Markham—Thornhill, ON — April 3, 2017 Federal By-Election
Markham—Thornhill — April 3, 2017 By-election Results
Poll-by-poll results for Markham—Thornhill in the April 3, 2017 Canadian federal by-election. Explore detailed voting data, candidate results, and turnout statistics at the poll level.
Riding information
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Markham—Thornhill is a federal electoral district in the Regional Municipality of York in the Greater Toronto Area. The by-election was called after Liberal MP John McCallum, who served as Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, resigned his seat effective February 1, 2017 to accept an appointment as Canada's Ambassador to China.
Candidates
Mary Ng (Liberal) — Ng worked in the Prime Minister's Office as Director of Appointments prior to seeking the nomination. She had previously served as Ontario's Director of Policy for the Ministry of Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Born in Hong Kong, she immigrated to Canada with her family and grew up in north Toronto.
Ragavan Paranchothy (Conservative) — A television broadcaster and community activist, Paranchothy had previously run for the Conservative Party in Scarborough Southwest in the 2011 federal election.
Gregory Hines (NDP) — A small business owner who won the NDP nomination over insurance broker Marco Coletta.
Caryn Bergmann (Green Party) — The Green Party candidate in the by-election.
About the Riding
Markham—Thornhill is located in the southern part of the City of Markham, one of Canada's most diverse and rapidly growing municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area. Created by the 2012 federal electoral boundaries redistribution, the riding came into effect for the 2015 general election. According to the 2016 census, the riding had a population of approximately 99,000.
The riding is one of the most ethnically diverse in Canada. The largest visible minority groups include Chinese and South Asian communities, with significant populations speaking Cantonese, Mandarin, Tamil, and Urdu as mother tongues alongside English.
Markham brands itself as Canada's high-technology capital, hosting over 1,000 technology and life-sciences companies. IBM is the city's largest employer, and other major firms including AMD, Toshiba, Honeywell, and Apple maintain offices in the area. The riding also includes Pacific Mall, one of the largest indoor Asian shopping malls in North America, which draws millions of visitors annually and serves as a significant retail hub.