2 days Ago By Marlo Glass
The Ottawa Citizen recently asked readers: “What’s the one issue that needs immediate attention from Canada’s next leader?” Hundreds responded, and we drew up what we’re calling the Citizen’s Agenda: five questions for Ottawa-area candidates in the April 28 federal election. Below are responses from the candidates for the four major parties in the riding of Ottawa Centre: Paul D’Orsonnens of the Conservative Party Joel Harden of the New Democratic Party Yasir Naqvi of the Liberal Party Amanda Rosenstock of the Green Party Paul D’Orsonnens, Conservative Party candidate How do you plan to improve Canada’s economic competitiveness? This question is central to the Conservative Party and Pierre Poilievre’s vision of change, moving forward for Canada to face the tariff situation we have with our closest economic partner and ally, the United States and the Trump administration. Economic growth is critical for us, to develop our resource projects and bring them to market, so we can create well-paying job opportunities for our Canadian workers, but also to include in those projects our First Nations as partners, and ensure as well that it’s done in the most efficient way possible.
A one-stop approach. And therefore, we can reduce the delays to regulations that are effective or impede stability in investment. What is one locally-focused campaign pledge that you would implement as MP? As I canvas in the area and meet voters throughout Ottawa Centre, many are expressing their worries on affordability, and the crime that is occurring downtown, and the homelessness.
Those three aspects are quite critical for our voters in Ottawa Centre, and they need to be addressed. They need to be taken care of in a serious way. The last nine years have not given us the results we expect in terms of a secure community, and helping our vulnerable populations in Ottawa Centre.
I think the question we should ask ourselves is, is Ottawa Centre, our riding, and is Ottawa, our nation’s capital, a better place today than it was five years ago? What are your thoughts on the current size of the federal public service? That’s also a question voters have brought to us as we canvas throughout the riding, obviously Ottawa and Ottawa Centre have a large portion of federal public servants. Considering this, there is an understanding that there has been quite an extraordinary increase in the public service, but conversely at the same time, there’s been an increase in outsourcing of services, such as external service contracts. One number I read recently is $20 billion sent out in external contracts.
Those are services our public service could certainly continue to engage with, keep the knowledge within the public service so they can better serve Canadians. We definitely do need to see how we can continue to provide very efficient public service to our citizens. It is the role of our government, and people do expect these services, and rightly so.
We pay in taxes that should reflect the services we receive. How do you propose helping fix the housing crisis in Ottawa? The housing crisis is one that has been brought forward as well by numerous voters as we canvas across the riding. I appreciate the comments from all voters who take the time to meet with us.
We take that quite seriously. The housing crisis is one we feel across the nation, and certainly here in Ottawa Centre and across Ottawa. This needs to be addressed by helping municipalities reduce regulations and red tape, if you want, that are ineffective, and don’t allow for expediently allowing building permits to proceed forward.
There’s also the question of allowing municipalities to increase higher density housing around transit corridors. In our case, along the LRT line. Also, we have to acknowledge, the federal government has a huge footprint across Ottawa.
There are opportunities to divest some properties to allow for housing, as best we can, with developers. So the aim is basically to build more homes, to build them faster, and cut the red tape holding back municipalities, and reduce the delays, is what we’re looking for. What’s your favourite season in Ottawa? Why? I think that’s a great question, and I’m thankful for it.
Whoever sent it, I want to commend them for that. I think we are absolutely blessed in this beautiful country to have four seasons. This allows us to have cross country skiing along the Rideau Canal, through Ottawa Centre along the river.
To go skate on the canal, we had a wonderful year of skating this year. Thank you to Mother Nature and the City of Ottawa for making it happen. I think there were record crowds on the canal, and that’s kudos to the city.
Mayor (Mark) Sutcliffe is doing so much for the city, it’s really impressive and we’re thankful for him being there. And the summer, just pedalling along the bike paths available across the city, and as well, Mer Bleu and all the trails in Ottawa. So there’s a lot to do in Ottawa.
