Mark Sutcliffe pledges boost for police and new 'downtown safety czar' if re

Mark Sutcliffe pledges boost for police and new 'downtown safety czar' if re-elected

Rivals question why planks of public safety plan weren't done sooner

Mark Sutcliffe is promising to boost police resources, rapidly clear out homeless encampments and appoint a "downtown safety czar" if re-elected for a second term as mayor.

Sutcliffe announced his public safety plan at Fisher Park on Thursday, saying that he wants to balance compassion and enforcement to address a sense of insecurity in Ottawa.

"You deserve to feel safe in your community," he said.

"I hear often from residents who have witnessed a change in the past few years. People don't feel as safe as they used to in their own neighbourhood and when they are going downtown."

Sutcliffe, who's been mayor since 2022, is promising an additional 200 police officers, 100 paramedics and 50 firefighters if he beats out 13 challengers on Oct. 26.

He said he would support devoting more police resources to priority areas such as guns and gangs, intimate partner violence and hate crimes.

Yet it's unclear how Sutcliffe would ensure that happens.

While city council has a direct role in paramedics and fire services and approves an overall police budget, it doesn't make decisions on police staffing or operations.

That's the role of the chief and the civilian police services board, a body Sutcliffe once sat on but vacated after two years.

He said he has worked closely with police and the board and can't imagine that they would oppose the staffing levels or strategies he's running on.

"If I have a mandate from the people of Ottawa to move forward on these priorities, it will be clear to the police service and the police board that that's what the people of Ottawa want," he said.

Downtown safety czar 'a position like no other'

Sutcliffe said he will treat the toxic drug, mental health and homelessness crisis as an emergency. Last council term the city declared a housing emergency in 2020.

He said he will bring on a new "downtown safety czar" to lead the response. He said they will have a clear mandate to deliver on an action plan and lead a task force to co-ordinate resources.

"The downtown safety czar is going to be a position like no other in the city right now," he said.

"It's still a city employee who will have to report through the normal channels, but it will be someone who will be given lots of autonomy."

These are Ottawa's 2026 candidates for mayor

Your one-stop shop for Ottawa's 2026 municipal election

He also promised to double funding for the alternate neighbourhood crisis response (ANCHOR) program, which provides alternatives to policing to deal with addictions and mental health calls.

Ottawa has seen growing numbers of homeless encampments in recent years. There were 50 scattered across the city this time last year, and one recent example left thousands of discarded needles.

The city has aimed to clear them out within five to six days, but has struggled to meet those targets as staffing shortages have led to lengthy delays. City staff have also laid out limits to what it can do on private or National Capital Commission land.

On Wednesday, Sutcliffe committed to making sure encampments are removed within two to five days of being reported by residents.

"The objective is not to clear out encampments and just displace people and have them somewhere else," he said.

"The objective is to connect them with the care, treatment and housing that they require to recover from their circumstances."

Police budget will increase, Sutcliffe says

Sutcliffe said he would put more police officers in schools, crack down on speeding in school zones and expand neighbourhood watch programs, while pushing other levels of government to increase penalties for drug dealers — saying he's angry at a "revolving door" approach to sentencing.

He also promised to increase security in parks and on OC Transpo while improving lighting and adding cameras "where it makes the most sense."

Sutcliffe didn't give any figures for how much his plan will cost, saying that will follow when he releases his fiscal plan. He said the police budget will increase and he will "fight any effort to defund the police."

But he said that's not a "blank cheque." In the future, he said he will tie police budget hikes to their success in getting results.

According to 2025 data, Ottawa has one of the lowest crime severity indexes of any major municipality in Canada and it hasn't changed much over recent years.

The crime severity index weighs different types of offences by how serious they are: a murder or armed robbery counts for more than shoplifting, for example.

Despite that data, Sutcliffe said residents still have "very legitimate concerns" about safety.

"We can't rest on our laurels and allow some of the big-city issues that have struck other cities in Canada and throughout North America to hit Ottawa," he said.

Saravanamuttoo promises 'noise cameras'

Sutcliffe wasn't the only candidate to release a public safety plan this week.

Neil Saravanamuttoo released his on Wednesday, with an idea to build a village of tiny homes to support homeless people taking centre stage.

Neil Saravanamuttoo vows to copy idea of Gatineau tiny home village if elected mayor

Ottawa mayoral candidates make promises on public housing and jobs

"For many, public safety starts with the homelessness and addictions crisis," he said.

Sutcliffe says his homelessness plan is coming soon.

Saravanamuttoo also promised to expand the police-alternative ANCHOR program citywide and to scale up needle cleanup efforts and mobile health clinics.

He also pledged to work with the province to ensure detox and addiction recovery beds are available on the same day people seek them.

He promised to do a "comprehensive value-for-money review" on policing before giving any funding boost to Ottawa police.

He said he would work with fire and paramedic services to find service gaps and improve response times, including by looking at staffing, partnerships with neighbouring municipalities and where stations are located.

Saravanamutoo also wants to crack down on noisy vehicles through a pilot program using "automated noise cameras" to enforce the city's noise bylaw.

"This is simply a camera that captures a licence plate but registers noise decibels at the same time," he said.

"There's a number of cars where the muffler has been modified deliberately to be noisier than it needs to be. That is the kind of behaviour I know upsets a lot of people, myself included."

Sutcliffe said it sounds like a good idea but one he would have to further explore.

Rivals say Sutcliffe had 4 years to get results

Mayoral candidate Jeff Leiper likewise promised to expand ANCHOR citywide, saying he would rely more on alternative models to ensure police can focus on community safety.

He has also promised to increase staffing for bylaw enforcement to improve response times.

He reacted to Sutcliffe's announcement on Thursday by saying that the mayor's policies haven't worked. He said the focus on enforcement in the ByWard Market has simply pushed the problem into other neighbourhoods.

"In the last four years, fewer and fewer residents [and] families feel safe in their own neighbourhoods," he said.

"I would ask Mark Sutcliffe where he's been for the last four years as communities have been crying out for help."

Mayoral race turns negative as Sutcliffe campaign launches attacks that rivals call smears

Jeff Leiper unveils partial mayoral platform on Day 1 of campaign

Sutcliffe said he has made major progress over the past four years, with record police funding, an expansion of ANCHOR and a new neighbourhood operations centre near the ByWard Market, though he said there's still work to do.

He also faulted Leiper from repeatedly voting against police budgets in the past and writing an op-ed in 2020 that advocated for a police budget decrease to redirect funding to other areas.

On Thursday, Leiper said he's not in favour of defunding the police but wants alternatives to see equivalent budget increases.

"Policing is certainly part of the solution," he said.

Candidate Alex Lawson agreed with Leiper that Sutcliffe has had plenty of time and hasn't succeeded.

"It's a document of all the things he should have been doing over the past four years," he said of Sutcliffe's new plan.

"If he'd done any of this in the last four years, I'd be knocking on doors for him instead of running against him."

Mayoral candidate Alex Lawson says he'd cut building fees in new housing plan

Mayoral candidates divided on whether a ring road can solve gridlock in Ottawa

Lawson has not yet released a public safety plan, but said it's coming soon. He said it will keep Ottawa safe for vulnerable people with substance use disorders and people who are simply afraid to use a bus or take their kid to the park.

In his view, police have been "chronically underfunded for years."

Arthur White-Crummey is the municipal affairs reporter at CBC Ottawa. He grew up in Ottawa, spent years in Saskatchewan covering the courts, city hall and the provincial legislature, before moving back to his hometown. You can reach him at arthur.white-crummey@cbc.ca