Meet the candidates in Ottawa South

Expect the same: The riding of Ottawa South is a strong one for the Liberals. Incumbent MPP John Fraser has held it since 2013, and before that, it was represented by former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. In fact, it’s been Liberal since McGuinty’s father won it over from the PCs back in 1987. 

By the numbers: It’s unlikely to change hands when voters head to the polls on Feb. 27, though the NDP is showing increasing support. They took only 12 per cent of the vote in 2015 compared to 27 per cent in 2018 when they came in third place to the PCs by only about 1,000 votes. 

• In the most recent 2022 election, NDP candidate Morgan Gay managed to come in second place with 23 per cent of the vote. He lost with a little over 8,600 fewer votes than the incumbent Liberals. 

Gay is running for the NDP in Ottawa South again, where he will be going up against Fraser, who has served various stints as interim Ontario Liberal party leader. Jan Gao was declared as the PC candidate and Nira Dookeran is running for the Greens. The New Blue Party will also have Alex Perrier’s name on the ballot. 

The Ottawa Lookout contacted the three main party candidates to learn more about why they are running. Answers have been edited for length and clarity. 

John Fraser - Liberal (incumbent) 

Background:  Before serving as the riding representative himself, Fraser worked as a constituency assistant for McGuinty for 14 years. Before that, he spent 18 years managing small- and medium-sized local businesses. Under the Kathleen Wynne-led Liberal government, Fraser served as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. This will be his fifth provincial election. 

Healthcare: “Every hospital in this city expanded when we were in government. You can take a look at Roger’s House at CHEO, the expansions of the Max Keeping Wing, or look at the Ottawa Hospital with the regional cancer wing or the critical care at the Queensway Carleton. But there is more work to be done. Our hospitals are overcrowded right now and our ERs are under stress. 

More than 21,000 people in Ottawa South don't have a family doctor. That's one in six people. If you don't have a family doctor, it's very hard to be healthy. It's very hard to have a chronic disease that you haven't discovered yet. It's hard to get a referral. We need to get these basics right and that includes more team-based care and bringing nurse practitioners under OHIP. The only option they have right now if they open a clinic is to bill privately. They are providing primary care and they should be covered. A lady I met at the door last night said she just spent a week in a hospital and was in six different beds. That's not acceptable. 

For foreign training physicians, we need to be more fully aggressive with what's called the Practice Ready Program. It’s something we had until 2018, when the government cancelled it and then brought it back last year. There are thousands of foreign-trained physicians who could work in this practice.”

Affordability and housing: “I know this city has been trying to do some things municipality with renovictions, but we as a province need to do more as well. We need to have a balance. You have to be fair to landlords, but you have to be fair to tenants so that they don't suffer."

Nearby at Abbotsford, they're looking to build some more units, which are affordable for seniors. In terms of ODSP, Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie just made a commitment to double it, which will help a lot of people who are on that fixed income be able to afford the place they live and be able to eat and some other things. 

We need to help first-time homebuyers and seniors who are downsizing by eliminating the land transfer tax. We are also commuting to take the HST off of the provincial portion of the tax off home heating electricity.”

Transit and uploading the LRT to the province: “It will free up about $100 million for the city, which is pretty substantial. The Liberals are also commuting to funding Phase 3 out to Barrhaven, Kanata and Stittsville. 

What makes our plan different is we’ve committed to a connection between Rockland and Orleans by making the road more usable with a High Occupancy Vehicle lane or, eventually a HOV bus lane. Unless we build this you are not going to get public transportation coming into the city to use light rail. It will better utilize the transit system that we’ve built.”

Favorite restaurant and hangout spot: “Sala Thai Cuisine is my go-to. There’s also a lot of good shawarma. My favourite is probably Cedars. They have a store in the riding which hasn’t made it for a while, but there is also one nearby on Bank Street in Old Ottawa South. I’ll say this, Ottawa South is the Shawarma Capital in Ottawa. 

For fun, I go to Grasshopper Hill a lot. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old black lab Kealey who I walk every day. It’s near Kilborn and has the Pleasant Park Woods in the back. It’s like if the few dog packs where you can go off leash.”

Morgan Gay - NDP

Background: Gay has called Ottawa South home for 18 years and is a board member of the Alta Vista Community Association. Professionally he works as a negotiator with the Public Service Alliance of Canada, fighting for fair wages and working conditions. Gay is also a board member of the Heron Emergency Food Bank. 

Transit: “First off, I think most folks would agree in our city that the transit is pretty shambolic. One of the main reasons for that is it is not funded in the same way that other municipalities are funded in Ontario. Frankly, Ottawa gets the short end of the stick. Toronto is almost three times the funding that we receive for transit in Ottawa. 

Instead of uploading the LRT to the province, we believe in a 50/50 cost-sharing split. Metrolink has not proven to be reliable in terms of its administration of transit, and quite frankly, it's top-heavy. They spend a lot of money on senior executives and they don't spend the money where they need to, which is on transit itself.”

Healthcare: “The system is a disaster and what we need to do is properly invest in health care and we're not doing that right now. First and foremost, we have thousands and thousands of people in this community who don't even have a family doctor. We need to streamline the process for people who have medical training from elsewhere in the world.

I was talking to somebody recently in our community who is like a surgeon in Syria and has not been given the opportunity to practice here in Canada, because of paperwork. 

We need to be looking at expanding community health hubs that we see opening in Ontario. We have one on Bank Street. We also need to get for-profit healthcare out of our system.“

Education: “My wife teaches students with special needs and the funding is being cut. The Ottawa Carleton District School Board is having to restructure because there's not enough funding. So they're cutting programs, and the programs they're cutting are for the students who have special needs. It's a disaster. It's a crisis in our schools. 

Class sizes are huge. People are leaving the profession because of burnout. There are 40 kids in the class. It does not make any sense. The NDP has a plan to put over 800 million dollars a year into schools to fix this backlog, and also we need higher educators and support staff in the schools because we don't have enough now.“

Affordable housing: ”We have a housing crisis in Ottawa South. We were housing homeless folks, initially in the Jim Durrell Recreation Centre, and we've had to move those people over to the community centre on Heron Road. What we need is more co-op housing, more subsidized housing, and we're not doing that now. 

I was really active as a member of our community association when the Herongate crisis happened under the Liberals. It was the largest eviction in Canada, mass eviction. It was basically a renoviction. We need to put an end to that.”

Favorite restaurant and hangout spot: “I love fresh fish. The Pelican Grill over on Bank Street has a local draft beer on tap, so it’s among my favourites. 

I love outdoor winter sports, and one of the lovely things about being in Ottawa is there are so many places to go. I spend a lot of time on the Rideau Winter Trail. We’ve donated to it every year.”

Jan Gao - Progressive Conservative 

The Lookout reached out to GAO multiple times for an interview but did not hear back ahead of publication. 

• According to the PC party website: “Gao brings years of professional expertise and a strong commitment to her community. A longtime resident of Ottawa South, she has lived in the riding for over 23 years and has a deep understanding of the issues that matter most to local families. With a master’s degree in public administration from Queen’s University and an accomplished career in consulting and corporate leadership, Jan is ready to deliver results for the people of Ottawa South.”