The PC candidate was looking to bring the seat back into the Tory fold.
Long-time Ottawa city councillor George Darouze won Carleton riding Thursday, returning the rural and suburban riding in Ontario’s legislature to Progressive Conservative blue.
Darouze called the win humbling. “It has been a long campaign, very hard tackling Mother Nature and the weather, but I feel great and humble that Carleton chose me to be its representative at Queen’s Park.”
He said his decade of experience on city council had helped prepare him for the role. “Experience matters. I understand how policies and everything functions.” Darouze also said he could play a role representing Ottawa at Queen’s Park to help the city.
Darouze replaces MPP Goldie Ghamari, who was booted from the PC caucus last summer and served the final months of her term representing the riding at Queens’s Park as an independent MPP. She did not seek re-election.
Darouze said people in the riding were ready for an election after Ghamari became an independent. Having a representative in the governing party, he said, makes a difference when it comes to getting residents’ concerns heard.
Brandon Bay, the Liberal candidate, held his campaign party at Gabriel Pizza on Limebank Road, where the room buzzed with positivity for much of the night.
Despite coming second, Bay didn’t lose his smile, pointing out that the Liberals had seen a 12 per cent increase in votes in his riding, a Conservative stronghold for more than a century.
“We were always the underdog. I’m feeling really proud of the work we did. We got over 20,000 votes — it would’ve been a win in a lot of other ridings. We’ve connected with a lot of young families, and it’s momentum we can hope to continue building on.”
Evening Update
Carleton riding surrounds Ottawa in the south. It runs from the growing community of Stittsville in the west, to the Rideau River, then east of the river along the city’s southern boundary to Ramsayville Road.
The riding is relatively new. It was recreated in 2018 from parts of Nepean-Carleton, Carleton-Mississippi Mills and Ottawa South. Since then, and even in previous iterations, it has always voted Conservative. Federal Conservative party Leader Pierre Poilievre holds the riding at the national level.
In 2018, the first year of the recreated riding, Ghamari was elected. She won again in 2022 with more than 48 per cent of the vote.
Ghamari was removed from the PC caucus last summer after meeting with British far-right activist and anti-Muslim crusader Tommy Robinson and posting about it on social media. At the time, Ghamari said she was not aware of Robinson’s history. PC Leader Doug Ford mentioned serious lapses of judgment and a failure to collaborate with caucus leadership in the decision to boot her from caucus.
Three days into the early 2025 election campaign, Ghamari said she would not seek re-election, saying she had achieved everything she hoped to accomplish as MPP for Carleton over the past few years. “It is now time for me to close this chapter of my political life and begin a new one,” she said, adding, “Please rest assured that this is not a ‘goodbye.’”
In addition to long-time Ottawa city councillor Darouze, and Liberal candidate Bay — who previously ran for mayor of Ottawa — five candidates competed to be MPP: Sherin Faili, who has worked in the field of human resources, policy and planning and lives in Stittsville, for the NDP; Mystic Plaunt for the Greens; Rob Stocki, a former sergeant with the Ottawa police who was involved in the trucker convoy, for the New Blue party; Bruce Anthony Faulkner for the Libertarian party; and Brian Hull as an independent.
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