Scarborough Southwest

Scarborough Southwest occupies the western and southern edges of Scarborough in the City of Toronto, bounded by Victoria Park Avenue to the west, Lake Ontario and the Scarborough Bluffs to the south, Eglinton Avenue to the north, and Markham Road to the east. The riding takes in the neighbourhoods of Birch Cliff, Cliffside, Cliffcrest, Oakridge, Kennedy Park, and parts of the Golden Mile, combining waterfront communities along the bluffs with denser urban areas further inland.

Candidates

Bill Blair (Liberal) — Blair served as Chief of the Toronto Police Service from 2005 until his retirement in April 2015, capping a career of over three decades in policing. He joined the Metropolitan Toronto Police while still attending university, worked undercover in the drug squad, and rose through the ranks with assignments in drug enforcement, organized crime, and major criminal investigations. He won the Liberal nomination in June 2015 after announcing his candidacy shortly following his departure from policing.

Dan Harris (NDP) — The incumbent MP, Harris was first elected in 2011 after three previous campaigns in the riding dating back to 2000. Before entering Parliament, he worked as an IT technician and site lead for VoIP services at the Kearl Oil Sands Project. In the House of Commons, he served as the NDP's critic for post-secondary education.

Roshan Nallaratnam (Conservative) — Nallaratnam was a Toronto police officer who received the Conservative nomination to contest Scarborough Southwest.

Tommy Taylor (Green Party) — Taylor ran for the Green Party in the riding, offering voters an alternative focused on environmental policy and community sustainability.

About the Riding

Scarborough Southwest's southern neighbourhoods along the bluffs—Birch Cliff, Cliffside, and Cliffcrest—are characterized by tree-lined streets, single-family homes, and proximity to waterfront parks and trails above Lake Ontario. Further north, the character shifts to a more urban landscape of apartment towers, commercial strips along Kingston Road and Eglinton Avenue East, and the retail and light-industrial corridor of the Golden Mile. The riding has a mixed socioeconomic profile, with established homeowner neighbourhoods near the lake and lower-income rental communities further inland. Transit was a perennial concern, particularly the reliability of bus service feeding into the Kennedy and Warden subway stations, and the broader question of rapid transit investment in Scarborough shaped local debate. The 2015 contest attracted outsized attention because of Blair's high public profile as Toronto's former police chief, which made it one of the most closely watched races in the city.