9 hours Ago By Paula Tran
Eleven candidates are vying to represent Osgoode ward in a municipal byelection scheduled for June 16. The byelection comes after George Darouze resigned from his city council position after he was elected as the Progressive Conservative MPP for Carleton in February. All 11 Osgoode candidates were certified as of May 2, and they can begin campaigning and putting up signs across the ward.
The candidates include: Doug Thompson Colette Lacroix-Velthuis Dan O’Brien Isabelle Skalski Jennifer Van Koughnett Bobby Gulati Gregory Vail Arnold Vaughan Peter Scott Westaway Guy Clarence Boone Dalton Holloway Ward residents will be able to vote in advance polls on June 6 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.
m. and on election day June 16 from 10 a.m.
to 8 p.m. Residents opting to vote in-person can vote in any polling station in the ward on both days.
They can also vote by mail or by proxy. Official results are to be available on June 17. Darouze was first elected in Osgoode ward in 2014 and was re-elected in the 2018 and 2022 municipal elections.
One of the candidates in the June by-election is former Osgoode mayor and former ward councillor Doug Thompson, Darouze’s former mentor. Thompson, who was Osgoode councillor for 14 years, announced he was retiring from municipal politics in 2014 but re-entered as a candidate in 2022, narrowly losing the ward race to Darouze. Ottawa city council decided in March to hold a byelection and designated neighbouring councillors Catherine Kitts and David Brown to look after the ward between the time the seat was officially vacated and a new councillor is elected.
Municipal governments are the only level of government that can opt to appoint someone to a seat instead of holding a byelection. However, city council opted for the byelection. “(We’re) far enough from the next election that the voters of Osgoode, the residents of Osgoode, deserve to have a voice in the decision,” said Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe in March.
“I think the default should always be a byelection unless there’s a good reason for there to be an appointment, if it’s three months, or six months before an election.” The next municipal election will be on Oct. 26, 2026.
Osgoode had 23,354 eligible electors in the 2022 municipal election, and around 46 per cent of them cast ballots. The city estimated that the byelection will cost $522,491 to administer, according to a report released in March..
