Tim Tierney

The City of Ottawa’s list of elected officials for 2022 to 2026 shows Tim Tierney as Councillor for Ward 11 Beacon Hill-Cyrville. The City’s list of certified candidates shows his nomination dated May 1, 2026, with the same date for his registration in the Contribution Rebate Program. The City’s published results for the October 24, 2022 election give him 7,617 of the 9,293 votes cast in Ward 11, which is 82.0 percent, in a race of three candidates. CBC News says he has won the ward four times since 2010 and is tied with Councillor Allan Hubley of Kanata South as Ottawa’s longest-serving councillor.

CBC News reported that he was acclaimed president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), a national group that speaks for city and town governments to the federal government, at its annual conference in Edmonton, and that he is the first Ottawa-based president in more than 80 years. The FCM’s board page lists him as President. The Council minutes of April 22, 2026 record Council carrying a motion to endorse his candidacy for the position, with no recorded vote. The motion text says the conference ran from June 4 to June 7, 2026 and that he would be the first president from Ottawa since 1942.

The City’s page for him, read as an Internet Archive copy of July 31, 2025, says he was first elected to Council in 2010, chaired the Ottawa Public Library Board in the 2014 to 2018 term and the Transportation Committee in the 2018 to 2022 term, and has sat on the Planning Committee, the Transit Commission, the Ottawa Community Housing Board and the Information Technology Sub-Committee, which he chaired. His campaign website lists his current roles as Chair of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee and member of four other committees. voche.me has not checked that list against Council records.

The Council minutes of December 10, 2025 record him voting for the 2026 Ottawa Police Service budget (carried 20 to 5), against an amendment that would have added $5.4 million from the Tax Stabilization Reserve, a City fund kept for tax stability, to community-based safety and crisis response (lost 9 to 16), for the Transit Committee part of the 2026 budget as amended (carried 20 to 4), and for the motion that adopted the 2026 budget reports (carried 21 to 4). Ottawa Lookout reported that he wrote in the Ottawa Citizen that a small group of councillors has long opposed traditional policing budgets and is unwilling to put community safety first, and that Councillor Ariel Troster answered in CBC News that it was unacceptable for him to criticize urban councillors.

The minutes of April 22, 2026 record him voting for the Safe Access to Social Infrastructure By-law, which creates safe access zones around schools, places of worship, hospitals and care facilities and bans demonstrations inside them (carried 20 to 4), and against three attempts to change or delay it: a motion to discuss its legal advice in private (lost 7 to 17), an amendment to remove the ban on demonstrations (lost 6 to 18), and a motion to limit its prohibitions to the times when a facility is used for its main purpose (lost 10 to 14). The minutes of July 15, 2026 record him voting for the Development Charge Reduction Program report, which would cut by 54 percent the fees the City charges builders of new homes once a funding agreement is signed (carried 23 to 1), against referring that report to a special Council meeting (lost 11 to 14), and for the Rental Renovation Licence By-law (carried 20 to 5). The minutes of September 9, 2026 record him among the 23 members voting for the motion asking the federal government to extend its consultation on the Eastern Bridge Project (carried 23 to 2).

In the CBC News questionnaire he says infrastructure is the biggest challenge for the next Council, that he would support a 2027 tax increase of at most 2.5 percent, and that the police budget should be increased. He says the community policing model has produced large drops in crime in the ward, a statement that voche.me has not checked against police data. He gives 5 on a scale where 5 is strongly agree to the statement that building more homes in built-up areas will be important for housing in the ward, and answers yes to prioritizing climate resilience even if it means spending less elsewhere. In the CTV News Ottawa questionnaire he says he would not support an infrastructure levy, a separate tax charge for roads and sewers, and wants infrastructure better defined instead. He also says he has the endorsement of Noah Vineberg, whom his website lists as President of ATU Local 279.

Two past matters were reported by news outlets. The Ontario Provincial Police charged him on November 23, 2018 under the Municipal Elections Act with a corrupt practices offence, after Michael Schurter, his only opponent in the 2018 election, complained about a phone call on July 27, 2018. Global News reported that the police alleged he offered to make a donation to a charity for Schurter so that Schurter would not register as a candidate. On September 11, 2019 the charge was withdrawn. Global News reported that he told the court he apologized for his mistake and accepted full responsibility, that his statement said he had always intended to make a personal donation to the Gloucester Food Cupboard had he been acclaimed, and that he gave up two months of his salary, which the City Clerk confirmed as a cheque for $10,567.52. No court decided the charge. Schurter said the court process made Tierney take responsibility for his actions. On June 9, 2021 CBC News reported that he told Council he had sent a confidential memo about the Rideau Street sinkhole lawsuit to a journalist by mistake, that he breached the code of conduct and that he would be more careful. The Integrity Commissioner’s investigation of the leak ended after that.