Davis Legree

Reporter

Welcome to QP Briefing's Regional Rundown. We'll be previewing all the key battleground areas ahead of the upcoming Ontario election on Feb. 27. Today, we explore the blue fortress east of Toronto, and whether there's potential for an NDP or Liberal breakthrough in Durham, York Region, or Scarborough.

Stay tuned for future editions on Toronto, Peel Region, and northern Ontario, as we tour around the province.

The eastern part of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is not a battleground region in the traditional sense of the word.

The term 'battleground' implies an area filled with competitive races, where more than one party has a legitimate chance to win each seat. Recently, that hasn't been the case in Durham, York Region, or Scarborough, in which many historically Liberal ridings have been safely blue following the departure of former premier Kathleen Wynne.

However, should the Ontario Liberals or NDP want to unseat Premier Doug Ford from the province's top job, the pathway likely lies just east of Toronto.

Let's start with some context. The eastern part of the GTA had long been a hotly-contested region between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives (PCs), and was crucial to Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty's back-to-back-to-back electoral wins in 2003, 2007, and 2011.

Wynne largely held the region in 2014, clobbering the PCs in Durham, York, and Scarborough, en route to a Liberal majority.

But there was a shift in the 2018 election.

Liberal fortunes faded in the eastern suburbs, as did Wynne's bid for a second term. Ford and the PCs picked up four of Durham's five ridings, swept York Region's nine seats, and even outperformed the Liberals in Scarborough.

Those trends held through the 2022 election, helping maintain Ford's majority government and creating a new blue fortress just outside the province's largest city.

Looking towards the upcoming provincial election, polling suggests the region is likely to stay blue, but Liberal strategists remain optimistic that Bonnie Crombie, with the help of certain star candidates, could orchestrate a breakthrough, particularly in Scarborough.

"Talking about the eastern GTA, everything around Scarborough and directly adjacent to it, we very much feel is in play," said Ashley Csnady, a veteran Liberal operative and vice president of McMillan Vantage. "The issues of healthcare, lower taxes, and especially housing affordability... really play well there."

During the 2022 election, the PCs won four of Scarborough's six ridings, while the Liberals and NDP took one each. That being said, the Liberals were buoyed by holding Scarborough-Guildwood in a key 2023 byelection, when Andrea Hazell was elected to replace Mitzie Hunter, who had resigned to pursue the Toronto mayorship.

"Obviously, we have Andrea Hazell, who already won a great byelection there, and we're really confident she'll keep her seat," Csnady told 

. "[Elsewhere,] we have Peter Yuen, the former deputy police chief of Toronto, so that's part of Bonnie's message for a safer Ontario."

Meanwhile, the NDP is hoping to add to the two seats they hold in the eastern GTA. Doly Begum, the party's deputy leader, has represented Scarborough Southwest since 2018. While Jennifer French is looking to be re-elected for a third time in Oshawa, where she has won her riding by fewer than 2,000 votes in the last two elections.

French was joined by NDP Leader Marit Stiles on Monday, where they campaigned in Oshawa and held a news conference at the Canadian Automotive Museum.

"Autoworkers [are] building trucks right here in Oshawa, proudly Ontario-made, and driven right through North America," said Stiles. "We're here to make sure this sector continues for generations."

Stiles acknowledged the impact that potential U.S. tariffs could have on Oshawa's automotive industry, and emphasized that the NDP will stand with workers against what she called "a direct and existential threat."

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However, while Stiles invoked the threat of tariffs to curry favour with local blue-collar workers, PC insiders believe Trump's looming presence in the upcoming election favours Ford and the incumbents.

"That tariff threat from the U.S. that the premier is actively trying to capitalize on, it resonates very well with people in those industrial sectors," said Thomas Gendron, a Progressive Conservative strategist. "That's why we're seeing the premier so strong right now, and even a bump in polling in Oshawa, for example, with the GM (General Motors) plant."

"Oshawa swings either conservative, as we see with [federal] MP Colin Carrie, but we also have the NDP and Jennifer French there. I think we might see at least a good fight from the PCs by pushing that exact economic message."

Gendron mentioned the potential for Ajax to be a close race, as it was a Liberal stronghold before turning blue in 2018, though he said the rest of Durham Region is not a priority area for the government.

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"It looks like it's going to be pretty comfortably PC," he said. "It's a region that really agrees with [Ford's] message and has for quite some time. There's ridings that traditionally used to be Liberal, back in the Wynne era, but they're comfortably PC right now."

"So while it's important to them and they are spending time on it, I don't think it's as resource-intensive as other regions."

Gendron also noted the benefit of having several well-established cabinet ministers re-offer in the eastern GTA, including Finance Minster Peter Bethlenfalvy (Pickering-Uxbridge), Energy Minister Stephen Lecce (King-Vaughan), and Housing Minister Paul Calandra (Markham-Stoufville).

Current public opinion data suggests the PCs are currently projected to hold all of York Region's ridings, and potentially pick up the Liberal seat in Scarborough-Guildwood. The polling aggregator 338Canada.com suggests the NDP's Scarborough Southwest riding is safely orange, while Oshawa is likely to be a coin flip between the NDP and PCs.

Today, we explore the blue fortress east of Toronto, and whether there's potential for an NDP or Liberal breakthrough in Durham, York Region, or Scarborough.

Regional Rundown: PCs look to preserve blue strongholds in eastern GTA

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