Will the City of Ottawa get a ‘bump’ from being home to the next prime minister?

One of the few sure bets in this election is that the next prime minister will represent an Ottawa riding in the House of Commons.

For the first time in Canadian history, leaders from the two main parties — Liberal Mark Carney and Conservative Pierre Poilievre — are candidates in the same city.

In fact, Carney and Poilievre could potentially campaign for their seats within earshot of each other on either side of the Rideau River or Highway 416. Their respective ridings, Nepean and Carleton, share a sprawling border.

Such close quarters are unprecedented.

Liberal and Conservative leaders have rarely contested ridings in the same province. much less the same city.

Political observers have to reach back to 1867 — the first federal election following Confederation — to find Conservative leader John A. Macdonald and Liberal leader George Brown in relative proximity.

Macdonald stood for election in Kingston and won, while Brown contested the riding of Ontario South, which encompassed Oshawa and Whitby, and lost. (There was a greater likelihood party leaders would be near each other in 1867 since Canada then consisted of its four founding provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.)

The Ottawa area has only once before played host to the prime minister.

In 1882, Macdonald stood for election both in the Kingston-area riding of Lennox and the riding of Carleton in what is now Ottawa’s south end. At the time, it wasn’t uncommon for leading politicians to run in more than one riding in the same election. Macdonald won both ridings, and decided to sit as Carleton’s MP while serving as prime minister.

Five years later, in 1887, Macdonald again contested Carleton and a second riding, Kingston. He won both, but chose to sit as Kingston’s MP.

This year in Ottawa, both Carney and Poilievre are heavily favoured to win their respective seats. Although redrawn several times, Nepean has been a reliable Liberal stronghold in recent elections, while Poilievre has been elected seven consecutive times in Carleton and its predecessor, Nepean-Carleton.

Both Carney and Poilievre are transplanted westerners who came to Ottawa at about the same time.

Born in Fort Smith, N.W.T., Carney grew up in Edmonton, where his father, Robert, was a University of Alberta education professor and a one-time Liberal candidate in Edmonton South. Carney moved to Ottawa when he was appointed deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in August 2003. He relocated to London in 2013 and spent seven years as governor of the Bank of England before returning to Ottawa. He lives in Rockcliffe.

Poilievre was born and raised in Calgary, where his adoptive parents were teachers. After graduating from the University of Calgary, he moved to Ottawa in 2002 to work as a political staffer for Stockwell Day, then a member of the Canadian Alliance. He moved to Manordale in 2003 and has been the MP for Carleton since the age of 25.

Former mayor Jim Watson said having a prime minister knitted politically to the city could only be positive for Ottawa.

“It certainly helps in terms of our municipal leaders, like the mayor, having greater access to the prime minister, a greater chance of seeing him at an event and having a few minutes to plant something in their ear,” Watson said.

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe is expected to press the federal government for help with transit costs, affordable housing and a makeover of the ByWard Market. The National Capital Commission, a Crown corporation, owns about 20 per cent of the property in the Market and will play a key role in setting the future direction of the downtown neighbourhood.

Watson said a prime minister with an Ottawa foothold would have to maintain a working knowledge of the city’s issues and challenges. “It means,” he said, “you don’t have to go into a meeting with them and explain where Barrhaven is or New Edinburgh, or why the Innovation Center is important. It does sensitize them.”

It also means Ottawa will have a voice at the cabinet table when discussions turn to issues affecting the city.

“I certainly can attest to the fact that ministers make a lot of important decisions that in many ways can affect their home community,” said Watson, a former Ontario cabinet minister. “You want that voice around the table. We don’t have it provincially, but certainly we’ll have it federally.”

Premier Doug Ford’s new cabinet, unveiled in March, does not include a single minister from Ottawa, Ontario’s second largest city. Former city councillor George Darouze, the only Progressive Conservative MPP sent to Queen’s Park from Ottawa’s eight main ridings, was not named to cabinet.

Former Rideau-Vanier Coun. Mathieu Fleury said Ottawa’s schools, hospitals and universities benefited from the decade during which Ottawa’s Dalton McGuinty was premier. McGuinty also served as MPP for Ottawa South.

Fleury suggested the local influence of the prime minister may well depend on the individual and his leadership style. He noted Prime Minister Stephen Harper used MP John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean) as his Ottawa lieutenant, while Justin Trudeau anointed MP Catherine McKenna (Ottawa Centre) to manage local issues.

“They had a strong voice: No other MPs in the area would dare cross them on a local issue,” he said.

Fleury says Poilievre has not taken strong stands on many local issues and largely supported the truckers during their occupation of downtown Ottawa in 2022. He also says neither Poilievre nor Carney has taken a position on key local issues such as the proposed Kettle Island Bridge, the future of downtown Ottawa or the fate of 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s official residence.

“We hope we have a stronger voice,” Fleury said, “but the fact that they’ve not taken positions directly on local national capital files is also something that we should question.”

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