Guelph, ON — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Guelph

Guelph is a self-contained riding: its boundaries are those of the City of Guelph, in Wellington County, about 87 square kilometres holding some 115,000 people at the 2006 census. The city sits where the Speed and Eramosa rivers meet, roughly 100 kilometres west of Toronto, with Highway 401 running along its southern edge and Highway 6 carrying traffic up to Fergus and down toward Hamilton.

Candidates

Frank Valeriote (Liberal) — Born in Guelph in 1954, Valeriote read history and economics at Western, took his law degree at the University of Ottawa, and was called to the bar in 1981 before returning home to co-found SmithValeriote LLP, where he was a senior partner. He served eighteen years as a Catholic school board trustee, several of them as chair. His father, Domenic "Mico" Valeriote, was one of the longest-serving members of Guelph city council and a well-known distance runner. Valeriote had first been nominated to fight the by-election that was called and then cancelled earlier in the year.

Gloria Kovach (Conservative) — A registered nurse who had sat on Guelph city council since 1991 and served as president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Kovach was among the most recognisable figures in local government. She became the Conservative candidate in 2008 in place of Brent Barr, who had been nominated earlier, a substitution that generated a good deal of comment in the riding.

Mike Nagy (Green Party) — Nagy had carried the Green banner in Guelph in 2004 and 2006 and was a long-standing national spokesman for the party. A consultant living at Rockwood, he was fighting his third campaign in the riding in four years.

Tom King (NDP) — The novelist and broadcaster Thomas King was named the New Democratic candidate on 30 March 2007, with party leader Jack Layton attending the nomination meeting. King was a professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. His A Coyote Columbus Story and Green Grass, Running Water were nominated for Governor General's Literary Awards in 1992 and 1993.

Six others rounded out a ten-name ballot: Kornelis Klevering for the Radical Marijuana Party, Philip Bender for the Libertarians, Drew Garvie for the Communists, Karen Levenson for the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party, Manuel Couto for the Marxist-Leninists, and John Turmel of Brantford, a perennial candidate in federal and provincial elections.

About the Riding

Guelph came to the 2008 general election already mid-campaign. Brenda Chamberlain, the Liberal MP since 1993, resigned her seat on 7 April 2008, and a by-election was scheduled for 8 September. The general election call the day before wiped it off the calendar, and the four main candidates carried their organisations into the October vote, giving Guelph an unusually long campaign.

The city's economy rests on two pillars. The University of Guelph, with its strengths in agricultural science, food science and veterinary medicine through the Ontario Veterinary College, employs more people than any other institution here and brings in a substantial student population. Linamar Corporation, the automotive parts manufacturer headquartered in the city, employs thousands locally, which tied Guelph directly to the collapse in North American vehicle production that was gathering pace through the autumn. Sleeman Breweries, whose predecessor Silver Creek Brewery opened here in 1851, and a growing professional services sector fill out the picture.

Guelph has an unusually engaged civic culture and a well-organised environmental constituency, which gave the carbon tax argument more purchase locally than in most manufacturing towns and made the Greens a real factor in a four-way race. The limestone bulk of the Church of Our Lady Immaculate on its hill above the Speed River remains the city's landmark, and the downtown around it was the focus of a long-running debate about intensification, heritage and transit.