Rawlson King Answers CBC News Candidate Survey for Ward 13: Rideau-Rockcliffe

How many years have you lived in the ward?

I have lived in Rideau-Rockcliffe Ward for 22 years and in Ottawa for over 30 years. Over that time I have watched this community grow and change, and that lived experience informs everything I do as its councillor.

Why do you want to represent your ward on council?

Rideau-Rockcliffe is one of Ottawa’s most diverse wards, stretching from the working-class streets of Overbrook to the historic homes of Rockcliffe Park and the growing community of Wateridge Village. Every corner of this ward continues to deserve a councillor like myself who shows up, listens, and delivers. Over the past seven years I have secured over $400 million in infrastructure investment, $120 million in affordable housing, and meaningful policy wins on equity, public health, community safety, and heritage. That work is not finished. Housing must be more affordable, transit more reliable, and our streets safer. I am asking for the opportunity to keep doing this work on behalf of every resident of Ward 13, regardless of postal code or income level.

What professional or life experiences best prepared you to make city-wide policy and spending decisions?

First, my multi-faceted career path as an entrepreneur and communications professional in international trade, high-technology and market research gave me a rigorous grounding in data-driven decision making, financial accountability, and strategic planning. I understand how to evaluate evidence, weigh competing priorities, and make decisions that are fiscally responsible and outcomes-focused.

Second, my service as Treasurer of the Rideau-Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre, where as a volunteer board member I was responsible for overseeing a $1.7 million budget for several years, gave me direct, hands-on experience in financial stewardship, accountability, and the careful allocation of limited resources to serve community needs.

Third, my service on the Finance and Corporate Services Committee over the past four years, where I scrutinized city-wide budgets, capital plans, and long-term financial strategies, including the City’s most recent $5.2 billion operating budget and $1.92 billion capital budget, has given me a deep understanding of the trade-offs involved in major spending decisions and the importance of transparent, accountable resource allocation.

What professional or life experiences best prepared you to listen to constituents and weigh many competing interests?

First, my community roots in Rideau-Rockcliffe run deep and predate my election by 15 years. I served as President of the Overbrook Community Association from 2014 to 2019, giving me direct experience representing a diverse neighbourhood and navigating competing resident priorities. I also served as a board member at the Rideau-Rockcliffe Community Resource Centre from 2011 to 2019, where I gained firsthand understanding of the social service needs of the ward’s most vulnerable residents. I was President of Gallery 101, a prominent Ottawa artist-run centre, from 2011 to 2017, and a founding board member of the Rideau Winter Trail of Ottawa from 2020 to 2023. Before my election I also served as the first co-chair of the Ottawa Police Service Community Equity Council in 2018, a role that required building trust across communities with very different relationships to policing. That sustained record of volunteer community leadership was recognized with the United Way Ottawa Community Builder Award.

Second, my background in communication, market research, and international trade trained me to understand diverse perspectives, identify underlying interests, and synthesise complex, sometimes contradictory information into clear, actionable conclusions. Those skills translate directly into the work of ward representation, particularly when managing contentious planning, infrastructure, or policy decisions where residents hold strongly opposing views.

Third, seven years of ongoing, intensive community engagement as councillor in one of Ottawa’s most socially and economically diverse wards has deepened those foundations considerably. From consultations on transit, infrastructure, parks and equity, which involve public sessions, community surveys, and resident correspondence, to the planning processes for major developments in Overbrook, Manor Park and Wateridge Village, I have consistently prioritized hearing from residents before decisions are made rather than after. My work as Council Liaison for Anti-Racism and Ethnocultural Relations has further sharpened my understanding of systemic barriers and the importance of ensuring that equity-seeking communities have a genuine voice in decisions that affect them.

What is the single biggest challenge the City of Ottawa needs to prioritize in the next council term?

The city’s largest challenge is enhancing housing affordability and housing supply. Ottawa’s social housing waitlist encompasses thousands of households, and the gap between what residents can afford and what the market provides continues to widen. Every other challenge the city faces, including homelessness, community safety, public health, and transit ridership, is made worse by the failure to house people adequately. The next council must accelerate the transfer of city-owned land to non-profit and cooperative housing developers, maintain the pace of development approvals, ensure deeply affordable units are embedded in every significant project, build more affordable housing through Ottawa Community Housing, and sustain federal and provincial partnerships that bring the resources this challenge demands.

The 2026 budget raises property taxes by 3.75 per cent. What is the maximum tax increase you would support for the upcoming 2027 budget and why?

I would support a tax increase in the range of three to four percent for 2027, provided it is accompanied by a rigorous review of service efficiency and a clear accounting of what the increase delivers for residents. Property tax increases must be justified by tangible outcomes: renewed infrastructure, improved transit service, expanded housing supports, and maintained community facilities. I am not prepared to support increases that simply absorb administrative costs without producing visible improvements in the services residents depend on. At the same time, I will not support cuts that disproportionately harm lower-income residents or undermine the city’s long-term asset management obligations.

