Ottawa mayoral candidate Alex Lawson is pledging to require rural assessments for decisions made at city council and to improve rural infrastructure maintenance if elected this October. Lawson unveiled his rural policy platform on his website on Wednesday, making 19 commitments across six different areas. “More than 80 percent of Ottawa’s land mass is rural,” Lawson’s policy states. “The city applies a single set of citywide standards to two very different operating environments, and rural communities live with the results.” The policy platform includes a pledge to require a rural impact assessment in staff reports regarding city-wide decisions. “Before council adopts any citywide standard, warrant, fee schedule, service level, or prioritization framework, the staff report includes a one-page assessment, in plain language, of how the proposal performs in the rural area,” Lawson’s plan reads. “Where it performs differently, the report returns with a rural variant or a stated reason one is not required.” The mayoral hopeful’s plan includes commitments to increase rural road safety by establishing a new safety standard and lowering thresholds for engineering reviews. Lawson is also pledging to change the renewal process for rural roads, increasing the frequency of rural road assessments from once every five years to once every three years. Lawson is promising to establish new service standards for farm business licensing and local ditch and drainage maintenance, and to establish a rural maintenance roster for rural roadside maintenance. The plan also includes pledges to publish additional information on ongoing projects, contract rates and performance measures. The Alto high-speed rail project has been a hot-button issue in Ottawa’s rural communities. While Lawson noted decisions regarding the high-speed rail corridor are made at the federal level, he promised transparency for rural landowners who could be impacted by the project. “The position of record for this campaign, taken in July 2026 and unchanged, is that Alex Lawson will not sign a non-disclosure agreement that withholds from residents information about their own property. City-owned land is the city’s to negotiate over. Private property is not,” the platform states. Incumbent Mayor Mark Sutcliffe is expected to release his rural platform later this month. “Ottawa’s rural villages and communities are an integral part of our identity and culture; they deserve strong investments into priorities such as roads, infrastructure, police, and paramedics,” said Sutcliffe campaign spokesperson Liam Roche in an email. “We look forward to releasing a plan for rural residents in the near future that will meaningfully invest in rural communities and substantially improve their decision-making authority.” Mayoral candidate Neil Saravanamuttoo has promised to establish community road safety councils and regional planning panels which he says would give local communities across Ottawa greater say. “Lawson’s plan is big on bureaucracy but silent on a key issue for many rural residents: the Alto high-speed rail proposal. I have been clear in opposing Alto due to a failure to address the concerns of rural communities and the risk of significant cost overruns,” Saravanamuttoo said in a statement to CTV News. “We need less technical jargon and more focus on the issues that affect rural residents, like timely emergency response.” Coun. Jeff Leiper has not unveiled a rural policy platform. Lawson, Sutcliffe, Saravanamuttoo and Leiper will be running for mayor alongside Zed Chebib, Peter Westaway and Suraj Harish. Voters will head to the polls on Oct. 26. With files from CTV’s Leah Larocque
