Inside Sutcliffe's campaign week: the incumbent stays quiet, lets others do the talking

During the penultimate week of the mayoral campaign, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe visited golf courses, banquet halls, The Ottawa Mission, and a centenary celebration for Rockcliffe Park. What emerges from shadowing his week is a candidate who often only speaks when called upon—and who appeared comfortable letting others do the talking.

At Irish Hills Golf and Country Club, partly owned by real estate broker and event organizer Jagdeep Perhar, Sutcliffe met Devin Michael Fitzgerald O'Brien, a Stittsville city council candidate who runs a store specializing in Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon trading cards. O'Brien pushed Sutcliffe for more infrastructure spending in Stittsville. During the exchange, O'Brien appeared to be keeping Sutcliffe longer than he wanted. Sutcliffe maintained eye contact and "Zen equanimity," according to reporting from the Ottawa Citizen, and never wavered in focus—but he let O'Brien do the talking. At the same event, Sutcliffe delivered his campaign message: Ottawa is projected to grow by 500,000 people.

Polling analysis suggests Sutcliffe can count on support in the suburbs and outer reaches, while his three main opponents—Jeff Leiper, Neil Saravanamuttoo, and Alex Lawson—have locked down downtown. Dan Arnold of Pollara told the Citizen: "It doesn't seem like there's been a coalescing of the change vote behind any single challenger."

Voters' main concerns—unreliable transit, homelessness, and increasingly open drug use—are widely seen as chronic problems not of Sutcliffe's making. Affordability concerns, shared by people across Canada, weigh on residents as well. Sutcliffe has pledged to keep tax increases low, below the rate of inflation, for the first two years of a next term if re-elected.

Sutcliffe told the Citizen: "I don't look at opinion polls. Last time around, there wasn't a single published poll that showed me ahead before Election Day. So I don't pay attention. I run like I'm in second place. I do my job. I talk to the people of Ottawa."

As HighOnCity reported in August, questions persist about whether Sutcliffe has kept the promises he made four years ago. In July, HOC noted his campaign had focused on attacking rivals instead of discussing policy. On October 16, HOC covered Sutcliffe's unveiling of a comprehensive 70-page mayoral platform ahead of the October 26 election.