Despite seeing the second-highest voter participation in the city, Ottawa’s Kanata-Carleton riding still showed a lower voter turnout in the recent Ontario election than in the previous provincial vote in 2022.
Only 48.56 per cent of eligible voters showed up to the polls, lower turnout for the west-end Ottawa riding than in the 2022 election, when 45,695 voters or 51 per cent of the eligible electorate voted.
In the recent election, Kanata-Carleton had about three per cent greater voter participation than the provincial average of 45 per cent, according to Elections Ontario. The riding also saw an increase in eligible voters from 88,936 to 94,813 between 2022 and 2025.
Despite the decrease in voter participation in this election, Kanata-Carleton still yielded the second-highest voter turnout out of Ottawa’ nine electoral ridings. Ottawa Centre ranked highest with 49.85 per cent of voters coming to the polls.
Liberal incumbent Karen McCrimmon was re-elected with more than 47.67 per cent support, garnering 21,946 votes. Progressive Conservative Scott Phelan was second with 40.73 per cent support or 18,750 votes. McCrimmon won by about 3,200 votes over Phelan — a significant margin of victory, but a small number compared to the tens of thousands of eligible voters who did not show up at the polls.
Ontario New Democratic candidate Dave Blecher came in third with 3,361 votes and 7.30 per cent of the riding’s votes.
The remaining three candidates received less than five per cent of the votes:
- Green Party candidate, Jennifer Purdy, received 1,163 votes, representing 2.53 per cent of the riding.
- The New Blue Party of Ontario candidate, Elizabeth Watson, received 498 votes, less than 1.08 per cent.
- The Ontario Party candidate, Frank Jakubowski, received 321 votes, less than 0.5 per cent of the riding’s votes.
In the 2022 election, the Liberal candidate, Shahbaz Syed, only received 23.42 per cent of the votes. The PC candidate, Merrilee Fullerton, won by a margin of 8,826 votes, garnering over 44 per cent of the riding’s votes.
McCrimmon won a provincial byelection in July 2023 with more than 11,000 votes. McCrimmon’s win is one of 14 Liberal victories that allowed the Grits to return to official party status after losing it in 2018.
