Carleton is the riding where Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is running for the eighth time. And Mark Carney, the Liberal leader who has never held elected office anywhere and, like Poilievre, has roots in faraway Alberta, is seeking a seat in the next-door constituency of Nepean.
The two ridings have as many similarities as they do differences. According to Elections Canada data, nearly 23 ridings the size of Nepean could fit into the largely rural Carleton, but their populations are similar. So too are the average ages of their residents, at 38 for Nepean and 40 for Carleton. Yet the average household income is $62,500 in Nepean, compared to $73,400 in Carleton, which is also less ethnically and religiously diverse than its smaller neighbour.
When the votes are counted in just over two weeks, Ottawa will likely elect the first prime minister to represent a riding in the capital since Sir John A. Macdonald held a previous version of Poilievre's Carleton riding from 1882 to 1887.
Apparently it’ll take significantly longer to count the votes in Carleton than Nepean ‘cuz some group protesting the Liberals promise & failure for electoral reform so they’re going to put 80 candidates on the ballot in Carleton, but not in Nepean, because the Conservatives
haven’t formed the gov’t the last three elections? Anyway, that’s a different story I guess.
Poilievre has lived in and competed in Carleton riding for the last eight consecutive federal elections.
In Nepean, the Conservatives have placed their hopes in Barbara Bal, a staff sergeant and former reserve member of the Royal Canadian Artillery, who prompted gender equality changes in the Ottawa Police Service after she filed a complaint with Ontario's Human Rights Tribunal in 2012, alleging she was denied opportunities based on her gender.
"I've earned my place here by living, working and raising my family in this community," Bal said in a social media video.
At the outset of the campaign, Carney told reporters he felt a connection to Nepean, in part because he was the best man at the wedding of hockey executive Peter Chiarelli, who grew up in the area? Really?
(Carney and his family have long owned a home in a different part of Ottawa, the tony neighbourhood of Rockcliffe Park, near the official residences of the governor general and the prime minister.)
Bal has alleged that "hundreds" of her campaign signs have been damaged or stolen, and in some cases, has found Carney's signage affixed to wooden stakes that belong to her team.
Asked about Bal's allegation, the Carney campaign said in a written statement Friday that it was "not aware of the situation you describe," and that it is "running a respectful, positive, and community driven campaign here in Nepean." (Maybe they don’t have the same Interwebs and online access to media in Rockcliffe Park that they do in Nepean?)
"The local level also sort of mirrors, I think, the national level. You've got Carney here who, up until about three months ago, I don't think he was really involved in many Canadian issues," said Cooper Peters, a Nepean resident who plans to vote for Bal.
Peters questioned whether Carney really has a "local connection" to his neighbourhood, which sits inside a swath of Nepean that used to be part of Poilievre's riding, before the boundaries shifted for the 2015 election.
So, Poilievre would’ve won the Nepean riding (when it was still the Carleton/Nepean riding) five times before the 2015 election then.
Carleton is the riding where Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is running for the eighth time. Liberal Leader Mark Carney,who has never held elected office anywhere, is seeking a seat in the next-door constituency of Nepean.
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