The Diane Deans the public saw during countless heated debates at Ottawa city council was passionate and fiery and at times open and vulnerable, qualities her colleagues and friends say remained even when the cameras turned away.
The veteran Ottawa city councillor died on Tuesday at the age of 66, five years after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer and almost two weeks after announcing she’d entered palliative care.
“Diane died peacefully surrounded by family,” reads a statement released by her family on Tuesday afternoon.
The family said despite her diagnosis, Deans lived “every day to its fullest with a fighting spirit, unwavering tenacity, courage and compassion.”
“My mom was my role model but also a role model for so many other girls and women, demonstrating that no dream
is beyond reach, ” said Megan McGovern, Deans’s daughter, in the statement.
“She wore her heart on her sleeve,” said Maria McRae, who sat on council with Deans for 11 years. “People who knew her privately would probably say the same thing, that she was just as vigorous at debating issues at home as she would be at City Hall.”
Marianne Wilkinson, another former fellow councillor, said Deans showed “a lot of empathy” for everyone, supporting colleagues, constituents and her beloved daughter, Megan.
Deans served 28 years in the southeastern community of what has been the ward of Gloucester-Southgate since 2000. But beyond her ward, Deans will also be known for demanding public accountability on the biggest city-wide issues.
Smart, strong and tough
Many who worked alongside her at city hall — from the bureaucracy to media row — say Deans was a tough-as-nails politician who never stopped working, thoroughly reading and questioning every report that passed her desk.
While she respected staff work, she always questioned it, said several former councillors.
“Diane led the battle for accountability and transparency,” said Catherine McKenney. “She was just so smart and so strong that I often say that she made me braver than I may have been otherwise to take chances and to push issues forward.”
Wilkinson said Deans wasn’t one to speak out when it wasn’t warranted, but fought passionately when things needed to be said.
“She wasn’t willing to take people trying to cover things up or make sure that they somebody else was to blame,” said Wilkinson.
Joanne Chianello, who reported on Deans at the Ottawa Citizen before working at CBC as a municipal analyst, agreed: “She was not a rubber stamper. Let’s put it that way.”
A life before politics? Not for Deans
Longtime friends say there was no time before Deans was involved in politics.
She was part of national student politics after graduating from the University of Guelph, joining and then leading a newly formed Canadian Federation of Students in the early 1980s.
From there she became a staffer on Parliament Hill before winning her first municipal election in pre-amalgamation Gloucester City Council in 1994 — a seat she held right up she left politics in 2022.
That long tenure earned Deans a reputation for knowing and understanding the inner workings of City Hall better than anyone else.
And she took many newcomers under her wing.
Jon Willing, now a journalism professor at Algonquin College, covered Deans from 2009 until 2022. He said Deans was a councillor who always had time to offer an interview, or simply an informal chat.
‘When her mic went on, you listened’
Deans did flirt with the idea of moving away from municipal politics, losing a Liberal nomination bid twice; first federally to MP David McGuinty in 2004, and then provincially to now MP Yasir Naqvi in 2006.
“I think it was good that she stayed at the municipal level because she brought a lot of sunlight to important issues,” said Chianello, who developed a friendship with Deans after stepping away from journalism.
Chianello and Willing both say Deans was a councillor to watch, especially toward the end of her career.
“When her mic went on, you listened,” said Willing. “She was at the centre of a lot of those spicy debates, a lot of those heated debates on the floor of council.”
That includes years of advocating for transparency with the creation of the LRT.
Deans, a frequent and persistent foil of then mayor Jim Watson, was one of several councillors who criticized his emphasis on sticking to a prescribed budget over ensuring accountability. In one particularly heated debate in 2021 over whether to hold an inquiry, Watson infamously cut off her mic.
WATCH | Diane Deans requested a decision from the clerk, but was cut off:
Several councillors argued with Mayor Jim Watson over procedural rules at Wednesday’s council meeting over Zoom, culminating in confusion and at least one councillor walking off screen.
Fighting for ‘what’s right’
Chianello also recalled Deans pushing for answers on whether SNC-Lavalin (now known as Atkins Réalis) met the technical score in its bid to build the $4.7-billion Trillium Line extension.
“I just need a simple answer,” Deans said in committee. “But I didn’t get that simple answer. I got a song and dance, I got 100 different ways of dancing around it. That led me to believe they didn’t meet the technical score.”
WATCH | Diane Deans pressed for answers on the SNC-Lavalin LRT bid:
Coun. Diane Deans expresses frustration that city staff refused to confirm whether SNC-Lavalin met the technical requirements for the Trillium Line contract.
Former mayor Bob Chiarelli said this never-say-die attitude made Deans truly “unforgettable” as a politician, and a friend.
“I can vouch for her tenacity in never taking a no for what’s right for her constituents,” he said.
Losing faith
When Deans was forced to take time away from City Hall because of her cancer diagnosis, she showed a new sense of vulnerability.
Deans told then CBC host Lucy van Oldenbarnevald she was always a private person, and never imagined the wave of public support she’d receive.
“Maybe somebody like me can give others hope,” she said at the time. “For me, it’s an opportunity.”
WATCH | Diane Deans describe her cancer diagnosis :
Coun. Diane Deans describes what it was like to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
After returning to her council position and role as head of the police services board, the first woman to hold that role, she faced another significant challenge, and one that would change her perspective on politics.
The unprecedented Freedom Convoy protest that dragged for weeks in early 2022 put pressure on everyone at the city, including Deans in her role on the police oversight board.
The resignation of police chief Peter Sloly following criticism over his handling of the historic civil unrest led Deans to a decision that would lead to her own ouster; her hiring of an interim police chief from outside the city without a competition, and without telling council.
Deans was removed from the police board in one of city council’s most emotional meetings — one in which two other members of the board resigned in protest. But she didn’t go out without a fight.
“You’re destabilizing the oversight body for Ottawa Police in the middle of the biggest crisis in this city’s history,” charged Deans at the time. “That is being ridiculously political.”
WATCH | Councillors decided to replace members of the police services board:
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Ottawa city council voted to overhaul the police services board Wednesday night amid the ongoing occupation of the downtown core, leading to accusations of political posturing and calls for the mayor to resign.
Several people said that moment changed Deans’s political trajectory.
“She never quite got over that because she felt her colleagues let her down,” said Chianello.
Writing her own story to the end
Months later, Deans would end a mayoral bid and her political career.
But those who knew her said she did not stop fighting for the things she believed in, including equity at city hall for people of all genders and backgrounds.
Perhaps as a “natural-born politician,” as MPP John Fraser described her, she had no other choice.
Even in her final days, friends said she was fully in charge. She held court in the hospital room with her husband Ron Richards not far away, discussing the past but also planning for her funeral.
McKenney said when they visited, they found “the same Diane as she was a year ago,” with the same passion that she’d had when they first met decades earlier.
“The Diane you saw was the Diane you got right ’til the last moment,” said Chianello. “And I would love to have that for myself. I think I would wish that on anyone.”
A celebration of life will take place on May 25 at 2 p.m. at the Infinity Convention Centre. It will be open to the public.