And the Gatineau area as well, if we’re going to talk about the National Capital Region, I would certainly include Gatineau, and the wonderful areas we have for day drive out, whether it’s Wakefield, Perth, Carleton Place or even Gatineau Park. Every weekend, there’s something new to do in Ottawa, to explore, whether it’s winter, spring, summer or autumn. Joel Harden, NDP candidate How do you plan to improve Canada’s economic competitiveness? A big thing we can do locally towards that is bringing over affordable and environmentally sustainable hydroelectricity from our neighbours in Gatineau.
Many people don’t realize the electric systems in Ottawa and Gatineau are not sufficiently connected. They’re engineered using different modalities, but what we can do with a refurbishment of just over a billion dollars, is fully connect our electric grid here in Ottawa to our friends in Gatineau. And in the summer, when we need electricity, instead of importing American fracked natural gas, which is bad for the environment and also dangerous for our economic sovereignty with Trump, we can rely on our neigbhours from Quebec and negotiate a new agreement.
We can do the same thing on the west end of Ontario with our neighbours in Manitoba, who also have a hydroelectricity powered grid. If we do that, it would be an incredibly good solution for affordable, sustainable power for people and for businesses trying to start up new enterprises, and for people trying to make sure they can pay the bills. What is one locally-focused campaign pledge that you would implement as MP? I just said one of my favourite ones, so why don’t I follow through on expanding a really important program we have for mental health in this city.
It’s called Counselling Connect. It’s a program that offers people in crisis immediate psychotherapy support within 48 to 72 hours of intake. As of yet, it has no direct funding from the federal government.
It’s funded through municipal and provincial transfers. If the federal government, through it’s mental health national strategy, decided to take an interest in counselling connect, families and peoples in crisis could receive life-saving, in many cases, psychotherapy within 48 to 72 hours. Right now the system is supporting 700 people.
We know the need is so much higher. So many people, so many youth, so many adults are living in abject mental health crisis. We could help them with prompt support if the federal government stepped up to fund Counselling Connect, a wonderful Ottawa mental health solution.
What are your thoughts on the current size of the federal public service? So the federal public service in numbers has grown, but the measurement of that is circumspect. It includes people working on part-time contracts, good people working on episodic levels. If you look at the public service in terms of growth of full-time employment, we actually have room to increase.
For example, there are over a million people waiting in the backlog of immigration cases. These are families waiting to bring a loved one, a grandmother, an uncle, a relative, into Canada, as per their right. But they’re waiting interminable amounts of time to reunite with family members.
We actually need to have people working for the public service, to make sure we’re bringing people into the country who can reunify with their families and add to our economic productivity as we move to a more economically sovereign direction to deal with Trump. I would say the same thing, given the Trump tariffs, we also need to make sure we can get benefits out to people who are unemployed because of the Trump tariffs promptly. One of the things I was proud the NDP fought for in the pandemic was the CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) benefit.
We fought for a benefit that went out to nine million Canadians. The people who got that benefit, of $2,000 a month, to nine million Canadians were people working for the public service. So I deeply respect them.
I think the return-to-office protocol has been a disaster. Phoenix pay system has been a disaster. We can do a lot better in respecting people who work for our country, and we’re going to need them in the weeks, months and years to follow.
How do you propose helping fix the housing crisis in Ottawa? We need to promptly work with non-market housing providers that we have in the city, who are ready, willing and able to help repurpose vacant federal office buildings, into either temporary respite day shelter for neighbours who are homeless or suffering from addictions, or, as we’ve seen in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, more fulsome, actual housing. It takes longer to do that. The fact that we’re living in a city that sees hundreds of people sleeping rough outside, through our winter, while there are vacant spaces, is absolutely a shame on our political system.
We can and must do better. We’ve already paid for these buildings. Our grandparents who built this country built these buildings, and they expected us to use them for the public good.
When we see people sleeping rough in our parks, on our streets, we know, those neighbours, if given the choice, would rather have a safe place to sleep. And also, in particular, respite sleeping during the day. In Vancouver, they have spaces for people who sleep rough and use drugs during the evening.
Often, those folks will sleep in small business doorways during the day, because they believe it’s safer than sleeping out in broad daylight, so they won’t be robbed or assaulted. But you can imagine, that puts them into conflict with small business owners who don’t really want someone sleeping in their office. We can repurpose the Jackson Building next door to my campaign office, for example, into a day respite centre with bunk beds where people can sleep off the toxicity of whatever they’re using.
