Meet the provincial election candidates in Kanata-Carleton

When the votes start to be tallied on Feb. 27, all eyes will be on Kanata-Carleton to see if the riding will stay Liberal or go back to the Progressive Conservatives, who lost the typically blue stronghold in 2023. 

During a byelection that year after MPP Dr. Merilee Fullerton resigned, former Kanata-Carleton Liberal MP Karen McCrimmon won the riding provincially by about 800 votes. PC candidate Sean Webster — who now heads Ottawa’s regional office — came in second place. It was also a strong run for the NDP, whose candidate Melissa Coenraad had only about 1,800 fewer votes than McCrimmon. 

Kanata-Carleton first went blue in 1977 when the PC’s Norm Sterling was first elected. He held the reign for decades until 2011 when Jack MacLaren took over. He won the next two elections by large margins but was kicked out of the party's caucus in 2017 after countless controversies. MacLaren later joined the Trillium Party but only picked up four per cent of the vote in 2018. That’s when Fullerton won and represented the riding until her abrupt resignation 10 months after winning the June 2022 election. 

According to 2022 statistics, 116,651 people call Kanata-Carleton home. It spans 806 square kilometres and has a median household income of $125,000. 

New statistics from Rentals.ca show that Kanata rents are among the second highest in the province. The average asking rent in the west Ottawa suburb was $2,664 a month in December 2024. That’s compared to Toronto in first place, where the average asking rent was $2,732 a month, reported CTV

Like most of Ottawa, transit will also be a key issue. While it’s bad in virtually all parts of the city, suburban communities are faced the hardest and a new plan by both the PCs and Liberals commits to funding Phase 3 light rail out to Kanata and Stittsville. 

Incumbent MPP Karen McCrimmon is running for the Liberal party. She’s going up against Scott Phelan, who's running for the Progressive Conservatives; Dave Belcher, who’s running for the NDP; and physician Jennifer Purdy from the Greens. 

The Lookout asked all three main party candidates for a sit-down interview. Answers have been edited for length and clarity. 

Karen McCrimmon - Liberal (incumbent)

Background: Before entering politics McCrimmon had a 31-year career with the Canadian Armed Forces. She was the first female navigator and the first woman to command a Canadian Forces Air Force squadron.

McCrimmon first joined the Liberals in 2008 and was first elected to Parliament Hill in 2015. After serving two terms she did not seek re-election due to health issues, but made a political comeback in 2023 during that year's provincial election. McCrimmon said she saw her community hurting under the  Doug Ford-led PC government and couldn’t sit idle not doing anything about it. 

• Editor’s note: This interview was conducted before the Liberals announced a similar promise to the PCs of having the province take over control of Ottawa’s light rail transit system 

Transit: “I think transit is really important. It’s what’s going to allow us to grow our local economy. All the secondary routes as well need to be invested in because if you can’t get around you can’t grow your economy. The federal government has stepped up with some money and now the provincial government tends to do exactly the same. 

What should that be? I can say exactly what Toronto is getting.  People won’t like that, but we should be funded on the same level. We are a big city; we have over one million people, and we deserve the same treatment.”

Housing: “Even in Kanata-Carleton, yes the salary is probably a little bit higher than the average, but they are paying $2,300 a month for a two-bedroom apartment. People can’t afford that along with everything else they need. We need more rental accommodation, we need more affordable housing for people because at these prices young people are not able to buy a house, so they end up paying someone else’s mortgage their whole life. I want young people to have the opportunity to buy their own house and pay their own mortgage.”

Healthcare: ”We have an emergency room doctor within our small liberal caucus and they have developed a plan on how to get everyone in Ontario access to a family doctor in four years. That plan will be coming out soon and it’s real and achievable, we even know where we can get the money to make it happen. That would ease up all the wait times in the emergency rooms. We are hurting because we don’t have family doctors and our emergency room at the Queensway Carleton Hospital ends up backed up time and time again.”

Canadian response to US tariff threat: ”It’s got to be targeted, surgical, with an immediate impact, and the things they’ve (the federal government) chosen so far will do exactly that. The  US needs to feel pain because we are in a tariff war. If we don’t stand up now it could end up being a larger war. We are going to fight. You always have to take a bully's face on.”

Favourite place and restaurant: “I just about go everywhere. I love taking a walk in our beautiful forests. It’s lovely, quiet, and it helps me manage my stress level. I go for coffee a lot. I’m a huge coffee drinker. I like Alice’s restaurant in Carp. I like Luna Cafe down here on March road. I like Equator coffee near All Saints High School.”

