Cambridge

The federal riding of Cambridge covers the portion of the City of Cambridge south of Highway 401, the entire Township of North Dumfries, and a small section of northern Brant County. Cambridge itself lies at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, approximately 100 kilometres west of Toronto. The city was formed in 1973 from the amalgamation of the historic towns of Galt, Preston, and Hespeler—each with its own distinct downtown core, industrial heritage, and architectural character. Galt's stone buildings and mill-era streetscapes along the Grand River earned it the nickname "Manchester of Canada" for its nineteenth-century industrial output. The Township of North Dumfries, to the south, is a rural area of roughly 10,600 residents composed of farmland and small settlements.

Cambridge had a population of approximately 138,500 as of the 2021 census. The city's demographic makeup has historically been predominantly European in origin—British, Scottish, Irish, German, and Portuguese—though South Asian and other communities have grown in recent years. Manufacturing remains a significant employer, with automotive parts, pharmaceuticals, and advanced manufacturing operations clustered along the Highway 401 and Highway 24 corridors.

Candidates

Bryan May (Liberal) — Born in Guelph in 1974, May earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Waterloo and worked in senior management roles with non-profit organizations including the YMCA of Cambridge, the Boys and Girls Club of Canada, and the University of Waterloo before entering politics. Known locally as "the guy at the Y," he served on the committee for the Oxford Active Living and Youth Action Plan and as Executive Treasurer of the Social Planning Council of Cambridge and North Dumfries. First elected in 2015, he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence in December 2021.

Connie Cody (Conservative) — Born and raised in Cambridge, Cody is the daughter of Eastern European immigrant parents. She worked for more than twenty years in business management, accounting, and financial systems programming, building a career in systems architecture and technology. She was appointed to the Ontario Trillium Foundation's Grant Review Team, worked with the Cambridge Taxpayers Support Group on municipal budgeting, and supported veterans through the Royal Canadian Legion—Galt Branch.

Lorne Bruce (NDP) — A longtime Waterloo Region resident, Bruce works as a retail manager at Zehrs and is active in organized labour as an executive board vice-president with the United Food and Commercial Workers' union and vice-president and political action chair of the Waterloo Region Labour Council. He previously ran for the NDP in Kitchener South—Hespeler in 2015 and Kitchener—Conestoga in 2011, and has worked with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and several environmental organizations.

Maggie Segounis (PPC) — An esthetician and small business owner from the Waterloo area who also previously owned a restaurant, Segounis ran on opposition to pandemic lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and the federal carbon tax.

About the Riding

Cambridge has been one of the more competitive ridings in southwestern Ontario in recent elections, with relatively narrow margins separating the Liberal and Conservative candidates. The 2021 race was closely watched, and the result was tight.

Local concerns centre on the economy and housing. Cambridge's manufacturing base has been under pressure from automation and global supply-chain shifts, and residents worry about the future of middle-class industrial jobs. Housing prices surged across the Waterloo Region in the years leading up to 2021, pricing many first-time buyers out of the market. Traffic congestion on Highway 401 and along the Hespeler Road commercial corridor is a perennial irritant, and residents have debated the merits and costs of the Region of Waterloo's ION light rail transit system, which connects Kitchener and Waterloo but whose planned southern extension to Cambridge has faced repeated delays.

The Grand River, which meanders through the heart of Galt, is central to the riding's identity. The river valley hosts Carolinian forest species rare to Canada—including tulip trees and black walnut—and the Cambridge to Paris Rail Trail follows the river south through rolling countryside.