From Sept. 22 to Oct. 23, CBC Ottawa will visit the 23 electoral wards in the city of Ottawa to get the inside track on the issues people are talking about on the eve of the upcoming municipal election.

On Monday, Sept. 29, the CBC street talk team - along with the host of CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning, Hallie Cotnam - visited the Kanata North ward.

Kanata North ward includes Kanata Lakes and the surrounding communities, as well as Beaverbrook and South March. It is bordered by highway 417 to the south, Herzberg Road to the east and Old Carp Road to the North.

The ward is ground zero for high-tech firms in the city of Ottawa. Some 22,000 people work at the sprawling Kanata North Business Park. And Canada's 'Silicon Valley North,' after years of stagnant growth, is on the rebound.

The ward is also seeing an influx of Department of National Defence civil servants and armed forces personnel in the wake of the department's move into the ex-Nortel campus.

Marianne Wilkinson, the incumbent, is running for reelection. Wilkinson has represented Kanata, in some capacity, since the 1970s. She served as a councillor for the former March County, as mayor of Kanata, before its amalgamation into the city of Ottawa, and as a city councillor. She says she is running again because many residents urged her to finish the work she has already started.

Wilkinson faces two familiar opponents in the form of Jeff Seeton and Matt Muirhead. Seeton, a local businessman, nearly toppled Wilkinson in the 2010 municipal election. Muirhead, a local high school teacher, ran in the 2006 municipal election placing a close third behind Wilkinson and Seeton.

CBC Ottawa asked all the candidates running for city council to record a 1-minute pitch and tell voters why they think they're the best candidate for their ward. The pitches below are from those who participated in this project.

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