Mark Sutcliffe running a different kind of race

With less than two weeks until election day, CBC Ottawa is profiling several of the candidates vying to be the city's next mayor. Today: mayoral candidate Mark Sutcliffe.

One morning in late May 2018, Mark Sutcliffe laced up his running shoes and embarked on a marathon. 

That he had entered the 42.2-kilometre race was nothing new — Sutcliffe had by that time completed a couple dozen of them, including the coveted Boston Marathon, and had written two books on the subject, Why I Run and Long Road to Boston.

What was remarkable about this particular race was Sutcliffe began running it at 10 a.m., three hours after everyone else had started and nearly an hour after the elite athletes had begun crossing the finish line.

I felt a responsibility and a duty, and I felt I had to spread the luck around a bit.- Mark Sutcliffe

As he explained in a TEDx Talk recorded shortly before that Ottawa Race Weekend, Sutcliffe knew that by the time he was making his way along the course, most of the spectators and many of the volunteers who aid and encourage those runners at the front of the pack would be gone.

"When you start life at the back of the pack, you get a lot less help and support. Often, you run alone," he told the audience. "My goal is to draw attention to the fact that so many people begin life at a disadvantage compared to the rest of us."

Now Sutcliffe is in a different kind of race, but he's vowing that if he becomes Ottawa's next mayor, his determination to level the playing field for all residents — to "imagine a world where luck is irrelevant," as he urged his audience — will remain steadfast.

'Lucky' to grow up in Ottawa

Sutcliffe is keenly aware that he's able to make such gestures because of his own good fortune. 

"I've always said that I feel very lucky that I was born in Ottawa, into a comfortable environment to loving parents, at a time when there was peace and opportunity," he explained during a recent interview at a coffee shop near his home in Wellington Village, where he lives with his wife Ginny, step-daughter Erica, 23, son Jack, 13, and youngest child Kate, 11.

Sutcliffe has worn many hats in Ottawa including journalist, entrepreneur and boardroom influencer. But his decision to enter the political realm represents a shift from observer and adviser to potential decision maker.

"I started to realize that if I wanted politics to change, if I wanted things to be different, then maybe I could try to make them different rather than just sit on the sidelines and complain about it," he said.

From shy kid to broadcaster

Sutcliffe was born in the summer of 1968 and raised with his older sister Dianne in McKellar Park, not far from Carlingwood Shopping Centre, where his mother still lives in their original family home. (Sutcliffe continues to call her every day, and proudly singled her out of the crowd at his recent campaign launch).

Sutcliffe recalls his father taking him and his sister downtown in the early 1980s to stand on the Mackenzie King Bridge and gaze down upon the enormous construction site that would soon become the Rideau Centre, Ottawa Convention Centre and Westin hotel.

To him, it was a dramatic illustration of his hometown's coming of age and the transformative potential of large-scale city-building, and it made a lasting impression.

He describes himself as painfully shy growing up and "always the smallest kid in the class," partly because he skipped a grade in elementary school. He wasn't an athletic kid — he jokes that his best sport in school was TV quiz show Reach for the Top — and so he slowly learned to make his mark in other ways.

After graduating from St. Pius X High School, Sutcliffe enrolled at Carleton University with an eye toward journalism, but dropped out after landing a job at rock radio station Chez 106. There, Sutcliffe was forced to overcome his shyness in a hurry.

"I was introverted and kind of nerdy, but I loved the media," he recalled. "I had to learn the on-air part and overcome my fears and lack of confidence."

Even then, he was aware of his advantages. Sutcliffe's maternal grandfather was Chinese, but with a British surname and appearance, his racial identity was never apparent to the outside world, so he managed to avoid the barriers he might have otherwise faced.

"In those days in radio they'd get you to change your last name if it wasn't mainstream enough," he recalled. "People weren't looking for diversity, they were looking for homogeneity, so my life would have probably been very different."

Tech boom opened eyes to city's potential

Over the years that followed, Sutcliffe would hone his on-air skills — and his public persona — at CFRA, CPAC and what's now CityNews Ottawa and Rogers TV.

First, he worked for Bruce Firestone's Ottawa Business News before co-founding the Ottawa Business Journal (OBJ) in 1995, helping create the annual Forty Under 40 and Best Ottawa Business awards as the newspaper's editor, publisher and CEO.

