The people behind the people running for mayor
Some of the intriguing cast of behind-the-scenes players
What has shaped up to be the closest Ottawa mayoral race in 15 years has drawn an intriguing cast of behind-the-scenes players, from the candidates' closest confidantes to big-name federal and provincial players, including well-known figures in city politics and newcomers just dipping their toes into municipal waters for the first time.
The bevvy of advisors and organizers is one clear sign of how the campaigns of Mark Sutcliffe and Catherine McKenney, in particular, acknowledge the stakes are high and the competition is intense in the race to run the city.
Sutcliffe's team
Sutcliffe's campaign manager is Sabrina Grover, who has spent significant time in Calgary — perhaps surprisingly for the head of a team that boasts much local establishment talent. Grover attended university in Calgary, helped elect Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek last October, and ran unsuccessfully in Calgary as a Liberal in the 2021 federal election.
Christine McMillan, who chairs Sutcliffe's election-day team, is also well-known in Liberal circles and was the party's provincial campaign manager from 2020 until this year's election.
But Sutcliffe's co-chair for fundraising, Michelle Coates Mather, is a second-generation Conservative power broker. She directed Jean Charest's failed bid for the federal party's leadership.
Adam Smith, CEO of government relations firm Rise Up Strategies and a former director of the Liberal Party of Canada more than a decade ago, is Sutcliffe's second fundraising co-chair.
Among the people working on his communications team are Jennifer Stewart, a founder of the public relations firm Syntax Strategic; William Bulmer, who used to work for Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi — back when he was Ontario's attorney general — and before that in Mayor Jim Watson's office.
Liam Roche, who used to work for Ottawa-Vanier Liberal MPP Lucille Collard, is another Sutcliffe media official.
He's relying on a whole slew of advisers, including Kate Harrison, a vice-president at consulting firm Summa Strategies, which describes her as "a long-time conservative activist."
Some of the most intriguing consultants backing Sutcliffe have no specific role but are helping his core team as "friends and supporters," according to a campaign worker.
"We have not been too fussed about titles — everyone is pitching in where they can," the worker told CBC.
Brendan McGuinty, whose brother MP David McGuinty is one of a long list of Sutcliffe endorsers, is another backer whose function isn't specified. McGuinty has deep roots at city hall, where he was chief of staff to Bob Chiarelli when he was mayor before becoming a consultant.
He was on Watson's transition team when he was first elected mayor in 2010, and did some consulting and volunteer work for him in the early years of his tenure.
McGuinty likes to stay behind the scenes, knows everyone in Ottawa, and has his finger in a lot of pies — he was even mentioned in passing in a lawsuit the late Eugene Melnyk launched against Trinity Group.
It's not clear how involved McGuinty is in the day-to-day campaign, but he was among those who convinced Sutcliffe to run and approached local politicians to formally endorse him.
Pollster David Coletto is CEO of Abacus Data, so it figures that he's doing some polling for the campaign and has been involved in some policy development. The two are close friends and Coletto says Sutcliffe has been a business and leadership coach to him for years.
It was Coletto, in the days after Sutcliffe announced he was running for office, who interviewed the candidate for Sutcliffe's own podcast, "Digging Deep." Interestingly, Abacus chair Bruce Anderson recently came out in favour of McKenney, another sign this mayoral race is splitting even close business associates.
Then there's Bob Plamondon, another close friend and running buddy of Sutcliffe. Among other credentials, Plamondon is an author, a former board member with the National Capital Commission, and an economist who sits on the Senate Standing Committee on Audit and Oversight.
Plamondon did some consulting work on the city budget for the city manager back when Larry O'Brien was mayor. He has provided some analysis on Sutcliffe's financial platform, but says he didn't help create it. Indeed, Sutcliffe won't attach any specific names to his fiscal plan, but says he speaks for it himself.
McKenney's team
Perhaps not unexpectedly, McKenney's campaign manager Samiha Rayeda has run a number of NDP election bids, including Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden's successful run earlier this year.
Rayeda unsuccessfully headed NDP candidate Angella MacEwen's campaign in last year's federal election.
That McKenney has support from New Democrats and other progressive activists was expected, considering their roots in the party, particularly in Ottawa Centre. So it's no surprise that Canadian Labour Congress senior staffer and longtime local activist Vicky Smallman is one of the campaign's co-chairs.
Perhaps more surprising is that Tyler Meredith is the other. Meredith was an economic adviser in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office for six years, and worked on federal budgets during that time under two finance ministers.
He worked on McKenney's financial plan with Neil Saravanamuttoo, former chief economist of the G20's Global Infrastructure Hub. Saravanamuttoo has spent hours talking with journalists throughout this campaign about McKenney's financial platform.
McKenney's plan to build 25 years' worth of cycling infrastructure in the next four years for $250 million is likely his idea.
McKenney also has an experienced communications team. It includes Kathryn LeBlanc, who's held several media roles for the NDP on Parliament Hill, and Heather Badenoch, a well-known local activist who's also provided communications strategies for health-care and non-profit organizations.
They're joined by Alexandra Seymour, who's on leave from her position in Coun. Rawlson King's office.
McKenney's team of advisers includes Carlene Variyan, former chief of staff to Liberal Minister Jim Carr and a spokesperson for the Liberal Party's national campaign for the last three federal elections, and Susan King, a communications consultant and seasoned political campaigner.
Liz Bernstein is also helping out. Bernstein is known around city hall for representing the Lowertown Community Association and being on the board for Ecology Ottawa. But she's also worked for the Nobel organization and was co-ordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Simone Thibaut, among other things a former executive director of the Centretown Community Health Centre, is advising McKenney in a number of areas, including French-language policy.
Taken together, the Sutcliffe and McKenney campaign contingents draw deeply from Ottawa's available pools of political and policy talent.
Municipal politics has a way of mixing up the partisan cliques that line up more neatly in the federal and political spheres.
When the city contest is this tight, and there's no obvious single front runner, everybody seems to want in.
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