Mayor Mark Sutcliffe pledged to hire 350 more first responders, including 200 more police officers if he is re-elected, while doubling the investment in alternative response programs and appointing a “downtown safety czar” to help solve the toxic drug and mental health crisis.
Sutcliffe unveiled his platform for improving public safety during a campaign appearance at Fisher Park in Wellington Village on Sept. 3, outlining 32 measures to improve citywide public safety. His three main challengers in the mayoral race responded with critiques of the mayor’s plan, and with pledges of their own.
“As Ottawa grows, we must protect our quality of life. That means protecting and enhancing safety across the city,ˮ Sutcliffe said Sept. 3. “Weʼve made a lot of progress, but our work is not finished. We must continue to invest in public safety so everyone feels safe no matter where they are in Ottawa.ˮ
His campaign pointed to his record of hiring 340 police and paramedic personnel since being elected as mayor in 2022, with the largest police budget increase in the city’s history.
He outlined his plan to hire 200 more officers who would be assigned to priorities like the guns and gangs unit, intimate partner crimes and hate crime investigations, while expanding community policing and neighbourhood watch programs. He also pledged to hire 100 more paramedics and 50 firefighters if elected for a second term.
The Ottawa Police Service reported an eight-per-cent increase in citywide crime as of Aug. 17, 2026, with a four-per-cent increase in violent crime and a six-per-cent increase in property crime over the same period last year.
Assaults are up five per cent and sexual violations are up 24 per cent over the same period last year.
There were 51,150 criminal offences in 2025, excluding traffic violations, which represented a 1.1 per-cent-increase over 2024, according to OPS data.
Council approved a $26.1-million increase for the 2026 police budget with a five-per-cent boost to the property tax levy, bringing the OPS net operating budget to $414.9 million this year.
Police had responded to 723 overdose calls this year as of Aug. 17, which represents a 92-per-cent increase over the same period a year ago. That spike in data, police noted, “reflects operational priorities or officer workload rather than a trend.”
As part of his campaign pledge, Sutcliffe said Thursday he would “activate” the Emergency Co-ordination Centre and appoint a downtown safety czar “to co-ordinate across departments, agencies and different levels of government, providing a 24/7 effort to clean up the streets, connect vulnerable residents with treatment and housing and keep communities safe.”
Sutcliffe said he would double the city’s investment in alternative response initiatives like the Alternative Neighbourhood Crisis Response (ANCHOR) program, the Mobile Crisis Response Team and the Crisis Intervention Team. He would expand mobile response teams “to maintain a regular and on-demand presence in communities with known substance abuse issues.”
He said he would launch a new mental health and addiction strategy and would lobby for tougher penalties for drug dealers, while pledging to crack down on businesses that are “handing out drugs” in Chinatown, Centretown and Lowertown.
He also said he would “move immediately” to remove homeless encampments within two to five days of being identified by residents.
Sutcliffe’s three primary challengers in the mayoral race also weighed in this week with their own visions for improving public safety.
Candidate Neil Saravanamuttoo says the first step in public safety is addressing homelessness.
Neil Saravanamuttoo held a campaign event in Gatineau on Sept. 2 at Village Transitiôn, a network of tiny homes constructed from shipping containers to provide temporary housing for the homeless population. He said he would work with local developers to implement a similar model in Ottawa.
Any plan to improve public safety “begins with how we address homelessness,” Saravanamuttoo said. “It then turns to how we improve policing and emergency response and how we build stronger communities and businesses that are more resilient to crime.”
Saravanamuttoo has also pledged to expand the ANCHOR program for non-police responses to mental health calls. He said he would provide same-day access to detox and recovery beds for people seeking treatment, deploy rapid-response cleanup teams for discarded needles, improve mobile health clinics in areas with high levels of homelessness and provide daytime programs like warming and cooling centres.
Policing in Ottawa already “consumes nine cents of every municipal tax dollar,” Saravanamuttoo said, and more money for policing would mean higher taxes or less money available for roads, parks, transit or other emergency services.
He said he would conduct a “comprehensive value-for-money” review across City Hall and would ask the Ottawa Police Services Board to undertake the same exercise before considering any further police budget increases.
Saravanamuttoo also outlined plans for a “report card” that would measure emergency response times by rural, suburban and urban communities, ambulance availability, hospital offload delays and would track progress toward performance targets.
Mayoral candidate Alex Lawson wonders why Sutcliffe didn’t implement public safety plans during his term.
Alex Lawson spent Thursday pounding the pavement with outreach groups like Steps Off the Street and said he has been meeting with police officers to hear their concerns and consulting with groups on the front line from the Youth Services Bureau to the Alliance to End Homelessness to the Ottawa Mission.
Lawson said he will release his public safety platform in the coming weeks after continuing those frontline consultations, but levelled a pointed criticism at Sutcliffe’s plans.
“Where was all of this in the last four years? If he had done any of this in the last four years, I would be knocking on doors for him instead of running against him,” Lawson said.
“It’s great to have campaign promises and plans for it now, but where was it in the last four years and why don’t you implement some of it right now?”
If elected mayor, Lawson said he would ensure co-operation with the federal and provincial governments on a “recovery based” strategy.
“And yes, the police and emergency services need to be funded better. But that’s just treating the symptoms and we need to do a lot more to treat the city as a whole,” Lawson said. “The city is sick and we need to do something to to heal that.”
Ottawa mayoral candidate Jeff Leiper wants to strengthen bylaw enforcement.
Coun. Jeff Leiper’s campaign team outlined an approach focused on “co-ordination, clarity, and making sure the right resources are deployed where they are needed.”
Leiper said he would make ANCHOR funding permanent and expand the service citywide, while tying any police budget increases to equitable increases in alternate crisis response programs “to ensure the right response is available for every call.”
In an interview Thursday, Leiper criticized Sutcliffe’s initiative to improve safety in the ByWard Market, calling the $1-million investment in private security a “failure that has pushed the problem into other neighbourhoods.”
Leiper called Sutcliffe’s plan to dismantle homeless encampments a “reckless reversal” of city policy that would also push the problem into other public spaces.
“The city has a process for dealing with encampments that both recognizes the safety concerns for nearby residents, but also treats the residents of those encampments with some dignity, recognizing that there are issues of addiction and homelessness at play,” he said.
Leiper has also pledged to strengthen bylaw enforcement and to “focus” police resources by shifting non-core responsibilities to alternative response models to allow police to focus on community safety.
“We absolutely need policing as part of the solution, but we need other responses and non-police resources on the street,” Leiper said. “And, ultimately, the key solution is adequately funded social services and and housing.”
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