If there’s one thing I’ve heard a thousand times over the years, it’s that political candidates certainly prefer to win, but they always learn more when they lose.
A little over two years ago, Catherine McKenney had one of those learning experiences. Lots of people were predicting McKenney would make history, becoming Canada’s first big-city, transgender, non-binary mayor. One poll even showed McKenney with a big lead. But when the votes were counted, McKenney was 13.5 percentage points behind Mark Sutcliffe, who became Ottawa’s 59th mayor in November 2022.
“The polls weren’t telling the whole story,” McKenney tells me during a break from canvassing in this 44th general election. “But I have no regrets. And I had a very nice conversation with Mark after the campaign. I told him I’d never run against him again, and I wished him well. A day or two later, I thought I’d moved on.”
Turns out, McKenney needed more time to absorb the experience of running for mayor.
“Looking back at it now, it was five or six months before I could think about what might come next,” McKenney confesses. “What else could I contribute? It was hard to answer because I’d put so much of my heart and soul into the mayor’s race.” McKenney thought that would likely be it for politics. Having been chief adviser to the deputy city manager, there was no interest in party politics.
But it turns out McKenney wasn’t done with politics after all. When Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden announced he would seek to become the riding’s MP in the next federal election, that opened up an NDP nomination in the riding for the provincial election.
The NDP had asked McKenney to run for them in the past, but the answer was always the same: “Not very likely. I’ve always been an independent, lone-wolf type.”
But McKenney heard NDP leader Marit Stiles interviewed on a few podcasts, found her to be smart and tough, and felt comfortable putting their name back on a ballot.
“I thought I’d never run again,” they insist. “I’ve never been interested in party politics.”
But as they thought about it more, the logic of trying again became more compelling. The issues that were dominant in McKenney’s mayoral platform — homelessness, public transit, and mental health — are all things that require strong provincial involvement. McKenney is also fortunate to have a wife (executive director of a supportive-housing organization) who’s very supportive of their political career.
“My wife is my biggest fan,” they say. “I wouldn’t have run for mayor or council before that without her encouragement.”
That’s an essential part of being an MPP, since the winning candidate will be living away from home, in Toronto, for nearly half the year. But McKenney says their wife will have lots of company: two dogs and two cats. But not the two pet rats who just died.
Pet rats?
“I think you have to understand rats to know how special they are,” McKenney says absolutely seriously. “They come when they’re called!”
If history is any indication, McKenney’s chief opponent is Liberal candidate Thomas Simpson, a former public servant and vice-president of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, who got into some hot water last week for something he tweeted 13 years ago.
“Consent is not sexy #success,” he posted then. Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie insisted Simpson has apologized for the tweet. He posted as “a young man,” she said, “and he understands that is not appropriate and not tolerated.”
The PC candidate in the race is Scott Healey, president of a non-profit organization, while the Greens are running Simon Beckett, a small-business owner who works in the housing industry. Since 1967, the riding has been held by the Liberals for 30 years and by the NDP for 28. The Tories have never won the seat.
However, if the 63-year-old McKenney prevails on February 27, one thing definitely will not happen. As McKenney’s 17-year-old daughter, who will be going to university in Toronto next year, says: “If you win, we are not living together.”
This is the final column in a four-part series featuring candidates for the four major parties. For the column on the PCs’ Brian Saunderson, click here; on the Liberals’ Stephanie Smyth, click here; and on the Greens’ Aislinn Clancy, click here.