University—Rosedale

Created through the 2012 redistribution from portions of the former Trinity—Spadina and Toronto Centre ridings, University—Rosedale was contested for the first time in 2015. The riding stretched from the leafy crescents of Rosedale and Moore Park in the northeast through the University of Toronto's St. George campus to Kensington Market, Chinatown, and the Annex in the west. Yorkville's luxury retail strip along Bloor Street sat alongside the vintage shops and food vendors of Kensington Market, creating one of the starkest economic contrasts within any riding in the country.

Candidates

Chrystia Freeland (Liberal) — First elected in a 2013 by-election in the former Toronto Centre riding, Freeland moved to the newly drawn University—Rosedale for 2015. She studied Russian history and literature at Harvard University and earned a Master of Studies in Slavonic studies at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Before entering politics, she built a career in international journalism, working as a stringer in Ukraine and holding editorial positions at the Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, and Thomson Reuters. She authored two books on economics and globalization, including Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich.

Jennifer Hollett (NDP) — A media professional with a bachelor of arts in journalism and communications from Concordia University and a master's in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She had worked as a VJ at MuchMusic, hosting programs including MuchOnDemand, and later reported for CBC, earning an Amnesty International Canada Media Award for her reporting from Israel and Palestine.

Karim Jivraj (Conservative) — A twenty-eight-year-old lawyer who had studied at the Sorbonne, Sciences Po Paris, and Cornell Law School, where he won the Cuccia Cup Moot Court Competition in constitutional law. He was asked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to represent the Conservative Party at locally and nationally broadcast debates on foreign policy and national security.

Nick Wright (Green Party) — A lawyer who ran as the Green Party candidate in the riding.

About the Riding

The University of Toronto's St. George campus sat at the geographic heart of the riding, with tens of thousands of students and thousands of faculty and staff shaping demand for housing, transit, and services. The university's affiliated research hospitals—including Toronto General and Mount Sinai—were major employers and healthcare institutions. Student housing pressures radiated outward into the Annex and Harbord Village, where long-term residents competed with students for a limited supply of rental units.

The riding's income profile was striking in its extremes. Rosedale and Yorkville contained some of Canada's wealthiest households, while Kensington Market and the Chinatown corridor along Spadina Avenue were home to lower-income residents, recent immigrants, and a significant student population. The cultural richness of the riding was considerable—Kensington Market's eclectic street life, Chinatown's commercial strip, Little Italy's restaurants along College Street, and institutions like the Royal Ontario Museum all fell within its boundaries.

Housing affordability, homelessness, and transit were persistent campaign issues. The riding's density and central location made it a focal point for debates about intensification, rental supply, and the pressures of urban growth. The contrast between extreme wealth and concentrated need gave local politics a particular urgency around inequality and access to social services.