Kingston and the Islands

Kingston and the Islands is centred on the historic city of Kingston at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, where the lake meets the St. Lawrence River and the Rideau Canal. The city is home to Queen’s University, the Royal Military College of Canada, and several major hospitals and correctional facilities that give it a large share of tax-exempt institutional land. NDP incumbent Ian Arthur had won the seat in 2018, defeating Liberal MPP Sophie Kiwala and marking the first NDP victory in the riding since 1990. However, Arthur announced in December 2021 that he would not seek re-election, opening the riding to a competitive multi-party contest.

Kingston’s character as a university and government town with a large public-sector workforce made it distinct from the surrounding rural areas of eastern Ontario. The riding had historically been a battleground between Liberals and Conservatives, with the NDP’s 2018 breakthrough representing an exception to that pattern.

Candidates

Ted Hsu (Liberal) — A physicist who earned his PhD from Princeton University under the supervision of Nobel laureate Philip W. Anderson, Hsu had worked as a researcher and trader in Paris and Philadelphia for Banque Nationale de Paris and as an executive director at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo. He served as the federal Liberal MP for Kingston and the Islands from 2011 to 2015 and later served as executive director of SWITCH, a Kingston non-profit promoting sustainable energy. He won the provincial Liberal nomination in 2020.

Mary Rita Holland (NDP) — A Kingston City Councillor for the Kingscourt-Rideau district first elected in 2014, Holland held a PhD from Queen’s University’s School of Kinesiology and Health Studies with a focus on long-term care, along with a Master of Public Administration in social policy. She taught at Queen’s University and had previously been the NDP candidate in the riding in 2011 and 2014.

Gary Bennett (Progressive Conservative) — A former Kingston City Councillor and the city’s Mayor from 1994 to 2000, Bennett had also run as the PC candidate in the riding in 2018, finishing in third place.

Zachary Typhair (Green Party) — At 21 years old, Typhair was described as the first Gen-Z candidate in the riding’s history. His experience as a minimum-wage worker during the COVID-19 pandemic shaped his campaign focus on income inequality and affordable housing.

Also running were Shalea Beckwith (Ontario Party), Stephen Skyvington (New Blue Party), Shelley Joanne Galloway (Independent), Sebastian Vaillancourt (Communist), and Laurel Claus Johnson (Consensus Ontario).

Local Issues

Housing affordability was the most frequently cited concern in Kingston and the Islands. Kingston’s combination of a large student population from Queen’s University and St. Lawrence College, institutional employers, and a significant amount of tax-exempt land created unusual pressures on the housing market. Rental prices climbed steeply during the term, and all major candidates put forward proposals for increasing housing supply, including ideas to free up institutional land for development.

Access to family medicine was another pressing issue. A significant number of Kingston residents lacked a family doctor, and the problem was compounded by the city’s unique circumstances—many family physicians in Kingston divided their time between clinical practice, research, and teaching at Queen’s medical school, and patients from surrounding rural communities also relied on Kingston’s healthcare infrastructure. Proposals during the campaign included expanding enrolment at Queen’s School of Medicine.

The open NDP seat created strategic uncertainty. Arthur’s departure removed the incumbency advantage and gave the Liberals an opportunity to reclaim a riding they had held until 2018. The NDP selected Mary Rita Holland, who had run for the party in the riding twice before and had name recognition from her work as a city councillor. The Liberals countered with Hsu, a former federal MP with strong local roots, setting up a race that would test whether the NDP’s 2018 gains could hold in a more challenging political environment.