Everything you need to know about one of the city’s most ethnically diverse ridings, Ottawa South, a longtime Liberal stronghold.
Quick Facts
- Size of the riding: 72.9 square kilometres
- Population: 125,090 (2021)
- Density: 1,713.2 per square kilometre
- Median household income: $87,000 (2020)
- Median age: 38.8
- Knowledge of official languages: English (61.8 per cent), French (1.7 per cent), English and French (34.1 per cent), neither English nor French (2.4 per cent)
Geography of the Ottawa South riding
Ottawa South covers a large (73 square kilometres) section of the city’s urban sprawl, bound on the north by Hwy. 417, on the western edge by the winding Rideau River, extending east to the Hunt Club-Conroy Road corridor and stretching south to include the Ottawa International Airport.
The city’s two largest hospital complexes — The Ottawa Hospital’s General Campus and the neighbouring CHEO — sit at the geographic heart of the district.
With a population of 125,090 and a population density of 1,713.2 people per square kilometre, the riding is the city’s most populous district and among its most diverse, encompassing the communities of Alta Vista, Elmvale Acres, Heron Gate and South Keys.
While English is the language most commonly spoken in two-thirds of Ottawa South homes and seven per cent speak French, 31 per cent of residents identify a non-official language as their mother tongue, and 16.7 per cent primarily speak a non-official language in the home.
Nearly 10 per cent of the population speaks Arabic as their mother tongue, and other common languages identified on the most recent census include Chinese (2.5 per cent), Somali (2.1 per cent) Spanish (1.8), Italian (1.0) Filipino and Persian dialects.
Evening Update
One of the city’s most ethnically diverse districts, 44.2 per cent of residents identify as a visible minority, including 12.4 per cent who identify as Arab, 14.7 per cent Black, 4.9 per cent South Asian and 3.3 per cent Chinese.
The riding is bordered by Ottawa-Vanier to the north, Orleans and Carleton to the east, sections of Ottawa-Centre and Ottawa West-Nepean to the west and the Nepean riding to the south.
What is the recent electoral history of this riding?
Created in 1925 from a swath of Ottawa West, the riding was a firm Conservative hold for 60 years until the Liberal dynasty of Dalton McGuinty Sr. and his successor, his son Dalton McGuinty, who served as Ontario’s premier while safely winning re-election five times in his home riding.
His brother David McGuinty also swept into Parliament in 2004 and has safely held the federal riding ever since, easily winning his seventh term in last year’s federal election with 48.8 per cent of the vote. That support was down slightly (3.5 per cent) from the 2019 federal election, with Conservative and NDP challengers picking up slight gains in Ottawa South in the 2021 federal election.
MPP John Fraser won his seat in Queen’s Park following the resignation of Dalton McGuinty as premier, then as MPP in June, 2013.
Fraser narrowly won the Aug. 1, 2013, by-election over Conservative Matt Young by a margin of just 1,279 votes out of more than 35,000 ballots cast.
Fraser cruised to victory in the 2014 general election with 50 per cent of the vote, but saw that support dip to 39.6 per cent in 2018. He served as interim leader of the Ontario Liberal Party from June 2018 to March 2020.
Who are the candidates running in the Ottawa South riding?
Fraser’s main competition this year will come from Morgan Gay of the NDP and Conservative Jan Gao.
In the 2022 provincial election, Gay finished second to Fraser, who won by almost a 2:1 margin, taking 18,282 votes (43 per cent) to Gay’s 9,619 (24 per cent). Gay is the former NDP riding association president and a community organizer and activist who works as a national negotiator with the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
PC candidate Gao has lived in Ottawa South for more than 23 years. She is an accountant by profession and has a master’s degree in public administration from Queen’s University. For the last 14 years, her real estate consulting firm, Canhome Consulting, has specialized in investment properties in South Florida.
