Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound

Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound is a vast rural and small-town riding stretching across the Bruce Peninsula and Grey County in southwestern Ontario, from the shores of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay inland to the farming communities south of Owen Sound. The riding takes in the city of Owen Sound, the towns of Hanover, Walkerton, Meaford, and The Blue Mountains, and dozens of smaller communities. It is one of the most consistently Conservative ridings in Ontario, and incumbent Alex Ruff won his third consecutive term in 2025 with his strongest showing yet.

Candidates

Alex Ruff (Conservative)* is the incumbent, first elected in 2019 following the retirement of Larry Miller. Ruff grew up on a farm near Tara, Ontario, attended Chesley District High School, and graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada in 1997 with an honours degree in space science. He served 25 years as an infantry officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, rising to the rank of Colonel, with postings across Canada and overseas. His final military assignment was in Baghdad, Iraq, as a key leader in the international effort to defeat ISIS before returning home in January 2019 to enter politics.

Anne Marie Watson (Liberal) is a married mother of two grown children who has lived on a family farm in West Grey for more than 30 years. She holds a degree in political science and has extensive experience in agriculture, having served as a director and past president of the Grey County Federation of Agriculture. Most recently she worked as Executive Director of the Durham Hospital Foundation. This was her second consecutive federal campaign in the riding, having also finished second to Ruff in 2021. Housing affordability was her top campaign priority.

Christopher Neudorf (NDP) is a high school teacher with the Bluewater District School Board in Owen Sound. Born in Mississauga, he grew up in southwestern Ontario and earned degrees in history and education from Brock University. He settled in Owen Sound after spending summers in the Bruce-Grey area as a camp counsellor. This was his second consecutive federal campaign as the NDP candidate, and he focused on climate change, wealth inequality, and public healthcare.

Natasha Akiwenzie (Green Party) is a member of the Lac Seul First Nation living at Neyaashiinigmiing on the Bruce Peninsula with her husband and three grown sons. She manages the Bagida'waad Alliance, a not-for-profit organization, and serves as Executive Director of the Gidakiinan Land Trust. For 15 years, she and her husband operated a commercial fishing business on Georgian Bay, selling fresh and smoked lake whitefish at local markets, until declining fish populations and climate change made the business unsustainable by 2018. Her campaign prioritized Great Lakes protection, affordable housing, and reconciliation.

Ann Gillies (United Party of Canada) and Pavel Smolko (People's Party) also stood as candidates in the riding.

About the Riding

Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound faces the structural challenges common to rural Ontario: an aging population, outmigration of young people, physician shortages, and hospital service reductions. Healthcare was the dominant issue in the 2025 campaign. Smaller rural hospitals in the riding have cut back emergency room hours, and the hospital in Durham lost all of its in-patient beds. In early 2025, thousands of residents lined up in frigid temperatures in Walkerton for the chance to register with a family physician accepting new patients -- a scene that encapsulated the healthcare crisis facing the riding.

The riding's economy is built on agriculture, tourism, and small business. Bruce County's dairy, beef, and grain operations are supplemented by a growing craft beverage and agri-tourism sector. The Blue Mountains, at the riding's eastern edge, is one of Ontario's premier ski and four-season resort destinations, driving a hospitality economy that depends heavily on seasonal workers. Owen Sound, the riding's largest community, serves as a regional service centre with a hospital, college campus, and cultural amenities including the Tom Thomson Art Gallery. The US trade dispute and tariff uncertainty affected agricultural exporters across the riding, while housing affordability -- driven in part by an influx of remote workers and retirees from the GTA -- has transformed once-affordable small towns into competitive real estate markets.