While I am sure Clive Doucet’s main detractors are lining up their articles, blog posts and tweets for the weekend, I am also equally sure that momentum is on Clive’s side. Heading into the last weekend of campaigning before election day on Monday, I am both shocked and amazed at how both Watson and O’Brien have demonstrated themselves in the public this week, but pleased with Clive’s performance and attention to the public. The only candidate to care about important issues to community groups and organizations appears to be Clive and that rang true with Watson, O’Brien and even Haydon ditching key interviews, debates and even reports.
Noreen Fagan, writing for Xtra! Ottawa, sat down with Clive to discuss the campaign and his belief in community involvement. It was an exceptionally long article not because Clive had a lot to say (clearly he did), but a lot of it was because the other front runners declined an interview for various reasons. I am not going to speculate their reasons, but missing out on talking to the GLBT community is damaging. Ottawa has become a city that not only recognizes the importance of Xtra! and the community it serves, but also there is a large “straight, not narrow” segment of readers as well. For Watson, O’Brien and Haydon to decline an interview is nothing more than a slap in the face.
The Make Women Count bilingual debate on Wednesday evening was attended by 10 mayoral candidates, but only one of those was a leading candidate in Clive Doucet. Watching Twitter of the debate told me two things. First was that Clive was well respected by those who attended to watch the debate and that the perception was that Watson, O’Brien and Haydon clearly do not care enough about issues that are important to women of Ottawa. Does that sound a little harsh to you? That is the message the candidates who skipped this debate were sending when they do not show up. Unfortunately the debate was ended early when candidate Robin Lawrence fell ill and paramedics were called to aid him. I do hope he is OK.
Thursday evening the final debate took place live on Rogers 22. Haydon prattled on about how no one speaks about issues; Watson dodged issues; O’Brien said he’s done more for Ottawa than Haydon has in his entire lifetime. Clive took to task and focused on Watson and Joanne Chianello of the Ottawa Citizen summarized it as Clive going out with guns blazing. As far as I am concerned and can tell, I agree with Clive when he said Watson as “been on the campaign trail for a lot longer” and that Watson has had a lot of time to develop his program in which Clive sees nothing in. For a professional politician who once was mayor of Ottawa and left the job early – much to the dismay and outrage of the citizens at the time – Watson’s campaign has been one of say a lot, but do so with very little meaning.
Additionally, I recently received the ACORN Ottawa list of the candidates who support a living wage in Ottawa. When I looked at the list I was not shocked to find that Clive was the only leading mayoral candidate who believes that the people of Ottawa should be able to get past pay cheque-to-pay cheque living. The following is a list of candidates who do or do not support a Living Wage according to ACORN (contact me or ACORN to have this updated if you do in fact support):
Mayoral Candidates who support a living wage: Clive Doucet, Robert G. Gauthier, Jane Scharf, Charlie Taylor, Irdis Ben-Tahir and Michael St-Armand.
Mayoral Candidate who do not support a living wage: Larry O’Brien (incumbent), Mike Maguire
Ward 1 – None support, Bob Monette (incumbent) does not support a living wage
Ward 2 – None support, Rainer Bloess (incumbent) is undecided
Ward 3 – None support, Jan Harder (incumbent) did not respond
Ward 4 – Marianne Wilkinson (incumbent) supports a living wage
Ward 5 – None support, Eli El-Chantiry (incumbent) does not support a living wage
Ward 6 – None support, Shad Qadri (incumbent) does not support a living wage
Ward 7 – Alex Cullen (incumbent) supports a living wage, George Guirguis (candidate) does not support
Ward 8 – Rick Chiarelli (incumbent) does not support a living wage, William McKinnon (candidate) supports a living wage
Ward 9 – None support or did not replied
Ward 10 – None support, Diane Deans (incumbent) is undecided
Ward 11 – None support, Michael Bellemare (incumbent) is undecided
Ward 12 – None support, Georges Bedard (incumbent) supports a living wage
Ward 13 – Harley Collison, Rawlson King and James Parker all support a living wage
Ward 14 – Diane Holmes (incumbent) supports a living wage
Ward 15 – None support, Christine Leadman (incumbent) is undecided
Ward 16 – Maria McRae (incumbent) did not reply, Nadia Willard (candidate) supports a living wage
Ward 17 – Bob Brocklebank (incumbent) supports a living wage
Ward 18 – Peter Hume (incumbent) supports a living wage
Ward 19 – Robert Jellett (incumbent) is undecided
Ward 20 – Doug Thompson (incumbent) does not support a living wage
Ward 21 – None support or did not replied
Ward 22 – Steve Desroches (incumbent) does not support a living wage
Ward 23 – None support or did not replied
Campaign headquarters has been busy with activity, donations and good cheer. Heading into this weekend we are all energized and believe that momentum is indeed on our side. It is going to be close!
No comments:
Post a Comment