Liberals take all Toronto ridings
The Liberals swept all the ridings in Toronto on election night, making history by jumping from third-party status to forming a majority government.
The Liberals swept all the ridings in Toronto on election night, making history by jumping from third-party status to forming a majority government.
The Liberal Party struck a blow at the heart of the NDP power base as Craig Scott lost his seat in the riding of Toronto-Danforth.
NDP incumbent Craig Scott has been defeated in Jack Layton’s old riding of Toronto-Danforth by Liberal Julie Dabrusin in an unexpected turn of events. In a close race for the East York riding, Dabrusin was able to edge out Scott by a margin of 1,797 votes – 22,297 votes for Dabrusin to 20,500 for Scott.
At 10 p.m. the CBC announced that Liberals will form the next federal government. With earliest results coming from Atlantic Canada, the CBC said that the so-called “red wave” had swept the Atlantic region, unseating such sitting Conservative cabinet ministers as Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea and Aboriginal and Northern Development Minister Bernard Valcourt.
How Canadians actually choose their federal government got a full airing at Tuesday night’s all-candidates meeting in the Toronto-Danforth riding. Candidates contesting the riding offered their views about replacing the traditional “first-past-the-post” election with proportional representation. The latter would see percentage divisions in the electorate represented in the House of Commons.
MP Craig Scott was given the nod by the NDP riding association in Toronto-Danforth on Saturday to run for re-election.
Canada’s new immigration point system, set to come into effect May 4, 2013, drew criticism from some New Democrats during a language and culture celebration in Toronto. At a Wednesday (Feb. 20) celebration of International Mother Language Day, hosted by NDP MP Matthew Kellway (Beaches-East York), some NDP politicians expressed concern over planned changes to federal immigration policy.
Grant Gordon says he isn’t ready to hang up his political skates just yet. The first-time Liberal Party candidate lost the March 19 Toronto-Danforth federal byelection to fellow rookie politician Craig Scott, who held onto the riding for the New Democratic Party. “For me this is just like losing a hockey game,” Gordon said. “But this is just the first game … of a series.”
The new MP for Toronto-Danforth credits the youth vote for his victory Monday night. The Opera House on Queen Street East in Toronto was packed with New Democratic Party (NDP) supporters, Monday night, to celebrate Craig Scott’s victory in the federal byelection; he earned just short of 60 per cent of the vote. Runner up, Grant Gordon of the Liberal party earned just under 30 per cent of the votes.
Claire Prashaw, Layton’s former constituency assistant, says she’ll officially kick off her campaign to become the NDP candidate for MP in Toronto-Danforth at the Dora Keogh pub on Danforth Avenue tomorrow evening, Dec. 20.