Over the past few months, the candidates vying to be Ottawa’s next mayor have been laying out their campaign platforms. This week, we get to know the people behind the policies. Today: Neil Saravanamuttoo.
Economist and former public servant Neil Saravanamuttoo is in his “happy place” combing through financial spreadsheets, but this mayoral candidate is anything but a timid number cruncher who wants to stay in the background.
Despite spending most of his career in government, he’s branded himself as an outsider: an anti-establishment candidate who rails against “special interests” taking over Ottawa city hall.
People who know him describe him as a creative thinker, and he’s framed his campaign around finding out-of-the-box solutions.
Unlike the other contenders, he doesn’t surround himself with party backroomers.
He often shows up for media interviews with a tripod and a phone to shoot his own videos for social media.
Saravanamuttoo caught the public’s attention by campaigning against Lansdowne 2.0, the city’s $419-million development of an urban park.
By taking a stand, he learned the power of connecting neighbours who want to make a difference.
The community organizer who started as a one-man band aims to build a movement, though he’s never before sought office.
“The importance of relationships is key,” said Saravanamuttoo, who argues that public finance requires people skills, too. “We can’t achieve things working alone.”
As chief economist of the G20 Global Infrastructure Hub, he said he navigated complex personal relationships with the rotating chair.
Turkey wanted to control the agenda, but was open to new ideas; China kept economists under the microscope.
It was a chance to build muscle he now wants to flex inside the mayor’s office.
‘A very weird name’
With a name like Saravanamuttoo, it was always hard to go unnoticed.
He and his two siblings were born in Bristol, England, but grew up near Carlingwood in Ottawa, attending D. Roy Kennedy Public School and Nepean High School.
“We grew up with a very weird name,” explained Malcolm Saravanamuttoo, one of Neil’s two older brothers. “You have to understand, back then … if you didn’t have a name like John Smith, you stood out.”
Getting teased made them “tougher,” he said, but it also “helps develop character.”
From left to right, Colin, Neil and Malcolm Saravanamuttoo stand in front of a Spitfire during a trip to RAF Manston in Kent, England, in the 1970s. (Submitted by Neil Saravanamuttoo)
As boys who “looked Canadian,” it was a curiosity. For their father, Herb, who grew up in Sri Lanka and Scotland before coming to Canada, it was a major hurdle — though the family didn’t speak of it at the time.
“It wasn’t until quite late in life, in his final couple of years, that he shared a lot of the experience that he had as someone of colour in this country,” Neil Saravanamuttoo said. “It wasn’t easy back in the ’60s and ’70s.”
He said that perspective helped shape his desire to support diversity and give people across Ottawa a stronger voice.
Family history
Throughout his life, the surname has been a perennial conversation starter — including when it’s not there.
Many of the signs that popped up in neighbourhoods across Ottawa used the shorter “Neil for mayor” slogan, causing some to question why.
“It’s 14 characters!” Saravanamuttoo laughed in explanation, noting the name is spelled out in full on his larger signs.
Neil Saravanamuttoo, centre, attends his graduation from Carleton University his brothers and parents. (Submitted by Malcolm Saravanamuttoo)
CBC’s interview took place within view of a permanent sign for the Saravanamuttoo Family Atrium. He chose the spot within Carleton University’s engineering department to share his experiences and those of his family, which has supported the institution.
That September afternoon, university staff shared an appreciation lunch underneath the sign — fitting, perhaps, given Herb’s love for the place where he spent 56 years teaching engineering and researching gas turbine engines.
He originally came to Canada to work on the Avro Arrow, a famous Canadian-made interceptor jet that became politically divisive. When then prime minister John Diefenbaker scrapped it, Herb Saravanamuttoo was among the thousands employed through the government project to be laid off over a loud speaker.
He managed to smuggle out a set of engine blueprints, despite workers being told to destroy everything. That piece of history was later donated to the Canadian Aviation Museum, according to his obituary.