Dave Belcher - NDP 

Background: Born and raised in Stittsville, Belcher moved to Kanata in 2009 where he now resides with his wife — an occupational therapist with CHEO — and his three children. With a degree in History and English from the University of Western and a Bachelor of Education from Ottawa University, Belcher has worked as an educator with the Ottawa District School Board at West Carleton SS in Dunrobin since 2008. In 2020, he moved from the classroom to full-time work with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation. 

Healthcare: ”We are dealing with a situation where two and a half million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor. You’ve seen people lined up in blizzards to get a doctor. It leads to a shortage of primary care in our communities. If you don’t have a family doctor, walk-in clinics become overwhelmed. If you can’t go there, emergency rooms get overwhelmed. We see large backlogs in terms of scans, MRIs, and X-rays. 

Number one we need to work to fix this. Merit Stiles had announced a family health guarantee for the NDP. We are going to hire 3,500 doctors over the next four years, an additional investment of $2.25 billion over four years to support primary care teams, and try to undo some of the damage that’s been done from the neglect of not just the Ford government but the Liberals before that as well. In 2018 there were still over one million people without family doctors under Kathleen Wynne, and now that number is up to two and a half million.”  

Transit: “Where the NDP is different from the Liberals or the Conservatives is they are talking about uploading the management and responsibility of the system to the province. The NDP is instead talking about uploading the cost and assuming 50 per cent of the cost of transit — but not taking over the management. The reason why that is a more effective strategy is that when we have our transit system managed locally, it means that it’s managed by folks who are immediately in our communities and accountable to us. 

Extension of the LRT out to Kanata is a big part of that. I worry that when our transit system is operated out of Toronto, that those local priorities will not be given the same attention as from our local councils. There are also questions for how you manage fares, travel planning, and expansion projects when all those decisions are being made by the province and not our local representative. I also have questions about the connection to Metrolinx who has a spotty history in terms of getting expansions done and in terms of their management of light rail in Toronto.”

Affordability: “A big part of affordability is housing. Housing provinces have skyrocketed over the last while, housing is hard to find, and rent is hard to find. People end up in situations where they can’t access housing in communities where they want to live and work or they are and it costs them more.  One of the key pillars of our platform is a commitment to increase the supply of affordable housing. Ontario housing starts are down again. We’ve seen cuts to social housing funding in Ontario.“

Education: “I want to speak on the need for a fully-funded education system. Per student funding in the province is down $100. It’s not keeping up with inflation. As a result, things school boards need to buy like paper, textbooks, and computers, those are costing more and the funding isn’t keeping up with it. Education is an investment, not an expense. We want to hire more staff, so we have more adults in buildings who can support students and their physical and mental health. Also $830 million new dollars for the school repair backlog which is over $20 billion. We need these investments and we need to make sure our students are supported.”

Favourite place and restaurant:  “I always recommend Cheshire Cat Pub in Carp. I basically lived on their take-home pies during the pandemic. It has an awesome patio. Calabogie Brewery is just down the road from me and they’ve got a great spot for bands to play and the food is good. They brew all their beer locally. Out in Carp we always visit the Carp Creamery which has terrific ice cream if you can manage through the mosquitos in the summertime.”

Scott Phelan - Progressive Conservative

The Lookout booked a sit-down interview with Phelan, but about an hour before we were supposed to meet his campaign team cancelled saying he was too busy knocking on doors. We give multiple chances to rebook but haven’t heard back at the time of publication. 

Multiple insiders have told the Lookout that PC candidates are being pressured by the party not to give media interviews. This is very similar behaviour to what was seen in 2022. During that election then PC candidates and incumbent Merilee Fullerton refused to go in front of the microphone during her campaign. She, among other PC candidates, also refused to attend debates. The media was also barred from covering some PC candidates' victory parties. 

Phelan serves as the Ottawa Catholic School Board trustee for the area. His website reads: 

• ”As a Trustee with the Ottawa Catholic School Board, Scott has worked tirelessly to ensure students receive high-quality education while advocating for parental and fiscal responsibility. His leadership in the school board has allowed him to engage directly with families, educators, senior leadership, and policymakers to enhance educational outcomes to support the board’s 50,000 student population. Scott also has extensive experience working with the Province of Ontario to advocate on behalf of families and secure future growth. Most recently, he advocated for and helped secure over $100 million in funding to open two new schools and support two expansions to meet the educational growth demands in Kanata-Carleton.”