Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound

Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound covered about 6,110 square kilometres between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, taking in the northern part of Bruce County — the Bruce Peninsula and Arran-Elderslie — together with all of Grey County apart from the Town of The Blue Mountains. Its population was about 105,900 at the 2006 census. Owen Sound is the largest centre, followed by Hanover and Meaford, with Wiarton, Tobermory, Lion's Head, Chesley, Paisley, Tara, Durham, Neustadt, Markdale, Flesherton, Dundalk and Chatsworth spread across the rest of the riding.

Candidates

Larry Miller (Conservative) — Miller runs a beef operation near Georgian Bluffs and came to Parliament from thirteen years in municipal government. He joined Keppel Township council in 1991, becoming deputy reeve in 1994 and reeve in 1996, was chosen as the first mayor of Georgian Bluffs when amalgamation created the township in 2000, and served as warden of Grey County in 2002. He won the federal seat in 2004, unseating the sitting Liberal member, and was returned in 2006. He lives at Wiarton.

Dick Hibma (Green Party) — Hibma sat for three terms on Owen Sound city council, topping the poll among councillors in his last municipal campaign, and worked as a utility employee. His candidacy drew unusual attention for a Green in rural Ontario: during the campaign the Owen Sound Sun Times endorsed him in an editorial headed "Greens deserve a place in Parliament."

Thom Noble (Liberal) — A computer network technician from Sauble Beach, Noble ran for the Liberals. The party's last member here was Ovid Jackson, mayor of Owen Sound from 1982 to 1993, who held the seat federally until 2004.

Jill McIllwraith (NDP) — A registered practical nurse from Markdale, McIllwraith carried the New Democratic banner.

Joel Kidd stood for the Christian Heritage Party.

About the Riding

Geography defines this riding more than anything else. The Niagara Escarpment runs up through Grey County and along the spine of the Bruce Peninsula, ending at Tobermory, where Bruce Peninsula National Park and Fathom Five National Marine Park draw hikers, divers and campers through the summer. The Bruce Trail follows the escarpment edge for its full length here. Georgian Bay's shoreline, the inland lakes and the ski country of the Grey Highlands make tourism and cottaging a substantial seasonal industry, with the population of the peninsula communities several times higher in July than in February.

Owen Sound, with roughly 21,000 residents, is the service centre for the whole area: the regional hospital, the courts, the county offices, the schools, the retail strip and a working harbour at the head of the sound. Hanover and Meaford anchor smaller manufacturing bases. Across both counties, agriculture is the steady employer — beef and dairy cattle, cash crops, mixed farming, and the feed, equipment and trucking businesses that depend on them.

The autumn of 2008 found the riding pulled in two directions. The financial crisis and the contraction in southern Ontario manufacturing threatened shop-floor jobs in Owen Sound and Hanover that had already been thinning, and beef producers were still working through the debt left over from the BSE border closures earlier in the decade. At the same time the campaign here turned unusually green: with a well-known local candidate and a newspaper endorsement behind him, the Green Party pushed the carbon tax, farmland preservation and escarpment protection into candidate meetings alongside hospital funding, rural broadband and the future of the Owen Sound port. Highways 6, 10 and 21 remain the main routes through a riding where distance to services is itself a recurring political issue.