Trinity—Spadina


Trinity—Spadina was a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1988 to 2015.
It generally encompassed the western portion of Downtown Toronto.
Its federal Member of Parliament was Olivia Chow of the New Democratic Party. She defeated Tony Ianno of the Liberal Party of Canada in the January 23, 2006 election. On March 12, 2014, Chow resigned from her seat in order to run for the 2014 Toronto mayoral election, and the seat was won by Adam Vaughan, in a by-election. The riding has long been a battle ground between the NDP and the Liberals, with the Liberals recently winning both federally and provincially.
Major landmarks within the riding included the western portion of the University of Toronto, the CN Tower, Rogers Centre, Air Canada Centre, the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, 299 Queen Street West, the Toronto Eaton Centre, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto City Hall, Kensington Market, Chinatown, Christie Pits, Trinity Bellwoods Park, the southern portion of Bay Street and Palmerston Boulevard.
The riding contained Toronto's Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy, and Little Portugal. The northern section of the riding was the Annex district, while the eastern edge contained part of the University of Toronto and thousands of students.

Demographics

According to the Canada 2011 Census

Average household income : $86,895

Median household income : $60,659

Median income : $34,761

Unemployment: 7.3%

Language, mother tongue : English 61.2%, Chinese 13.0%, Portuguese 4.4%, French 2.8%, Spanish 2.1%, Italian 1.8%, Korean 1.4%, Arabic 1.4%

Religion : Christian 42.9%, Muslim 4.2%, Jewish 4.1%, Buddhist 3.4%, Hindu 1.8%, No religion 42.5%.

Ethnic groups : White 61.8%, Chinese 16.0%, South Asian 5.1%, Black 3.6%, Korean 1.8%, Filipino 1.8%, Latin American 1.7%, Southeast Asian 1.7%, Arab 1.6%, West Asian 1.1%

Geography

It consists of the Toronto Islands and the part of the City of Toronto bounded on the south by Toronto Harbour, and on the west, north and east by a line drawn from the harbour north on Spencer Avenue, east along the Gardiner Expressway, north on Dufferin, east on Queen Street West, southeast along the Canadian Pacific Railway line, north along Dovercourt Road, east along Dundas Street West, north along Ossington Avenue, east along the Canadian Pacific Railway situated north of Dupont Street, south along Avenue Road and Queens Park Crescent West, east along College Street and south along Yonge Street to the Harbour.
These borders were somewhat changed in the 2004 redistribution. The northwestern corner, a somewhat pro-NDP area was lost to Davenport. A large, but mostly business area of Toronto Centre—Rosedale between University Avenue and Yonge St. was given to the riding. This region tends to support the Liberals. The Toronto Islands were also added to the riding from Toronto Centre—Rosedale. This area is very strongly NDP and has a highly activist population that provides many campaign workers for the New Democrats.

History

The riding was created in 1987 from Trinity and Spadina, and smaller parts of Toronto Centre—Rosedale and Parkdale—High Park.
It consisted initially of the part of the City of Toronto bounded on the south by Toronto Harbour, on the east by Avenue Road, Queen's Park Crescent West, University Avenue and York Street, and on the west and north by a line drawn from the harbour north along Spencer Avenue, east along the Gardiner Expressway, north along Atlantic Avenue, southeast along the Canadian National Railway line, north along Dovercourt Road, east along Bloor Street West, north along Ossington Avenue, and east along the Canadian Pacific Railway line to Avenue Road.
In 2003, it was given its current boundaries as described above.
As per 2012 federal electoral boundaries redistribution and the 2013 representation order, Trinity—Spadina will be dissolved following the conclusion of the next general election to be called after May 1, 2014. The area south of Dundas Street will be transferred to the new electoral district of Spadina—Fort York, the area north of Dundas and west of a line following Bay Street and Front Street will be transferred to the new electoral district of University—Rosedale while the area east of Bay Street and north of Front Street will be transferred to Toronto Centre.

Members of Parliament

This riding has elected the following members of the House of Commons of Canada:
The seat became vacant on March 12, 2014, when Olivia Chow resigned in order to run in the Toronto mayoral election.

Election results

2014 by-election

2011 election

The 2011 election was not the expected close race between the incumbent NDP MP Olivia Chow and Liberal candidate, Toronto lawyer Christine Innes, that some observers predicted. The Liberals did not make gains here, which were anticipated by those who believed that the number of condominiums along the Toronto waterfront would bring in more centrist and right leaning voters.

2008 election

2006 election

A third battle between NDP challenger Olivia Chow and longtime Liberal incumbent Tony Ianno took place in the 2006 election. Ianno's narrow victory over Chow in 2004 had surprised most observers. Immediately after the writ was dropped for the federal election, Chow resigned her City Hall seat and vowed not to return to her previous job as municipal councillor. Chow ran a more disciplined campaign than in 2004, focusing on winning her own seat rather than lending her support to the national campaign of her husband, NDP leader Jack Layton. Ianno suffered from the broader decline in Liberal fortunes across Canada, ultimately losing to Chow by nearly six percentage points, the largest margin of victory in any of their three electoral encounters.
The strongest areas for the NDP were the Annex, Seaton Village, the University of Toronto area, Sussex-Ulster and Kensington Market. The Liberals narrowly carried Little Italy, and won the waterfront condo belt by a very wide margin.

2004 election

In the 2004 election, New Democrat city councillor Olivia Chow took on Tony Ianno again in what was expected to be a very competitive election. Additionally, Conservative David Watters, Green Anna Costa, Progressive Canadian Party Asif Hossain, Canadian Action Party Tristan Downe-Dewdney and Daniel Knezetic for the Popular Democratic Party contested the election.
The Popular Democratic Party was a social democratic and populist political party formed in 2003. It did not register as a political party with Elections Canada, and closed down after the 2004 election. The PDP proposed decentralization and community involvement in the political process through the creation of community councils to which any elected PDP representative would relinquish all decision making power. The party was anti-war, opposed globalization, was environmentalist, and supported full employment. Its only electoral activity was to run Daniel Knezetic, a University of Toronto student, in this election.
Unlike the 1997 battle between Chow and Ianno, this campaign largely remained civil. Chow was outside of the riding much of the time, campaigning in other ridings due to her national prestige. Many had pegged her to win because of her high profile as the wife of NDP leader Jack Layton. On election night, most were expecting Chow to win, but Ianno won a close but certain victory.
The results surprised many. Chow captured Little Italy, long Ianno's main bedrock of support and an area that polling and sign numbers showed as going strongly for Ianno. The reverse was true of the Annex which was expected to solidly vote for Chow but did so by a fairly small margin.
Ianno won on strong turnout from the waterfront condominiums that voted overwhelmingly in favour of him.

Prior elections