Ottawa mayor Mark Sutcliffe wins four more years in remarkable victory

Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe poses for a photo in Ottawa. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

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Mark Sutcliffe rocketed to an assured win in the Ottawa mayoral election tonight, landing him another four years to run the city.

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The 58-year-old incumbent, a former journalist, broadcaster and entrepreneur, had been running flat out in a race that polls showed had narrowed in the two weeks leading up to election day.

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Sutcliffe bested 12-year Kitchissippi councillor Jeff Leiper, widely seen as his only credible challenger, to win the contest.

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Economist Neil Saravanamuttoo and homebuilder Alex Lawson, both first-time political candidates, rounded out Sutcliffe’s top-three opponents.

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Both CBC News Ottawa and CTV News Ottawa projected the Sutcliffe victory shortly before 9 p.m.

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Sutcliffe ran on a pledge to keep taxes low and, at the same time, spend $10 billion in the next decade on the infrastructure he said is needed to prepare for Ottawa’s projected growth over the next 25 years. According to the city’s own numbers, Ottawa’s population is expected to increase by more than 500,000 people in that time.

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The mayoral contest had grown heated in recent weeks as Sutcliffe, Leiper, Saravanamuttoo and Lawson clashed over Ottawa’s challenges and Sutcliffe’s record handling them during half a dozen debates and on social media.

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In his four years as mayor, Sutcliffe kept his promise to keep taxes low. But his tenure also saw ongoing issues with unreliable transit, homelessness and increasingly open drug use in the downtown. He also pushed through a controversial plan for the so-called Lansdowne 2.0 redevelopment, which will see the city take on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

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In the 2026 campaign, Leiper sought to exploit that record. He found much of his support in Ottawa’s downtown.

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Over his two mayoralty campaigns, Sutcliffe has tended to cultivate Ottawa’s suburbs and rural outer reaches.

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Sutcliffe was a political neophyte who said he had never before considered running for political office when he became Ottawa’s mayor in 2022, succeeding Jim Watson. Sutcliffe came from behind to beat early favourite Catherine McKenney, a progressive and a longtime councillor for the downtown Somerset Ward.

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Polling conducted by Nanos for CTV News during the first week of October suggested that Leiper led Sutcliffe in Ottawa’s downtown by 10 points, while Sutcliffe dominated elsewhere.

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Although he has a plan to revitalize the downtown and ByWard Market, and as mayor committed to end youth homelessness in Ottawa by 2030, Sutcliffe also promised to keep tax hikes below 2.5 per cent over the next two years and to find $250 million in savings and efficiencies in the city budget.

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Sutcliffe also pledged to lower the cost of an adult monthly transit pass from $138.50 to $95, to secure funding to increase the affordable housing supply and to hire 200 more police officers, 100 more paramedics and 50 more firefighters if re-elected.

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Last week, a Quorus Consulting Group survey placed Sutcliffe at 28 per cent among all respondents and Leiper at 24 per cent — with a wide swathe also indicating that they were undecided, unwilling to say or did not plan to vote. Among those who had decided, 42 per cent said they would vote for Sutcliffe and 35 per cent planned to cast a ballot for Leiper.

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