About Your Community Voice

Your Community Voice

Overview

Your Community Voice is a group of free community newspapers published in Ottawa, Ontario, by Ottawa Community Voice Publishing Company Inc. The papers are published every two weeks and delivered to homes and businesses in suburban communities across the capital, each edition tailored to its neighbourhoods. The group was launched in February 2018 by veteran publisher Michael Wollock, weeks after Postmedia closed eight Ottawa community newspapers it had acquired from Torstar, and it was created expressly to fill the local-news gap those closures left. Its current editions serve Kanata (in North and South editions), Stittsville, and Carleton Place and Almonte, and since 2025 the group has also included two long-established independent titles, the Manotick Messenger and the Barrhaven Independent, which publish under the Your Community Voice Newspapers umbrella. The group's own web page summarizes its footprint as Kanata, Stittsville, Manotick, Barrhaven, Carleton Place and Almonte and surrounding areas. The papers are members of the Ontario Community Newspapers Association, in whose directory the group's titles are listed.

History

The papers exist because of a corporate transaction. In November 2017, Postmedia Network and Torstar swapped dozens of newspapers across Ontario; the Ottawa community papers of Torstar's Metroland Media — titles including the Kanata Kourier-Standard, the Stittsville News, the Nepean/Barrhaven News and the West Carleton Review — went to Postmedia, which promptly announced their closure. Their final editions landed on doorsteps on January 11, 2018. Michael Wollock, who had published several Ottawa community newspapers earlier in his career, told CBC in December 2017 that he would relaunch community papers in the affected neighbourhoods, and the first Your Community Voice editions appeared the week of February 15, 2018, aimed at Alta Vista and Canterbury, Hunt Club and Riverside Park, Greenboro and South Keys, and Kanata and Stittsville, with a combined circulation reported at up to 80,000 homes.

Wollock brought an unusual resumé to the venture. As the Ontario Community Newspapers Association recounts, he took over his family's small community newspaper in Montreal at the age of 24 and grew it into Quebec's second-largest English community newspaper; moving to Ottawa in 1988, he started seven community newspapers from his kitchen table before retiring in 2005. The closures of 2018 drew him back; his standing in the industry was such that the OCNA had him judging its 2020 Better Newspapers Competition. One of the independent survivors of the same closures was Jeff Morris's Manotick Messenger, which expanded into Richmond in January 2018 as the chain papers vanished — seven years before the Messenger itself joined Wollock's group. The new papers grew westward: an Ottawa South edition and a West Carleton edition followed — the West Carleton paper's September 2, 2021 issue was numbered Volume 3, Number 1 and introduced a new reporter, Nevil Hunt, formerly of the closed West Carleton Review. In February 2025, the group expanded again when the Manotick Messenger and the Barrhaven Independent joined the Ottawa Voice family; their former owner, Jeff Morris, who had published the Messenger for 41 years and the Independent for 25, had been fighting serious illness and was reported to be pleased the papers had found a good home.

Programming and Content

Each Your Community Voice edition is built from hyper-local material: Ottawa city council and ward-level news filtered to the edition's neighbourhoods, community association activity, school news, minor sports, church and service-club notices, letters to the editor and columns from local elected officials — early editions carried a "Your Community MPP" column from the area's provincial representative alongside municipal updates. The papers published through the COVID-19 pandemic without losing their neighbourhood focus: the Stittsville and Richmond edition of November 26, 2020, for example, reported a city ward name change and Legion community news under the byline of reporter John Curry, and the Kanata edition of December 10, 2020 carried a publisher's editorial alongside its local coverage. The West Carleton edition's 2021 relaunch issue led with the return of the West Carleton Wolverines mosquito football team after the pandemic-cancelled season, and introduced its new reporter to readers by name, in the classic community-paper manner. Election coverage, development proposals in fast-growing suburbs such as Kanata, Stittsville and Barrhaven, and the doings of villages like Manotick, Richmond, Carleton Place and Almonte form the recurring core, supplemented by advertising from local businesses — the papers are advertiser-supported and free to readers.

Audience and Reach

The papers are delivered free to homes and businesses across their suburban territories. At launch in 2018, CBC reported plans for a combined circulation of up to 80,000 homes, and the group has long described its reach in similar terms; its current per-edition figures, as listed in the Ontario Community Newspapers Association's member directory, are 10,156 copies for Kanata North, 10,708 for Kanata South, 10,156 for Stittsville, 8,499 for Carleton Place and Almonte, 9,503 for the Manotick Messenger and 6,700 for the Barrhaven Independent — a combined distribution of roughly 55,000 copies per issue cycle across the group's titles. The audiences are the residents of Ottawa's suburban and exurban communities, from the technology-sector suburbs of Kanata to the village centres of Manotick and Carleton Place, readers for whom the papers are often the only print source devoted exclusively to their neighbourhood.

Digital Presence

The group's main website is ottawavoice.ca, where the papers are presented under the Ottawa Voice name; a Stittsville newcomer's guide published in 2025 lists the "Stittsville Community Voice" community newspaper at that address. The group also maintains the Google Sites page recorded for this profile, which announces itself as "the new home of Your Community Voice newspapers" and names its current service areas — Kanata, Stittsville, Manotick, Barrhaven, Carleton Place and Almonte. Print remains the primary product: full issues circulate as printed papers and as PDF editions, and the group's presence in industry directories — notably the OCNA's member listings and its July 2026 market reports for the Kanata North and Kanata South editions — reflects an advertising operation built around the printed papers.

Ownership and Organisation

Your Community Voice is published by Ottawa Community Voice Publishing Company Inc., an independent Ottawa company — a deliberate contrast with the chain ownership whose 2017–18 closures created its market. Its publisher and managing editor from launch has been Michael Wollock. Published mastheads from the papers' first years list Pat Uguccioni as editor for editions including Kanata, Stittsville and Richmond and Ottawa South, reporters including Erin McCracken, Jessica Cunha and John Curry, and advertising managed by Barry Silverman. The group's office, as printed on its mastheads, is Suite 114, 4043 Carling Avenue, Ottawa. The 2025 addition of the Manotick Messenger and Barrhaven Independent, both acquired from their retiring long-time owner Jeff Morris, made the group the publisher of record for six community titles in the OCNA's directory, all listed under Your Community Voice Newspapers.

Contact and Availability

Your Community Voice editions are published every two weeks and delivered free across Kanata, Stittsville, Barrhaven, Manotick, Carleton Place and Almonte and nearby communities. The group's published mastheads give its office as Suite 114, 4043 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K2K 2A4, and its phone number as 613-45-VOICE (613-452-6423); advertising inquiries have been directed to its published sales address, sales@ottawavoice.ca. Current editions, service areas and contact points are presented on the group's websites at ottawavoice.ca and on its Google Sites page.