These elections would mark the first for the newly amalgamated city, which added 10 former municipalities to Ottawa.

At the time of the city elections, the amalgamation had not occurred yet; the official date of that happened on January 1, 2001.

Cain did very well in her native Gloucester, as well as in the more francophone areas like Cumberland and Vanier.

Chiarelli was seen as a "solid, no-frills and experience politicians who quietly gets the job done", running an "amorphous, centrist" campaign.

[1] The city council elections were very fierce, because many wards faced incumbents against each other because of the amalgamation.