Sutcliffe said steering the OBJ over the "crescendo" of Ottawa's tech boom opened his eyes to the exciting potential of the city's entrepreneurial scene.

"I think it really made people throughout Ottawa understand that there was a thriving private sector in Ottawa, that there are really cool entrepreneurs and business owners who are doing really interesting things in this city that we all think of as a government town."

'I felt I had to spread the luck around'

Sutcliffe has served on numerous boards including Algonquin College, Invest Ottawa and the Ottawa Board of Trade. As a volunteer, he's been heavily involved in a long list of charities and other causes including the United Way, The Ottawa Hospital Foundation, The Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health and the Ottawa Community Housing Foundation. 

"If there's one thing that my parents instilled in us, it was that we were lucky in that there were other people right here in our community that were not so fortunate, and I always felt very grateful," he said.

"I felt a responsibility and a duty, and I felt I had to spread the luck around a bit. Plus it's really satisfying and rewarding to contribute, to have a chance to make a difference."

He describes his decision to run for mayor in similar terms.

Sutcliffe said others have urged him over the years to run, but it was only after other potential candidates including councillors Diane Deans and Mathieu Fleury announced they wouldn't enter the race — and after long conversations with Ginny while ferrying Jack to baseball tournaments across Ontario — that he decided the city needed another viable choice.

"I heard from a lot of people that they felt that there was not a candidate who was sort of a middle-of-the-road, centrist candidate who could bring the whole community together," he said.

'Infinite source of energy'

In person, Sutcliffe, 54, is energetic and engaging, with a lean runner's frame and a youthful vigor. That morning, while most of us were still in bed, he'd logged an "easy" 10K.

"Through running and many other activities, I've learned this much: I don't have a dimmer switch. It's either on or off, rarely in between," he wrote in Why I Run, and those who know him agree.

"Mark seems to have an infinite source of energy," said Nicki Bridgland, founder and CEO of Rideau Sports Centre, The Bridge Public House and Ottawa Sport & Social Club.

As a business coach and adviser with Stratford Group, Sutcliffe helped Bridgland and her team navigate the turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I see Mark as the glue that held the team together when there was so much uncertainty," Bridgland said. "He leads with heart, largely because he's very kind and compassionate [and] has incredible integrity, but he doesn't let emotions get the better of him, even in stressful times."

Sutcliffe's longtime friend and frequent running partner Bob Plamondon, former interim chair of the National Capital Commission, rejects the notion that Sutcliffe is too nice for politics.

"I think that Mark's inclination is to think the best of people, but he's a problem solver at heart," said Plamondon, who provided some analysis on Sutcliffe's fiscal plan, but was not the author of it.

"He's nice in the way that if you need something, he's there for you. He's thoughtful. [But] I've never once seen Mark back down from an argument or get pushed around."

Competitive streak

At his campaign launch, Sutcliffe characterized most political campaigns as divisive and polarizing, claiming he wants no part of it.

"I don't want to win the battle. I don't want there to be a battle at all," he told the crowd.

But Sutcliffe also notes his own competitive impulse, and draws a distinction between the campaign and the term of council that will follow. 

"The campaign is clearly a competition — somebody wins, somebody loses, no two ways about that — so you do have to compete. I don't think you have to fight, but you do have to compete in an election campaign."

Sutcliffe's campaign has since singled out Catherine McKenney, whom he regards as his strongest opponent, for criticism over some of their policies.

But Sutcliffe believes once the new mayor is elected, the transformation can begin.

"I hope that after this election we can all work together … because we all want the same things in the end: we all want a better city, we all want to look after the most vulnerable, we all want the economy to do OK."

Built a brand

Despite his deep involvement in the community, Sutcliffe still considers himself an outsider because unlike McKenney and former mayor Bob Chiarelli, he's never held elected office.

He has gathered a who's-who of established Ottawa politicians and business leaders to serve as campaign co-chairs. The list includes former mayors Jim Durrell and Jackie Holtzman and current MPs Jenna Sudds and Marie-France Lalonde.

And there's no doubt he's built a brand for himself in Ottawa through numerous public appearances and media platforms including his long-running newspaper columns and podcasts such as iRun and Digging Deep.

As Sutcliffe left the café in Wellington Village, a man sitting outside called to him.

"There's the mayor," the man said to his wife as Sutcliffe stopped to say hello.

Maybe, with just a bit more luck.