Elected Ottawa-Carleton District School Board trustee for Zone 6 since 2018 and former board chair, running for Councillor in Ward 12 Rideau-Vanier.
Lyra Evans is on the City of Ottawa’s list of certified candidates for Councillor in Ward 12 Rideau-Vanier, with a nomination dated May 4, 2026. The City’s results give her 7,275 of the 13,363 votes cast in the 2022 Ottawa-Carleton District School Board race for Zone 6, which is 54.4 percent. CBC News reported that she lost the board chair in November 2023 when a tied vote was settled by a card draw, and that she was interim executive director of Planned Parenthood Ottawa from September 2025, a charity that paused its services in November 2025 and reopened in February 2026. Her campaign says its priorities are food affordability, homelessness, transit reliability, a budget process that asks residents first (a participatory budget), housing development and permanent funding for ANCHOR, a non-police crisis program. A board report shows that a fellow trustee filed a Code of Conduct complaint against her in 2020 over a social media post, and voche.me did not find the result.
Researched by voche.me · Not a campaign-authored page
The City’s list of certified candidates shows Lyra Evans’s nomination for Councillor in Ward 12 Rideau-Vanier dated May 4, 2026, with the same date for her registration in the Contribution Rebate Program. The City’s open data file shows no school board nomination in her name for 2026, and she is not on the City’s list of withdrawn candidates. CBC News reported on July 11, 2026 that she had said she would run in Rideau-Vanier, where she lives, before nominations opened, because she had already done what she set out to do on the school board. In CBC News of January 14, 2026 she says she could probably win her trustee seat again but would not run for it, even if the province gave trustees back their full authority.
The City’s published results for the October 24, 2022 election give her 7,275 of the 13,363 votes cast for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board in Zone 6, which is 54.4 percent, in a race of six candidates. CBC News says she was first elected to the board in 2018. A board news release says trustees elected her Chair of the Board of Trustees in November 2022 and describes Zone 6 as Rideau-Vanier and Rideau-Rockcliffe. CBC News reported on November 15, 2023 that she lost the chair to Lynn Scott when two split votes at the board’s annual meeting were settled by a high-card draw under the board’s rules, and that her year as chair was marked by controversy over mask mandates and uniformed police officers in schools. The board’s page says the current trustees were elected in October 2022 and were due to serve until November 2026, and that since June 27, 2025 the board has been under supervision by the Minister of Education, so that decisions normally made by trustees are made by the appointed Supervisor. CBC News reported that supervision suspended trustees’ meetings, honorarium payments and decision-making role.
CTV News Ottawa reported on June 15, 2021 that trustees voted 13 to 1 to end the board’s participation in the Ottawa police school resource officer program, after Evans introduced the motion at a Special Committee of the Whole meeting. Trustee Donna Blackburn cast the one vote against. Her campaign website also says she helped create a green climate fund at the board and championed low-income and special education students. voche.me has not checked those two statements against board minutes.
A board report dated November 16, 2020 shows that Trustee Donna Blackburn filed a Code of Conduct complaint against Evans on August 29, 2020, about a statement Evans posted on Twitter on August 27, 2020 regarding a board decision. The complaint says the post went against the code’s sections on civil behaviour and on upholding board decisions. A third-party investigator gave the board a report of facts on November 2, 2020, and the report asks trustees to vote on whether the code was breached. The report records no reply from Evans and gives no result, and voche.me did not find a source that gives the result. No finding against her appears in the sources read.
CBC News reported on November 5, 2025 that Evans had stepped in as executive director of Planned Parenthood Ottawa in September 2025 while the charity faced a money shortage, and on November 27, 2025 that it was pausing its front-line programs. CBC News says the agency had laid off all six of its unionized front-line staff earlier in 2025. A union labour relations specialist told CBC News that the union had raised concerns with Evans that she was doing those employees’ work, and Evans said she had continued some of the charity’s work herself. Evans told CBC News that grants the board had expected did not arrive. CBC News reported on February 24, 2026 that the charity reopened after three months with two staff, down from six. Her campaign website says the board asked her to take the role and that over seven months a projected deficit of $50,000 became a projected surplus. voche.me has not checked that with the charity.
Her campaign website lists food affordability, homelessness, public transit, a budget process that asks residents first (a participatory budget), housing development and permanent funding for ANCHOR, a program that sends non-police crisis teams to people in a mental health or addiction crisis. On the platform page she says she would study results from Toronto’s municipal grocery store trial and, if it looks workable, ask Council for a City-owned grocery store in Ottawa. She calls the Lansdowne 2.0 redevelopment a waste and wants residents’ budget feedback heard. In the CTV News Ottawa questionnaire she says she would decrease transit fares while changing the share of money that comes from fares so that routes are not cut, would not support a bigger police budget (she adds that provincial changes put that decision largely out of municipal hands), and supports an infrastructure levy, which is an extra property tax charge for roads and sewers. On Bluesky on August 26, 2026 she summed up her campaign as affordability, homelessness, transit by bike, bus and train, mental health and addictions, and ending the return-to-office mandate. The sources voche.me read hold no complaint about her beyond the 2020 board complaint described above.
