Four Ottawa ridings with no former MPP seeking re-election

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Liberal candidate Tyler Watt tries to reach out to 1,000 voters a day through door knocks or phone calls in Nepean.

His odds of winning a seat in Queen’s Park vastly improved now that the riding was recently vacated by longtime MPP Lisa MacLeod.

MacLeod won six times in a row for the Progressive Conservatives in provincial politics, most recently in 2022, when Watt ran for the first time. He came in second, about 2,100 votes behind MacLeod.

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Now he’s hoping voters remember him from his last election campaign, and that his profile will give him an edge.

Watt is a registered nurse who wears his scrubs in his campaign materials, but not while knocking on doors.

“People remember me at the door,” he said. “People here are not very partisan. They just want someone who will be good for the community.”

According to conventional wisdom, when it comes to elections, time spent in office matters. Winning an election — or multiple elections, sometimes for decades on end  — creates brand equity for a candidate.

“People will vote the same way until there’s a reason not to,” said Alex Marland, who researches political dynamics at Acadia University.

The list of advantages is long for an incumbent, as they are often called in an improperly borrowed term from American politics. (Technically speaking, there are no incumbents in Ontario politics. During an election campaign, there are no sitting MPPs and therefore there are no incumbents. In Canada, the proper term would be the rather verbose “former sitting member seeking re-election.”)

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Besides name recognition, the experience gained while in office allows veteran MPPs to develop a network of supporters. A sitting MPP can unofficially campaign while in office through taxpayer-paid channels like newsletters and claim credit for projects that get government funding.

But the same things that give veteran MPPs an edge can also be their downfall because they have a record in office that can be questioned.

Many voters back a particular party, not the local candidate, said Marland. They will spurn a returning candidate because they’re not happy about the party leader or because they believe it’s time for a change.

“Individual politicians don’t matter as much as they should,” said Marland. “All of the attention is on party leaders. It takes attention off local candidates. It’s a problem for democracy.”

Election scenarios have also shifted, characterized by decreased party loyalty and increased concern about the economy, said public opinion researcher Conrad Winn, founder of COMPAS Research and a political science professor at Carleton. 

That’s particularly prevalent among young people, he said.

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“I don’t know that they’ll vote more, but they’ll vote differently. For generations, youth have voted for candidates who have promised spending. Youth are very aware of the economic challenges.”

There has been a sharp decline in respect for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and that has filtered down to provincial politics, added Winn. Concern about Donald Trump will also affect the election.

“The situation in Canada has become more unstable and voting has become more and more unpredictable. There are fewer and fewer ridings with absolute loyalty,”  he said.

“I think this can be an election unlike any other election. All old rules will fall by the wayside. It’s irrelevant who got kicked out of caucus and who’s running again.” 

Four local races with no former sitting member seeking re-election:

Ottawa Centre has gone to the NDP nine times since it was created in 1967 and eight times by the Liberals. The NDP’s Joel Harden won the riding for the NDP in 2O18 and 2022, but announced last March he would seek the federal nomination.

Catherine McKenney is no newcomer to politics, and they won the provincial NDP nomination in November. They worked as a senior city administrator before becoming a councillor in Somerset ward in 2014 and came in second in the last municipal contest for mayor to Mark Sutcliffe.

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The Liberal candidate is Thomas Simpson, a public servant and vice president at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.

The PC candidate is Scott Healey, an insurance broker with extensive experience in the naval reserve.

Simon Becket, a small business owner working in the housing industry, is running for the Green Party.

In Nepean (formerly Nepean-Carleton) Lisa MacLeod won her seat in a 2006 by-election, beating former police chief Brian Ford, who was running as a Liberal, by almost 6,000 votes. In the following four elections, MacLeod widened the gap between herself and her challengers even more.

But McLeod faced angry crowds protesting cuts to autism funding in 2019 as Ontario’s Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. In January 2023, she said she struggled with mental health and spent part of the 2022 election campaign hospitalized. MacLeod posted the worst results of her political career that election, but still beat the Ontario Liberal candidate Tyler Watt by several thousand votes. 

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In Carleton, which was created from parts of Nepean-Carleton, Carleton-Mississippi Mills and Ottawa South in 2018, Goldie Ghamari was elected twice as a PC candidate. But Ghamari was ousted from the Tory caucus last June after she met with a far-right figure from the United Kingdom. Ghamari, who has been sitting as an independent, announced in January that she was not seeing re-election.

George Darouze, who has been an Ottawa city councillor representing Osgoode ward since 2014, is the best-known candidate in the race, running for the Tories. PC leader Pierre Poilievre has consistently won the federal counterpart riding since 2004. That factor could help clinch it for Darouze.

Darouze is facing off against Liberal Brandon Bay, a software developer and housing advocate who is president and chair of Make Housing Affordable. Bay ran for mayor in 2022 and came in seventh.

Rob Stocki, a former sergeant with the Ottawa police and businessman, is a candidate for the New Blue Party. 

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The PC candidate in this election is Billy Denault, an Arnprior resident who graduated from high school in 2018 and followed up with a commerce degree from Carleton University. He was elected to Arnprior town council in 2022. 

Douglas resident Marshall Buchanan, a forestry consultant who runs a regenerative farming enterprise, has been nominated by the NDP.

The Liberal candidate is Oliver Jacob, who came in third in the 2022 election. Jacob was a Township of McNab/Braeside municipal councillor from 2018 to 2022. 

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