Roland Armitage

Early life Armitage was born on February 8, 1925, on a homestead on March Road in South March, Ontario to parents Godfrey and Joan Armitage ( Foote).

In 1942, while attending Ottawa Technical High School, he and a friend enlisted to join the Canadian Army to fight in World War II. He lied about his age, as he was only 17 at the time. He joined the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion to train in Fort Benning, Georgia, but was sent home to mature. He then went to Camp Petawawa to train as a motorcycle dispatch rider, and was sent to England. While recovering from an injury, he was asked to join the 5th Battery 3rd Medium Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery due to his "keen night vision". On election day, he lost to Progressive Conservative Norm Sterling by fewer than 500 votes, in one of the closest elections in the riding's history.

Armitage was elected as mayor of West Carleton in the 1991 municipal election, defeating township councillor Keith Roe by over 2,200 votes. As mayor, he also sat on Ottawa–Carleton Regional council.

In 1994, Ottawa–Carleton Regional Council adopted a ward system and councillors would need to be directly elected rather than be made up from the various mayors and city councillors in the region. In the 1994 Ottawa-Carleton Regional Municipality elections, Armitage chose to run for a seat in Ward 5, which covered the region's western rural townships. He ended up losing to former Goulbourn mayor Betty Hill by just 75 votes. He ran on a platform of freezing taxes and phasing in the cost of regional policing in rural areas.

Post politics In 1999, he was named to the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame. In 2005, he was awarded the Key to the City of Ottawa.

In 2011, the hall at the West Carleton community complex was renamed the Dr. Roland Armitage Hall. In 2019, he was named to the Order of Ottawa. In 2021, he was named to the Order of Ontario.

On June 19, 2024, Armitage died at the Perley Health Veterans Residence in Ottawa, where he had taken up residence in 2023. He was 99.