Where Stittsville Councillor frontrunners stand in the upcoming municipal election
With the October 26, 2026, Ottawa municipal election entering its final week, Stittsville’s Ward 6 has emerged as the most crowded and volatile council race in the entire city. Following two-term incumbent Glen Gower’s decision to step aside, a massive field of nine candidates has thrown their hats into the ring to represent this rapidly expanding western suburb of over 55,000 residents. Local debates and profile reports tracked by CBC News Ottawa show that the local discourse is entirely consumed by one unifying grievance: suburban infrastructure failing to keep pace with relentless vertical and subdivision housing development.
From seasoned community advocates to corporate executives, here is where the frontrunners and standout independent grievance candidates stand across the wide-open Stittsville ballot.
🏁 The Leading Frontrunners
- Tanya Hein: As a paralegal and the former president of the Stittsville Village Association, Hein brings significant local name recognition to her second run for the seat. Her platform targets responsible community sequencing. Hein stands firmly against passing massive city-wide property tax or transit fare increases until basic municipal infrastructure—such as the long-delayed widening of Carp Road—is explicitly delivered to the ward.
- Theresa Qadri: Leaning heavily on her deep institutional community networks, Qadri is the chair of the Stittsville Food Bank and her husband, Shad Qadri, represented the ward for over a decade. According to coverage of the Stittsville All Candidates Debate by CTV News Ottawa, Qadri is running a platform focused on localized community care and basic infrastructure restoration. She stands for immediate, practical transit solutions, advocating for rapid extensions of express buses and ensuring taxpayer dollars are directly reinvested into local senior and youth programming.
- Chelsea Walton: Bringing inside-track experience to the race, Walton is a former social worker who has worked directly within the City of Ottawa administration and inside two city councillors' offices. Walton stands for bridging the gap between suburban reality and downtown bureaucracy, leveraging her municipal planning knowledge to demand that developers fund local recreational spaces and ensure housing affordability does not destroy existing neighborhood character.
🚨 Major Mainstream Challengers
- Sheetal Narwal: A cybersecurity executive and business leader, Narwal has mounted a highly structured, data-driven campaign. Her platform stands on four rigid pillars: skipping endless bureaucratic transit studies in favor of immediate road-widening action, curbing gridlock, building safe liveable neighborhoods, and increasing street-level accountability. Narwal opposes downtown overspending and stands for maximizing tax-dollar value specifically for western commuters.
- Paul Meek: As the high-profile founder of the Kichesippi Beer Company, Meek is pitching his corporate executive and small-business experience to voters. Meek stands for applying rigorous fiscal efficiency to the city's crumbling transit budget, pushing back against developer influence, and aggressively fast-tracking road extensions from Stittsville Main Street to the Palladium corridor to ease daily commuter gridlock.
🗣️ Noteworthy Grievance Candidate
- Kevin Hua: Hua has seized the spotlight as the race's most vocal progressive outsider, explicitly channeling local alienation over suburban isolation. Hua's campaign stands against corporate developer influence at City Hall and the historic neglect of Stittsville’s public transit network. Rather than accepting car-dependent expansion, Hua has rallied residents around an ambitious populist transit overhaul, demanding localized community shuttle buses, protected pedestrian sidewalks, and a freeze on transit fare hikes while OC Transpo unreliability persists.
The remaining candidates rounding out the competitive 9-person ballot include Marie-Ange Yindaki Ahinful, Devin Michael Fitzgerald O'Brien, and Mani Sharma.
🗳️ Polling Hours and Voter Registration Requirements
As you prepare to cast your ballot on final voting day, Monday, October 26, 2026, here are the critical guidelines to ensure a seamless voting process: [1]
🕒 Polling Hours
- Election Day (Monday, October 26): All designated municipal voting places across Ottawa will be officially open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m..
- Workplace Allocations: Under Ontario law, qualified electors are entitled to three consecutive hours free from work to cast their vote while the polls are open. If your regular shift does not naturally allow for this window, your employer is legally required to grant you the necessary time off without penalty. [1]
📋 Voter Registration Requirements
While the deadline to update or add your details to the municipal voters' list online has closed, you can still register directly in person at your designated polling station on Election Day. [1]
To be eligible to vote in an Ottawa municipal election, you must meet the following criteria on voting day:
- Be a Canadian citizen.
- Be at least 18 years of age.
- Be a resident of the City of Ottawa, or a non-resident owner or tenant of land in the city, or the spouse of such an owner or tenant.
🪪 What Identification to Bring
To register or cast your ballot at the polling station, you must present one piece of acceptable identification showing your name and qualifying Ottawa address.
- Photo ID is not required: You do not need a driver's licence or Ontario Photo Card to vote.
- Acceptable documents include: A utility bill (hydro, water, gas), cell phone statement, bank statement, residential lease/rental agreement, credit card statement, or pay stub. Digital versions shown on your mobile device (such as an e-billed hydro invoice) are fully accepted.
- What does NOT count as ID: A Canadian Passport is not accepted on its own because it does not list your current residential address. Additionally, the Voter Information Card (VIC) mailed to your house cannot be used as a primary piece of identification.
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