Thornhill

Thornhill is a suburban riding in York Region straddling the cities of Vaughan and Markham, located immediately north of Toronto. The riding is home to one of Canada’s largest Jewish communities, with roughly a third of residents identifying as Jewish—the highest proportion of any provincial riding in Ontario. It also has significant Russian, Iranian, Korean, and Italian populations. The seat had been held by PC MPP Gila Martow since a 2014 byelection, but Martow chose not to seek re-election in 2022 after unsuccessfully pursuing the federal Conservative nomination in 2021, which required her to relinquish her provincial role. This created an open contest in a riding the Progressive Conservatives were expected to hold.

Candidates

Laura Smith (Progressive Conservative) — Smith studied political science at York University and legal administration at Seneca College. She established and managed her own litigation support company serving the Greater Toronto Area for more than 25 years. Active in community organizations, she served as a director of the Thornhill Thunder Soccer Club and as a former vice-president of a local co-operative nursery school.

Laura Mirabella (Liberal) — A chartered professional accountant, Mirabella spent 20 years in senior public service roles, including serving as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer for both the City of Vaughan and York Region. She held policy and financial management positions at the provincial and municipal levels and volunteered with organizations including the Elspeth Heyworth Centre for Women, Hospice Vaughan, and the Mackenzie Health Foundation.

Jasleen Kambo (NDP) — The NDP candidate for Thornhill in 2022.

Daniella Mikanovsky (Green Party), Yakov Zarkhine (New Blue Party), Igor Tvorogov (Ontario Party), and several other minor party and independent candidates also ran.

Local Issues

Development density and the pace of growth were central concerns in Thornhill. The City of Vaughan and York Region had designated intensification corridors along major arteries, but many residents pushed back against the scale of proposed high-rise developments in what had long been a low-rise suburban community. The Yonge Corridor Secondary Plan, which envisioned significant residential and commercial intensification along Yonge Street through Thornhill, generated extensive community feedback and debate during public consultation sessions.

Transit infrastructure was closely tied to the development debate. The Yonge North Subway Extension, which would bring the TTC subway from Finch Station into York Region, was a long-anticipated project that promised to reshape Thornhill’s accessibility and property values. Progress on the project, environmental assessments, and construction timelines were frequent topics at community meetings, with residents eager for improved rapid transit but wary of the density that would accompany station-area development.

Healthcare capacity was also on voters’ minds. Mackenzie Health’s Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, which opened in February 2021 as the first net-new hospital in Ontario in more than 30 years, was a welcome addition to a region that had long been underserved. However, the hospital opened during the pandemic’s third wave and initially served primarily as a COVID-19 facility, and residents continued to press for expanded services and staffing to meet the healthcare needs of York Region’s rapidly growing population.