London North Centre

London North Centre is an urban riding covering the northern and central portions of the City of London in southwestern Ontario. The riding extends from Wonderland Road and Wharncliffe Road in the west to Highbury Avenue in the east, and from the city’s northern limits south to Oxford Street and the Thames River. It encompasses the campus of the University of Western Ontario, St. Joseph’s Health Centre, and the diverse neighbourhoods of central and north London.

Candidates

Susan Truppe (Conservative) — Truppe was a London-area businesswoman and community volunteer who entered federal politics for the first time in 2011. She was active in supporting small businesses in the London community.

Glen Pearson (Liberal) — The incumbent MP, first elected in 2006, Pearson was born in Calgary and spent twenty-nine years as a firefighter with the London Fire Department, retiring as a captain. He was co-executive director of the London Food Bank for over twenty-five years. Together with his wife, Jane Roy, he worked on humanitarian and development projects in Sudan beginning in the late 1990s, including building schools, establishing women’s programs, and campaigning against slavery through their organization Canadian Aid for Southern Sudan. In Parliament, he served as the Official Opposition Critic for International Cooperation.

German Gutierrez (NDP) — Gutierrez was a professor at Fanshawe College’s School of Language and Liberal Studies.

Mary Ann Hodge (Green Party) and AnnaMaria Valastro (Animal Alliance/Environment Voters) also appeared on the ballot.

About the Riding

London North Centre is one of southwestern Ontario’s most economically diverse urban ridings, blending the institutional anchor of the University of Western Ontario — one of Canada’s largest universities, with tens of thousands of students and a major research hospital network — with established residential neighbourhoods ranging from affluent homes near the university to more modest areas closer to the downtown core. St. Joseph’s Health Centre and the University Hospital, part of the London Health Sciences Centre network, are major employers in the riding.

The riding’s population included a significant student contingent from Western and a growing immigrant population drawn to London’s mid-sized city amenities. The city’s economy was anchored by health care, education, insurance and financial services, and a manufacturing sector that had undergone significant contraction in the years before 2011.

Heading into 2011, the riding was a competitive battleground. It had traditionally leaned Liberal, and the three-way split between Liberal, Conservative, and NDP support made the outcome uncertain. Local issues included the economic transition of London’s industrial base, the future of health care delivery, concerns about food security and poverty — issues that Pearson’s work at the London Food Bank had brought public attention to — and the university community’s priorities around research funding and student affordability.