Riding
In many respects, Ottawa Centre is a typical urban Canadian riding. It has a strong mix of residential and business concerns, and enjoys a strong multi-cultural flavour. The Chinese and Vietnamese communities have turned the area around Somerset Street and Bronson Avenue into a vibrant ethnic neighbourhood. Many of the original Italian families who once lived near Preston Street have moved into adjacent neighbourhoods, but the Italian cultural presence is so strong that Preston is known as “Corso Italiana.” Many Jewish families live in the western portion of the riding in Westboro Village. Ottawa Centre is also home to Ottawa’s gay village in the downtown core.
The riding contains blue collar neighbourhoods, such as Hintonburg, Mechanicsville and Carleton Heights. It contains neighbourhoods that are in the process of gentrification, such as Old Ottawa South and Westboro, and neighbourhoods that have boasted some of the more prestigious addresses in the city, including the Glebe, Island Park Drive, and the downtown neighbourhood known as “The Golden Triangle.” Carleton University is located in Ottawa Centre, and the University of Ottawa is located just across the Rideau Canal; as a result, the riding has a strong student population. All of this is very consistent with urban ridings across Canada.
As the home riding of the Parliament of Canada, Ottawa Centre counts among its residents more than the usual percentage of elected politicians, political aids and activists, lobbyists, journalists and others who are very interested in federal politics. Elections in this riding can be very intense, hard fought campaigns among people who are fiercely partisan in their politics, but also friends, colleagues and neighbours of those campaigning for the other sides.
Ottawa Centre is a riding that usually receives a fair amount of national media attention. Since 1978, when Progressive Conservative candidate Robert de Cotret won a by-election as a prelude to securing a place in Joe Clark’s Cabinet, the riding been held by all three major parties. Election battles here are also notable for the number of fringe parties that run candidates in the heart of Canada’s capital.
In 2006, the Conservatives ran a highly accomplished Foreign Service officer, Keith Fountain, and increased the Party showing by more than 3,000 votes – but not enough to wrest the riding from the NDP. In the last election, respected community leader and businessperson Brian McGarry built on Keith’s success and increased our popular vote to nearly 24 per cent – the highest level since the founding of the Conservative Party.
The Ottawa Centre Electoral District Association is very confident that in the next general election, the riding will send a Conservative to sit in the green chamber in the building at the northern end of our riding.