Windsor—Tecumseh

Windsor—Tecumseh occupies the eastern portion of the City of Windsor and the Town of Tecumseh in Essex County, in the southwestern tip of Ontario. The riding's boundaries are drawn from the American border southeast along Langlois Avenue, east along Tecumseh Road East, and southeast along Pillette Road to the southern city limit, encompassing Windsor's eastern residential neighbourhoods and the entirety of Tecumseh—a bedroom community of roughly 23,300 on the shore of Lake St. Clair. The riding straddles the line between urban Windsor and the quieter suburban and lakeshore character of Tecumseh.

Candidates

Irek Kusmierczyk (Liberal) — Born in 1978 in Kraśnik, Poland, Kusmierczyk arrived in Canada in 1983 as a political refugee after his father was imprisoned as a member of the Solidarity movement. His family settled in Windsor, where his father worked as an automotive engineer. Kusmierczyk holds a PhD in political science from Vanderbilt University, an MA from Jagiellonian University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University. He served on Windsor City Council representing Ward 7 before winning the federal seat in 2019.

Cheryl Hardcastle (NDP) — Hardcastle worked for almost twenty years as a reporter and editor at the former Tecumseh Tribune before entering politics. She served as deputy mayor of Tecumseh from 2011 to 2014, chairing numerous municipal committees including accessibility, heritage, and the arts. She won the federal seat in 2015 but lost it to Kusmierczyk in 2019. She is a founding member of the Tecumseh Area Historical Society and has organized minor sports programs across the region.

Kathy Borrelli (Conservative) — Borrelli has been an entrepreneur in the hospitality industry for over twenty years, bringing a small-business owner's perspective to her campaign.

Victor Green (PPC) — Green stood as the People's Party of Canada candidate in the riding.

About the Riding

Windsor—Tecumseh reflects two distinct but connected communities. The Windsor portion is shaped by the city's automotive manufacturing heritage—Windsor is known as the Automotive Capital of Canada, home to Stellantis Canada's headquarters and surrounded by more than ninety auto parts manufacturers across the Windsor-Essex region. Many families in the riding's east-end neighbourhoods have multi-generational connections to the assembly lines and parts plants that anchor the regional economy. The Town of Tecumseh, by contrast, has developed as a residential community oriented toward Lake St. Clair, with newer subdivisions built on former agricultural land.

The riding's ethnic composition is 75.9 percent white, with significant Arab (5.4 percent), Black (4.6 percent), and South Asian (3.2 percent) communities. The linguistic landscape reflects waves of immigration from across southern and eastern Europe and the Middle East—English is spoken by 72.2 percent, followed by Arabic at 4 percent, French at 2.6 percent, and Serbo-Croatian at 2.2 percent. Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Italian, and Serbian are also spoken by notable portions of the population.

The riding's economy is closely tied to the cross-border trade corridor between Windsor and Detroit. The Ambassador Bridge—the busiest commercial border crossing between Canada and the United States—carries roughly a quarter of the two countries' total trade volume, with over $140 billion in goods and 16 million vehicles crossing annually. Disruptions to that corridor, whether from trade policy or infrastructure constraints, are felt immediately in the local economy. The median individual income of $40,400 is below the provincial average, reflecting both the cyclical nature of manufacturing employment and the economic volatility that has affected Windsor for decades.