Stephen Blais

As part of his election campaign, Blais promised to donate the pay raise Trustee's voted for themselves. In 2006, Blais endowed a bursary at Carleton University for high school students from Orleans, Ontario.[1]

In 2010, Blais was elected the third Ottawa City Councillor for Cumberland Ward defeating the two-term incumbent. He quickly made his mark securing early victories by having the City of Ottawa conduct an environmental assessment to widen HWY 174 and to extend Light Rail Transit to Orléans.[2]

In 2013, his proposed solution to reducing commuting times was to limit the volume coming from Eastern Ontario through the 174 by introducing a toll.[3] He was quoted as saying "The residents of Rockland are paying nothing yet they get all the benefits to commute to their jobs downtown and I think they should pay their fair share to contribute to the upkeep of the road and then we can use some of that money to improve transit out to Orleans,". The proposed measure was unpopular and never adopted. Several media mobilized the local populations to push back against his proposal. [4]

In addition to his focus on reducing commute times through investments in roads and transit, Blais prioritized local park construction. In his first term of office, seven new parks were built in Cumberland Ward and Blais announced a plan to partner with the local homebuilding industry to complete an $8 million expansion of Millennium Park.[5]

Blais was named Chair of the City of Ottawa Transit Commission on December 10, 2014. The Transit Commission is the body charged with oversight of the City's public transit provider OC Transpo.[6]

The Transit Commission is responsible for ensuring the development of a safe, efficient, accessible, and client-focused transit system and for providing overall guidance and direction to the Transit Services Department on all issues relating to the operation of public transit, including the O-Train and Para Transpo. The Transit Commission consists of eight members of Council and four citizen members, as approved by Council. The Transit Commission meets on a monthly basis in a public forum.[7]

In October 2019, Blais announced that he would be seeking the Liberal nomination for the provincial riding of Orléans, which had been left vacant when Marie-France Lalonde stepped down to run for the federal Liberal Party.[8] He won the nomination on November 9.[9] Blais won the February 27 by-election with 55 per cent of the vote, defeating his nearest rival, Progressive Conservative candidate Natalie Montgomery, by more than 8,000 votes.[10] This is the largest majority in Orléans in more than 30 years.[11]

Blais serves as the Ontario Liberal critic for several areas:[12]

• Caucus Chair
• Municipal Affairs and Housing
• Transportation
• Economic Development and Trade

As of 2021, he made an intervention in Assembly to remind the PC Ontario government led by Doug Ford to upload HWY 174 to the Province based on a 2014 election promise made by Tim Hudak. He remains silent as to why he did not solicit the Liberals, between 2014 and 2017, when he was at Ottawa City Hall, to upload the road to the Province.[13]

He was re-elected in the 2022 Ontario general election.