And when they sober up, perhaps with an empathetic care worker in that building, choose a recovery path. That’s great for the individual. It’s great for Centretown.
Honestly, it galls me that we have empty, paid for, taxpayer-funded office space that is not being used at all, and we have folks sleeping rough in our city. Moreover, I would say, the other needs we have with these vacant office buildings: It is brutal as a small business to pay the current going commercial rent prices in Centretown and in the downtown. The prices have gone well beyond what small business owners can afford.
What the federal government could do, as other municipalities have done, is re-offer those spaces for creative startups. I think about artists using vacant spaces in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary. Why isn’t the city of Ottawa doing that? Why aren’t we providing opportunities for entrepreneurs to use spaces which are currently paid for, currently sitting vacant? We spend public money to heat them and power them.
Why can’t we repurpose them for that reason as well? My grandparents, I told you, they’re Presbyterian. They’ve passed on, but they used to tell me, “Joel, before you ask for something new, use what you have.” And we have a lot of vacant office space in the downtown that can be used for temporary respite housing during the day, or overflow shelter housing for folks on the street.
It can be used for small businesses. It can be used for artists. The point is, those spaces should be used.
There can be no excuse. We’ve had four years of discussion on this, two huge reports, a lot of verbiage and word salad about releasing buildings for use, but we haven’t seen much action. If I get elected to be the MP I will be absolutely persistent in making sure we find the right partners.
We have Salus Ottawa, Options Ottawa, Ottawa Community Housing, we have so many people, Matthew House, who know how to do supportive housing or more permanent, deeply affordable non-market housing. We just have to strike a partnership with them. Right now, I am hearing my counterpart who is running for the Liberals, saying we need to sell off some of these properties to private, for-profit developers.
Those folks are going to make private, for-profit homes, which most folks won’t be able to afford. So I don’t think that’s a winning strategy. What’s your favourite season in Ottawa? Why? What a tough question.
I’ve gotta say fall. It’s the brilliance of the colours. I am a cyclist, and a mountain biker, and my favourite time to be in the woods is in the fall, in the Gatineau Park or in and around the city of Ottawa.
We live in such a beautiful place, and part of it is the change of the seasons, and the fact that the land in which we sit on looks so beautiful in so many different seasons. But I have to say, I will go, as an orange guy going for the orange team, for the orange, red, green and yellow colours that are so beautiful in the fall in the city. Yasir Naqvi, Liberal Party candidate How do you plan to improve Canada’s economic competitiveness? That is probably THE question of this election campaign.
We really need to rebuild economy to make it less reliant on the United States. I am an international trade lawyer by profession, so I have relevant experience that I can contribute to the work of Parliament and the government. In my view, two really important things need to happen.
We need to work hard toward building one economy as opposed to 13 in Canada. And for that, we need to build an east-west nexus for our infrastructure, and I use infrastructure writ large. This work needs to happen to connect our country all across the provinces and territories, and also connect the west coast and the east coast.
The second thing we have to do is leverage that infrastructure to build deeper relationships with other parts of the world: the European Union, the countries in the Pacific Rim. So much of our infrastructure in this country is built on a north-south axis because we were selling to the U.S.
, our biggest market. We cannot really rely on that. So that is the important work that needs to happen in order to make Canada’s economy stronger, more competitive, less reliant on the United States.
What is one locally-focused campaign pledge that you would implement as MP? I’ve got quite a few ideas I want to work on. The one important thing I really want to see is to create housing for Indigenous people in our downtown core. I want to see the Jackson Building, on Bank and Slater, converted into housing.
I’m working with the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition, we’ve done a lot of work on it together, and I want to bring it to completion if re-elected as the member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre. What are your thoughts on the current size of the federal public service? The public service is extremely important. I want to make sure our public service remains robust, and provides good quality service that Canadians rely on.
There’s always adjustments in public service, especially with more use of technology. But my focus is always on output, to make sure the quality of the public service Canadians deserve continues to be provided. What we don’t want to see is the kind of cuts Pierre Poilievre is talking about.
