First-time Ontario NDP candidate Catherine McKenney said they hope to use their city council experience to advocate for a better Ottawa Centre at the provincial level.
McKenney served as the city councillor for Somerset Ward for eight years and finished runner-up in the 2022 mayoral race behind Mark Sutcliffe. After their time on city council, they co-founded CitySHAPES, an organization focused on building better cities.
“I was thinking about how much I liked being a city councillor and I thought this would be the perfect place to continue the work I care deeply about,” they said.
The Ottawa Centre riding has been held by MPP Joel Harden since 2018. Harden is not running for re-election, as he was nominated to represent the federal NDP in Ottawa Centre in the next federal election.
McKenney joined Harden and Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster at a town hall organized by the Carleton University New Democrats on Feb. 12 to discuss the NDP’s proposals in the Ottawa Centre riding on affordable housing, health care, climate change and the economy.
Affordable housing
At the town hall event, McKenney emphasized housing as a top priority.
“We have to build deeply affordable housing,” McKenney said. “People need to be able to pay their rent when they are on low incomes.”
The Ontario NDP has promised to bring back rent control and crack down on renovictions in the province. The party has also promised to accelerate infrastructure projects, including the construction of 250,000 affordable homes.
McKenney said the province needs to take immediate action toward ending homelessness.
“We need to make investments in wraparound supports,” McKenney said. “We’ve got supportive housing organizations in the city that house people. We just need the funding to scale it up.”
Health care
McKenney criticized the current Progressive Conservative government, saying it has “taken so much funding out” of the province’s health-care system.
“We’ve got a government that is funding private health-care clinics and saying no to our community health centres,” they said.
McKenney said they would like to see more investment in public community health centres, particularly in Ottawa’s Centretown neighbourhood.
The Ontario NDP has promised access to a family doctor for every Ontarian by spending more than $4 billion to recruit 3,500 new doctors over the next four years. The party has also pledged to hire at least 15,000 nurses over three years at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion.
Climate change and transportation
The Ontario NDP has pledged to invest in public transportation by assuming half of OC Transpo’s operating costs to reverse LRT service cuts.
“We absolutely need to pay for transit funding,” McKenney said.
The party has promised to bring the province to net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Ontario NDP also said it would provide income-dependent rebates to households switching their home’s heating from propane, oil or coal to renewable energy sources.
Economic issues
The Ontario NDP has promised to introduce a monthly grocery rebate for low and middle-income households.
The monthly rebate would provide $40 per adult and $20 per child to all families with an annual net household income of $65,000 or less and all individuals with an annual net income of $50,000 or less. The measure would cost the treasury $4.9 billion per year.
For more information on McKenney’s platform, visit their campaign page.
Featured image by Michael McBean.
