Ottawa: Liberal stronghold or swing city?

Ottawa is the seat of the federal government and is home to tens of thousands of federal public servants, but is Ottawa a Liberal stronghold or do the winds of change affect voters here as well?

An analysis of electoral results going back more than 40 years suggests the voters of Ottawa could provide a sign for what type of government will govern from heart of downtown.

Ottawa has grown over the years from five ridings representing the city in 1980 to eight in 2021. In each federal election but one, the party with the plurality of seats in the city ultimately turns out to be the one with the plurality of seats in Parliament.

Take the Jean Chrétien years, for example. Ottawa was solidly Liberal in those days. There were six ridings in the city, and voters in each of them sent a Liberal to the House of Commons.

That changed when Stephen Harper became Prime Minister in 2006. There were seven ridings in the Ottawa area and four of them had Conservative representatives.