Northumberland—Peterborough South

Northumberland—Peterborough South ran along the north shore of Lake Ontario roughly midway between Toronto and Kingston, encompassing the towns of Cobourg and Port Hope, the Municipality of Brighton, the Municipality of Trent Hills including the village of Campbellford, and rural townships extending north to Rice Lake and into southern Peterborough County. Highway 401 bisected the riding east to west, while the historic Highway 2 corridor linked its lakeshore communities.

Candidates

Philip Lawrence (Conservative) — Lawrence earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Brock University before attending Osgoode Hall Law School and the Schulich School of Business, obtaining both a law degree and an MBA. He practised law with a focus on taxation and corporate law, then moved into financial services. He and his wife moved to a farm in Orono in 2013.

Kim Rudd (Liberal) — The incumbent MP since 2015, Rudd was a Cobourg-based entrepreneur who had served as past president and owner of Willis College in Cobourg and co-founded a local daycare facility. She was recognized with a 2011 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award and had served as president of the Northumberland Central Chamber of Commerce. In Parliament, she served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources from 2015 to 2018.

Mallory MacDonald (NDP) — MacDonald campaigned on housing affordability, proposing the construction of new zero-emission residential units, and advocated for protecting the supply management system as a safety net for farmers in the riding's agricultural communities.

Jeff Wheeldon (Green Party) — Wheeldon carried the Green Party banner in the riding.

Frank Vaughan ran for the People's Party.

About the Riding

Cobourg, the Northumberland County seat and the riding's largest community, sat on the lakeshore about 112 kilometres east of Toronto. Its restored Victorian downtown, the landmark Victoria Hall, a world-class marina, and a broad sandy beach had made it a popular destination for both retirees and Toronto-area commuters seeking smaller-town living. Port Hope, immediately to the west, was recognized for having one of the best-preserved nineteenth-century main streets in Ontario, though the community had long contended with a federal remediation project to clean up low-level radioactive waste from the former Eldorado Nuclear refinery.

Inland, Campbellford and the Trent Hills communities straddled the Trent River and benefited from their position along the Trent-Severn Waterway. Brighton served as a gateway to Presqu'ile Provincial Park, a significant migratory bird staging area on Lake Ontario. The Ganaraska Forest, one of the largest forested tracts in southern Ontario at roughly eleven thousand acres, provided managed natural resources and recreational opportunities.

The riding's economy blended agriculture — dairy, cash crops, and a growing craft beverage sector — with tourism, retirement living, and a commuter population that relied on Highway 401 and VIA Rail connections. Physician recruitment and retention across rural communities was a persistent local concern, as was the rising cost of housing driven by an influx of buyers from the Greater Toronto Area.