Longtime Ottawa city councillor George Darouze will now serve the residents of Carleton in a different capacity — this time, as their MPP.
Elected in 2014, Darouze was a three-term councillor for Osgoode Ward. Previously he was the president of the Osgoode Carleton Snowmobile Trail Club and a telecommunications manager. Darzouze became the Progressive Conservative party’s nominee in December following the removal of former MPP Goldie Gharami from the PC caucus last year, with the party citing a controversial meeting she held with British far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Gharami announced shortly after the 2025 campaign began that she would not seek re-election.
Carleton includes Stittsville, Richmond, Manotick, Osgoode, Metcalfe and Kanata. It was created out of the previous Nepean-Carleton, Carleton-Mississippi Mills, and Ottawa South ridings in 2018, A riding called Carleton also existed from 1867 to 1999.
Darouze won handily, receiving 49.7 per cent of the vote, finishing 5,823 votes ahead Liberal candidate Brandon Bay, who captured 38.6 per cent. NDP candidate Sherin Faili received just more than seven per cent of the vote, with all other candidates at less than two per cent. Eight candidates vied for the riding.
In his victory speech, Darouze emphasized the work of his campaign volunteers.
“It has been a long campaign, and it was very hard tackling Mother Nature and the weather, but I feel great and humble that Carleton has chosen me to be its representative at Queen’s Park,” Darouze told supporters during his victory party at Anderson Lake Golf Club.
Darouze will join a long line of conservative MPPs elected to represent Carleton, with the riding voting routinely for Conservative candidates since the 19th century.
Some 7,790 voters, about seven per cent of all electors, voted in advance polls, the highest advance poll turnout in Ottawa’s nine ridings.
Darouze’s election also comes as voter turnout remains relatively steady, if slightly lower, in Carleton.
Population growth in the riding has added 15,898 new voters in this election compared to 2022, for 111,130 eligible electors. Despite this, fewer eligible voters cast ballots in 2025 than in 2022.
Voter turnout in the Ottawa area reached just over 46 per cent in 2025. Carleton saw its voter turnout decrease by 1.4 percentage points, with 48.8 per cent of 95,232 eligible electors casting a ballot in 2022, compared with 47.4 per cent of 111,130 in 2025. This is down from 62 per cent voter turnout in 2018.