What should the city do to make life more affordable?

The city should continue transferring surplus municipal land to non-profit housing developers at below-market value to expand affordable rental supply without relying solely on tax revenue. It should commit to building more affordable and supportive housing. The city should effectively enhance and enforce its new “renoviction” bylaw to prevent bad-faith evictions that push renters out of affordable units. I would also support the creation of an “anti-demoviction” bylaw to better protect residents living in affordable rental units at risk of demolition, whether single or multi-unit, across the City of Ottawa. The city should also resist OC Transpo fare increases that discourage ridership among the residents who depend most on transit, and instead invest in frequency and reliability improvements that make transit a genuinely competitive choice. It should expand the urban tree canopy and green infrastructure to reduce household energy costs associated with urban heat. And it should continue investing in Neighbourhood Health and Wellness Hubs that bring health and social services directly to residents, reducing the cost and burden of accessing care.

Would you make any significant changes to the steps OC Transpo is taking?

Yes. For more than a decade before my election, transit in Ottawa was chronically underfunded, and residents paid the price in unreliable service, reduced frequencies, and cancelled routes. The City has now committed to more appropriate funding levels, which I strongly support. But funding alone is not sufficient. I would push for three specific changes. First, transparent, publicly reported performance metrics so that residents can see exactly how their investment is performing against defined service standards. Second, a firm commitment to resist fare increases while the system rebuilds trust, since ridership grows when service is trustworthy and affordable. Third, targeted frequency improvements on routes serving underserved and growing communities, including Wateridge Village and the Ward 13 corridors that have historically received inadequate service. Riders need to know a bus will come when it is supposed to, often enough to be useful, and that the network connects them to where they actually need to go.

OC Transpo keeps running deficits. Beyond requesting funding from other levels of government, how should that primarily be addressed? Increasing fares, a transit levy, or service cuts?

Transit levy

How appropriate is the budget for the Ottawa Police Service?

I believe in evidence-based public safety investment, and I believe the most effective approach to community safety requires balance between police funding and the City’s broader investment in upstream prevention. The police budget must be evaluated against measurable community safety outcomes, not simply maintained or increased by default. Within the police budget, the district deployment model is a police-led initiative that brings community officers closer to the neighbourhoods they serve, and it is a promising step toward more responsive, community-rooted policing. Alongside that, the City funds complementary safety initiatives such as the ANCHOR program, which deploys health professionals to respond to mental health and substance-use crises that would otherwise fall to police. Getting the balance right means ensuring the police budget is sized appropriately for core policing functions, while the City sustains and grows its investment in housing, mental health, youth supports, and poverty reduction that reduce the demand on police over time. Both sides of that equation matter, and I will continue to advocate for balance.

Please explain how you think funding for police should be changed.

I do not support automatic annual increases to the police budget disconnected from evidence of need and outcomes. Funding decisions should be guided by data on where police resources are most effectively deployed, what calls for service could be better handled by health or social service professionals, and whether the district deployment model is producing the community safety improvements it promises. I will continue to support the ANCHOR program and similar health-led responses as complements to, not replacements for, effective policing. The goal is a community safety system that works for everyone, particularly for residents who have historically experienced policing inequitably.

How would you describe your ward to people who don’t live there?

Rideau-Rockcliffe Ward 13 is one of Ottawa’s most remarkable wards precisely because it contains so many different “Ottawas” within its boundaries. A short journey takes you from Overbrook, a vibrant, diverse, working-class neighbourhood with a strong community identity, through Manor Park’s quiet post-war streets, past the embassies and heritage homes of Rockcliffe Park, along the Ottawa River, and into the emerging mixed-income community of Wateridge Village, all within a few compact kilometres. The ward includes some of the city’s most significant built heritage, including New Edinburgh and Lindenlea, mid-century modern communities like Carson Grove, Castle Heights and Cummings, and unique neighbourhoods like Quarries. The ward is bountiful in greenspace and tree canopy. And with its economic diversity and some of the city’s most pressing social challenges, it is a ward that demands a councillor who is genuinely committed to every part of it.

What is the biggest improvement you have seen in your ward since the 2022 municipal election?

The scale and pace of housing development, both new and proposed, in the Coventry Road corridor in Overbrook and as well as in the newer community of Wateridge Village. The approval of approximately 1,770 new homes on the Coventry Road corridor and the mixed-income and accessible housing project on Presland Road in Overbrook, along with the 121 new rental homes at 375 Codd’s Road in Wateridge Village, including deeply affordable units, represent a genuine transformation. Alongside that, the expansion of the ANCHOR mental health crisis response program to Overbrook and the restoration of the Centennial Garden in Village Green Park in Rockcliffe Park and investments in Hemlock Park in Manor Park have demonstrated that growth and community investment can happen together.

