Pickering—Scarborough East

Pickering—Scarborough East straddled the boundary between the City of Toronto and the City of Pickering in Durham Region, making it the only federal riding in Ontario to span the 416 and 905 area codes. The riding took in the southwestern portion of Pickering and the southeastern corner of Scarborough, stretching from the Rouge River eastward along the Lake Ontario shoreline. It was created in 2003 from parts of the former Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge and Scarborough East ridings.

Candidates

Corneliu Chisu (Conservative) — Chisu was a Romanian-born professional engineer and retired Canadian Forces officer. He graduated from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest in 1971 with a degree in engineering physics and later earned a Master of Engineering from the University of Toronto. After immigrating to Canada, he worked as a senior trade analyst with the Italian Trade Commission in Toronto. In 1990, he joined the Canadian Forces as an officer in the Royal Corps of Military Engineers, serving in Bosnia-Herzegovina on peacekeeping operations in 2004 and in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2007. He graduated from the Canadian Staff College in Kingston and was promoted to Major before retiring from the Regular Force in 2009.

Dan McTeague (Liberal) — McTeague was the incumbent, having represented the riding since its creation in 2004 and its predecessor ridings since 1993 — making him an eighteen-year veteran of the House of Commons. A University of Toronto graduate, he had worked in public relations with Toyota Canada before entering politics. In Parliament, he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs with responsibility for Canadians abroad. He became widely known as a consumer advocate on gasoline pricing, having chaired the Liberal Committee on Gasoline Pricing in 1998.

Andrea Moffat (NDP) — Moffat was the NDP candidate for Pickering—Scarborough East. She had also run provincially in the riding and operated her own consulting business.

Kevin Smith (Green Party) — Smith stood as the Green Party candidate in the riding.

About the Riding

The riding's character was split between its urban Scarborough section — a mature, densely populated part of Toronto with diverse immigrant communities — and the more suburban Pickering section in Durham Region. The Pickering portion included established residential neighbourhoods and newer subdivisions fuelled by rapid growth in the 905 belt around Toronto. Demographically, the riding was diverse: census data showed significant South Asian, Black, Filipino, and Chinese populations alongside a white majority.

The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, operated by Ontario Power Generation on the Lake Ontario shoreline, was a defining presence in the riding and one of the largest employers in the area, with approximately 3,000 workers. The station's eight CANDU reactors produced a substantial share of Ontario's electricity. The Rouge Valley, which formed part of the riding's western boundary, was emerging as a candidate for national park status, a process that would culminate in the creation of Rouge National Urban Park.

Key federal issues in 2011 included the future of the Pickering nuclear station, suburban transit expansion, immigration settlement services, and management of growth pressures across the fast-developing Durham Region corridor.