Random Acts of Urbanism

About Random Acts of Urbanism

Brigitte Pellerin and Evan Potter discuss City of Ottawa politics. randomactsofurbanism.substack.com (https://randomactsofurbanism.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Brigitte Pellerin

Category

news · news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

13 Apr 2025

Latest episode

19 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

26 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   19 Oct 2026

   The flood response, part 2

   I do this work as an independent journalist. You, my readers, are the ones funding it through paid subscriptions. Help me dig into stories that matter to you by becoming a paid subscriber or, if Substack isn’t your thing, by making a one-time or recurring contribution on my website (https://brigittepellerin.com/donate). Thank you. [Part one is here (https://randomactsofurbanism.substack.com/p/flood-who-asked-for-what-when).] This is part two of my investigation into the response to the historic July 1 flooding that saw something like 6,600 homes in Ottawa flooded, some with overland water, some with sewer backups, some with both. There have been conflicting reports about whether the city asked for the right kinds of help from the province, and whether the province actually agreed. Last week I laid out what we knew. This week the picture is a little less blurry on some fronts, and a lot sharper on where the real problems are. Let’s dig in. July 1: the phone calls As Mayor Sutcliffe indicated — and I had no reason to doubt it — on the evening of July 1, somewhere between 7 and 8 p.m., there were already phone conversations between the premier and the mayor. Updates on the situation, the beginnings of “this is big, we’re going to need help,” agreements to keep each other posted. I’m paraphrasing; I don’t know exactly what was said but assume it was the typical kind of things that get said in a situation like that. Also, keep in mind that on the evening of July 1, the scale of the problem probably wasn’t as clear as it became in the days that followed. That’s normal. This is not where the response went wrong. July 3–4: the meetings, and the email that contradicts the minister The city’s written timeline, which it sent to me directly, fills in the next steps: on July 3, city officials agreed to a meeting with the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. On July 4, the city’s Ryan Perrault emailed the province formally requesting that DRAO — the Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians program — be activated. Remember that date, because it matters. Emergency Preparedness Minister Jill Dunlop has suggested the city didn’t ask for help until eight days after the flood. The city’s paper trail says July 4. Three days, not eight. Now, a wrinkle: DRAO doesn’t fall under Dunlop’s ministry at all. It’s a Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing program; Rob Flack’s ministry, not Dunlop’s. So either Dunlop was talking about something else entirely, or she’s confused about which programs her own government runs. I find the second option hard to believe, which leaves the first, and the question of what, exactly, she was talking about. July 7: “we need more data” On July 7, city and province officials met to share information on the scale and impact of the floods. The province asked for more information: 311 call mapping (where were people calling from), technical assessments, and more details about affected properties and flood-related damage. I understand every word in that sentence and almost none of what it entails. What does a “technical assessment” mean, in practice, a week after 6,600 homes flood? I’m still trying to find out. But note the shape of this: the city asked on July 4; on July 7 the province said “show us more.” What happened in those three days, and what exactly was missing, is one of the open questions. Below is the timeline provided to me by the City of Ottawa: On July 1, 2026, an ongoing dialogue with the Province was initiated. The City maintained nearly daily contact with the Province during the emergency response, and provincial representatives participated in meetings at the City’s Emergency Coordination Centre. On July 3, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH), under Minister Flack, and Ryan Perrault, General Manager of Emergency and Protective Services, agreed to a meeting to assess the damage from the severe weather event. On July 4, Ryan Perrault requested the Province consider activating the DRAO program and other available provincial funding and supports. [That’s the email reproduced above — BP.] During a meeting on July 7 between the City and Province to share information on the scale and impacts of the extreme weather event, the Province requested additional information, including 3-1-1 call mapping, technical assessments, affected properties, and details of flood-related damage. On July 9, the Province advised the City that it could not deploy volunteers equipped with PPE into environments presenting biohazard risks, including mold or wastewater contamination. The three programs, and which ones are actually controversial There are essentially three provincial programs in play. Let me park the uncontroversial one first. 1. The Municipal Disaster Recovery Assistance program. This reimburses the city’s own costs — capital costs to repair public infrastructure, operating costs above and beyond normal budgets that can be traced to the disaster. Not insurance-covered costs, not things that would have been replaced anyway. It’s a process: the city has to demonstrate the expenses qualify, and as far as I know, city staff are still assembling that file. Complicated, slow, but no real controversy, so I’m setting this one aside for now. 2. DRAO — Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians. This is the one for individuals and small business owners: homeowners, tenants, small businesses recovering costs from overland flooding that insurance won’t cover. Up to $250,000 per applicant for eligible expenses including emergency costs and cleanup. Two critical limits. First, DRAO covers overland flooding only, not sewer backup. If the river came over its banks into your basement, that’s DRAO. If your sewer backed up, that’s not. Second, it only covers the zones the province activates. And this is where it gets bad. When the province activated DRAO in mid-July, it covered exactly two areas: the zones around Graham Creek and Stillwater Creek. On the map, that’s the shape covering Bayshore, Qualicum, Leslie Park, and Trend-Arlington. It does not cover Crystal Beach, Centrepointe, Parkwood Hills, Bells