By Michel Rossignol
A century ago, Ottawans voted in municipal elections every year instead of every four years as we do today. Furthermore, in the early 1920s, elections were held on New Year’s Day or during the first week of January.
The electoral system changed in 1924 so that elections would be held closer to the end of the calendar year. As a result, Ottawans voted in two municipal elections in 1924, one in January to elect the mayor and other city officials for 1924, and another one in December of that year for a new slate of elected representatives for 1925.
During elections in the 1920s, one of the main subjects of debate was, just like today, the city’s rail transit system. In those days, the transit system was operated by a privately owned company, the Ottawa Electric Railway Company (OER), using streetcars travelling mostly on city streets. City officials wanted to take over the company’s operations and tried to win public support by holding a plebiscite at the same time as the January 1st, 1923, elections. The proposed takeover was rejected by eligible voters, but only by a margin of six votes (3,569 to 3,563).
Despite the close vote, the city abandoned its plans to take over the OER and only tried to do this again in the late 1940s.
Also off the rails in the January 1st, 1923, elections was Napoléon Champagne’s bid for re-election as a city councillor. Napoléon Champagne, born in Lowertown in 1861, was a veteran of municipal and provincial politics. From 1911 to 1914, he was the Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for Ottawa East, which included Lowertown. Before and after that, he was elected many times as one of the four councillors who, along with the mayor, were the city’s senior elected officials. The four candidates who won the most votes among the dozen or so candidates for councillor were the ones declared elected.
In the 1923 elections, Champagne just missed re-election, finishing in fifth place, perhaps because he and his supporters were too confident of his re-election and had paid little attention to his campaign. The city’s decision in December 1922 to name the bath house on King Edward Avenue the Champagne Bath in his honour was apparently of little help to his campaign.
Champagne roared back into municipal politics on January 7, 1924, when he not only won election as councillor, but also got the highest number of votes. In May of that year, Champagne became Mayor of Ottawa when he replaced Henry Watters who had died. (He was also mayor in 1908 when he replaced D’Arcy Scott who had resigned.)
Champagne’s short stint as mayor in 1924 apparently hurt his popularity because he just managed to win re-election as councillor when the second 1924 election was called on December 1st and he finished fourth in numbers of votes.
Napoleon Champagne’s long political career came to an end on November 17, 1925, when he passed away, just a few days before the election in December. But his name lives on 100 years later at the heritage designated Champagne Bath officially known as the Champagne Fitness Centre. Designed by W.E. Noffke, this building at 321 King Edward Avenue continues to serve the community that he represented for many years.