Ottawa Centre

Ottawa Centre is an urban riding in the heart of Canada's national capital, stretching from the Ottawa River southward through the downtown core. It encompasses the neighbourhoods of Centretown, the Glebe, Old Ottawa South, Old Ottawa East, Hintonburg, Mechanicsville, Westboro, LeBreton Flats, and the area surrounding Parliament Hill. The riding is bounded by the Ottawa River to the north and the Rideau Canal and Rideau River to the east and southeast.

Candidates

Paul Dewar (NDP) — Dewar was the incumbent MP for Ottawa Centre, first elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2008. A former elementary school teacher at D. Roy Kennedy Public School and Hopewell Avenue Public School in Ottawa, he earned a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton University and a Bachelor of Education from Queen's University. Before entering politics, he served in leadership roles with the Ottawa-Carleton Elementary Teachers' Federation. He was the son of Marion Dewar, the former mayor of Ottawa (1978–1985) who was known nationally for leading Project 4000, which resettled thousands of Southeast Asian refugees. In Parliament, Dewar served as the NDP's foreign affairs critic and was regarded as a strong community advocate in the riding.

Damian Konstantinakos (Conservative) — Konstantinakos was a telecommunications engineer and longtime Glebe resident whose family roots in Ottawa spanned over a century. He held an engineering degree from Queen's University and an MBA from Queen's Ottawa campus. He began his career at Nortel Networks and by the time of the 2011 campaign was working at Ciena, which had acquired portions of Nortel's operations.

Scott Bradley (Liberal) — Bradley was a public affairs consultant and former BCE Inc. executive who had lived in Ottawa Centre since 1994. He had been nominated as the Liberal candidate roughly eighteen months before the election. Prior to his candidacy, he had worked as a consultant for pharmaceutical company Merck Frosst, where he helped develop a science education program for Indigenous youth.

Jen Hunter (Green Party) — Hunter was a social enterprise advocate and community organizer based in the Mechanicsville neighbourhood of Ottawa. With a background spanning more than two decades in facilitation and social innovation, she had worked in micro-credit in Northern Ghana and supported women entrepreneurs in Ottawa. She was a co-founder and curator of TEDxMechanicsville.

John Andrew Akpata (Radical Marijuana), Romeo Bellai (Independent), Stuart Ryan (Communist), and Pierre Soublière (Marxist-Leninist) also stood as candidates.

About the Riding

Ottawa Centre is one of the most densely populated ridings in Ontario, dominated by the federal public service that is the city's largest employer. Parliament Hill, the Supreme Court of Canada, and numerous federal government department headquarters sit within or adjacent to the riding's boundaries. The riding's economy is overwhelmingly driven by government, with significant contributions from the technology sector, healthcare at the Ottawa Hospital's Civic Campus, and the retail and hospitality industries along Bank Street, Elgin Street, and Wellington Street West.

The riding's population skews younger and more highly educated than the national average, with a large proportion of renters living in the high-rise and mid-rise apartment buildings concentrated in Centretown. The Glebe and Old Ottawa South are established residential neighbourhoods with a mix of heritage homes and local commercial strips. Hintonburg and Westboro, on the riding's western edge, were undergoing significant gentrification and redevelopment by 2011, with new condominiums and restaurants transforming formerly industrial streetscapes along Wellington Street West.

Carleton University, located near the riding's southern boundary, and the University of Ottawa, just to the east, contribute a substantial student population. Cultural institutions within the riding include the Canadian War Museum at LeBreton Flats and the National Arts Centre. Key local issues heading into 2011 included federal infrastructure investments, the future development of LeBreton Flats, affordable housing pressures in the urban core, and the environmental stewardship of the Ottawa River and Rideau Canal.