Canadian federal candidates don't need to live in their riding. You just need to be 18, a citizen, and able to vote, plus collect about 100 nomination signatures from people there. Jean Chrétien and Brian Mulroney both ran in Quebec ridings outside their hometowns.
Chapters
If you want to run for federal office in Canada, do you have to at least live near the riding where you want to run? Nope! Not at all. You could be living in Tofino on the far west of the country and run in Prince Edward Island if you want to. There's no legal requirement for you to live anywhere near it. It's not about residency. The only thing you have to be by law to run as a federal candidate is at least 18 years old, a Canadian citizen, and you have to be qualified to be an elector. In other words, you must have the legal right to vote. Now, there's a couple of things that might make it a little harder for you to run in a city that is not your own. Uh, for instance, you have to collect at least— I think it's 100 signatures to get a nomination. You have to collect that from the riding in which you intend to run. But that's it. That's really the only requirement. And there is precedent for this. This happens quite a bit, actually. Uh, for instance, both the prime ministers, Jean Chrétien and Brian Mulroney, ran in Quebec ridings that were not their residences. Now, they were both from Quebec, but they did not ride— they did not run for for office in their own hometowns in Quebec. So yeah, no, you do not have to run in your home riding.