Just a note that while intensification will be necessary to deal with housing issues in Ward 13, it will not be sufficient on its own. The right kind of intensification, density near transit, mixed-income development that includes affordable and deeply subsidized units, and design that respects neighbourhood character and heritage, is essential to addressing Ward 13’s housing challenges. Intensification that simply adds market-rate units without affordability requirements, transit connectivity, parks, or community infrastructure does not solve the housing crisis. It displaces it. My approach has been to support density where it is appropriate and to insist that every significant development contributes to the community infrastructure the ward needs.

What is the top infrastructure need in your ward?

Continued integrated renewal of aging roads, sewers, and watermains, particularly in the older parts of the ward where underground infrastructure is well past its expected service life. The Manor Park integrated renewal, the de l’Église and Blake Street renewal, and the Prince Albert and Queen Mary Street projects represent exactly the kind of coordinated investment that maximizes value by renewing multiple systems simultaneously. The next term must ensure that projects currently in design or planning proceed on schedule, and that the next generation of priority areas is identified and funded without delay. Every year of deferral compounds the eventual cost.

Agree or disagree? Intensification will be important to deal with housing issues in my ward. (Strongly Agree is 5. Strongly Disagree is 1.)

4

Ottawa has experienced tornadoes, wildfire smoke and flash floods. Should the City of Ottawa prioritize investments that make its infrastructure more resilient to climate change, even if it means spending less in other areas?

Yes

Feel free to expand on your answer above about infrastructure and extreme weather.

Climate resilience should not be considered a separate budget line to be traded off against other priorities. It must be embedded in every infrastructure, transportation, and planning decision the city makes. Road reconstruction projects should incorporate improved stormwater management. New developments should be required to meet higher resilience standards. The urban tree canopy, which is our most cost-effective urban heat mitigation tool, must be expanded and protected. Investing in resilience now is fiscally prudent: the cost of adaptation is consistently lower than the cost of disaster response and recovery.

Ottawa faces a significant $10.8 billion infrastructure deficit, and the backlog of road and sewer repairs cannot be ignored. I have strongly advocated for renewal, securing over $400 million in infrastructure investment in Ward 13 since my election. Every reconstruction project should be used as an opportunity to improve stormwater drainage, expand green infrastructure, and build for the climate conditions we know are coming rather than the conditions of the past. I am open to examining the prospect of dedicated infrastructure funding mechanisms, provided they are transparent, accountable, and implemented in a way that does not disproportionately burden lower-income residents. The $305.5 million committed to water, wastewater, and stormwater systems in the 2026 capital budget reflects the scale of investment required. Sustaining that level of commitment must be a priority for the next council.

Residents often say city infrastructure and services aren’t keeping up with new development. What specific policy or funding changes would you push for to fix this gap?

Several specific changes. First, the Municipal Land Strategy must be used proactively to transfer city-owned surplus land to affordable housing developers before development pressure drives up surrounding land values. Second, development charges, cash-in-lieu-of-parkland contributions, and/or evolving equivalents from senior levels of government must be collected consistently and directed to ward-level infrastructure and parks that serve growing communities. Third, the city’s capital planning process must project infrastructure needs based on approved development pipelines, not just current population, so that parks, community facilities, transit connections, and road capacity are planned ahead of demand rather than retrofitted after the fact. Fourth, every major infrastructure renewal project must incorporate complete streets improvements, accessibility upgrades, and stormwater resilience measures so that the full value of each capital investment is realized.

What would you do to improve traffic problems in your ward?

My priorities for the next term include revitalizing Beechwood Avenue through a public realm improvement project, advancing North River Road improvements, completing the Donald Street and Vanier Parkway protected intersection upgrades, and delivering Bathgate Drive renewal. Where residents are experiencing speeding or cut-through traffic, I will continue to deploy traffic calming measures through the ward’s annual traffic calming allocation. I will also continue to advance the St. Laurent Boulevard Transit Priority Corridor, which will improve transit reliability and reduce car dependency along one of the ward’s most important corridors. Safety and neighbourhood mobility are not in conflict. Good street design delivers both.

What other priorities matter to you in your run for councillor that might not have been captured above?

Three things. First, the Kettle Island Bridge proposal. I oppose this project, which would generate additional traffic and pollution along the Aviation Parkway corridor and will not resolve the downtown truck problem it purports to address. I recently introduced a successful motion calling for an extended federal consultation period and proper regional coordination before any consequential decisions are made by the federal government. Second, heritage conservation. As the founding Chair of Ottawa’s full standing Built Heritage Committee, I have worked to modernize conservation policy and support adaptive reuse of significant buildings. Ward 13 contains some of Ottawa’s most important built heritage, and protecting it while accommodating growth requires active, informed advocacy at the council table. Third, community vitality. The organizations, businesses, community associations, social service agencies and local events that give Rideau-Rockcliffe its identity and its social fabric require ongoing support and investment. A ward is more than its infrastructure. It is the community that uses it, and that community, and its people, deserves a councillor who understands and champions it.