Thornhill

Thornhill is a federal riding in York Region, north of Toronto, encompassing the community of Thornhill -- which straddles the cities of Vaughan and Markham -- along with parts of Concord and the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. The riding has the largest Jewish population of any federal constituency in Canada, and is also home to significant Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and Korean communities. It has been represented by Conservative Melissa Lantsman since 2021.

Candidates

Melissa Lantsman (Conservative) won re-election with a commanding margin, setting a record for the largest vote share in the riding's history. A graduate of the University of Western Ontario, Lantsman built a career in communications and public affairs, serving as director of communications for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Ministers Lawrence Cannon and John Baird during the Harper government, then as director of communications for Finance Minister Joe Oliver. After the 2015 election, she moved to the private sector as a senior director at CIBC Capital Markets and later became national vice president of public affairs at Enterprise Canada. She was a senior advisor and chief spokesperson for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party during the 2018 provincial election. First elected to Parliament in 2021, Lantsman is the first openly lesbian and first Jewish woman elected as a Conservative MP. She serves as co-deputy leader of the Conservative Party alongside Tim Uppal.

Liane Kotler (Liberal) is a career television journalist and producer who spent nearly three decades at TVO, including a long tenure as senior producer on The Agenda with Steve Paikin. She holds a BA from Queen's University and a graduate diploma in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. She later served as senior media advisor at StrategyCorp before seeking the Liberal nomination.

William McCarty (NDP) ran as the New Democratic Party candidate in the riding.

Amir Hart (People's Party - PPC) ran for the People's Party of Canada.

Dominic Piotrowski (Green Party) stood as the Green Party candidate.

About the Riding

Thornhill has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past three decades, evolving from a semi-rural community into a densely built suburban landscape of condominium towers, commercial centres, and residential subdivisions. The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, a planned downtown for the city of Vaughan anchored by a TTC subway extension opened in 2017, represents a new form of suburban intensification, bringing high-rise development and transit-oriented planning to a region historically defined by low-density sprawl.

The riding's large Jewish community, which includes both established Ashkenazi and growing Sephardic and Israeli populations, gives Middle Eastern affairs and antisemitism unusual salience as local issues. The October 7 attacks and the subsequent conflict in Gaza were deeply felt in the community, and Israel-related policy was a prominent theme in the 2025 campaign.

Affordability, immigration, and public safety were also important issues for voters. Thornhill's diverse immigrant communities -- including a substantial Russian-speaking population -- gave questions of integration, credential recognition, and family reunification particular local resonance. Lantsman's commanding victory reflected both the riding's rightward trend and her personal profile as one of the Conservative Party's most prominent voices.