Trinity—Spadina, ON — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Trinity—Spadina

Trinity—Spadina held the western half of downtown Toronto. Yonge Street, Queen's Park Crescent and Avenue Road closed it off on the east; on the west the line stepped between Ossington Avenue, Dovercourt Road and Dufferin Street on its way down past the Exhibition grounds. The rail corridor near Dupont Street capped it to the north, Lake Ontario to the south, and the Toronto Islands belonged to it. Inside those limits sat Kensington Market, Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Portugal, the Annex, Alexandra Park and the condominium towers going up on the old Railway Lands.

Candidates

Olivia Chow (NDP) — Chow had taken the riding from Liberal Tony Ianno in 2006 after contesting it twice before. Born in Hong Kong, she came to Toronto with her family at thirteen and got her start in politics as a constituency assistant to Dan Heap, the New Democrat who held the downtown seat from 1981 to 1993. She was elected a Toronto school trustee in 1985, moved to Metropolitan Toronto council in 1991 and stayed on the amalgamated city council until 2005. Her husband, Jack Layton, led the New Democrats. In June 2008 she sponsored a Commons motion urging the government to halt the deportation of American soldiers who had refused to serve in Iraq; it carried with the support of all three opposition parties.

Christine Innes (Liberal) — A Toronto lawyer, Innes was making her first run for office. She is married to Tony Ianno, who held Trinity—Spadina for the Liberals from 1993 to 2006 and served as minister of state for families and caregivers, and she had been active in the riding's Liberal organization for years.

Christine McGirr (Conservative) — McGirr worked as an analyst in Toronto.

Stephen La Frenie (Green Party) — La Frenie was an arts educator living in the riding.

Chester Brown (Libertarian) — Brown, born in Montreal in 1960, was a cartoonist best known for the comic-strip biography Louis Riel. Research for that book drew him into questions about property rights and the purpose of government, moving his politics from anarchism toward libertarianism, and 2008 was his first campaign for office.

Carlos Santos Almeida and Val Illie both ran as independents.

About the Riding

This was among the most densely settled constituencies in the country, and among the most varied. Chinese, Portuguese, Italian and Korean communities had been established here for generations, and Kensington Market's produce stalls, fishmongers and second-hand shops remained the best-known landmark. Chinatown at Spadina and Dundas, the College Street restaurant strip and the Dundas West Portuguese bakeries each supported hundreds of small businesses.

Work in the riding was concentrated in a handful of large institutions and a great many small ones. The University of Toronto's St. George campus was the biggest of them, followed by the Canadian Broadcasting Centre on Front Street, the convention centre, and the hotels, restaurants and venues that served the entertainment district. On the Island, Toronto City Centre Airport had been carrying Porter Airlines passengers since 2006, and the airline's growth had turned into a running dispute with waterfront residents.

Construction was the other constant. CityPlace was filling the former Railway Lands with towers, the garment lofts around King and Spadina were being converted to housing, and tens of thousands of new residents were arriving in an area with little new school, park or transit capacity. Homelessness and the shortage of affordable units around Spadina Avenue and Queen Street West drew steady attention.

The federal arts and culture cuts announced in August 2008 resonated in a riding with an unusually large population of artists, technicians and cultural workers. Student debt, immigration processing backlogs and the future of streetcar service also surfaced during the campaign.