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Heartfield: In praise of the undecided voter
You can spot them at any all-candidates’ meeting, those engaged citizens who haven’t made up their minds yet. They’re the ones leaning forward in their seats when the booing or cheering starts because...
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Heartfield: In Ottawa Centre, foreign policy matters
As the news broke late Saturday afternoon that the government was changing its rules and speeding up Syrian refugee resettlement, some of the candidates in Ottawa Centre were discussing that very...
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Heartfield: The myth of the Conservative no-show
If the campaign in Ottawa so far is any indication, reports of Conservative disdain for all-candidates’ meetings are greatly exaggerated. In five single-riding debates over the last couple of weeks, a...
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Video: This week's election round-up with Kate Heartfield and David Reevely
The Citizen’s Kate Heartfield and David Reevely will be delving into the local campaign, bringing their insight on capital region election races, policies and personalities to Ottawa readers through...
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Heartfield: Violence against women is an outrage Canada has failed to address
On Monday night, four of the people vying to be prime minister of this country provided videotaped answers to questions about violence against women, making varying degrees of sense. The man who is...
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Heartfield: A new government must create a housing policy that does no harm
The Conservative government has presided over one of the most exciting shifts in social policy this country has ever seen. The government’s endorsement of the Housing First model is a strong beginning...
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Heartfield: A worrying chill between the mayor and Conservatives
On Monday, candidates in the federal election will debate local issues at Ottawa City Hall. Unless something changes before then, the Conservatives will be conspicuous by their absence. They were...
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Heartfield: For the public service, the election issue is respect
Several ridings in Ottawa look likely to be tight races between Liberals and Conservatives. Lo and behold, last week the leaders of both parties took the time to write open letters to the public...
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Heartfield: A culture war will only tear Canada apart
There’s a striking commonality about the letters to the newspaper and calls to phone-in shows about the niqab issue. People on opposite sides use the same language: This is not my Canada. This is an...
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Heartfield: Conservatives' hold on suburbs does not appear unshakeable
A couple of years ago, Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson wrote that Canada was in the midst of a “Big Shift.” Part of their argument was that the growing political strength of Ontario’s suburbs,...
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Heartfield: In Ottawa, the roots of this election go back to 1988
The day before the 1988 federal election, the Ottawa political map looked much as it does now. Tories held most of the region, except for Ottawa Centre, which was NDP, and Ottawa-Vanier, which was...
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Heartfield: The citizens' campaign
This long and hard-fought campaign may have brought out the worst in Canada, exposing fears and hatreds and the depths to which political manipulation can sink. But it has also brought out the best....
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Heartfield: How the Conservatives lost Ottawa
The Conservatives didn’t seem interested in giving Ottawa a reason to vote for them. So Ottawa didn’t. In response to concerns in the public service about the government’s lack of respect for...
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Alan Cumyn: I Know That Land, revisited
A year ago, late in the evening of October 22, I tried to respond to an email from a cousin in Mississauga. Were we all right? Had I been caught downtown when the bullets were flying, when fear and...
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Heartfield: No, the Conservatives don't need sunny ways to win
We are telling ourselves a story, as we humans do, to make meaning of the world. The story goes like this: The Conservatives lost the election because Canadians disliked their negative, tightly...
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Heartfield: The feminist cabinet-maker
When Justin Trudeau announces his cabinet on Wednesday, half will be women and half will be men. This will be a first for a federal cabinet in Canada, and is highly unusual in the world. Gender parity...
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Heartfield: Canada needs a "gap year" culture
My reaction to the mattress store was my first clue that I had returned to North America a different person than I left it. How alien it seemed: stores the size of city blocks devoted to mattresses!...
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Heartfield: Enough empty talk about violence against women
On the federal government’s website, you can take a pledge to “#endviolence” against women and girls. “We are all part of the solution!” it chirps. The Ontario government has launched a campaign of TV...
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Heartfield: What to ask your federal candidate about refugee policy
Don Smith, chair of the refugee working group of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, says emails have been coming in steadily, day by day, from Ottawans who want to help sponsor Syrian refugees. “There’s...
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Heartfield: National issues go local as the campaign heats up
The capital region’s first all-candidates’ debates this week have proved that all politics is local, but not in the way people sometimes think. The crowds in Pontiac and Nepean ridings weren’t there,...
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