McGuinty extends long run in diverse riding
With a smattering of polls reporting at press time, Liberal incumbent David McGuinty was well ahead in Ottawa South and appeared likely to extend his 15year control, maintaining the red streak that has characterized the riding since it formed more than 30 years ago.
With 20 of 240 polls reporting, McGuinty received 52 per cent of the vote, more than double the tally of his closest rival, Conservative candidate Eli Tannis.
Before arriving at the Hometown Sports Grill on Bank Street, McGuinty said in a phone interview that his campaign was “a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with thousands of Ottawa South residents in an unhurried way at their doors, talking to people.”
McGuinty faced an all-male field of first-time candidates, including Tannis, the NDP’s Morgan Gay and the Green Party’s Les Schram. They were considered competent challengers with deep community roots.
Conservative Tannis, wellknown for his family’s distribution company, Tannis Trading, and for the Tannis 21 Foundation, spent election night with supporters at the KS on the Keys restaurant. In a video shown to the crowd early in the evening, Tannis acknowledged the challenge that he faced in taking on McGuinty.
“There’s a lot of headwind, but I know I’m going to get to the finish,” he said in the video.
The riding, which is bordered by Hwy. 417 on the north and east side, Hunt Club Road on the south, and the Rideau River on the west, is one of the most diverse in the region.
It encompasses the Ottawa International Airport and established middle-class suburbs such as Alta Vista, Elmvale Acres and Hunt Club, as well as less affluent neighbourhoods with a higher density of social housing, including the Albion-Heatherington area.
Census figures show it has a high percentage of immigrants. In all, 82 languages are spoken in the riding, with residents representing close to 150 countries.
Issues raised during the campaign included affordable housing, universal pharmacare, job creation and immigration services.
An environmental lawyer by trade, McGuinty chairs the all-party parliamentary committee on national security and intelligence.
He first won the seat in 2004 after John Manley, who had been the MP since the riding was formed in 1988, retired from politics.
Born and raised in Ottawa, the 59-year-old McGuinty has earned degrees and diplomas from University of Ottawa, Kemptville College of Agriculture, Université de Sherbrooke and has a Master of Laws from London School of Economics and Political Science.
The married father of four is also part of the McGuinty political dynasty, one of 10 children born to former Ontario MPP Dalton McGuinty Sr. One of his five brothers is former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty.