because he’s real.
(14:30) And similarly with Alex Lawson and his focus on getting the basics right. He talks to you like your normal neighbour. He’s not trying to spin you — ever. It doesn’t feel like it. Maybe he is, and if so he’s the best actor I’ve ever met. But you really get the feeling that these are regular people who want to get things right and work to make this city better.
And that’s the upset that I think could be coming. And I’m wishful-thinking out loud here, okay — that’s what I want to see, and that’s what I’m going to keep talking about. If I’m wrong, I’ll be very sad and you’ll break my heart. But this is what I really want to see.
And thank you for listening to my word salad slash TED talk. Go ahead.
Evan Potter (15:17): Here’s how I’d react to that. I completely agree with you.
And if indeed David Valentin is close with his prediction of the mayor winning at 35 per cent — a win is a win is a win, as we know in our first-past-the-post system. But it’s not an unqualified win if Mark Sutcliffe comes in at 35 per cent, because that says something like 65 per cent of Ottawa —
Brigitte Pellerin (15:45): Didn’t vote for you.
Evan Potter (15:46): — didn’t vote for him. Even if, on council, he’ll get a big round of applause from his allies. So that’s an interesting possible dynamic.
(15:52) Secondly: we don’t have a champion for the city on the progressive or the centre-left. I thought Jeff Leiper could possibly have been that champion, but he did not want to play that role. It was clear to me from last fall, and it’s clear now, three weeks before election day.
So on October 27th, Brigitte, there is an opening for someone to be the champion.
Brigitte Pellerin (16:30): For next time around.
Evan Potter (16:31): For the next four years. And I don’t know if that will be Neil, or Alex, or someone else. But there is a void, as you’ve described. People want change. Sixty-five per cent of them, if David Valentin’s number is close to the mark, will not have voted for this mayor to lead Ottawa.
Brigitte Pellerin (16:44): They want better. They want their city to work. They want their bus to show up.
(16:54) That’s not much of a mandate, to win with thirty-five per cent.
Evan Potter (16:59): He gets the win — a win is a win — but it’s a diminished mandate.
He speculated this week that he did not rule out going for a third term. I don’t know why he made that public comment. I would imagine, as most observers have told me privately, that he’s going to quit after the second. If he wins, he’ll be a two-term mayor.
Brigitte Pellerin (17:26): It feels like a checkbox on a to-do list — you get the mayoral job out of the way and then go run for something else. That’s what it feels like to me.
Evan Potter (17:29): Well, I’m not going to ascribe a particular emotion. I’m just saying it was odd that he’d leave the door open. I don’t know how calculated and tactical that was. I didn’t expect him to say something like that.
My assumption, and the assumption of many, is that he’ll win. It’ll be somewhere in the high thirties, probably. It won’t be a complete endorsement of Mark Sutcliffe by the people of Ottawa — but a win is a win.
The next stage is who will take up the mantle of leader of the opposition, as I’ve been calling it — the person who represents the other 60-odd per cent of Ottawa residents. If Mark Sutcliffe does win, that position is going to be completely open. We’ll see who wants to step into that void.
Brigitte Pellerin (18:28): I have big thoughts on that, which I’ll wait to share, because otherwise I’ll be talking the whole time.
But I would like to criticize the mayor’s plan a little. Can I do that? And I’m not forgetting to ask you about Jeff Leiper’s surprise — remember, it was supposed to be big.
(18:49) So last year I had a talk with Mark Sutcliffe before he announced he was going to run again. And I asked him: if you were to run again, why? Why would you do this?
Being mayor is a tough job. It’s not being a celebrity. It’s a good salary, but Mark Sutcliffe has enough experience in media and business that he could make more money doing something else. So clearly he’s not doing it for the money. And he’s not doing it because he enjoys seeing his photo everywhere, because he could be even more out there if he wanted to.
So — why? And he said, and I forget his exact words, something like: the job is not done. I came in to do a job and the job is not done.
(19:18) And I had that in mind this week when he announced two planks of his platform.
One got my goat: the registration system for swimming lessons. I have three children. We don’t do this anymore, but I still have scars from fifteen years ago — the Hunger Games of registering at nine p.m., the system crashing, the trouble registering for recreational activities. And just now we’re thinking about making this better? What were you doing for the last four years? This has been a problem for decades.
Evan Potter (20:08): As you have said: he is campaigning against himself.
Brigitte Pellerin (20:14): And then the ten-billion-dollar infrastructure renewal plan, because we have such a deficit on infrastructure.
I wouldn’t even know where to start. If you gave me ten billion dollars and said go — I wouldn’t know where to start. We have such a backlog.
But his proposal — when you look at the part that says where the money would come from. And I’m not much of a numbers person, but I still went and looked. It’s not clear. It’s a mishmash of tax revenues, water revenues, money from private partners, money from other levels of government.
(20:48) So I asked the other candidates, and I’ll put their statements in the show notes because it’s a bit too long to quote. They’re not impressed — I can say that much.
And Jeff Leiper especially, because that’s one of his things, the infrastructure deficit — saying Ottawa deserves a mayor who is honest about the real cost of this stuff. I think there’s a huge appetite for that too. And I think Jeff Leiper could make so much more mileage on this question than he has so far.
Evan Potter (21:24): He does. Jeff just doesn’t seem to be able to step up when he has these opportunities — these communications opportunities. He can’t seem to step up, for some reason.
Brigitte Pellerin (21:37): Whereas a guy like Lawson will say: well, you had four years, and you didn’t do anything except let it rot further into the ground.
And then he has this line, which is his best line — and I’ve told him that, so I don’t mind telling everybody else. He says: if Mark Sutcliffe had done the things he’s now promising while he was in office the first four years, I’d be knocking on doors for him instead of running against him.
