Sudbury, ON — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Sudbury

The Sudbury riding is the compact half of a divided city. It takes in the former City of Sudbury — downtown, New Sudbury, Minnow Lake, Lockerby and Copper Cliff — together with the former town of Walden to the southwest, including Lively, Naughton and Whitefish. The rest of Greater Sudbury, from Chelmsford and Valley East to Garson and Capreol, belongs to Nickel Belt. Underneath sits the Sudbury Basin, the scar of an ancient meteorite impact and one of the richest concentrations of nickel, copper and platinum group metals on earth.

Candidates

Glenn Thibeault (NDP) — Thibeault came to the ballot late, winning the New Democratic nomination in September 2008 after the party's previously nominated candidate, Gerry McIntaggart, resigned and Dave Battaino withdrew from the contest. He had returned to Sudbury in 2003 to run the annual fundraising campaign for the United Way of Sudbury and District and became its executive director in 2005. He lived at Garson. His campaign was backed by the Sudbury and District Labour Council and United Steelworkers Local 2020.

Diane Marleau (Liberal) — Marleau had held Sudbury without interruption since 1988, longer than anyone else the riding had sent to Ottawa, and was seeking a seventh term. A former Sudbury city councillor, she sat in Jean Chrétien's cabinet as Minister of Health from 1993 to 1996, then as Minister of Public Works and Government Services, and from 1997 to 1999 as Minister for International Co-operation and minister responsible for La Francophonie.

Gerry Labelle (Conservative) — Labelle worked as a trainer and consultant and lived at Azilda. Fully bilingual, he launched his campaign at the Rainbow Centre in downtown Sudbury alongside Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory.

Gordon Harris (Green Party) — Harris was a Sudbury business owner.

J. David Popescu, a Sudbury landlord, ran as an independent, and Will Morin, a student, stood for the First Peoples National Party.

About the Riding

Greater Sudbury counted close to 158,000 residents at the 2006 census and remains the largest city in northeastern Ontario. Both of the region's dominant employers had changed hands two years before the election: CVRD of Brazil completed its takeover of Inco in October 2006, creating Vale Inco, and Xstrata absorbed Falconbridge the same year to form Xstrata Nickel. Whether foreign owners would honour the employment and investment undertakings attached to their approvals under the Investment Canada Act was a persistent question through the 39th Parliament.

The timing of the campaign was unkind. Nickel had peaked at record levels in the spring of 2007, and the city spent that year and the first half of 2008 in boom conditions, with mining supply and technology firms expanding alongside the producers. The price then fell steeply through 2008, and the financial collapse that unfolded during the campaign itself turned talk of expansion into talk of retrenchment at the mines and among the contractors who serve them.

The city's other pillars are institutional. Sudbury Regional Hospital, Laurentian University, Cambrian College and Collège Boréal employ thousands between them and make the city northeastern Ontario's health, education and francophone service centre; a large share of residents speak French. Science North sits on Ramsey Lake, and the long regreening of ground stripped by open-bed roasting and smelter emissions has become part of how the city describes itself. Employment insurance rules, federal support for mining research and northern transportation funding all featured in the local debate.