Ottawa—Vanier

Ottawa—Vanier is a diverse, multilingual riding stretching from the historic neighbourhoods of Lowertown and Sandy Hill near Parliament Hill eastward through New Edinburgh, Rockcliffe Park, Vanier, and Overbrook to Beacon Hill. Nearly half the riding’s residents are bilingual in English and French, and the community spans a vast economic range, from the affluence of Rockcliffe Park to the lower-income neighbourhoods of Vanier and Overbrook, which have long struggled with poverty and inadequate services. The riding has been held by the Liberals at the provincial level since 1971, making it one of the party’s most enduring strongholds in Ontario.

Lucille Collard won the seat in a February 2020 by-election and was re-elected in 2022. She entered the 2025 campaign as an established incumbent with a record focused on francophone education, housing, and community services. The race drew six candidates, but the Liberal hold on the riding was never seriously in doubt.

Candidates

Lucille Collard (Liberal) — A lawyer who earned her law degree at the University of Ottawa in 1999, Collard practised international trade law with the NAFTA Secretariat, administrative law with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and served as a federal government civil litigator. She helped launch the francophone school Trille des Bois in 2003 and served as a trustee and eventually Chair of the Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario.

Marilissa Gosselin (Progressive Conservative) — A Chartered Professional Accountant and leader in the Ontario francophone community, Gosselin served as an advisor to the Premier and the Minister of Francophone Affairs since 2018. In that role, she helped secure funding for the Université de l’Ontario français and contributed to the modernization of the French Language Services Act. She had previously run as a provincial candidate in Glengarry–Prescott–Russell in 2011.

Myriam Djilane (NDP) — Born in Ottawa and raised in Sandy Hill, Djilane is the daughter of a French-Canadian mother and a Somali father who came to Canada from Djibouti in the 1980s. A francophone and minority rights advocate, she previously ran in the 2020 Ottawa—Vanier by-election. She campaigned on housing, cost of living, health care, French-language services, and student debt.

Christian Proulx (Green Party) — Born and raised in Ottawa—Vanier, Proulx is a licensed plumber, steamfitter, and site supervisor. He volunteered as a Scout leader for eleven years and coached minor hockey. He returned as the Green candidate for the second consecutive election, campaigning on climate action and affordable housing.

Coreen Corcoran ran for the Libertarian Party and Rishabh Bhatia for the New Blue Party.

Local Issues

Affordable housing and homelessness remained the most urgent concerns in Ottawa—Vanier during the 2022–2025 term. The lower-income neighbourhoods of Vanier and Overbrook experienced rising shelter demand, amplified by a large influx of newcomers to Ottawa beginning in mid-2023 that strained the city’s shelter system. Action Housing, a francophone community organization based in Vanier, reported surging demand for homelessness prevention services. The city’s 2024 Point-in-Time Count found that 16 per cent of those surveyed experiencing homelessness spoke French, underscoring the need for francophone-accessible supports in the heart of the riding.

French-language service delivery remained a persistent concern in this heavily bilingual community. Residents reported that harm reduction, mental health, and homelessness services delivered by third-party organizations were frequently unavailable in French, effectively marginalizing francophone residents from essential supports. The modernization of the French Language Services Act during the term, which the PC candidate Gosselin had helped advance, added a new dimension to the debate about whether legislative changes were translating into improved on-the-ground services.

The Confederation Line LRT’s ongoing reliability problems also affected parts of the riding, particularly residents in Sandy Hill and Lowertown who relied on the system for daily commuting. The July 2023 system-wide shutdown added to the frustration of transit users across Ottawa’s urban core. Health care access, including family physician shortages and the capacity of Ottawa’s hospital system, rounded out the list of concerns for residents navigating a riding defined by economic contrasts and linguistic diversity.