Mississauga—Brampton South, ON — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Mississauga—Brampton South

Mississauga—Brampton South was one of the few Greater Toronto Area seats drawn deliberately across a municipal line, joining a wedge of northern Mississauga to a matching wedge of southern Brampton over Steeles Avenue. Its 78 square kilometres were framed on the west by Mavis Road, Terry Fox Way, Britannia Road West and Mississauga Road, and ran east to Dixie Road and the Etobicoke Creek city limit where Highway 401 leaves Mississauga; in Brampton, McLaughlin Road and Kennedy Road South closed off the two flanks. Highways 401, 403 and 410 all cut through it.

Candidates

Navdeep Bains (Liberal) — Born in Toronto in 1977 and raised in Peel, Bains finished at Turner Fenton Secondary School in Brampton, took a Bachelor of Administrative Studies at York University and an MBA at the University of Windsor, and earned a certified management accountant designation. He worked as a financial processing analyst at Nike Canada and then as a revenue and costing analyst at Ford Motor Company of Canada until 2004, the year he won this newly created riding at the age of 26. Paul Martin named him parliamentary secretary to the prime minister in October 2005 and he was sworn into the Privy Council. In opposition he served as critic for public works and government services, the Treasury Board and international trade.

Salma Ataullahjan (Conservative) — Born in Mardan, Pakistan, in 1952, Ataullahjan settled in Canada as a young woman, took a diploma in computer operations and built a career as a real estate sales representative in the Toronto area. She painted, founded the parents' council at David Lewis Public School in Toronto and sat on the executives of the Pakistani Canadian Professionals and Academics association and the Canadian Pashtun Cultural Association. This was her first federal campaign.

Karan Pandher (NDP) — A Brampton resident, Pandher worked as a postal clerk.

Grace Yogaretnam (Green Party) — A student living in Mississauga, Yogaretnam had also stood for the Greens here in 2006.

Tim Sullivan, a Mississauga truck driver, ran for the Marxist-Leninist Party.

About the Riding

Both halves of the seat were products of the same long building boom. Mississauga's 2006 census count was 668,549, up 55,624 from 612,925 five years earlier — a 9.1% increase — and Brampton was growing faster still. Subdivisions, arterial-road retail and the warehouse and light-industrial parks filling the land between Highway 401 and Pearson define the built landscape more than any village core does.

Those employment lands were the riding's economic engine. Distribution centres, freight forwarders, contract manufacturers and the supplier base feeding the airport provided thousands of jobs inside the boundaries, while many residents commuted out to Toronto or along the 401 and 407. The mix left the seat exposed on two fronts as the autumn of 2008 unfolded: to the credit seizure hitting logistics and construction, and to a manufacturing decline already well advanced across southern Ontario.

Peel by then had one of the highest visible-minority shares of any region in the country, and South Asian communities were prominent on both sides of Steeles. Immigration processing backlogs, family reunification timelines and foreign credential recognition were standing constituency concerns, alongside the ordinary complaints of a commuter suburb: crowded schools, road congestion and the slow pace of GO Transit expansion.

Bains had held the seat since its creation, and the Conservatives regarded the 905 belt as the ground they most needed to take. That made suburban, heavily immigrant ridings like this one a test of whether the party could reach beyond its established base.