Caption: Neil Saravanamuttoo, bottom, with his brothers and father Herb during a family trip. (Submitted by Malcolm Saravanamuttoo)
“I wouldn’t say we had a lot of money growing up,” Neil Saravanamuttoo said of the years before his father secured a tenured position.
His mother, Helen, always made sure there was enough for travel, however, both back to the U.K. and to new locales like Egypt.
The household didn’t spend on organized sports, but their neighbourhood had a “great park” with an ice rink in the winter where they learned to skate and play hockey.
Neil, the youngest Saravanamuttoo, took an early interest in fiscal management when he became a paper boy.
When the children grew older, their mother became a social worker. Both parents died during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Malcolm Saravanamuttoo said he’s certain they would have been very proud of his brother’s run for mayor.
Falling in love
Neil, like his brother Malcolm, opted to study economics at Carleton.
“I fell in love with it very quickly,” he said. “It has been a tremendous skill to be able to understand the world in that way.”
After briefly moving abroad to study and work in the 1990s, Saravamuttoo returned to Ottawa where he fell in love again. He met his future wife Kimberley in a dog park. She’s a teacher, former journalist and military reservist.
The pair settled in the Glebe, where they raised their daughters, now 20 and 22, just blocks from his brother’s family. They continue to love dogs, including their six-year-old Australian shepherd Tenley.
After a couple of years working for JetForm, a tech firm later acquired by Adobe Systems, he moved to public finance, where he says his “heart always was.”
Neil Saravanamuttoo with his father Herb, brothers Colin and Malcolm, and mother Helen. The mayoral candidate says he was close with both of his parents. (Submitted by Malcolm Saravanamuttoo)
An ‘innovative’ public servant
Saravanamuttoo said he learned about more than budgeting in his 15 years at the federal Department of Finance, starting in the mid-2000s.
“I was always in places where we’re very close to the decision-making,” he said. “The ability to see how decisions are being made, how interaction between the bureaucracy and the political class happened was fascinating.”
He also learned from the department’s mistakes. Saravanamuttoo recalled a budget printed with the wrong numbers, an error he said the politicians told bureaucrats not to call attention to.
It was eventually discovered and made into political fodder.
“It was really amazing the way it got twisted and warped,” he said. “The lesson for me was, if you make a mistake, just own it.”
Paul Samson, who worked with Saravanamuttoo in the federal government, said there are two types of bureaucrats: the ones focused on crossing t’s and dotting i’s, and innovators who push their own ideas.
Saravanamuttoo, he said, is the latter.
“It’s pretty rare,” Samson said, of public servants who take the plunge into politics. “[Public servants are] just not built that way.”
Most are cautious to express their political opinions.
Malcolm Saravanamuttoo is that other type, saying he wouldn’t attend any of his brother’s campaign events until after his recent retirement from Employment and Social Development Canada.
Economist and podcaster Neil Saravanamuttoo is laying the groundwork for a possible mayoral run in the upcoming October election. CBC’s Arthur White-Crummey meets him to discuss his priorities.
Working together
While his friends and colleagues likely wouldn’t have forecast this latest turn in Saravanamuttoo’s life, it was clear soon after he left the Global Infrastructure Hub in 2021 that he was becoming more interested in community activism.
One of his first forays happened outside city limits, focused on nature preservation.
Before Saravanamuttoo ever owned a home in Ottawa, he had a cottage in Quebec, which quickly became a beloved refuge for his nature-loving family. His daughters grew close to the other families there.
When a nearly 90-hectare plot of land came up for sale, they worried what sort of development might pop up.
Saravanamuttoo said he and dozens of other cottage owners created a lake association to purchase the land and turn it into an unofficial nature trust.
“That was a really extensive process that took a long time, but it was really rewarding,” he said.
It also made him consider what sort of impact he could make in Ottawa.
