A pair of incumbent MPs from the Ottawa area were defeated in the Ontario election on Thursday.
Jeremy Roberts, who was first elected in 2018 as a progressive Conservative in Ottawa West — Nepean, lost his seat despite his party winning a second majority term.
NDP’s Chandra Pasma, who narrowly lost to Roberts in 2018, won this time, winning by 908 votes. He won 37% of the vote compared to Roberts’ 34.9.
“What I have heard from people is that they have felt that for the last four years the government and the local MPP have not turned their backs on them,” Pasma told CTV News. “Now they will have someone who fights for them very hard every day.”
Roberts gave a speech to the fans congratulating Pasma, but declined an interview.
In Glengarry — Prescott — Russell, eastern Ottawa, Liberal Amanda Simard was ousted.
He won the Conservative Progressives Party in 2018, but left the party due to cuts in French-speaking education months later. He later joined the Liberals in 2020.
PC candidate Stéphane Sarrazin defeated Simard by almost 1,500 votes.
“Try to do something in terms of the cost of living, invest in infrastructure, work for the workers. These are all priorities, that’s what people want,” Sarrazin said.
Simard said he worked hard to advance projects on the mountain during his four-year term.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done in politics,” he said. “I think we have to stop dividing and we have to work together in the coming months and years.”
Doug Ford’s PCs won a majority government, and the NDP will once again form the official opposition. NPD leader Andrea Horwath and Liberal leader Steven Del Duca resigned, and Del Duca failed to get his own seat.
For a summary of CTV News Ottawa’s live coverage of election results, go here. For an interactive map of the results of Ontario’s 124 excursions, go here.
– with files by Stefan Keyes and Natalie van Rooy, CTV News Ottawa