#469 If they need a sign - they are not my kind of voter

Two Names. No Sign Required.

Ward 13, October 2026 — a simple and radical concept

There are two names on the Ward 13 ballot this October. Mine, and Rawlson King's. That's it. No slate of six to sort through. No ballot-order luck. No obscure name you've never heard of buried at position four.

Two names. A record for each. And four years of consequences for whichever one you pick.

So here's the radical part: in a two-name race, a lawn sign tells you nothing. It doesn't tell you who showed up to committee. It doesn't tell you who sat on Transit Commission while making public statements about transit oversight. It doesn't tell you who read the Auditor General's findings and who didn't. All it tells you is who has more signs — which is a function of budget, volunteers, and how many people already knew the name before the campaign started. That's it. That's the whole signal.

If you need a sign to know for whom to vote, you are not my kind of voter.

I don't mean that as a dig at people who are busy, or tired, or reasonably distrustful of political noise. I mean it literally: the sign is a substitute for the thing you're actually supposed to be doing, which is deciding who gets four years of your ward's transit oversight, your ward's police board scrutiny, your ward's say over how the next flood, the next tunnel closure, the next budget vote gets handled. A sign can't do that job. It was never built to.

The shortcut only works when someone else already checked

Signs, name recognition, "the incumbent" — these are shortcuts that make sense when you trust that someone already vetted the choice. A party did the vetting. A newspaper endorsement did the vetting. A trusted friend who follows this stuff closely did the vetting, and you're just deferring to them.

Ottawa municipal races don't have that layer. No party primary. Minimal media coverage — this race has had close to none. Ottawa's incumbents win reelection essentially every time, in an environment where roughly 40% of eligible voters turn out at all. Nobody is checking anybody's work for you. The shortcut you're using was built for a system that doesn't exist here.

What the record says instead

You don't need to trust me on this. You need forty-five minutes and an internet connection. Read the Auditor General's actual findings on the Police Services Board. Look up whether your councillor ever sat on the Transit Commission or the Light Rail Subcommittee before making public statements calling for stronger transit oversight. Look at what got said about a tunnel with a 2020 "urgent" safety finding that's still not repaired, and who said nothing about it despite the tunnel sitting in this ward.

None of that is hidden. It's just not on a sign.

What I'm asking, plainly:

1. Before you vote, or before you plant a sign for anyone — spend the forty-five minutes. Read one committee record. Read one AG report. Read one meeting minute.
2. If, after that, the sign-holder's name is still the right answer — good. That's an informed vote, and it counts the same as mine.
3. If you can't spare the forty-five minutes, spare five: ask what committee your councillor actually sits on. It's a one-line answer, and it tells you more than a sign ever will.

Two names. No excuse not to know the difference.

i

 

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