For Conservatives to take the election, these GTA ridings are must-wins
Pierre Poilievre’s party looking for gains in 905, where Liberals took all but 4 seats last election
Any feasible path to victory in the federal election for Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party runs through the Greater Toronto Area, a region dominated by the Liberals since 2015.
There are 31 seats up for grabs in this election in the GTA, often nicknamed the 905 for its area code. These suburban cities stretching in an arc around Toronto from Burlington through Vaughan to Oshawa are home to more than 2.5 million eligible voters.
The Conservatives came into this campaign with just four MPs in this region, so making gains here is essential to their success at the national level.
"That is the battleground," said Fred DeLorey, chair of NorthStar Public Affairs and the national campaign manager for the Conservative Party in 2021.
DeLorey says the Conservatives have for years been consistent in making the 905 a key focus of their campaigns, and this election is no different.
"This is the type of voter that can go either way if you tell the right message to them," he said in an interview.
GTA ridings were pivotal to the last federal Conservative election victory, when Stephen Harper's party formed a majority government in 2011, in large part by taking all but one seat in the region.
The 905's electoral importance has only grown since then, with the region allotted another nine seats due to population growth.
The GTA also matters because it's home to what campaign strategists call "swing seats," ridings that tend to shift between elections in a way that reflects voter sentiment at the national level.
While the Conservatives are targeting just about every Liberal-held seat in the 905, here's a closer look at two ridings that are such prime targets they can be considered must-wins for the Poilievre campaign.
Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill: canary in the coal mine
The most obvious swing seat target for the Conservatives in the GTA is Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, the riding that gave the Liberals their slimmest margin of victory in the entire 905 in the last election campaign, just 3.1 per cent.
That makes it a canary in the coal mine for Poilievre's campaign on election night. If the Conservatives can't pry this seat away from the Liberals, it's hard to see how they can take other 905 ridings that the Liberals won by wider margins last time.
The Conservative candidate here is former MP Costas Menegakis, who won the neighbouring riding of Richmond Hill in 2011. CBC News requested an interview with Menegakis but it was not granted.
The Liberal candidate in Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill is one-term incumbent Leah Taylor Roy, who worked in both the business and non-profit sectors before entering politics.
Taylor Roy says the most common thing she's hearing from voters when knocking on their doors during the campaign is concern about Canada's relationship with the U.S., specifically how to counter the economic and political threats posed by the Trump administration.
"The conversation often goes to who is the best leader to do this for Canada right now," said Taylor Roy in an interview at her campaign office.
She says the tone of the interactions she has with voters has shifted since Justin Trudeau announced his resignation and Mark Carney became the Liberal leader.
"People were really angry," she said of the conversations when Trudeau remained at the helm. "Now there's not as much anger, but there's fear, there's concern, anxiety. And it's a very different kind of conversation."
Taylor Roy says voters "are listening now because it's not all about the leader that they don't want. It's now about protecting our country and what's best for our country, and so the narrative has changed completely."
The other candidates in Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill are Danielle Maniuk of the NDP, Tom Muench of the Green Party and Igor Tvorogov of the People's Party of Canada (PPC).
Newmarket-Aurora: ripe target for the Conservatives
The 905 seat that the Liberals won by the second-slimmest margin in 2021 happens to be the neighbouring riding of Newmarket-Aurora.
It's an especially ripe target for the Conservatives because the two-term Liberal incumbent and longtime former mayor of Newmarket, Tony Van Bynen, is not seeking re-election. He won the riding by just 5.5 per cent last election.
Trying to hold on to the seat for the Liberals is first-time candidate Jennifer McLachlan. She began her first business venture at age 18 by buying a convenience store, worked her way up from a job as a security guard to senior management positions over a 20-year career in corporate security, and launched her own logistics company.
Asked in an interview what prompted her to get into politics, McLachlan pointed to her daughters, both entrepreneurs in their mid-20s.
"There's a lot of challenges that that age group is facing, housing affordability and small businesses scaling up and what the global landscape is going to look like for trade," said McLachlan.
What is she hearing from voters at the doors? "A lot of anxiety, a lot of apprehension, a lot of concern as to the impact of the US tariffs on Canada and overall affordability."
McLachlan's campaign office is on the quaint Main Street in downtown Newmarket, just a few doors down from the campaign office of Sandra Cobena, her Conservative rival in the election.
CBC News requested an interview with Cobena but did not receive a response.
Cobena's campaign website describes her as a senior manager at one of Canada's leading commercial banks, with a background in advising Ontario-based companies on financial strategies for mergers, acquisitions, growth and restructuring.
Her website says Cobena immigrated to Canada from Ecuador as a teenager, obtained a degree in global commerce and finance from Western University, and an executive global master's in management from the London School of Economics.
The only other candidate on the ballot in Newmarket-Aurora is the NDP's Anna Gollen.
A drive through neighbourhoods in these two key ridings reveals plenty of lawn signs in either red or blue. Orange signs are pretty hard to come by.
The NDP garnered less than eight per cent of the votes in Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill last election and 11.5 per cent of the votes in Newmarket-Aurora, making both ridings fundamentally two-way races between the Liberals and Conservatives.
What voters say matters to them
At various locations in the two ridings, CBC News asked a handful of voters at random what matters to them in this election and how that influences their voting intentions.
"Number one, that we do not become the 51st state," said Suzanne Duguid, a voter in Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.
Duguid says she will, for the first time in her life, vote Liberal. "Because we like Carney," she said "His background is what we need right now. And he's going to put Trump in his place, I really feel it."
Karen Poland, who spoke to CBC News in a supermarket parking lot in Aurora, is not convinced by Carney or his party.
"I am not happy with the Liberals," Poland said. "They just seem to do the same thing over and over again."
She says the cost of living, immigration and the state of the military are her top issues, and says she likes the Conservative platform. "I'm going to give a new party a chance," she said.
Gal Brun, a nursing student, describes himself as an undecided voter and says the state of the economy is what matters to him.
"I'll see what the campaigns say in the next coming weeks, and then I'll decide," Brun said on Main Street in Newmarket.
DeLorey, the Conservative strategist, predicts Poilievre will spend a lot of time in the GTA in the final week of the campaign.
"They're tight, tight races, and any path to government goes through the 905." he said.
Poilievre has already held events in eight different ridings in the GTA since the campaign began. Carney meanwhile has campaigned in just three ridings in the region: Brampton South, Milton East—Halton Hills South, and Vaughan—Woodbridge twice.
The GTA's importance in this election comes down to the realities of this country's electoral math.
Given that the 905 accounts for more than one-quarter of Ontario's 122 seats, it's not a stretch to conclude it's next to impossible to win Ontario without taking the bulk of seats in the 905.
In the past 50 years, over 15 federal elections, only once has a party won without taking the most seats in Ontario. The sole exception is the Harper Conservatives' minority win in 2006.
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