Corners, Woodpark, Quensway Terrace, Kanata North, or parts of Nepean, all of which had flooded homes. So we have a big problem with two possible explanations, and I don’t know which one is true: either the city’s request wasn’t comprehensive enough, or the city asked for all the affected neighbourhoods and the province said no. That’s exactly the correspondence I want to see — who asked for what, when. What I do know is that since mid-July, city staff have been pushing the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing to expand the zone. The city is trying to fix this. But how we got here, I don’t know yet. The second DRAO problem is crueller. Say your home got both: sewer backup and overland flooding. You’re now expected to separate the damage, to stand in your basement in coveralls and big boots, in two and a half feet of sludge, and apportion which destruction came from the sewer and which from the river. I’ve dealt with one minor sewer backup in my life and I don’t wish it on anyone. I have no idea what these people are supposed to do, or what help exists to assist them in parsing it, with their insurance, with DRAO, with the city’s compassionate grants (the $1,000 compensation for sewer backups only). 3. Ontario Corps volunteers. This one I didn’t realize was an issue until I started digging last week. Ontario Corps is the province’s volunteer program — ordinary people sign up, get managed by recognized partners, and do low-qualification disaster work: cleanup, distributing supplies, boots-on-the-ground help. Here’s what the city told me: on July 9, the province advised it could not deploy volunteers with personal protective equipment into environments “presenting biohazard risks including mold or wastewater contamination.” Mold and wastewater contamination are, of course, exactly what you expect after a flood. I don’t know whether the city requested Ontario Corps volunteers, or when, or for what. I don’t know why the province said no — especially since the same volunteers have been deployed to floods in other cities where you’d expect exactly the same biohazards. The province hasn’t confirmed any of this from its side. Big unknown, actively chasing. The people falling through the cracks The city’s compassionate grant program, $1,000 for sewer backup expenses, with the usual once-every-five-years limit lifted for July 1 victims, and a bigger budget voted to match the scale, seems to be working decently. If your home “only” had a sewer backup, the city has you. So here’s the ledger as I see it: - Overland flooding, inside the DRAO zone, no sewer backup: covered. Apply by November 16. - Sewer backup only, anywhere: covered by the city’s compassionate grant. - Overland flooding outside the DRAO zone (Crystal Beach and the rest): nobody helping you right now. - Both sewer backup and overland flooding, anywhere: standing in the soup, literally and bureaucratically, with no clear path. That last pair of categories is the scandal-in-waiting. A disaster recovery program for Ontarians should cover Ontarians facing an unprecedented disaster. Right now it doesn’t. What I’m still chasing My requests for information are outstanding with both levels of government — the correspondence, the ask-and-answer trail, the decision memos. I want to know: 1. The July 4–7 gap: what “more data” did the province need, and why did the DRAO request take from July 4 to mid-July to activate? 2. The zone decision: did the city ask for the full flooded area, or did the province narrow it? Who decided, and on what basis? 3. Ontario Corps: did the city request volunteers, when, and why exactly did the province refuse? 4. The province’s side of all of this, which, so far and except for Jill Dunlop’s cryptic and at least partly contradicted declaration that the city waited 8 days to ask for help, is silence. I’d like these answers before October 26, not after. The election is eight days away, and voters in the flooded wards deserve to know who did what before they vote. Whether I get them in time is not entirely up to me. If you were affected by the July 1 floods and what I’ve written doesn’t ring true — or if you’re in one of those uncovered categories — I want to hear from you. Get full access to Random Acts of Urbanism by Brigitte Pellerin at randomactsofurbanism.substack.com/subscribe (https://randomactsofurbanism.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   17 Oct 2026

   Forget the bloody polls

   I wish all candidates had this level of transparency. I do this work as an independent journalist. You, my readers, are the ones funding it through paid subscriptions. Help me dig into stories that matter to you by becoming a paid subscriber or, if Substack isn’t your thing, by making a one-time or recurring contribution on my website (https://brigittepellerin.com/donate). Thank you. Transcript Brigitte Pellerin (00:05) Hi everyone. Hi Evan. We are down the stretch. How are you doing? Evan Potter (00:08) Final stretch, Brigitte. And I’m laughing, I’m grinning, because there have been amusing things this week, and also kind of troubling things this week. So we’ll get into it. You lead off. Brigitte Pellerin (00:24) Right. So I want to talk — we don’t need to repeat all the things that we’ve said about what the candidates need to do to really win for mayor, because I think people are familiar by now with — Evan Potter (00:30) But we might want to just say that it is all about the ground game now. You can’t change your comms now. You can’t revive your campaign, hello Jeff Leiper, with your comms. That opportunity has now passed, and now it’s all about the ground game. And that will affect Jeff Leiper more than anyone else in the campaign. Brigitte Pellerin (00:59) I’m going to push back just a little bit. I think it will also affect Mark Sutcliffe. If his people don’t show up to vote — if they say they will vote for him, but then forget to do so because they’re not that enthusiastic about him — that also affects him. So both of those two candidates really need to have their people. Because the point of elections — this may be a simplistic point, but it is nevertheless the case — the point of an election is to get the people who say they will vote for you to go out and actually vote for you. Evan Potter (01:26) Yeah. And Jeff needs a lot of votes. He needs more votes than Catherine McKenney got in 2022. So he needs more than their hundred and ten thousand votes. Brigitte Pellerin (01:37) And what’s really surprising to me about all the polls showing, you know, weird things — honestly, how can — I mean, there are different polls, different methodologies, and I get that, but how can a guy like