York West, ON — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

York West

Toronto's northwest corner belongs to York West, a riding bounded by Steeles Avenue, Keele Street and the Black Creek, Highway 401 and the Humber River, with Highway 400 cutting through it from top to bottom. Jane and Finch, Glenfield-Jane Heights, Humbermede, Humber Summit, Emery and the western edge of Downsview make up its neighbourhoods.

Candidates

Judy Sgro (Liberal) — Sgro had held York West since a 1999 by-election and was contesting the seat for the fifth time. Her municipal career preceded it by more than a decade: North York council from 1987, Metro council from 1994, and Toronto council after amalgamation, where she took a turn as the police services board's vice-chair. She was Minister of Citizenship and Immigration from December 2003 to January 2005 and had been the Liberal labour critic since 2007, a file that fit a riding where much of the workforce was in warehousing, cleaning, security and light assembly.

Giulio Manfrini (NDP) — Manfrini worked as a real estate broker in Toronto and ran for the New Democrats.

Kevin Nguyen (Conservative) — Nguyen, a Toronto consultant, was the Conservative candidate.

Nick Capra (Green) — Capra, a retailer, stood for the Green Party.

About the Riding

Few constituencies anywhere near Toronto had a younger, denser or more recently arrived population. The Jane and Finch corridor came out of a plan drawn up in 1962, when the Ontario Housing Corporation and the North York planning department set out to turn farm lots into a model suburb mixing public housing, private apartments and townhouses. The towers went up along Jane Street and the population rose from about 1,300 in 1961 to 33,000 a decade later; the schools, transit and community services meant to accompany them lagged badly. By 1967 nearly a quarter of the area's dwellings were public housing against three per cent across North York, and Jane-Finch was later named one of thirteen Toronto neighbourhoods marked for concentrated reinvestment.

Deindustrialisation in the 1980s and 1990s removed much of the entry-level manufacturing work residents had relied on, and what replaced it — warehousing and logistics strung along the Highway 400 and 401 frontages — offered fewer secure, unionised positions. Employment insurance rules, temporary agency work and the recognition of foreign credentials were live constituency issues rather than abstractions.

York University's Keele campus, with a student body approaching 50,000, occupied a large block inside the riding's eastern edge and was the biggest institutional employer in the area. Its relationship with the surrounding neighbourhoods was uneasy, and access for students and residents alike hinged on transit. Ottawa had capped a contribution of $697 million in 2007 toward extending the Spadina subway north from Downsview station through the campus into Vaughan, but no track had been laid by October 2008. Overcrowded buses on Jane, Finch and Steeles carried the load in the meantime.

Community safety was the other subject that dominated local politics. A series of shootings earlier in the decade had produced a wave of federal and provincial programming aimed at youth in the corridor, much of it short-term, and residents' organisations argued for stable funding rather than announcement-driven grants. Gun control, sentencing and the youth criminal justice system divided the parties in a riding with a direct stake in the outcome.

Green space was more plentiful than the riding's reputation suggested, with the Humber valley along the western edge and the Black Creek corridor forming a substantial ravine network. Emery and Humber Summit in the north retained older detached housing and small industrial pockets, giving the riding a more mixed character than the Jane and Finch shorthand allowed.