Battleground undecided after Tory, Liberal neck and neck in polling

The riding of Whitby was undecided at the Star’s print deadline. Liberal incumbent Ryan Turnbull and Conservative candidate Maleeha Shahid, a local city councillor, were neck and neck at the polls election night, as they had been for much of the campaign in the swing riding.

Turnbull had represented the riding in the House of Commons since 2019. This year, he faces challenges from Shahid, NDP Brian Dias, who works at Chrysler’s Etobicoke casting plant, and Green party candidate Johannes Kotilainen, who works in film and television.

In an interview with the Star on Friday, Whitby Mayor Don Mitchell said he thought Turnbull is “very visible in the community,” a “strongly committed environmentalist” and has been successful in getting more funding for the town from the federal government.

“(Turnbull’s) knowledgeable and engaged and is very passionate about overarching environmental issues,” added Mitchell.

As for Mitchell’s colleague Shahid, the mayor said she had been an important member of council and a source of inspiration for some.

“Growing up in Pakistan, moving to Canada and joining the local council is a tremendous accomplishment in terms of your ability to bring yourself forward and earn the trust of people.”

Mitchell said Turnbull and Shahid’s debates were predictably amicable and that what he calls the “Whitby tone” carried through.

“The ‘Whitby tone’ is that people here are pretty respectful, generally pretty fair, pretty content,” said Mitchell.

“It’s just a real nice place to live.” Considered a swing riding, Whitby — as well as Whitby-Oshawa and Whitby-Ajax, the former electoral districts the town was part of before it became its own riding in 2015 — has oscillated between Conservative and Liberal representation for decades.

What is it about the city east of Toronto that makes it a swing riding?

“I think, like most communities in the GTHA, our demographics are changing fairly rapidly,” said Mitchell.

“Other than that, I’m honestly not sure. I think there was a fair expectation that the Conservatives would win last time, but they didn’t.”

Whitby has seen explosive population growth in the last 30 years, having more than doubled its population since 1986.

According to the latest census numbers, about 23 per cent of the riding’s residents are immigrants and 25 per cent are visible minorities.

Whitby-Ajax, which was a riding from 1997 to 2004, was represented exclusively by Liberals at the federal level and Conservatives provincially.

Liberal Judi Longfield was the riding’s only MP. She was a community college teacher before her start in politics, beginning with work as a Liberal party organizer that saw her working on the campaigns of Jean Chrétien and Dalton McGuinty.

Its MPPs were Conservatives Jim Flaherty,

1999 to 2006, followed by his wife Christine Elliott, 2006 to 2007.

Flaherty would later become Minister of Finance and Elliott would become Ontario’s minister of health and deputy premier, roles she currently holds.

In 2004, Whitby was shifted into the new Whitby-Oshawa riding.

Longfield was re-elected that year but was defeated in 2006 by Flaherty who had switched to federal politics. Flaherty remained MP until his death of a heart attack in 2014.

Provincially, Elliott would represent the riding until she resigned in 2016. Conservative Lorne Coe was elected MPP in the subsequent byelection.

The following year, 2015, Whitby was separated from Oshawa and became its own riding, which it remains today.

Liberal candidate Celina Caesar-Chavannes, a research consultant and business entrepreneur, won narrowly against Conservative incumbent and former mayor Pat Perkins.

Coe was re-elected as MPP. Caesar-Chavannes was re-elected in 2019.

Five months later, she left the Liberal caucus, becoming an independent MP. Caesar-Chavannes cited conflicts with Prime Minster Justin Trudeau as her reason for leaving, alleging that she had been subject to racism, microaggressions and tokenization.

She had previously spoken out about experiencing microaggressions on Parliament Hill, saying that having to deal with them felt like “death by a thousand cuts.”