Alex Lawson be swinging between 4% and, was it 27%, his high water mark? Something is really wrong here. Mark Sutcliffe — I saw him as low as 24 in one of those polls, just for decided voters, mind you. And then as high as 49. Again, there’s just not — okay. Evan Potter (02:07) You know what I’m going to tell everybody right now? Forget the polls. Forget the bloody polls. The polls have not served the public interest in the 2026 Ottawa municipal election. Let’s just say it, let’s be brutal, let’s be honest about this. And we can only hope now that in 2030 the public gets more public polls. That would be really good. Based on probability-based polls. Brigitte Pellerin (02:35) That’s right. I’m just going to say again, for people who may be looking for a way to think their way through how to vote: if you’re super happy with the status quo, vote Mark Sutcliffe. That’s the easy one. If you’re super happy, you have the easiest job. If you really want to kick Mark Sutcliffe out of office, you can either go for Jeff Leiper or Alex Lawson. Both of those candidates take away from Mark Sutcliffe. And if you want to vote for someone you really care about — and you like Neil Saravanamuttoo’s ideas and proposals, or his experience, his background, the way he shows up — if you like anything about him, and you want to actually vote for something and for someone, for a program, instead of voting strategically against someone else, he’s your guy. That’s it. Evan Potter (03:15) Well said. I don’t have anything to add to that. Brigitte Pellerin (03:18) And I will have a column in the Ottawa Citizen coming up shortly too — next week — about if you want to vote by issue. So I’m having a bit of a longer column going issue by issue. So you can go and say, well, I care the most about infrastructure. It’s a bit more of a condensed version of what the different platforms are, so you can try and make up your mind that way as well. I’m trying to offer an easy-to-swallow package to compare the four main candidates, so that people who don’t have the time — Evan Potter (03:51) And there are a lot of people who would benefit from that, because probably one in five residents still have not made up their minds. Brigitte Pellerin (04:01) Yes. Well, maybe even more than that, if we look at the polls that we just said we shouldn’t look at. And the idea is that we’re all learning together out loud here, right? So we’re working through the issues and the conversations and what we’ve seen of the politics. So there was a big debate — well, there are debate-paloozas these days, but the one that we wanted to talk about this week was the CFRA/CTV News debate on Wednesday. An hour and a half-ish, or even a bit longer than that. I did appreciate the format very much. They had questions from the audience, a question from a panel, a question from the moderator. Each candidate had a chance to present their views or ask a question of somebody else on the panel. And then they also had little brawls. So that was good. Evan Potter (04:42) Yeah, I found that really refreshing. But late in the campaign — I mean, some of the earlier all-candidates debates didn’t really offer any exchanges. And we’re not talking about vicious ad hominem personal attacks. That’s not what we’re talking about. Just ways of seeing the differences and the contrast among the candidates. And you couldn’t tell, because of the way the organizers had the format. It was just, here’s a question, you answer, and then they go down the line, and people just basically have memorized answers, or they’re reading off some pre-prepared answers. And that’s not a debate. That’s an information session. Not a debate. Brigitte Pellerin (05:24) Yeah. But then sometimes you have debates and there’s so much yelling that you can’t figure out what people are saying. So I did like the CTV one. I think it was a very successful debate that way, because we had some of each. We had the best of all the different formats, without too much of the negatives from the various formats. So, well done, CTV News and CFRA. Evan Potter (05:44) It was a good model. So what did you think about the caliber of the exchanges? Brigitte Pellerin (05:50) Okay. So I’ll put a caveat to this, because you and I are swimming in this stuff. I’m doing deep dives into everything. Mark Sutcliffe just released a 70-page platform — comprehensive, no kidding, platform — this week, that I still haven’t read in detail. But we’re in this stuff so much, we know the issues so much, that to people like you and I, and some of the nerdier listeners that we have, the level of exchange was not deep enough, was not comprehensive. They stayed a little bit too much on the surface, by and large. Evan Potter (06:20) Yeah. My view was they didn’t add anything. There wasn’t anything new. They repeated the main points from their platforms. And because I look at it from this kind of campaign communication perspective rather than a pure policy perspective, there were no knockout punches, nobody got thrown off their game. I think the mayor was composed. He didn’t like Neil needling him, obviously, but he was composed. Composed, and he got out his messages. And again — I’m sorry, not Jeff-bashing, not Jeff-bashing — but Jeff again had to overperform relative to the mayor and his challengers. And once again, I did not see Jeff overperforming. I want to quote something. As I was thinking about what I was going to say to you on this, I think there was a great opportunity for Jeff Leiper. And he could have said — and this just came right out of me, and I’m sorry, probably because we’re swimming in this stuff, it’s coming out of our pores now — all Jeff had to say was, to Mark Sutcliffe: “You had a choice, sir. You could have saved residents of Ottawa four hundred and nineteen million dollars on the vanity project called Lansdowne 2.0. Instead, you handed your developer friends a lifeline with our money. That’s not leadership. Is that how you plan affordability? Not repairing arenas and giving our money to your friends.” Boom. That came out of me in five seconds. I didn’t have to put it through ChatGPT. I didn’t have to consult you on that. That just came out of me. If Jeff had said even something approximating what I just said, that’s what we’d be talking about. Brigitte Pellerin (08:13) And that line, just for the record — “you had a choice, sir” — that was Brian Mulroney to John Turner in the ‘84 election. Evan Potter (08:21) That’s right. “You had a choice, sir.” It was about Trudeau. It just knocked the wind out of Turner. He never recovered. Brigitte Pellerin (08:30) He never recovered. And you’re right that there was no knockout punch at