He’s stated he’d cut 17,000 public servants per year. I think that’s aggressive and rash, it’s going to hurt the public services that Canadians get. Especially in this moment, when we have so much work to do to rebuild our economy and assert our political sovereignty, we need public servants to help do this important work.
How do you propose helping fix the housing crisis in Ottawa? We need to build more housing. I’ve been saying this for some time. I’ve been very active on that front in the last four years.
In fact, in Ottawa Centre, since I’ve been serving as a member of Parliament, we’ve been able to attract over $1 billion in federal government funding, building over 3,000 homes as we speak right now. There are cranes everywhere. We’re talking about housing for everyone.
Young people, working families, for people who need affordable housing, housing provided by not-for-profits like Ottawa Community Housing and Multifaith Housing Initiative, and by for-profit providers. Ottawa Centre is very unique. We have a lot of federal land that can be repurposed to build even more housing.
That is my focus, on making sure places like LeBreton Flats, Tunney’s Pasture and Confederation Heights, in consultation with the community, are developed into inclusive and sustainable communities that meet the needs of our city and addresses the housing challenge. What’s your favourite season in Ottawa? Why? My favourite season in Ottawa is winter. We are a winter city.
It’s probably not the answer people expect. But we’re a winter city and we’ve got to celebrate winter. I’m a runner.
I run all through the year, and as much as winter is harsh, I think it really demonstrates our resiliency as a city. It’s one of the best examples of us being Canadians. Amanda Rosenstock, Green Party candidate How do you plan to improve Canada’s economic competitiveness? Canada’s economy remains heavily dependent on exporting unprocessed natural resources rather than value added products.
Greens recognize value adding processing generates significantly more tax revenue and economic activity than raw resource extraction alone. For example, Sweden actually exports forest products primarily as finished furniture, and they generate five times more economic value per tree than Canada’s raw log exports. We would invest to increase our capacity in value-added processing, which will also create thousands of high-quality jobs across multiple regions and sectors.
What is one locally-focused campaign pledge that you would implement as MP for Ottawa Centre? When I’m at the doors, I hear a lot about the poor state of our public transit system. As Greens, we see transit as a very important solution, not only to help mitigate climate change but also to address social equity, and to reduce household costs as well. We know that the future permanent public transit fund the Liberals will propose, to come online in 2026, we know that fund won’t provide the kind of money Ottawa needs, which is operations and maintenance funding, primarily to pay salaries of bus drivers and mechanics to repair our aging fleet.
My absolute first priority would be to push for changes to the permanent transit fund, so the type of funding made available is available for operations and maintenance costs. Right now, funding for feds for transit doesn’t consistently require municipalities to show how they plan to increase ridership year over year. And so again, that would probably require a legislative change to some of our funding programs.
But that’s absolutely something I would prioritize as well. What are your thoughts on the current size of the federal public service? On the one hand, we’ve seen an over-reliance on external consultants under the Liberal governments. And on the other hand, we’re also hearing commitments to cut the size of the public service.
Instead of blanket cuts, why not open the door to looking at the possibility of a reduced work week, or even a four-day work week, which will help us increase productivity and reduce costs. Iceland’s public sector implemented a reduced work week, and they saw service provision and productivity either stay the same or increase, without cutting salaries. How do you propose helping fix the housing crisis in Ottawa? The city’s official plan recognizes that missing middle housing is the solution, the type of housing in between single family detached homes and larger apartment buildings.
We’re talking about row houses, duplexes, townhouses. The official plan recognizes the missing middle housing is the key solution to providing both renters and first time home buyers with more options that can accommodate their needs. This would help prevent young professionals in particular from flocking to the suburbs when they’re hoping to upsize.
My priority would be to work more aggressively with municipalities to eliminate barriers at the municipal level that prevents this type of missing middle housing from getting built. Zoning bylaws that dictate certain design features, that prevent larger unit sizes from getting built, is just one example. Another action I’d take is to push the governing party to move forward in speeding up changes to the federal building code, to allow for larger units and more energy efficiency homes as well.
What’s your favourite season in Ottawa? Why? I’m a patio person all the way. I’m going to have to say summer, nothing like a patio in Ottawa in the summer. Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
RelatedOttawa Centre race a rematch of 2018 provincial electionFederal election 2025: Everything you need to know about voting in Ottawa Centre.
