HE'S RUNNING — The mystery candidate for Ottawa's mayoralty revealed himself at a Kanata park on Wednesday afternoon. Broadcaster and literal marathon man MARK SUTCLIFFE will challenge former mayor BOB CHIARELLI and downtown councilor CATHERINE MCKENNEY in the October election. — Check, check, check: Playbook's source hinted their man was active in the local charitable and nonprofit sectors, possessed decent athletic prowess, and was named an Order of Ottawa recipient. Well, Sutcliffe has chaired the local United Way, the Ottawa Board of Trade, OrKidstra, the Great Canadian Theatre Company, Ottawa Community Housing Foundation, and Run Ottawa. He has served on the boards of Algonquin College, Invest Ottawa, Kind Ottawa, and the Royal Ottawa Hospital Foundation. He qualified for the Boston Marathon in 2015, and was inducted into, you guessed it, the Order of Ottawa in 2016. — The bio, in brief: Sutcliffe's footprint in the city is gorilla-esque. He's a recognizable face on CPAC and Rogers TV call-in shows, and the founder of the Ottawa Business Journal who still pens columns for the Ottawa Citizen. He emcees charity events all over the city. — The posturing: On his new website, Sutcliffe stakes out his political turf. He opens by playing the outsider card. "I'm not a career politician. In fact, I'm not a politician at all." His first batch of priorities play to a variety of nodes on the political spectrum. Sutcliffe wants to "keep taxes low," placating voters who grumble about city finances. He wants to both "fix LRT" — well, who doesn't want that? — and "improve our roads," catnip for legions of commuters frustrated with potholes and congestion. His final plank: "make Ottawa safer." — Oh, the adjectives: "He knows and loves the capital and would be a breath of fresh air at City Hall," crowed Postmedia columnist JOHN IVISON. "A kind, decent and level-headed human being," fawned the Toronto Star's SUSAN DELACOURT. "He listens, he learns, then he leads both in business and community affairs," remarked longtime politico WALTER ROBINSON. Noted SEBASTIEN LABRECQUE: "It is extremely rare to see such broad support among the media for a candidate." — The early criticism: First to the mic was SAM HERSH, an organizer with Horizon Ottawa, a nonprofit that works to elect progressive candidates. "Make no mistake, Mark Sutcliffe, who is friends with and wrote about how he admires JIM WATSON's leadership style, is the status quo, developer candidate," tweeted Hersh. "Or he can prove me wrong and state that he wont accept any donations from developers. I'll wait." Cycling advocate ALEX DEVRIES also dug into the archives for a 2014 clipping on the need for a "business case" for more bike lanes on city streets. — An easy prediction: Sutcliffe's politically savvy opponents are already mining his vast portfolio of writing on city affairs. Expect some, shall we say, strategic resharing of that work. — The clairvoyance award goes to… When Playbook first teased the then-unnamed candidate's campaign on June 15, our inbox lit up with an email from Crestview VP JULIAN OVENS . "Is Mark Sutcliffe running for mayor?" NATO MUSINGS — POLITICO's ANDY BLATCHFORD is following the action at the NATO Summit in Madrid. He's feeding his observations into a fast-paced liveblog ably serviced by a small army of POLITICO reporters. POLITICO's David Herszenhorn has more on NATO's Strategic Concept. — More embassies: Canada is bolstering its diplomatic presence in Europe and the Caucasus region. Foreign Minister MÉLANIE JOLY promised to convert Canada's offices in Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia into full embassies with incoming ambassadors. Canada will also open a full embassy in Armenia, checking off one of STÉPHANE DION's recommendations from a fact-finding trip to Armenia — which started the same day Russian invaded Ukraine. "We need to push back against Russian influence — maybe their soft power, maybe their disinformation campaigns, or again, their brute force," Joly told reporters in Madrid. — More troops: Canada will contribute to a combat-capable brigade in Latvia. Defense Minister ANITA ANAND announced that Canada will also lead elements of a forward-brigade command. "We will grow this together with our allies, not just in terms of person power but also in terms of the capabilities … as well as operations and military aid, ammunition, air defense systems, anti-tank weapon systems," Anand told reporters. Canada says it has some 1,375 soldiers in Central and Eastern Europe, including 700 in Latvia. Anand said the 10 NATO allies operating in Latvia under Operation REASSURANCE are discussing what will be needed to reach brigade level. Read the official NATO Summit Declaration. — Quotes of the day: Those go to Latvian Defense Minister ARTIS PABRIKS , who spoke of the Russian threat in stark terms. "We want a combat-ready brigade with equipment in place," Pabriks said. "I want this brigade to be ready to fight, from the first moment, for the first millimeter." Speaking directly to Canadians, Pabriks outlined the state of play. "If every ally would do as much as possible then maybe this war already would be very close to the end with Ukrainian victory, because Ukrainians must win, Russians must lose," he said. "If this is happening, then, happily, probably Canadian soldiers will be happy to go home earlier from (the) very nice beaches of Latvia." SPYWARE TAP — The RCMP won't say where it gets the spyware it uses to hack into phones and laptops during criminal investigations, but it says the technology is only used "infrequently." On Wednesday, POLITICO's MAURA FORREST reported that Canada's national police force had for the first time described how it uses malware to infiltrate mobile devices in a document tabled in Parliament last week. Read the full story here. — Follow-up: In an email to POLITICO after the article was published, an RCMP spokesperson said spyware is only used in investigations of serious offenses, including organized crime and national security threats. The technology is only employed "when other investigative methods are incapable of securing the evidence," the spokesperson said. — Unanswered questions: But the police force didn't give details about where it gets its spyware. "The RCMP engages in strategic partnerships with other law enforcement entities, domestically and internationally," the spokesperson said, adding that all such partnerships must be "in line with fundamental Canadian values and interests." Last year, a collaborative investigation called the Pegasus Project revealed that spyware licensed by Israeli firm NSO Group to governments for tracking criminals was also used to hack smartphones belonging to journalists and human rights activists. In February, the Washington Post reported that the FBI had tested the NSO Group's spyware for possible use in criminal investigations, though the agency said it had not been used in any investigation. — An open book: POLITICO also reported that the RCMP had not consulted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner about its use of spyware. The spokesperson said the police force is planning to brief the privacy watchdog on its deployment of malware this summer. She also said the RCMP is reviewing its use of spyware and other "technology-based evidence gathering techniques."
| 
Comments
Post a Comment