Markham—Unionville

Markham—Unionville is a suburban riding in the Regional Municipality of York, located in the heart of the City of Markham northeast of Toronto. The riding is bounded roughly by Highway 407 to the south, Highway 404 to the west, and extends north and east through the communities of Unionville, Milliken Mills, and surrounding residential areas toward the northern city limits and the 9th Line.

Candidates

John McCallum (Liberal) — The incumbent MP, first elected in 2000 in the former riding of Markham, McCallum was born in Montreal and educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, the Université de Paris, and McGill University, where he earned a PhD in economics. He spent years in academia, teaching economics at the University of Manitoba, Simon Fraser University, the Université du Québec à Montréal, and McGill, where he served as dean of arts. He then became senior vice-president and chief economist of the Royal Bank of Canada, a position he held for six years. In the Chrétien and Martin governments, McCallum served as Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions, Minister of National Defence, and Minister of Veterans Affairs. As Defence Minister, he oversaw what was at that time the largest annual increase to the defence budget in more than a decade. He was one of the most prominent Liberal caucus members heading into 2011.

Bob Saroya (Conservative) — Saroya immigrated to Canada from Punjab, India, in 1974 and built a career in the food service industry. He entered the restaurant business in 1988 with Pizza Pizza, eventually owning and operating five Pizza Pizza locations as well as other restaurant franchises in the Markham area. He first contested the riding in 2008.

Nadine Marie Hawkins (NDP) carried the NDP banner in the riding.

Adam Poon (Green Party) and Allen Small (Libertarian) also appeared on the ballot.

About the Riding

Markham—Unionville is one of the most distinctive ridings in the Greater Toronto Area, characterized by its large and established East Asian community. According to the 2011 National Household Survey, approximately 57 percent of the riding’s residents identified as Chinese, the highest proportion for any federal riding in Canada. The riding also had significant South Asian and other immigrant communities, reflecting Markham’s rapid transformation from a rural township to a major suburban city in the decades leading up to 2011.

The riding’s economy is anchored by Markham’s status as a major technology hub, sometimes referred to informally as Canada’s high-tech capital. IBM Canada has had its headquarters campus in Markham since the early 1980s, and by 2011 the city hosted operations from dozens of major technology firms including AMD, Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Lenovo, and Oracle, concentrated along the Highway 404 and Highway 7 corridors. The TD Financial Group also maintained a significant presence. The technology sector and related professional services gave the riding a well-educated, high-income population base.

The community of Unionville, with its heritage main street and annual cultural events, serves as a local landmark. Heading into 2011, key local issues included immigration policy and family reunification — matters of particular importance to the riding’s large immigrant population — as well as transportation infrastructure, including commuter links to downtown Toronto, and the competitiveness of Canada’s technology sector. The riding’s demographics and suburban character made it a closely watched battleground between the Liberals and Conservatives in the GTA.