that debate. But there was a punch in the face — Mark Sutcliffe punched himself in the face a little bit, when he started an intervention by saying, quoting loosely, “When I came into office four years ago, transit was a dumpster fire.” And everyone on the panel said, “It’s a bigger dumpster fire now.” What the heck idea was that, to start — against the incumbent. Evan Potter (08:54) He’s campaigning, as you have said repeatedly, against the incumbent. Mark Sutcliffe is campaigning against himself. I love your line. That’s a great line that you had. Brigitte Pellerin (08:59) It might just work too. So his campaign came out with an internal poll — so we have no idea what the methodology behind this poll is, who they sampled, what questions. We don’t really know. That showed — okay, there’s a technical term for this, and I can’t use it here, because they’re going to bleep me somewhere. But there’s no universe in which Jeff Leiper is at 16 and Neil Saravanamuttoo is at 17. I’m sorry. I call BS on this. This is not true. But Neil is believing it somehow. Evan Potter (09:32) So you know what they say. You take internal campaign polling that is released by the campaign at a huge discount. Of course you do. Brigitte Pellerin (09:45) Well, you have to. They’re releasing it for a reason. Evan Potter (09:49) They’re releasing it for a reason. The obvious reason is to control the narrative and to shape the narrative. And so I look to Ottawa-based legacy media not to just reprint those polls. And I saw the Ottawa Citizen — I saw your paper doing a whole article on what amounts to David Coletto’s internal poll, commissioned poll, for Mark Sutcliffe. Brigitte Pellerin (10:06) And just reprinting that, yeah. Maybe ask a question, like — Evan Potter (10:17) And I just shook my head. But of course the people who are reading it just see the headline — which is exactly what the Sutcliffe campaign knows will happen. And so there will be a public discussion. But let me tell you something else. Most of the voters — of the 330,000 voters that will eventually have voted — will never see the polling, will never see the headlines. So this is kind of inside baseball. The tweets that are generated, the social media posts — these are points that each side kind of gets on another side. It’s like point-building, deductions and additions. And ultimately, Brigitte, it doesn’t matter that much. It’s about the ground game. Which is why I say, at this stage, internal or external polls, forget it. The people who are going to win — whether it’s Mark Sutcliffe or Jeff Leiper or maybe somebody else — are going to win on the basis of the ground game, not because a campaign has released an internal poll at this stage. Brigitte Pellerin (11:27) Right. And so, just for people watching this: we’re recording this during the day of advance voting. We’re recording this on the afternoon of Friday the sixteenth. And so by tomorrow — by the Saturday, by the time this comes out — there should be numbers about the number of people who voted on the sixteenth. So I’m saying this, I’m talking to future me. Saturday me is going to be looking at those numbers. I want them to be very high. Because the early voting, the four days of early voting, returned 27,000-some people. Twenty-seven thousand, five hundred and something voted — which was, I don’t know if it was a record, but it’s pretty high. And usually high early turnouts, and high turnouts generally, are not great news for the incumbent. That’s a general rule in politics. Brigitte Pellerin (12:17) And then there’s the other thing. We were on a panel on Rogers TV — which, it really feels like we hang out a lot together these days, you and I. Evan Potter (12:24) Yeah, there’s a convergence. There’s a convergence now happening. Brigitte Pellerin (12:28) Four years ago Mark Sutcliffe won with over fifty percent of the votes. But it was essentially — no offence to Bob Chiarelli, but it was essentially a two-way race. And as I explained on that show too, I made that point: it was a two-way race against a candidate who comes from gender diversity. Okay — so I’m sorry, I kind of forget whether Catherine now identifies themselves as trans, or for a while were lesbian. So I apologize for that, and I’m not sure where they’re at exactly. But certainly they do use they/them pronouns. Evan Potter (12:59) Pronoun as they. Brigitte Pellerin (13:01) They were, to my knowledge, the first public person in Ottawa to use they/them pronouns. And I don’t think that Ottawa as a whole is — or certainly in 2022, was not quite ready for that. And now we’re looking at four dudes. Four straight guys, mostly, you know, racially not especially diverse. Let’s put it this way. Evan Potter (13:27) You made that assumption, Brigitte. Brigitte Pellerin (13:29) Yeah, I mean, if you look at them, it’s not obvious that there’s a lot of diversity. There is, but it’s four guys. I don’t know that Mark Sutcliffe will do as well against other guys. So that remains to be seen. But I wanted to make that point. And just before we go into the ward races — you wanted to say, and I think we agree on this: this business with the internal poll showing Neil Saravanamuttoo in second place. Neil has come out with a video saying, woo, look at us, we’re in second place — which I was like, Neil, buddy, you’re going to get your heart broken if you believe that. But also talking about Jeff Leiper as having — yeah, go for it. Evan Potter (14:08) Let me quote for you. Let’s get it. So, quote, “a lack of main character energy,” unquote. I laughed so hard this morning when I saw that. It sounds like something that Claude or ChatGPT or DeepSeek would generate, because nobody talks like that. Brigitte Pellerin (14:23) Yeah. From a Jumanji script, the script of that movie. I don’t — my kids don’t. Evan Potter (14:32) And so I just laughed. Because it also reminded me of what Donald Trump did in 2015, when he was competing with this large list of primary candidates to be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party for the 2016 US election, which he won. He beat Hillary Clinton. But famously, as you know, Donald Trump called all the other challengers nicknames. So it was Tiny Marco. And then he had low-energy Jeb. Brigitte Pellerin (15:04) Yeah, like he does to this day. Tiny Marco. Sleepy — Evan Potter (15:10) Low-energy Jeb. And then Sleepy Joe Biden later. Brigitte Pellerin (15:12) And Sleepy Joe Biden later, but yes, similarly. Evan Potter (15:20) So Jeb at that — that was former governor of Florida, right? Jeb Bush, right? And brother of George W. Brigitte Pellerin (15:24) Yes, that’s right. And brother of the other guy. Evan Potter (15:29) You know what? It stuck. Because Donald Trump has this — people say a feral mind. He can just smell weakness. He can smell weakness. And he smelled this weakness on Jeb. And he laid it out: low energy. And it was painful at the time, remember, to watch Jeb Bush — governor, former governor, person with a certain dignity — try to — Brigitte Pellerin (15:54) A big tall guy too. Evan Potter (15:59) A big tall guy, try to bat away this nickname. And he couldn’t. He couldn’t. Because there was something true, Brigitte. There was something true — that he did seem, or appear, or was perceived as having low energy. And so — this is a long way of saying, so maybe yes. Does Jeff have low energy? He seems to have low energy. There’s a perception that he has. Again, always relative. You’re always fighting — it’s always relative to the other challengers, the incumbent. Now, I’m not saying that Mark Sutcliffe has high energy, but — Brigitte Pellerin (16:45) I was going to say, he doesn’t exude main character energy, whatever that is. Evan Potter (16:46) He doesn’t need — Brigitte, he doesn’t need high energy to win. He just needs to not make any mistakes. Brigitte Pellerin (16:52) That’s true. But he never did, right? Mark Sutcliffe has never been this Energizer bunny kind of guy — although he does run long distances, he does have the energy. He does not exude that. And he won in 2022. Evan Potter (17:05) I have no doubt that our man Jeff Leiper is losing pounds off his body doing canvassing. Brigitte Pellerin (17:14) Yes, he’s getting fit from running. Evan Potter (17:17) He’s getting fit. His pant size is going down the way they did — no, that’s true. He said that publicly, that when he was running before, his clothes didn’t fit anymore. So look, I’m not equating the energy that Jeff has on the campaign, door-knocking. I’m talking about the energy that we see on panels, in public, in his digital media. And it’s just not there, relative to what we see elsewhere. Brigitte Pellerin (17:44) Okay, let me push back. Because first of all, you’re completely right about what happened with Donald Trump and Jeb Bush and so on. That was the Republican Party in 2015. Much, much different world today. Today, Donald Trump is calling people like James Talarico — the Democratic candidate for senator in Texas — Tala-Freako. And I can guarantee you that it’s backfiring, to the point where nobody is putting money on the Republican guy in Texas. It’s all Elon Musk’s money supporting Ken Paxton in Texas. So — enough of US politics. This is Ottawa. This is Ottawa. That’s not the Republican Party that’s yuk-yukking it when Donald Trump says something offensive. I don’t think that personal attacks like that work in Ottawa. I don’t think that this kind of language works in Ottawa. It’s not especially nasty, it’s just weird. I don’t want to speak for all women here, because I’m just one person. But I saw that comment and said, who do you think you are, Neil? Allow people to make their own decisions. It’s fine to say, we’re the better candidate, this is the better campaign, blah blah blah. That’s great. Highlight things, criticize your opponents all you want. I do this all the time. That’s fine. But that kind of name-calling is just — I mean, what is this? Melrose Place? Evan Potter (19:04) You know what? I’m going to put myself — put yourself in Neil’s shoes. This is his moment. This last week, the last 10 days, this is his moment. He’s never going to be mayor. But this is his moment. And so that’s one of the reasons it made me smile. And the other thing is, I thought: you know what, you want to do that in the last 10 days, this is your moment. You think that you’re second place? Sure, why not. As I said, for Neil and Alex, they’ve already kind of won. And so this last stretch to the finish line is just a little icing on the cake for them. I was more amused. I didn’t think it was icky. I was just amused by it. Brigitte Pellerin (19:51) I’ll tell you why not — because it’s icky. So I’ve said it. I think this is icky. But again, that’s just me. All right — ward races. What’s going on? So you went to the debate in Kitchissippi. Packed room. Evan Potter (20:08) I did. Brigitte Pellerin (20:10) Not surprising. This ward, and this riding provincially and federally — we’re keeners. Evan Potter (20:15) It looked like there were hundreds of keeners. And I’m just so sorry that five months ago, or four months ago, or three months ago, or two months ago, we didn’t see rooms packed like that. Brigitte Pellerin (20:28) Well, people were having a life, doing summer things, I guess. Evan Potter (20:31) I know. But it actually felt — when you go into a hall, or a room at a community centre or an arena, and it’s packed, there’s an energy there. And you see row upon row of filled seats. There were no unfilled seats. People were paying attention. Brigitte Pellerin (20:45) Standing room only. No, it’s great. Evan Potter (20:49) It felt good that there was so much interest. And I’ll just say for the record, my view hasn’t changed in a year. Joanne Chianello will be the next councillor for Kitchissippi. Brigitte Pellerin (21:03) No, I’m — that one’s fairly obvious. I think we agree on that one. Kanata South is the one you’re watching, right? Especially. Evan Potter (21:09) Yes, this is the one I am watching regularly — having discussions regularly about in the field, talking to people. I think that Erin Coffin could have a pretty good shot at doing it. She will need — I always talk about real votes, rather than percentage of votes. I talk real votes. She’ll need about six thousand votes in her data bank of people. When the Coffin campaign goes to the door, a number one, a person with a category number one, is somebody who’s committing to vote for Erin at the door. Number three is a maybe. A number four is no. But a number one — so she needs six thousand number ones from her door-knocking, and she needs those six thousand to show up. And if she gets those six thousand votes — there’s about fourteen, fifteen thousand votes that will show up on October 26th and in the advance and early voting. If she hits that six thousand mark, she has a really good shot of being the only challenger to unseat a sitting councillor in this cycle. Brigitte Pellerin (22:20) Okay. I’m so glad you bring the data and the math, because I was not going to do that. Thank you for that. But I do have some numbers news to tell you about, and one ward that I’ve been watching. I always forget the name of it, my apologies. Is it Orléans East-Cumberland? Thank you. The one where Bob Bell is challenging Matt Luloff. There are other challengers too, but Bob Bell is the one