'It's very personal': Sean Devine wins by wide margin after testy race in Knoxdale-Merivale

Sean Devine defended his seat at the council table by a comfortable margin, winning Knoxdale-Merivale after a testy campaign that saw him hold off a well-resourced challenger who earned the backing of multiple current city councillors.

Devine was re-elected with about 60 per cent of the vote, according to the unofficial results, beating out closest challenger Anna Ielo-Tal by about 30 points.

As results rolled in Monday night, supporters at Fitz’s BBQ cheered every time the election broadcast showed Devine’s lead firming up.

“Being the candidate for ward nine is the thrill of a lifetime, and now I get to keep on doing it,” he told the Ottawa Citizen after the broadcast declared him the winner.

Devine — a playwright, past-president of the Trend-Arlington Community Association and former federal NDP candidate — also won the ward handily in 2022, his first municipal election victory.

This time, some observers believed his top challenger may pose a stiffer threat. It didn’t turn out that way.

Ielo-Tal, a federal public servant, received endorsements from former city councillor Jan Harder and city councillors Tim Tierney (Beacon Hill-Cyrville) and David Brown (Rideau-Jock).

Devine said his colleagues were actively working to get him unseated.

“To me, it’s very personal,” he said. “It’s personal for a lot of reasons.”

Devine wants Tierney and Brown, both of whom will also be returning to council after winning re-election on Monday, to understand that municipal politics is not supposed to be partisan.

“There was clear, clear partisan activity, and council has to be about building relationships. It’s all about relationships. And I don’t know how these relationships aren’t affected,” Devine said.

“I’m going to go in and try to do my best to rebuild those bridges. We’ll see how they respond.”

During the campaign, Devine and Ielo-Tal got into a spat on social media. In September, Devine posted on his campaign’s Facebook page accusing Ielo-Tal of spreading misinformation during a Rogers TV debate.

In her own Facebook post, Ielo-Tal accused Devine of swearing at her during an encounter after the debate, which she said amounted to bullying. Devine later contested her framing of the encounter in an interview with CBC, saying he “swore in her vicinity,” but not directly at her.

“Politics can be a bit ugly at times,” he said Monday.

Knoxdale-Merivale, which encompasses several residential neighbourhoods between the Rideau River and Highway 416, is one of several areas in Ottawa that have been hit the hardest by recent extreme weather events, including severe flooding this summer.

Devine told the Ottawa Citizen his two top priorities for the next term of council would be to increase investment in infrastructure and to better prepare against extreme weather.

“Time is ticking,” he said.

When he was first elected to city council in 2022, Devine said, he entered the race seeking to build consensus among his new colleagues after growing frustrated with dysfunction on the previous term of council.

On several key issues over his first term, Devine voted with the progressive minority.

He voted no on the city’s controversial “bubble” bylaw and against Lansdowne 2.0. He was one of four councillors who voted against the city’s latest budget, also refusing to support the transit budget.

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