5 Questions With Stittsville Council candidate Sheetal Narwal

The following are 5 questions that we sent out to every Ottawa City Council candidate in hopes of getting to know them better. We publish the responses exactly as we receive them, in the order that they were sent to us. Here are the responses from Stittsville (Ward 6) Council candidate Sheetal Narwal.

1. Who are you? Where are you from? What relevant experience do you have for the job?

I’m Sheetal Narwal, and I’m running for City Council in Ward 6, Stittsville. I lived in Nepean before choosing Stittsville as home in 2025, with my husband and our dog Leo.

I hold a bachelor’s and a master’s in computer science and have spent 20 years in cybersecurity leadership. I managed critical infrastructure at Ontario Health, and most recently I was CEO of a security company. I have managed budgets, made payroll, led procurement, handled negotiations and delivered on fixed deadlines. I’ve answered to boards and also served on the governance board of YWCA Durham, part of our country’s largest and oldest organization supporting women, including services for victims of violence against women. In the community, I’ve organized food drives, volunteered with Clean the Capital, mentored small business owners and volunteered with seniors.

Since May, I’ve knocked on more than 10,000 doors in Ward 6. My platform comes from what residents told me.

2. The city spends nearly $1B/y on OC Transpo, though many constituents remain dissatisfied with the state of Ottawa’s public transportation. What would you do as a councillor to improve the city’s transportation system?

Transit is the number one issue I hear at the doors, and residents raise two things: unreliable service and long commutes. Stittsville pays the full urban transit levy, and service hasn’t kept up.

First, I’ll push OC Transpo to publish real reliability data for Ward 6 routes, and I’ll report it back to residents in plain language. You can’t fix what you don’t measure.

Second, service planning needs to put evening, weekend and winter reliability first for the people with no other option: seniors, students and one-car families.

And third, I’ll advocate for better connections to where people actually work, and I’ll be honest about where that stands, including when the answer is no.

Council votes on a transit budget of $939 million and holds a seat on the transit committee. Every increase should come with a clear statement of what riders will get, and a report on whether they received it.

3. In a December 2025 poll from Abacus Data, 37% of respondents said that cost of living was the most important issue facing the city; another 19% responded ‘housing affordability.’ What would you do as a councillor to make the city of Ottawa more affordable?

A councillor can’t lower mortgage rates or grocery prices, but City Hall does control its own costs.

Property taxes, water rates and the transit levy have all risen year after year. For many households, that’s part of the affordability problem.

On housing, approvals aren’t the bottleneck in Ward 6. There are more than 30 residential projects at various stages.

The issue is getting approved homes built and serviced, and ensuring roads and services arrive on time instead of years and decades after the houses.

I’ll also make sure residents know what the new zoning rules allow, such as adding a unit so a parent can live close to family.

On City costs, my rule is simple: every new dollar the City asks for must come with what it buys and when it arrives, and then a report on whether it delivered. Affordability starts with the City respecting the money residents already pay.

4. Certain city services like OC Transpo and the OPS have run significant deficits in recent years. Is there anything that you would do as a councillor to try to balance the city’s budget?

Yes, and it starts with better value, not arbitrary caps. Caps set without a plan are how Ottawa ended up with a large infrastructure gap, with repairs deferred rather than paid for.

I’ll push for three things:

First, measure before we spend: major spending needs a stated outcome, a date and a public report on whether it was achieved.

Second, competitive tendering and regular review of major contracts, not automatic renewals.

Third, stronger value-for-money standards for major purchases and capital projects.

For transit and policing, I’ll support funding that is tied to measurable results for residents: reliable buses, response times and patrol coverage. I won’t support last year’s number plus inflation with nothing to show for it.

5. Why are you running for Council? What do you think is the biggest issue facing your ward today?

Stittsville doesn’t have an awareness problem. It has a delivery problem. Everyone knows the issues: unreliable transit, funded but delayed Carp Road improvements, road safety concerns and recreation that hasn’t kept pace with growth. The biggest issue facing Ward 6 is transportation. Transportation is the backbone of every successful municipality in the world. For Stittsville, the standards are unreliability for transit and hours of commuting in traffic if residents are driving.

I’m running because this is fixable, but only by someone who has built things, met real deadlines and answered to people counting on her. My commitment is to be the most compelling voice for stittsville and to be the councillor who comes back and tells residents what happened: what we heard, what we changed because of it, and what we didn’t change and why.