I’ve been paying attention to. I kind of like the feel of his campaign a lot. It feels like a real-life person showing up to represent his neighbours. I think I like that. Anyway, a couple of days ago I saw his post on Instagram. He has listed the people who have contributed $100 or more to his campaign, by name. And I kind of like this. And, as you can imagine, there weren’t a lot of them. This is not a big campaign, and he’s doing this — he’s taking leave from his job, and he’s doing this on his own, because he cares about his community and wants to represent it. But I just like that transparency. Evan Potter (23:11) Let’s just say, Brigitte — let’s just say what some of these campaigns are. These are campaigns for future consideration. Brigitte Pellerin (23:21) Maybe. Or not. You don’t know. Evan Potter (23:24) But in most cases — again, I keep coming back to the incumbency advantage. Barbara Gandolfo, who also started much earlier, she’s in the field, she’s developing name recognition. So I fully expect that she and Bob will split the anti-Luloff vote, and Matt will come back for another term of office. Brigitte Pellerin (23:52) I think what helped Bob Bell’s campaign very much was the videos he did taking transit. He would say, come with me, I’m going from Algonquin back to Orléans. And then he would film himself on the bus, and waiting, and describing his journey. I think that had some appeal, and that helped. That’s how I paid attention to him — somebody sent me this video. Evan Potter (24:09) These are both — those two challenger campaigns in Orléans East-Cumberland are for future consideration. So you’re going to see these people again. Brigitte Pellerin (24:20) Right. We only have a few minutes left, so I just want to say quickly: I’m going to pay attention to West Carleton-March. That one with Clarke Kelly and Christine Harrison, who — somehow, she’s the challenger, she’s challenging Clarke Kelly, and she received the endorsement of Eli El-Chantiry, which is interesting to me. So I’m going to go and hang out with — Evan Potter (24:34) Which apparently is not just interesting, according to Keith Egli, with whom we were on the panel yesterday, but very, very significant for people. He walks on water, and getting that endorsement is really significant. A big deal. Brigitte Pellerin (24:49) Yes — he says he walks on water. Is a big deal. So I’m going to go out there this weekend and see what’s up. And then let’s talk a little bit about Knoxdale-Merivale, and the shenanigans going on there. Evan Potter (25:02) Ooh. All right. I like the word. I love the word shenanigans. Brigitte Pellerin (25:07) It is a great word. It won’t get you sued, and it says what it says. Evan Potter (25:11) That’s right. It won’t get you sued. Well, the following words will not get anybody sued. Let’s just say — maybe this will, in hindsight, be some of the high drama. There’s been very little high drama in this election cycle, but this one, I think, for a lot of people I’ve been talking to in the last couple of days, takes the cake. So what do we know? What are the facts? We know that Councillor Tim Tierney — who will be re-elected for a fifth term, so he is safe, very safe in his ward — took it upon himself to campaign against his fellow councillor, Sean Devine, in Sean Devine’s ward. Brigitte Pellerin (25:53) Right. And I’ve seen the videos of him and the photos of him. So that’s the only one I’ve seen with my eyes. Evan Potter (25:58) We know that CBC’s Arthur White-Crummey reported that there was one other councillor, David Brown, who was acclaimed. So he’s got time on his hands, apparently. And he also — Brigitte Pellerin (26:11) Also is safe. And unlike — sorry, unlike Riley Brockington, who’s still talking to his constituents, apparently Dave Brown is going campaigning somewhere else. Interesting. Evan Potter (26:22) Well, apparently he’s still talking. So David has come from away into Sean Devine’s ward and is campaigning against him. Brigitte Pellerin (26:38) If Arthur is reporting it, I know it’s true. I just haven’t seen this myself with my own eyes. Evan Potter (26:42) So we know one councillor for sure. It’s reported that David Brown. And I was told that there’s a third councillor. I will not name any names, because — Brigitte Pellerin (26:51) Right, because we haven’t seen the evidence yet. Evan Potter (26:52) We haven’t seen the evidence of that. But one councillor is extraordinary enough, and two — Brigitte Pellerin (26:56) Is one too many. Evan Potter (26:59) — is really odd. And I can only imagine — and I have been told, not by Sean Devine, so just so to be clear, but by others — that there will be a settling of accounts. When Sean returns, which he will, when Sean returns to council, there will be a settling of accounts between Sean and Tim Tierney and David Brown. That’s what I hear. Brigitte Pellerin (27:25) We’re going to have to buy more popcorn. Evan Potter (27:27) Well, that’s what I hear. But here’s the other interesting bit. I did talk to Anna, his main challenger. And why she was challenging Sean — she gave me a perfectly reasonable answer. And then somebody else said something that caught my attention, and said that — I guess the point being that Anna, by challenging Sean so vociferously, is going to make Sean Devine into a better councillor when he returns to council. And I just laughed. I thought, you know what? There’s something to say for that. Brigitte Pellerin (28:10) Maybe. And to be clear, there’s no problem with anybody challenging a candidate or an established councillor. This is fine. This is democracy. The problem that we have is with sitting councillors from other wards coming to campaign against one of their colleagues. This is just weird. And without saying why — there’s something going on. Evan Potter (28:28) Well, no, they’ve given answers why. So again, I’ll just close by saying: Sean Devine, despite these challenges from his own colleagues on council, will be returning to council as well. Brigitte Pellerin (28:43) All right then. That’s all the time we have. We have so much to read, and so much to study, and so much to watch, and so much to talk about. And yeah, this is down the stretch. So look out for some of our analysis elsewhere. And we’ll talk to you next week, Evan. Evan Potter (28:57) Next week is the last week. Brigitte Pellerin (28:59) Yes. All right. See you then. Evan Potter (29:01) Okay, bye-bye. Get full access to Random Acts of Urbanism by Brigitte Pellerin at randomactsofurbanism.substack.com/subscribe (https://randomactsofurbanism.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   12 Oct 2026

   Flood: Who asked for what, when?

