First hat in the ring in Somerset Ward

Alayne McGregor

Ariel Troster has announced her intention to run for Somerset Ward city councillor in the city election in October.

She’s the first entrant in what’s likely to be a crowded and wide-open field, now that current Councillor Catherine McKenney has indicated they plan to run for mayor. McKenney told The BUZZ they have endorsed Troster.

Troster said she has lived in Centretown for 12 years, currently near Gladstone and Bronson. She’s attended meetings of the Centretown Community Association.

Her roots as a community activist go back for more than 20 years, she said, and “I’ve always worked for social justice and labour organizations as a staff member.” She is a senior communications strategist on the political and government relations team of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), where she’s worked for the last five years.

At the FCM, she said she has had “a bird’s eye view from a national perspective of city policy,” including issues like transit, the National Housing Strategy, and the federal Rapid Housing Initiative. “I work with a lot of people who think about municipal politics a lot, and that’s been the focus of my work.”

Running for City Council gives her the opportunity to “look at those policies and see how they play out on the ground.”

She said she had been inspired by “the way that cities are really pushing the envelope in terms of progressive politics, livable communities, making some really exciting concrete changes during the pandemic. We’re seeing cities like Montreal, like Paris, like Calgary, really becoming very people focused, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity in Ottawa.”

Troster said she had always thought of herself as a “behind the scenes communicator and strategist,” with any advocacy she did “always off the side of my desk.” As a volunteer, she is a member of Rainbow Haven, which sponsors and supports LGBTQ refugees.

Working from home and spending all her time in Centretown for the last two years “has really attuned me to a lot of the challenges and opportunities in the neighbourhood. I do a lot of work supporting refugees and newcomers to Ottawa, and, on a volunteer basis, I helped a lot of people get vaccine appointments, which involved talking to my neighbours and finding a way to support each other. All of those things made me want to serve the community more.”

When McKenney announced their mayoral hopes, “people started asking me if I was interested in running, and I finally decided to say yes, mostly out of a desire to serve the community full-time and try to make some good change in the city.”

She said she and McKenney share similar values, and she applauded their championing of Somerset Ward neighbourhoods, and their work for affordable housing, transit, and road safety.

“But I’m a different person with different experience, and I’m really interested in hearing from people about the improvements that they want to see in Centretown.

“I will be spending the next few months knocking on doors and building a platform based on what I hear on the doorsteps, talking to people. I think the job of the councillor is to do a lot of listening and problem-solving and then to take all of that information and bring it to the table.”

She also plans to listen to community partners in the ward, “learn as much as I can about the community,” and connect “with as many people as possible. I won’t actually be hitting the streets and knocking on doors until late spring or early summer. We also have a provincial election happening in June, so there will be a lot of attention focused in that direction.”

What did she want to achieve as councillor? “I really envision Somerset Ward in the city being a place where no one is left behind. We saw during the debate about the city budget and the police budget that we are severely underfunding health and social services and outreach services in the city, and affordable housing. We really feel the impact [of that] strongly in the downtown core because that’s where a lot of the services are. I strongly believe that when we support the most vulnerable people in our community, we improve the community for everyone.

“So I would like to see a much deeper investment in health and social services which help everybody thrive in the community. They also largely prevent crime, they help prevent overdose deaths, and they make living downtown a more harmonious and neighbourly experience when people’s real challenges are being addressed.”

As a mother of a nine-year-old daughter whom she regularly walks to school, Troster said she was also concerned about the safety of pedestrians and vulnerable road users.

“Simple things like the way we clear snow have a huge impact on accessibility in the city. Looking at the way we run services in the city from the perspective, literally from the ground up, of the most vulnerable road user will really make it much easier to get around our city for everybody.”

She also favours more investment in the arts and in ideas to make Ottawa more dynamic, more of a draw. Montreal has closed streets for arts interventions and patios, for example, she said.

“But the number one issue I hear about is that people want to stay in the neighbourhood and they can’t afford to. And so really focusing on ways to increase access to affordable housing in the ward is really important to me.

City and school board elections will be held on October 24. Candidates cannot register until May 2. Until they register, they cannot raise money or spend any money on their campaigns.