Clive Doucet

Clive Oliver Robert Doucet (born 20 March 1946 ) is a Canadian writer and politician. He served as the Ottawa City Councillor for Capital Ward from 1997 to 2010 and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Ottawa in the 2010 Ottawa municipal election, finishing third with 15 per cent of the vote. Eight years later, in 2018, he again ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Ottawa, this time finishing second with 22 per cent of the vote.

Early life

Doucet was born in 1946 in London, England to an Acadian serviceman from Grand Étang and an English war bride. Doucet grew up in the city of Ottawa, Ontario, having moved there at the age of six. He also spent some of his youth in St. John's, Newfoundland. Doucet was raised as a Catholic, and his mother was Protestant. He became a Quaker in 1980. He first came to Ottawa in his teens when his father worked there. Doucet played for the Carleton Ravens football team for one season, and then moved to the University of Toronto. A football injury took him out of that sport and into the sport of rowing. He received a master's degree in urban anthropology from the University of Montreal. In his younger days, he spent a summer working in a rock copper mine in British Columbia and helped build the National Arts Centre as a construction worker. Before entering politics, Doucet was a municipal affairs policy advisor.

Politics In the 1997 regional elections, Doucet ran for Ottawa-Carleton Regional Council in Capital Ward, which includes The Glebe, Old Ottawa South, Old Ottawa East, part of Riverview Park, Carleton University, and Heron Park. He was an activist against the proposed Bronson Freeway, which propelled him to victory.

Central to his political platform has been the creation of a light rail rapid transit system across Ottawa manifested to date with the O-Train demonstration project (today's Line 2).

On 6 July 2010, Doucet announced his candidacy for Mayor of Ottawa in the 2010 Ottawa municipal election. Doucet joined a record number of 115 candidates running for municipal office in 2010, of which 15 challenged mayoral incumbent Larry O'Brien. Doucet placed third with 15 per cent of the vote.

During the 2018 Ontario election campaign, Doucet volunteered in Ottawa Centre for NDP candidate Joel Harden.

On July 27, 2018, Doucet announced that he would once again be running for Mayor of Ottawa in the 2018 Ottawa municipal election. Doucet placed second behind incumbent mayor Jim Watson, whom he had also lost to in 2010. He won 22 per cent of the vote.

Doucet ran as the Green Party candidate in the 2019 federal election for the riding of Cape Breton—Canso, the riding of his secondary residence of Grand Étang, Nova Scotia. He placed fourth, losing to Liberal candidate Mike Kelloway.

Publications Throughout his career, Doucet has been a writer of novels, poetry, plays, and non-fiction, often writing about his Acadian roots. His most recent book, Urban Meltdown: Cities, Climate Change and Politics as Usual, was published by New Society Publishers in 2007. In its review, The Walrus wrote "When Doucet speaks from the firm ground of experience as city councillor, his sharply logical solutions to municipal problems seem both hopeful and achievable."

Fiction Disneyland Please, novel, 1978, shortlisted for the W.H. Smith First Novel Award John Coe's War, novel, 1983 Gospel According to Mary Magdalene, novel, 1990 The Priest's Boy, linked short stories, 1992

Non-fiction My Grandfather's Cape Breton, originally 1980, republished in 2003 – a memoir of summer boyhood visits to his grandfather on the family farm on Cape Breton Island in the 1960s. Lost and Found in Acadie (2004), a meditation on Acadian history, the Great Expulsion of 1755 and his visit to the Second Acadian World Congress in Louisiana in 1999. Notes from Exile, 1999 – profiles his visit to the 1994 First Acadian World Congress in New Brunswick. Acadian Memories, 2005 – collaboration with photographer Francois Gaudet, a coffee table book keepsake of the Third Acadian World Congress held in Ste Anne, Nova Scotia in 2004.

Poetry Before Star Wars, 1981 Debris of Planets, 1993 Looking for Henry, 1999 – an epic poem meditating on the deportation of Acadians in 1755 contrasted to the defeat of the Metis Nation in 1885, and how the victors get to write history. Canal Seasons, 2003

Plays Hatching Eggs, National Arts Centre, 1976 A Very Desirable Residence, Penguin Performance Company, 1978 Chicken Delight, CBC Playhouse (radio), 1978 May the Best Man Win The Chez Lucien is Dead (with Wayne Rostad)

Electoral record Federal

Municipal Mayoral Mayoral candidate Vote % Jim Watson (X) 188,960 71.03 Clive Doucet 59,156 22.24 Bruce McConville 4,360 1.64 Craig MacAulay 2,272 0.85 Ahmed Bouragba 1,912 0.72 Joey Drouin 1,893 0.71 Hamid Alakozai 1,867 0.70 James T. Sheahan 1,354 0.51 Michael Pastien 1,177 0.44 Ryan Lythall 1,115 0.42 Moises Schachtler 994 0.37 Bernard Couchman 964 0.36

Mayor Candidate Votes % Jim Watson 131,323 48.70 Larry O'Brien (X) 64,862 24.06 Clive Doucet 40,148 14.89 Andrew S. Haydon 18,914 7.01 Mike Maguire 6,618 2.45 15 other candidates 7,775 2.88 Total votes 269,640 100.00

City Councillor Capital Ward (Ward 17)CandidateVotes% Clive Doucet (X) 6,495 48.14% Jay Nordenstrom 4,602 34.11% Ian Boyd 1,963 14.55% Sean Curran 433 3.21%

Capital Ward (Ward 17)CandidateVotes% Clive Doucet (X) 5,785 80.06% C.R.L. Erickson 1,024 14.17% Mike Salmon 417 5.77%

Capital Ward (Ward 17)CandidateVotes%Clive Doucet (X) 6,486 69.51Jim Bickford 2,845 30.49