That is the best line of the campaign. Hands down.
Evan Potter (21:57): That’s a great line. That is the best line. Hands down.
Brigitte Pellerin (22:06): So I was thinking about this — Mark Sutcliffe telling me the job’s not done. And I’m thinking: Mark, the job was not even started.
That’s my opinion. But I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks that way. And there’s still time for other candidates to make more of a dent in his support.
Evan Potter (22:13): No, I think you’re right.
(22:23) A stronger main opponent — somebody not like Jeff Leiper — could have torn the mayor apart on this. So easily.
Because it really feels, and I’ve talked to people about this, that this is an attempt by the mayor to respond to all the critiques of him on the infrastructure deficit. So he’s put something together and thrown it up against the wall to address the criticism. But a stronger main challenger would have torn him apart on it.
Brigitte Pellerin (23:06): And put it to his face that this does not work with his promise to keep the tax increase to 2.5 per cent. The math isn’t mathing.
Don’t take my word for it, because I don’t math very well. But anybody who knows anything about numbers will tell you these two things cannot work unless you get a windfall from somewhere else. And you’d better get it.
So you can’t make promises that you will do something based on somebody else making it possible for you. That’s not leadership.
(23:35) Leadership is showing up and saying: I will do this, and this is how I will do it, and you believe it or you don’t. You can’t just show up and say I’ll fix everything if somebody else helps me. That’s not leadership.
Anyway, I’ve ranted enough. Go ahead — we only have a few minutes left. What about Jeff’s surprise?
Evan Potter (23:52): That’s one of my various grievances — the regular weekly grievances about Jeff, the underperforming main opponent to the mayor. Apparently the main opponent for the mayor.
Before we get to the surprise, let’s get to the rally. There was a main rally, which I attended. It was about 200 people.
Brigitte Pellerin (24:14): On the twenty-eighth.
Evan Potter (24:21): It started with a drag show. It was interesting — different. A drag show is fine. I’m not sure it quite fit.
Brigitte Pellerin (24:29): I love drag shows. They’re great. I’m just not sure this fits the narrative — but I love drag shows.
Evan Potter (24:43): If that was your main expression of diversity and inclusion — I mean, it’s one aspect of it.
I would have been more impressed if there had been 500 people. That probably would have caught the fire code — Ottawa Fire Services would have had to be called in — but you know what I mean. If you’re going to make the big show, you have to have more than 250 people in the room. You have to have more endorsements from public figures.
It just felt short. Especially if it’s your main rally.
(25:23) Secondly, let’s get to this surprise. What do you understand from the surprise? His campaign has been teasing a major surprise, and I believe they even had a date. Was it September 28th? Which has now passed.
Brigitte Pellerin (25:37): It was September twenty-eighth, which has now passed. It’s in the past now. And I’m not aware of any surprise.
Evan Potter (25:43): Not aware of any surprise. I tracked some of Leiper’s socials to try to find the video where he was promising the surprise, and I couldn’t find it anymore.
Brigitte Pellerin (25:54): I got the email about it. There was an email, and I think it was on the website.
Evan Potter (26:14): So to the campaign, to the campaign manager, we would ask: where is your surprise? Is it a surprise delayed? If so, why was it delayed? Is it a surprise you’d now like everybody to forget about, because something happened?
What surprise? What are you talking about?
Brigitte Pellerin (26:10): I did ask them. I asked Stephen Yardy. I said: can you give me a hint? Can I get a preview? I’ll keep it under wraps. And — nope, nope, nope. I can’t tell you.
(26:29) That’s what it feels like. What surprise? What are you talking about, Evan?
Evan Potter (26:33): We had no surprise, and yet you told everybody.
Some people are going to listen to us right now and say: there they go, inside baseball, it’s not really relevant to the campaign. But you know what? It actually is relevant — because in the context of the Jeff Leiper campaign, this is an own goal. It’s yet again an example of a campaign that shouldn’t be making these mistakes.
(27:03) And if there is no surprise after all — something happened, things happen, the surprise you thought you had no longer exists — you’d better do some communication with the public, and even with the insiders like us, to let us know. Look, something happened. You don’t have to tell the world the details, but you have to address the question.
(27:28) This is basic communications. PR 101. Don’t leave a question hanging out there. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. These are clichés, but the Jeff Leiper campaign steps right into it every time.
Brigitte Pellerin (27:34): And under-deliver. That’s always a bad idea.
(27:48) I’ll take thirty seconds to try and defend them, because they’re not here and they won’t say anything.
I know enough of the people on his campaign. They’re serious, competent people — not just old pros, but serious people. And the surprise thing aside, it’s also possible that they are working so hard to get actual people to vote for Jeff on election day that none of what we’re talking about is a priority to them. They’re focused on the prize, which is people actually voting for him. They may be working on a plan and they wouldn’t tell us.
So that’s the only other thing I can think of. And I will leave the door open — I want them to know I’m seeing that as a possibility, and I want our viewers to understand it could be a possibility as well. Especially people who support Jeff and would like to see him do better: it’s possible he will do better than you and I think he’s doing, Evan.
Evan Potter (28:47): Okay. So I will say, in closing, that despite my ongoing grievances with the Jeff Leiper campaign — there are multiple people in this household, and there is a Jeff Leiper sign on my front lawn.
So there you go. The Jeff Leiper campaign has evidently persuaded someone in this household.
Brigitte Pellerin (29:04): At least somebody in your house. All right. That’s good to know.
Okay then. We’re out of time, and we have to get ready to go meet some of our viewers and have a great pint tonight — we’re recording this on October second, so I look forward to that. We’ll talk about it next week.
Have a great weekend, Evan. Talk to you later. Bye.
Evan Potter (29:24): I look forward to it. You too. Bye-bye.