Summarized from the campaign’s published profile. These are stated positions, not an assessment of results or a complete platform.
On her platform page she proposes studying the results of Toronto’s municipal grocery store trial and, if workable, asking Council for a City-owned grocery store in Ottawa that stocks local and imperfect-looking produce.
She says Toronto’s trial could cut grocery prices for an average family by 3 to 5 percent. That figure is hers and voche.me has not checked it.
She wants the City to change how it decides who gets shelter space, so that people who can manage on their own leave shelters sooner, and to build the housing-first approach (a person gets a home first and support after) in the medium and long term.
She says the City has not funded housing-first programs properly and has built traditional shelters instead.
She proposes a reserve of buses and drivers to replace those lost to breakdowns and sick calls, changing the expected balance between fares and City funding, and fewer buses on routes with almost no riders so that busy routes run more often.
In the CTV News Ottawa questionnaire she says she would decrease fares.
She wants residents to say what the City should deliver before the budget total is set, and says public feedback should be heard when residents reject projects such as Lansdowne 2.0.
She says holding property tax increases below inflation has widened a gap in City services.
She asks for building upward instead of outward, fourplexes allowed as of right in all zones, a City right of first refusal on existing units going to market, and City-owned housing production of 1,500 units a year by 2031.
Lyra Evans campaign · PlatformShe wants ANCHOR funding made permanent and the program widened to more neighbourhoods, and pairs police with social workers so that people in crisis get help.
She says ANCHOR is a pilot with strict geographic limits and no stable core funding.
Evidence reviewed on October 6, 2026: the City’s list of certified candidates for Ward 12 and its open data file of nominations and 2022 results, her campaign website (home, Meet Lyra and Platform), her Bluesky campaign account, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s page on its trustees and on supervision, a board report of November 16, 2020, a board release of 2022, CBC News of November 15, 2023, November 5 and 27, 2025, January 14, February 24, July 11 and August 25, 2026, CTV News Ottawa of June 15, 2021 and September 2026.
Gaps. Her Facebook and Instagram pages showed only a login page or a profile summary to a visitor who is not logged in, and no posts could be read. The board’s list of trustees showed no names to a visitor, so her zone and chair role rest on the City’s 2022 results, a board release and CBC News. Board meeting minutes were not read, so no trustee vote other than the one reported by CTV News Ottawa is described. The result of the 2020 Code of Conduct complaint was not found. Her statements about her degree, awards, youth services work, the climate fund and the Planned Parenthood figures were not checked with those bodies. Her CBC News questionnaire answers were not found on CBC’s page for Ward 12 on October 6, 2026. The questionnaire has not been sent.
CBC News says she was first elected in 2018, and the City’s 2022 results give her 7,275 of 13,363 votes in Zone 6. The board’s page says trustees’ decisions have been made by the appointed Supervisor since June 27, 2025.
CBC News · OCDSB chair ousted in card draw after split vote, November 15, 2023A board release says trustees elected her Chair in November 2022. CBC News reported that she lost the chair on November 14, 2023 in a card draw after two split votes.
Education News Canada · New OCDSB trustees sworn in, chair and vice-chair elected (OCDSB release, 2022)CBC News reports that she took the role in September 2025 and that her contract was due to run out in the spring of 2026. The charity paused its services in November 2025 and reopened in February 2026.
CBC News · Planned Parenthood Ottawa faces uncertain future amid ‘cash crisis’, November 5, 2025Her campaign website says she worked at the Youth Services Bureau for more than five years and organized community groups and events for queer and trans residents. voche.me has not checked this with the organizations.
Lyra Evans campaign · Meet LyraProposed questions for a future interview. They have not been sent to the candidate, and no answers have been supplied.
No questions and answers have been supplied.
Ask Lyra Evans directly. We send it to the campaign, and publish the reply here if we get one.
Facts voche.me can state about Lyra Evans's page itself, answered directly rather than left blank.
No. This page is researched by voche.me from public sources, listed below, and is separate from Lyra Evans's own campaign.
Not according to this profile. voche.me has not listed a current public office for Lyra Evans.
This profile lists 20 sourced references, each with the date voche.me checked it, in the Sources section below.
The "Questions & answers" section on this page lists questions voche.me would put to Lyra Evans in a future interview. They have not been sent yet, so the page says plainly that no answer has been supplied instead of leaving the section blank.
The 2026 Ottawa municipal election, including the Councillor race, is decided on October 26, 2026.
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