Neil Saravanamuttoo lives in the Glebe with his wife Kimberley. His two daughters, 20 and 22, are studying in other cities. Saravanamuttoo campaigned against the latest redevelopment plan for nearby Lansdowne Park. (Francis Ferland/CBC)
Lansdowne 2.0
Carolyn Mackenzie lives close to Saravanamuttoo in the Glebe, but she didn’t know him until he reached out asking to get involved in community issues.
She quickly discovered that her neighbour was ready to dive deep and look for solutions.
“He’s willing to take some risks, personal risk to his own reputation, of course,” said Mackenzie, who remains active in the Glebe Community Association. “But also he’s willing to take some risks to try some new things.”
Soon he was a regular attendee at council meetings, coming to speak on the budget, Lansdowne Park and the city’s infrastructure deficit.
“I always felt that I was listened to and that I was heard, not necessarily taken into consideration — in fact, quite the opposite,” Saravanamuttoo said.
Mackenzie describes Saravanamuttoo as confident, yet always willing to look at the other side of issues and admit when he’s wrong. These are traits that have become central to his campaign style.
Saravanamuttoo shuns traditional door-knocking, which he has done but calls “incredibly inefficient.” Instead, he favours ask-me-anything town halls.
Outside of his last such event, which drew at least 50 people, he told CBC these sometimes turn into “tell-me-anything” events — and have given him platform ideas.
For example, one resident suggested the idea of emulating a tiny homes village in Gatineau, Que., which offers repurposed shipping containers to the unhoused. The idea is not only part of his platform, it’s one of his most talked about promises.
Won’t back down
At that town hall in late September, Saravanamuttoo faced questions on topics ranging from affordable housing to U.S. tariffs.
Then came a question pitting two of his ideas against one other: A woman asked Saravanamuttoo how he could be promising support for Palestinians — which he called a “defining issue of our time” — while also suggesting Ottawa should fight to house a defence, security and resilience bank.
Saravanamuttoo earned applause when he replied that there’s no conflict between the two ideas since the bank is a “financing mechanism” that will bring jobs to somewhere in Canada — so why not here?
It’s not the first time one of Saravanamuttoo’s ideas has sparked political backlash.
Neil Saravanamuttoo was on Catherine McKenney’s policy team for their 2022 mayoral bid. (Joanne Chianello/CBC)
He said he came up with how to finance Catherine McKenney’s ambitious ideas for creating bike lanes during the last municipal election campaign, one of the former city councillor and mayoral candidate’s most talked-about promises.
“I’ll be honest, it was a bit of a surprise, the negativity towards bike lanes,” Saravanamuttoo told CBC, reflecting on that previous mayoral race.
He said Mark Sutcliffe’s 2022 campaign effectively identified this as a wedge issue it could use to define McKenney’s political identity.
“As we saw, it was a bit of a knockout blow,” Saravanamuttoo said.
McKenney, now the NDP MPP for Ottawa Centre, has endorsed her former council colleague Jeff Leiper’s mayoral bid this time around. CBC reached out to McKenney, who declined to discuss their dealings with Saravanamuttoo.
Saravanamuttoo told the audience at an early debate during this campaign that he’s the only candidate “brave enough” to bring up bike lanes. Weeks later, Sutcliffe pulled that thread.
In a debate and subsequent social media posts, the Sutcliffe campaign dredged up the old McKenney pledge and Saravanamuttoo’s part in it.
But if the incumbent thought the challenger would distance himself from the now four-year-old policy, he was wrong.
“Look, I’m a numbers guy,” Saravanamuttoo responded. “That plan would cost taxpayers absolutely nothing because it was paid for entirely out of the money that was going to be spent in the future.”
Just another example of a campaign and a candidate that doesn’t know the meaning of the word retreat.
Saravanamuttoo laughs during an interview at an atrium named after his family at Carleton University. People who know him say he’s a fun person who doesn’t take himself too seriously. (Elyse Skura/CBC)
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