Flamborough—Glanbrook

Progressive Conservative MPP Donna Skelly sought a third term in this suburban and rural riding on the southern and western edges of the City of Hamilton, encompassing the communities of Flamborough, Waterdown, Dundas, Ancaster, and Glanbrook. The riding is Hamilton’s only PC-held seat. Skelly, a former broadcast journalist, had served as parliamentary assistant to multiple ministers and as deputy speaker during the previous term. The Greenbelt controversy and Hamilton’s ongoing urban boundary battle gave the 2025 contest particular intensity in a riding where farmland protection and suburban growth collide.

Candidates

Donna Skelly (Progressive Conservative) — Skelly grew up in Capreol, Ontario, and graduated from Seneca College’s journalism program. She spent thirty years as a broadcast journalist, most of them at CHCH-TV in Hamilton, before winning a Hamilton City Council by-election in 2016 and then entering provincial politics in 2018. She campaigned on protecting jobs, protecting farmland, and bringing new schools to the area’s growing communities.

Joshua Bell (Liberal) — Bell is a McMaster University political science student and lifelong Upper Stoney Creek resident. He works as a nutrition associate with Hamilton Health Sciences and has been a long-standing mental health advocate, co-chairing the National Advisory Council of the Mood Disorders Society of Canada and providing input on the national 988 crisis line.

Lilly Noble (NDP) — Noble is a former cancer researcher and University of Toronto faculty member who became a community activist in Ancaster. She was heavily involved with Stop Sprawl HamOnt, the grassroots organization that opposed the Ford government’s attempt to open Greenbelt lands for development.

Janet Errygers (Green Party) and Kristen Halfpenny (New Blue Party) also contested the riding.

Local Issues

Urban boundary expansion and farmland protection remained the defining local issues. In November 2022, the Ford government overrode Hamilton’s council decision to freeze the urban boundary and opened 2,200 hectares of land — including Greenbelt parcels — for development. After intense public backlash, the government reversed course in 2023, restoring the boundary. But in 2024, the province passed Bill 185, which granted private landowners the ability to appeal for urban boundary expansions through the Ontario Land Tribunal, reigniting fears that farmland in the Elfrida area and elsewhere in Glanbrook could again face development pressure.

Healthcare access was a top concern across the riding. The Liberal candidate pointed to nearly 8,800 residents in Flamborough—Glanbrook without a family doctor, and candidates debated solutions to physician shortages and emergency department congestion. Rapid population growth in Waterdown also intensified demands for improved transportation connections to Hamilton’s lower city and the Greater Toronto Area.