   I do this work as an independent journalist and no outlet is paying me for it. You, my readers, are the ones funding it through paid subscriptions. Help me dig into stories that matter to you by becoming a paid subscriber or, if Substack isn’t your thing, by making a one-time or recurring contribution on my website (https://brigittepellerin.com/donate). Thank you. If you were affected by the July 1 flood, you don’t need me to tell you how hard the past three months have been. The storm dropped 118 mm of rain on Ottawa, roughly double the previous July 1 record, set in 1959, and well over 140 mm in some neighbourhoods. The city called it a one-in-200-year event. By late July, 6,600 households had reported flooded basements. This wasn’t ordinary flooding. An enormous amount of rain fell in a very short time, and in many cases the city’s infrastructure simply couldn’t handle it. Sewers backed up into basements. Belongings were destroyed. Even if insurance eventually covers everything, going through that process is a nightmare. Which is why, when you lead a city, your first job in a moment like that is to get residents as much of the available help as possible, as fast as possible. Last week, Ontario’s Minister of Emergency Preparedness and Response, Jill Dunlop, said the City of Ottawa didn’t formally ask the province for help until July 9, eight days after the storm. She said it in answer to a question from Ottawa West–Nepean NDP MPP Chandra Pasma. Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s campaign denies it. They say the city asked right away, and that the mayor was on the phone with Premier Doug Ford on the evening of July 1. And again on July 3 (https://x.com/_MarkSutcliffe/status/2073182874073715069). I have no reason to doubt the mayor was on the phone those nights, probably with other officials too. That’s normal; it’s what you’d expect. But a phone call isn’t necessarily a formal request for assistance. It may have been a heads-up that a request was coming. On the evening of July 1, everyone knew this was going to be a big problem, but nobody knew yet just how big. So the question is simple: who asked whom, for what, and when? I’ve filed access-to-information requests with both the city and the province, and I’ve put questions directly to the people involved. Formal requests can take a long time. With the election on October 26, I don’t think we should have to wait. Here’s what we know so far, and what we don’t. Two provincial programs, two very different jobs Ontario has two programs that matter here. Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians (DRAO) helps residents, tenants, small owner-run businesses, farms and non-profits pay for disaster damage that insurance doesn’t cover. It’s not money that shows up right away: it comes after you’ve been through your insurance, which can take months on its own. It covers basic needs in a primary residence, with caps and deductibles, up to $250,000 per claimant. And it only applies inside an area the province designates. Crucially, the province doesn’t need a municipality to ask. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Rob Flack (not Dunlop), decides whether and where to activate it, informed by the province’s own damage assessments and by information from the municipality. In practice, the city’s input carries a lot of weight. If everyone in the city’s emergency management, the mayor’s office and whoever else needs to weigh in shows up with a detailed formal request explaining why the program applies, surely that helps the province conclude that yes, this is what the program is for. Municipal Disaster Recovery Assistance (MDRA) reimburses the city for its own extraordinary costs, such as emergency response and repairs to roads, bridges and public buildings. This one does require the city to act: council must pass a resolution and submit an initial claim within 120 days of the disaster. The city’s eligible costs must reach at least 3% of its own-purpose tax levy. Above that threshold, the province pays 75% of eligible costs up to it and 95% beyond. What happened, day by day * July 1: The storm hits. According to the mayor’s campaign, Sutcliffe is on the phone with the Premier that evening. * July 3: Sutcliffe says he has spoken with Premier Ford about support for the city and residents. * July 5: Councillors Laine Johnson, Wilson Lo, David Hill and Sean Devine, along with MPPs Tyler Watt, Karen McCrimmon, Stephen Blais, Lucille Collard and John Fraser, publish an open letter asking the province to send its disaster assessment team and activate DRAO. The mayor is not a signatory. The ministry says it is assessing the situation. * July 6: At a news conference, Sutcliffe says he has spoken with ministers Dunlop and Flack about getting DRAO for residents. He also announces motions to boost the city’s Compassionate Grant, which pays $1,000 for sewer-backup flooding and had a budget of $150,000 a year. * July 9: The first formal request for help reaches the province, according to Dunlop. * July 10: Flack says he’s confident DRAO will be activated but gives no timeline. Coun. Laine Johnson says that eight days after the floods she is still looking for action and answers from both the city and the province, that the city was responsible for starting some of the requests, and that “all of that took too long.” * Around July 14: The province activates DRAO, but only around Graham Creek and Stillwater Creek: Bayshore, Qualicum, Leslie Park and Trend-Arlington. Residents there have until November 16 to apply. * July 15: Council approves the mayor’s motions: a partnership with the Red Cross worth up to $400,000, waived fees including building and demolition permits, more Compassionate Grant funding, more money for sump pumps and backflow valves, and legal help with insurance claims. Council also drops the rule limiting the grant to once every five years. * July 16: The Red Cross launches its Ottawa Floods Appeal. Around the same time, at the mayor’s request, the federal government agrees to match donations. * July 24: The city formally asks the province to expand the DRAO area. Paramedic Chief Pierre Poirier admits the first map the city gave the province was “fairly restrictive,” drawn before staff understood the full scope of the event. By then the city has received 1,679 grant applications and approved 824. * September 23: Council unanimously passes the mayor’s motion to apply for MDRA, seconded by Johnson, provided costs meet the threshold. The city is still tallying them. A second motion asks the province to review DRAO’s eligibility rules. CTV reports that the DRAO area still hasn’t been expanded. As far as I can tell, that small zone is still the only part of Ottawa approved for DRAO. If I’m wrong, I’d love to hear it. The people who fall through the cracks The two main programs were designed for different kinds of water. The city’s Compassionate Grant covers sewer backup only and explicitly excludes overland flooding. DRAO covers overland flooding, but sewer backup