Richmond Hill

Richmond Hill, a fast-growing suburban municipality in York Region north of Toronto, entered the 2025 provincial election with Progressive Conservative MPP Daisy Wai seeking a third consecutive term. Wai had first won the seat in 2018, ending years of Liberal dominance in the riding by defeating long-time incumbent Reza Moridi. During the 43rd Parliament, she served as Parliamentary Assistant to both the Minister of Citizenship and Multiculturalism and the Minister for Seniors and Accessibility. The snap election, called for February 27, 2025, gave opposition parties limited time to organize in a riding where the PCs had built a comfortable margin.

The riding's demographics have shifted considerably in recent years, with substantial Chinese, Iranian, and South Asian Canadian populations concentrated along the Yonge Street corridor and in newer subdivisions to the east. Five candidates contested the seat.

Candidates

Daisy Wai (Progressive Conservative) — Wai is a longtime Richmond Hill businesswoman who has lived in the community for over two decades. Before entering provincial politics, she chaired the Richmond Hill Chamber of Commerce and served on boards including Mackenzie Health and York Regional Police Services. She was first elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022.

Roozbeh Farhadi (Liberal) — Farhadi, who ran in the riding in 2022 as well, works in small business financial services at a major Canadian bank. Born in Iran, he immigrated to Canada as a child and has been a Richmond Hill resident for over a decade. He co-founded Hearts for Hunger, a community initiative that delivered hundreds of meals to residents in need, and served on the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation board.

Raymond Bhushan (NDP) — Bhushan, also the NDP candidate in the riding in 2022, is a University of Toronto mining engineering student and a graduate of Bayview Secondary School in Richmond Hill. He campaigned on housing affordability, noting that average home prices in the city had put homeownership out of reach for younger residents.

Alison Lam (Green Party) and Allison Bruns (New Blue Party) also contested the riding.

Local Issues

The Yonge North Subway Extension remained a defining issue for Richmond Hill throughout the 2022–2025 term. The project, which would extend TTC Line 1 approximately eight kilometres north from Finch Station into York Region with a station planned at Bridge in Richmond Hill, moved through procurement milestones during this period. In April 2023, Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx issued a request for qualifications for the advance tunnel contract, followed by a request for proposals in December 2023. Three construction consortia were shortlisted, but as of early 2025 no contract had been awarded, leaving residents uncertain about the project timeline. For commuters dependent on crowded bus connections to reach the subway, the extension remained a much-anticipated but still-distant improvement.

Housing affordability and the pace of development shaped local debate throughout the term. Provincial policies encouraging transit-oriented communities near planned subway stations generated controversy, with some residents expressing concern that high-density development was being approved ahead of supporting infrastructure such as schools, roads, and water systems. Average home prices in Richmond Hill remained well above one million dollars, contributing to broader anxieties about cost of living in the community.

Healthcare capacity continued to be a concern. Mackenzie Health, which serves much of York Region, faced persistent demand pressures as the population grew. The opening of the new Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital in 2021 provided some relief to the broader system, but residents in Richmond Hill still reported long wait times for emergency care and difficulty accessing family physicians, reflecting a province-wide primary care shortage that worsened during the 2022–2025 term.