Durham, ON — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Durham

Durham occupied the northeastern corner of the Greater Toronto Area and covered about 1,625 square kilometres: the Municipality of Clarington along the Lake Ontario shore, the Township of Scugog around Lake Scugog, the Township of Uxbridge on the Oak Ridges Moraine, and the reserve of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. Despite sharing a name with the surrounding regional municipality, it contained neither Oshawa nor Whitby; most of its population lived in Bowmanville and Courtice, with farmland and small towns filling the north.

Candidates

Bev Oda (Conservative) — Oda had held the seat since 2004 and sat in cabinet from the moment the Conservatives took office. She spent a quarter-century in television, starting at TVOntario in 1973 and later working at Citytv, Global and the multilingual station CFMT, served as a commissioner of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission from 1987 to 1993, and returned to the industry as a senior executive with Baton Broadcasting and CTV before leaving it in 1999. Appointed Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women in February 2006, she moved to International Cooperation in August 2007 and went into the campaign as the minister responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency.

Bryan Ransom (Liberal) — Ransom, a United Church minister living in Bowmanville, carried the Liberal nomination. Alex Shepherd had held the riding for the party from 1993 until Oda took it in 2004.

Stephen Leahy (Green) — Leahy was a freelance journalist based in Uxbridge who specialised in environment and sustainability reporting, filing on climate science, water and resource questions as science and environment correspondent for the news agency Inter Press Service.

Andrew McKeever (NDP) — McKeever, a Bowmanville resident who worked in animal control, was the New Democratic candidate.

Henry Zekveld, a Bowmanville farmer, stood again for the Christian Heritage Party after contesting the seat in 2006.

About the Riding

Electricity generation dominates the local economy. The Darlington Nuclear Generating Station sits on the Clarington lakeshore between Bowmanville and Courtice, its four CANDU units making Ontario Power Generation one of the largest employers in the area. Through 2008 the utility was pursuing a proposal to build new reactors on the same site, referred to a federal joint review panel. Draft environmental impact statement guidelines were released for a seventy-five-day public comment period on 5 September, two days before the writs were issued, keeping new nuclear construction in front of local voters throughout the campaign.

The autumn's economic news reached the riding through Oshawa. On 3 June 2008 General Motors said it would end production at its Oshawa pickup truck plant, affecting as many as 2,600 jobs, many of them held by people living in Courtice and Bowmanville. Rising fuel prices had cut into demand for the trucks built there, and the announcement came weeks after a new labour agreement the union believed had secured the plant.

North of the built-up south end the character changes quickly. Scugog and Uxbridge are farming townships of cash crops, cattle and horse operations, threaded by the Oak Ridges Moraine and its trails. Port Perry's Queen Street waterfront is the commercial centre for the lake district, and the Great Blue Heron Casino opened on Scugog Island in 1997 on land owned by the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation.

Growth pressure ran through most local arguments. Clarington was one of the faster-growing municipalities in Durham Region, and residents debated how far subdivisions should push into land protected under the moraine and greenbelt plans. Commuting was the other constant: GO Transit's Lakeshore East trains still terminated at Oshawa, and extending the service into Clarington was a standing request to senior governments.