generally isn’t eligible, and it only applies inside the designated zone. So if water came in through your window wells and you live outside that zone, you may qualify for neither. That zone left out flooded neighbourhoods including Centrepointe, Crystal Beach and Parkwood Hills. It also excluded Kanata North, which had the highest number of storm-related service requests in the city. The province says it drew the area using information the city provided. How many households are in that gap? Nobody has said. What we don’t know When the city formally asked, and for what. Show us the email, the letter, the form, whatever it was. Surely somebody put a formal request for assistance in writing. I’d like to know what was asked, by whom and when. The minister says nothing arrived before July 9; the mayor says that’s not accurate. They can’t both be right, and we need the paperwork to settle it. That’s also why Jeff Leiper, the mayor’s main challenger, has asked for the paper trail. A lot of people want to see it. One wrinkle: Dunlop is the emergency preparedness minister, but it’s the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing who activates DRAO. So which ministry received what? That’s part of what my requests ask. What it could mean for the LRT Here I’m thinking out loud about the possible consequences. The storm also flooded O-Train stations under construction on the western extension. I believe Moodie was among the worst hit, though I could be wrong, and I don’t know that the full extent of the damage has been made public. That matters because of the proposed upload of the LRT to the province. Sutcliffe and Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria signed a memorandum of understanding on April 21, and the mayor says the upload is close. The city says it would save $85 million a year, and its 2026 transit budget counts on $47 million from the province that still hasn’t been announced. If you’re Metrolinx, the provincial agency looking at taking over the LRT, and you discover significant damage, the conditions could change. And this next part is pure speculation, but I’ll be honest with you. I rarely see this kind of dynamic. If you’ve watched the video of Minister Dunlop answering Chandra Pasma’s question about the city applying for help eight days late, she was almost smiling. I can’t speak for the whole Ontario government, but this one minister appeared not unwilling to throw the mayor of Ottawa under a bus. I don’t know what the relationship between the two administrations looks like behind closed doors. But if you’ve lived in Ottawa long enough, you know the Ford government can be slow to remember that Ottawa is in Ontario. We certainly remember it from the occupation. I’m not putting all of this on Mark Sutcliffe; the Ford government has a lot to answer for too. But the city now has three asks open at Queen’s Park at once: the DRAO expansion, its MDRA claim, and the LRT money. That raises real questions about how well these two administrations can work together. Sources The storm and the city’s response * CP24 – Canada Day storm a 1-in-200-year event (https://www.cp24.com/news/canada/2026/07/11/canada-day-storm-a-1-in-200-year-weather-event-with-167-mm-of-rain-in-some-areas-city-of-ottawa/) * Insurance Business – rainfall record and grant funding (https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/ca/news/catastrophe/ottawa-boosts-flood-grant-funding-after-record-canada-day-storm-581473.aspx) * CTV News Ottawa – Sutcliffe on talks with Ford and ministers; grant boost (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/city-of-ottawa-boosting-funding-for-flooding-grant-program-in-wake-of-canada-day-storms-will-study-impacts/) * CTV News Ottawa – Red Cross appeal and July 15 motions (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/canadian-red-cross-launches-2026-ottawa-floods-appeal-to-support-flood-affected-residents/) * CTV News Ottawa – council update; flooding at Stage 2 west stations (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/red-cross-to-provide-support-to-flooded-ottawa-residents-mayor/) * City of Ottawa – Compassionate Grant program (https://ottawa.ca/en/living-ottawa/drinking-water-stormwater-and-wastewater/wastewater-and-sewers/basement-flooding/flooding-rebates-and-grant/compassionate-grant-program) Requests for provincial help and DRAO * CBC News – Dunlop on Ottawa’s flood response (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-flood-response-committee-dunlop-ontario-corps-9.7373224) * CP24 – councillors’ and MPPs’ open letter (https://www.cp24.com/news/canada/2026/07/05/ottawa-councillors-mpps-call-for-provincial-disaster-funding-after-canada-day-rainstorm/) * CTV News Ottawa – Flack on timing; Johnson’s July 10 comments (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/help-for-ottawa-floods-coming-sooner-rather-than-later-flack/) * Ontario NDP – Pasma on DRAO activation (https://francegelinas.ontariondp.ca/news/mpp-pasma-welcomes-drao-activation-ottawa-after-devastating-floods) * CTV News Ottawa – DRAO area and federal donation match (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/federal-government-to-match-donations-to-support-canada-day-flooding-victims-in-ottawa/) * Stephen Blais MPP – DRAO deadline (https://stephenblais.ca/news/flood-relief-finally-coming-for-ottawa) * CTV News Ottawa – July 24 update and request to expand DRAO (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/city-of-ottawa-requesting-province-expand-drao-eligibility-as-basement-flooding-reports-hit-6600/) * CTV News Ottawa – Poirier on the first DRAO map (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/city-officials-provide-canada-day-flood-recovery-update/) * Insurance Business – neighbourhoods left out of DRAO (https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/ca/news/catastrophe/ottawas-flood-map-error-leaves-victims-without-aid-583775.aspx) * CTV News Ottawa – September 23 MDRA motion (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/city-of-ottawa-to-apply-for-provincial-funding-following-july-1-floods/) How the programs work * Ontario – MDRA guidelines (https://www.ontario.ca/page/guidelines-apply-municipal-disaster-recovery-assistance-mdra) * Ontario – DRAO program guide (https://www.ontario.ca/document/guidelines-apply-disaster-recovery-assistance-ontarians-drao/1-introduction-program-guide) The LRT upload * CTV News Ottawa – OC Transpo deficit and the $47M placeholder (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/oc-transpo-facing-multi-million-dollar-deficit-as-ridership-only-67-of-pre-pandemic-levels/) * CTV News Ottawa – 2026 Ontario budget and the O-Train (https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/whats-in-the-2026-ontario-budget-for-ottawa-a-lot-of-previous-announcements/) Get full access to Random Acts of Urbanism by Brigitte Pellerin at randomactsofurbanism.substack.com/subscribe (https://randomactsofurbanism.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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