WARD 13 · CAMPAIGN NOTES
The debate is happening. That's the win that doesn't show up on a ballot.
Over 4,700 views on the campaign page — nearly seven times the total votes cast in Ward 13 in 2022. Blog posts pull hundreds of readers each time one goes up.
Win or lose in October, that was always the real goal: create the space for public debate in a ward that usually doesn't get any.
The debate is happening. That's the win that doesn't show up on a ballot.
Peter Karwacki · Ward 13 · Rideau-Rockcliffe
Ask for the numbers.
Then use the leverage we still have.
I am running for Rideau-Rockcliffe on October 26, 2026. One term. No second-act to protect. The job is oversight, not announcements.
The bridge is a federal project. The silence is a local choice.
Opposing the East End Crossing does not stop it. It only surrenders the chance to shape ramps, truck routes, noise, and what Ward 13 gets in return.
If City Hall will not publish it, it is not being managed for you.
Warnings sat on the St-Laurent LRT tunnel. Police-board auditing was admitted to be weak. Tax debates ignore the liability ledger. That is the pattern.
Equity is what got built — and what got removed.
Ward 13 levy money helped take a basketball court out of Bathgate Park while a neighbouring ward gained courts, a splash pad, and a skatepark.
Crossing leverage
Trucks still use King Edward and Rideau because there is no interprovincial crossing east of downtown. The Kettle Island / Montée Paiement–Aviation Parkway crossing is a federal undertaking. A councillor cannot approve it or cancel it. A councillor can decide whether the ward arrives with a list or with folded arms.
| Rawlson King | Peter Karwacki | |
|---|---|---|
| Position | Oppose, citing local traffic and environmental impact. | Support engagement now. The crossing is the tool that gets heavy trucks off downtown streets. |
| What that means in practice | Ward 13 argues against a project council has already shown it will not kill on ward preference alone. | Ask now for design, mitigation, and local works — before the footprint is fixed. |
Council math is 16–9 against treating this as a single-ward veto. Leadership is negotiating the workaround, not pretending the vote is still open.
Measurement vs announcement
Ottawa does not have an information shortage. It has no consistent rule that a warning must become an action with a public date and a public result.
- Publish neighbourhood-level performance: road condition by segment, sidewalk gaps, park assets added or removed, police-board metrics, transit safety findings.
- Stop sending residents to Freedom of Information to learn who to call or what the city already measures.
- Tie the next tax debate to a liabilities ledger — Lansdowne financing, LRT commitments, deferred repairs — not to a press line about “investing.”
- Cap 2027 at about inflation (~3%) unless residents can see where the last increase went.
Specific Ward 13 trade-offs
Bathgate Park (Ward 13)
Basketball court removed for a reforestation project. About $120,000, including $60,000 from this ward’s parkland levy. Net recreation loss on a site residents already used.
Riverain Park (next ward)
Modernization with a splash pad, skatepark, and basketball court added. That is what “equity” looks like when it is counted in amenities, not in vocabulary.
Same test on movement and money:
- Traffic circles at St-Laurent and at Vanier / Beechwood — not another overlay of paint.
- Pedestrian crossings at Aviation Parkway and Birch / Sir George-Étienne Cartier treated as safety files, not leftover paving.
- City cost overruns become property-tax pressure; property-tax pressure becomes rent. Oversight is not a downtown abstraction for tenants in this ward.
What four years are for
- Get Ward 13 into the crossing design conversation while there is still something to trade.
- Force recurring, public audits on transit safety, police-board reporting, and major liabilities.
- Put park and infrastructure decisions on a simple added/removed ledger by neighbourhood.
- Say the quiet structural facts out loud: turnout near 40%, urban wards outvoted 16–9, incumbents covered first.
Who I am
Peter Jan Karwacki. Project management professional. Managing director of Peer Metrics, which I founded in 2013 to help organizations benchmark performance. B.Sc., graduate diploma in business administration, PMP. Earlier career in hospital administration and financial direction. Ottawa resident. I ran in 2019 and 2022. I am running again because the files did not close.
I have a livelihood outside City Hall. That is the point of the one-term pledge: the incentive is to name the structure, not to keep the chair.
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